Ramblings Of A Very Intoxicated Madman By Dejan of Digital Diktator

Ramblings Of A Very Intoxicated Madman

By The Diktator

Greetings fellow prisoners of planet Earth. 

Thought it would be time to get some of my personal thoughts out there, for all of you to enjoy…hehe 

"The Eye Is My Teacher….Enlightenment Flows… Pathways Open…. There Came Lord Steve" - this is exactly how I would explain the beginning of our bands journey….if i would write my own "bible"….which would then be read in a few thousand years…….and again be misunderstood, by a bunch of retards……:) 

But anyway, I and the rest of the Diktator crew - Rösti and The Dynamic Statue, are very proud to be a part of SDR. It‘s good to be here in its beginnings and enjoy the unified progression through the times, with the best label mates someone could ever hope for and whom WE, if all goes as it should, hope to meet very very soon!!:) 

And if I ever hear somebody say that there is no more freshness in electro, i will bash his face in, and after he wakes up from the coma, send him a few links….:) Because i think those sheeple don‘t even know what the are saying‘… SDR should be a synonym for versatility, because it has everything, from drama, happiness and romance to terror, hatred and insanity. But some humans seem to be deaf AND blind… 

And don‘t get me started about the youth of today and their lack of respect towards artists/bands/performers and the "Single Based Structure" of listening to music. 

Nowadays, most humans just listen to singles… It‘ pathetic. But i won‘t go there, i will not make this post about my utter hatred towards those kinds of sheeple….. Because i think i already made my way of thinking clear throughout the years…hehe This is more about our gratitude for Steve and the rest of the SDR crew, for taking us in and making us a part of something special. We will never disappoint them!!!! And next year, at the SDR Gathering, we will show everybody that their faith in us is not in vain and that British Electro is alive, mad, fresh and intelligent and make them shout SDR SDR SDR!!!!!! 

Although, technically we are not British,hihi….But that‘s how at home SDR has made us feel. 

We know we are not British, yet every time we make music, talk to our label mates or think about the future of Digital Diktator, we all feel like we are just a few minutes away from everybody:) And hopefully, one day, we will be. Because we love this bunch of misfits:)) And the fact, that they are all so open minded, fascinates us. We can be who we are and still, they show us love. They represent everything, which i like to call Homo-Luminous a.k.a. Human 3.0, The Awakened Ones.

Here, at SDR, I and my minions can be who we are and we are grateful and happy :) Hard to find interesting, intelligent and open minded people these days. And we have:) In a way, we are all different in one concept or another, yet together we form a unity, which no one will be able to break. It makes my ears clap:) So to Steve and the SDR disciples we would like to say THANK YOU and here‘s to 50 more years!!!!! SHEMHAMFORASH!!!!

This is it for now, yet it shall be continued!!!

And to our fans i would like to say this:

I know it has been a while since the last post of songs, but we are 110 percent in the making of 2 albums at once, because we have a lot of material, which, we think, needs to be released soon, for the next batch of ideas to get recorded:) And since some parts of the music production got delayed, we decided to continue on the re-release of our first EP, transforming it into an album with re-mixed/re-mastered versions of old songs and added new songs, until we wait. So, yes, it took some time, but as soon as both are finished, everything will go faster and it won‘t take as long for the next album to get released…. and after both are released, we have something special planned, of which i shall not reveal anything yet :) But trust me, it will be awesome, hilarious and it will make the world dance:) 

And, we even have plans worked out,for after that one…so, our friends and fans, get ready for some major insanity to arrive from the Diktator camp in coming years!! So thank you all for exposing your ears to our sounds, and hope you‘ll all dig the future of Digital Diktator!!

Until next time my friends and before i go, i leave you with this, Digital Diktator - Seek Help:

Making music for the fiscally challenged By Gary Walker (Defeat)

Making music for the fiscally challenged - a case for using "freebies" By Gary Walker (Defeat)

To many (i.e. most) of us electronic musicians, I suspect that cost is one of major factors that governs the gear we buy and the software and plug-ins we use.

To borrow a phrase from Family Guy's Peter Griffin, what really "grinds my gears" is that some folk out there (usually "pros" who wouldn't think twice about dropping a ton of cash for a Macbook pro or a very expensive suite of plug-ins) still think that for serious music making you need to spend serious amounts of money and use serious gear, hand-made by nymphs and delivered via unicorn.

OK, I'm exaggerating a bit, but the cost of some gear is frankly beyond the reach of most of us mere mortals who have day-jobs and families to support and don't have the luxury of making a living from making music.

The point I'm trying to make is this: for a long time, I've beaten myself up that I'm not using Kontakt, Nexus, or whatever the current VST-du-jour is.

After agonizing over the fact I may not be using the "right" synth for a bass part or the wrong drum plug-in, I'm now at the point now where I actually no longer care and I tend to use free VSTs alongside those that are part of my DAW.

This is not to say I'm the modern embodiment of Ebeneezer Scrooge - far from it - I've found that ploughing my own furrow this way has allowed me to find my own sound, rather than sound like “everyone else". It has also forced me to be more creative and experiment, and I find myself creating my own sounds from scratch rather than relying on presets.

There is a lot of great free stuff out there to be found for us impoverished musicians to use, so I urge all of my fellow musicians to see what free treasures you can unearth and use on your next masterpiece - seek and ye shall find!

Thanks to Gary for his thoughts!

For those of you that haven't checked out Gary's act 'Defeat' yet, check this out!

Defeat's Outburst EP and their free to download Remix album can be found here!

Is 'Industrial' relevant?

Industrial as a 'genre' has always been problematic for me, as its always been a bit of a fluffy term.

What exactly IS Industrial?

What links VNV Nation, Combichrist, Skinny Puppy, Covenant, Hocico, Ministry and Apoptygma Bezerk so that they can exist alongside each other?

Wikipedia (the wonderfully informative and unreliable source that it is) describes Industrial Music as:

"Industrial music is a style of experimental music that draws on transgressive and provocative themes..."

and later continues:

"While the term was initially self-applied by a small coterie of groups and individuals associated with Industrial Records in the 1970s, it broadened to include artists influenced by the original movement or using an "industrial" aesthetic.^[3] These artists expanded the genre by pushing it into noisier and more electronic directions. Over time, its influence spread into and blended with styles including ambient and rock, all of which now fall under the post-industrial music label. The most notable hybrid genres were industrial rock and industrial metal, which include bands such as Nine Inch Nails and Ministry, both of which released platinum-selling albums in the 1990s. Electro-industrial music is a more recent development. These three genres are often referred to as simply industrial."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_music

Clear as mud I am sure you will agree.

So what we are left with is a music genre that is largely defined by the aesthetics and themes as opposed to the instrumentation, BPM or Rhythm..

So why persist with a genre name that is so unhelpful in encapsulating the music under its umbrella, and does the modern scene have any relevance to this genre?

Some would argue most modern Industrial music sits under the separate genres of EBM, Electro Rock/Metal, Future Pop and Hardstyle all of which regularly flirt with Dubstep, Drum and Bass, and the more mainstream electronic genres.

With established artists like Uberbyte making steps towards the more mainstream dance scene, and Combichrist reaching out to the Metal scene, perhaps things are already in motion.

I suppose time will tell as to whether Industrial will survive as a genre or be reduced to an aesthetically descriptive term only, much like Cyberpunk, Steam punk or one could argue, Goth.

I will leave you today with a little taster of a track that straddles a few different genres all at once...the beautiful, epic and majestic 'The Window' by Digital Diktator:


Available as part of a free download here:Digital Diktator - From The Edge Of The Universe