Romain Favre aka Moog Conspiracy is a French techno music artist and the owner of Elektrotribe Records based in the capital city of electronic music since 2007. Inspired by the Berlin minimal techno scene in 2006, he started his journey into the music industry by producing his first techno tracks.
Moog Conspiracy
His debut EP, “Is It Deep?” finds great success and opened the doors to play his first live sets in Germany. And he didn’t stop there! He started showcasing in the USA & India with his label, Elektrotribe Records.
He has over two hundred releases and four studio albums from labels like Sysyphon, Coincidence, Creepy Finger, Trauma, Ragnarök, Ground Factory, Minimal Force, and Elektrotribe.
He played all around the world, from Europe to Asia, from the USA to South & Central America in well-known clubs & festivals like Sisyphos, ADE, Fusion Festival, The Egg, Cafe1001, Resolute, Blue Frog, Moustache, to name a few.
Moog Conspiracy
What draws you to and what made you begin a career specifically in Techno?
It was for me a general interest in electronic music in early 2000. Before this period, I was playing drums in metal bands and studying.
Some of my friends were starting to produce electronic music with Cubase, Reason, or Ableton; I tried it and directly loved the creative freedom that was there.
My label Elektrotribe was built to support this free creativity and help new talents to cut through.
Read Also: Making Dancefloors Safer Spaces
How does a day look like in your life as a professional electronic music artist?
Each day is different. I work as a music producer, label manager & mastering engineer.
It’s a lot of different tasks and caps I wear during the week that make it exciting, and it’s a whole; each activity feeds the other.
On the weekdays, I produce, manage the label or master tracks, and on the weekend, I’m usually playing.
It’s an intense lifestyle, but it’s fantastic and extremely rich in experiences.
Moog Conspiracy
We are expressing music through creative skill and imagination as artists, and in many cases, it can reflect our lives through social or political messages. What is your approach as an artist?
I create music I think that reflects my taste and inspiration of the moment. It is generally influenced by the shows I played.
It can also be affected by the music I listen to at home, by people I meet, or life experiences not related to the club.
It feels like writing on a whiteboard with an unlimited color panel, there are infinite possibilities, and that’s what I like about the challenge of making something new.
What were your main challenges when you started as a DJ?
I started producing music and released my first EP in 2007. Then I got invited to play for parties in Berlin.
The first sets I played always live sets because I had no idea how to DJ. It makes more sense for me to play the music I created.
The main challenge was to understand how it works in a club situation. I come from the metal scene; I was used to playing concerts.
The techno thing is very different.
It is a build-up on many hours and a vibe that we keep for an entire night, rather than a 40 min / 1-hour blast. So, the most critical challenge for me at the beginning was to learn this.
Read Also: 5 Tips to Create Your Signature Sound
What’s your favorite place to perform, clubs, festivals, or radio?
I think clubs and open airs are my favorites. I like the connection with the crowd and to share something with the people in the room. I also love to play in festivals, of course, that is always something special.
Moog Conspiracy
What does your studio look like? What gear do you typically use?
I have a room specifically for creating music; it’s not that huge but sounds terrific. I changed my studio last year, so I am still fine-tuning everything and improving the setup & acoustic.
I have several synths and drums machines to generate sounds and find track ideas.
I have two mixers, one Mackie Vlz pro with 16 channels and an old Yamaha mixer that I use to color specific elements. I have three drum machines, six synths, and some DIY stuff, some effects.
I use mainly the hardware to experiment, and then I arrange it all in the box with Ableton. I spend a lot of time arranging and mixing to find what the track is all about and give it an exceptional sound.
How are playing gigs and producing music in the studio connected? What do you draw from each experience?
Both are significantly linked for me. Most of the inspiration for new music usually comes from the club experience, how the music is received, and the clubs and hearing other artists play.
I am not directly replicating music I hear in the clubs, but it influences what I create in the studio.
I think the most considerable influence is on how the tracks are structured, and the tracks naturally get a dance floor structure that is DJ friendly. It’s something intuitive that happens with the experience of playing gigs.
When you sit in the studio, you know when the drops should come and how they should introduce them. When I started to produce and had no experience playing myself, the tracks were freer structure-wise and more experimental.
You released on the 14th of May your 4th studio album, “Constant Repetitive Rhythm.” How long were you working on it and what inspired you most to create this album?
This album is my 4th studio album. It has been over four years, and more focus and intensity on it since spring 2020.
The music of the album has been composed at different moments in time; it’s a bit of a chameleon album, it covers a wide range of electronic music styles that I love. Because it covers this period of 4 years, it’s an album that is very connected with my touring experiences and life experiences.
My music has been changing since the release of my previous album, “Pulse.” It was a very hypnotic and deep techno album.
The music has changed in Berlin, and the sound of the techno scene has been changing a lot. Those changes have also influenced my work in the studio and the new album’s sound.
I think though those tracks are a bit intemporal because they are not aligned with any trend. They just work great together as a whole, as an album.
They define a new sound direction for me, and one of the aims of this album is to give the fans something that will provide them with positive energy during the lockdown time.
Moog Conspiracy
“The Darkside Of The Light” is a collaboration with Theo Komp from London. How did this work out, producing together from a distance? Were there any challenges?
We started to work on this track in 2019 when I came to play in London. We worked back then on two tracks together, on which we recorded Theo vocals, to see what would come out of it.
One track has been released on Trauma Records, and the second track, Dark Side of The Light, is on my new album.
We always work together on those projects in the studio (either in Berlin or in London).
The challenge we had on this one was when I was doing the mixes of the album, and I couldn’t work on the track because we used some plugins on Theo’s computer I didn’t have on mine.
So Theo had to finish working on the mix and I had to explain to Theo how it should sound to match the other tracks of the album.
What’s your view on the value of music today? In what way does the plethora of music change our perception of it?
For me, music is something magical. The plethora of music is not really of matter. If something is outstanding, it will cut through.
I also find it remarkable that more people get involved in creating music; that’s something very positive, and it should be supported.
The music is very under valuated because listeners are used to not paying for music anymore.
That’s a big challenge for us as music producers because it is nearly impossible to make a living from producing electronic music without touring.
Read Also: 10 effective ways to start promoting electronic music
How did the pandemic affect your plans?
The pandemic changed everything; there were tour lineups that we had to cancel as more and more countries were closing their borders, and everybody was in a panic.
Even the home gigs got canceled, so basically, I was without a job from one day to another.
Then it’s tough to understand what needs to be done.
Luckily, I got some support from Germany to compensate for my lost income to keep going and produce new music. The big challenge is keeping going as a music producer if the venues are not reopening or reopening only partially.
I think the ecosystem of the electronic music scene was already very fragile before the lockdown, so it did put a lot of people in trouble.
Did it also affect your record label Elektrotribe?
It did affect my label as well.
The sales have plunged since spring 2020 as a lot of DJs are not buying music anymore, so it’s a real challenge to keep it alive, we have to adapt our strategy to address more the fans than the DJs, but we keep working hard, and supporting the artists who are trusting us.
We did a live stream last year with 14 artists to celebrate the 14th anniversary of the label. It gave everybody (artists, fans) a really positive dynamic.
Most importantly, music fans need new music to get something positive until life goes back to normal, so I feel it’s essential to participate in this & create a positive dynamic.
Do you believe the music industry will ever recover?
The music industry will recover; it can adapt to all kinds of situations.
There is a lot of love and passion in the clubs and the techno scene, so I believe it will adapt itself and survive in the future even if it needs to change its form.
Watch 14 Years Elektrotribe Day 2: Moog Conspiracy Live set:
Any advice to aspiring artists beginning their journey in the underground electronic music industry? Any message you would give to your audience?
Believe in yourself, try to be original, don’t copy others, play the music you love, connect with other artists, find what you can do well, get involved in the scene, support!
To my fans, check out the new album & see you very soon on the dance floors.
Listen to Moog Conspiracy’s new album Constant Competitive Rhythm on Soundcloud & Youtube:
You can also find it on Bandcamp or stream it on Spotify.
TRACKLIST:
1. Moog Conspiracy – Introduction
2. Moog Conspiracy – Palette
3. Moog Conspiracy – Slave to the Rave
4. Moog Conspiracy – Constant Repetitive Rhythm
5. Moog Conspiracy – Wizard
6. Moog Conspiracy – Passage
7. Moog Conspiracy, Theo Komp – Dark Side Of The Light
8. Moog Conspiracy – Tristesse
9. Moog Conspiracy – Mutants
10. Moog Conspiracy, Robert Owens – Try Harder
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Find out more on:
moogconspiracy.com
elektrotribe.com
And Always Remember…
Have Fun & Be Creative!
