Exclusive Compilation and Interview with Sebastian Redenz // From 2001 to 2008, Autoplate was the experimental subdivision of Thinner Netlabel. 50 high quality releases in eight years, the label was officially shut down three months ago with a beautiful EP by Russian Ambient outlet Slow. Time for us to get Sebastian Redenz in for a talk to shine a light on the Autoplate history and find out why the label had to cancel operation while Thinner is alive and kicking.

Slow - “Morning Love”: Download

Dear Sebastian, please give our readers a brief introduction to who you are!

Sebastian: My name is Sebastian Redenz, I’m 27 years and being part of a team I managed **Autoplate** as A&R (Artists & Requirement). I also do A&R work for **Thinner**, am in the process of finishing my social sciences studies in Mannheim and am currently in the process of relocating to Frankfurt, where I work for Cocoon Recordings being my main employer.

When I read about the final Autoplate release and the associated demise of the label, I felt relieved and disappointment at the same time. Disappointment because one of the most reliable Netlabels for experimental music cancelled operation, relief because you finished it with a clean cut. Why did it take so long for Autoplate to wave goodbye eventually? Was the dismissal of Autoplate part of the Thinner relaunch already?

First off, thanks very much for the flowers. Indeed, the aftermath of our relaunch in 2007 things didn’t go as expected for various reasons. A new Autoplate website was planned but never entered production phase. Quite quickly after THN100 got released some major changes started to take place in the lives of all key members. Some went into fulltime employment, some started their own agency or were just busy studying, so it became obvious that the availability to contribute to a common project decreased significantly. We had to make a decision really – maintain two Netlabels on an equal marketing level, which wouldn’t allow growth or take the decision for one Netlabel and invest the saved time into marketing and developing the label.

Autoplate was always on a much smaller scale compared to Thinner, the label didn’t organize any live shows and the people never left much feedback. Unsurprisingly though cause there’re indeed many excellent Netlabels releasing ambient and experimental music. So we decided to fade the project out with a final release and to concentrate on Thinner, which just has a bigger audience and potential and thus is more interesting for all of us.

You are right to say that there are many excellent Netlabels for experimental music. Still, Autoplate introduced and established some big names to the scene. Think of Kevin Krebs, Jason Corder, Andrey Kiritchenko, Gultskra Artikler, Normal Music… Musicians of great talent and inspiration. The most successful is probably Martin Juhls aka Marsen Jules, ironically for both Autoplate and Thinner. Can you tell us what it was like to let him go? Martin is an recording artist now…

On the one hand I was very happy for Martin. By that time we were running both labels together and thus working together closely. His Autoplate albums definitely made things easier for him to acquire a recording contract with CCO, since both albums were downloaded over five thousand times each, being a big aid for his name to become noticed for this particular sound. This particular example showed the importance of promoting the music – for both albums Martin sent a batch of CDRs to magazines and radio stations. On the other hand it was unfortunate to see him leaving as an artist who probably had the biggest impact for Autoplate.

Autoplate and Thinner started in 2001. Re-listening some of the early Autoplate releases it’s quite obvious that the label sound was down to many evolutionary shifts. Does this reflect your own taste in music? Are you still interested in experimental or ambient music? Noting the impact of Marsen Jules, maybe you’d like to give our readers an impression what the stylistic development of Autoplate was due to.

I tried to keep the label exciting by staying versatile and work along a bigger picture of experimental electronic music. In the beginning we only wanted to release music with a conceptual “overhead beyond the music”, inspired by Mille Plateaux. If you review the first Autoplate releases you’ll notice, they all come with album length playing time.

At some point glitch became rather uninteresting to me and I started looking into acquiring more ambient and electro-acoustic music for the label. Martin’s albums came in just perfect as we were already working together before, with him releasing as “Falter” on Thinner. Starting with his album we had a string of great releases. From there Autoplate always oscillated between deep organic ambient and intimate electro-acoustic music. Another notable highlight between the studio productions was the live album by Move D, which was later re-released on Bine Music/ Raster Noton. Today I’m still interested in these particular genres, but time constraints currently make the further continuation of Autoplate impossible, unfortunately.

On the Thinner blog, you started the “Netlabels Who Care” series. Do you follow the scene? Are you aware of new labels and artists? Any favorites you would like to mention?

I regularly check out about ten Netlabels. I monitor what’s happening and download the one or other release, it depends on how the release is presented to get my attention. If the Netlabel properly presents a release with artwork, info text and high bitrates it is likely that I check it out. Recently I’ve came along a statement which said that Netlabels gave a new bloom to ambient and experimental music in general. I couldn’t agree more!

Okay, thanks a lot for the interview and good luck for your thesis!

Website: www.autoplate.cc_

_

Farewell Autoplate! MP3 Compilation Download

Sebastian prepared a selection of personal favourites from eight years Autoplate. Make sure to download this epic piece of Netaudio history.

Exclusive Download of Autoplate Compilation

DOWNLOAD COMPILATION (205MB, zip-file inc. artwork)**

**

  • APL005 Affective Disorder – “Pa.kkzak. Doeken”
  • APL007 Taavi Tulev – “Televiisor On Tuksis”
  • APL011 Randomajestiq - “Nikkl”
  • APL012 Gultskra Artikler - “Teplo Spokoyno I Yabloko”
  • APL014 Off The Sky – “Mileece’s Reduction”
  • APL020 Hans Appelqvist – “Full The Moon”
  • APL025 Kenneth Kirschner - “May 3, 1997”
  • APL027 Lomov - “Hochwaldregen”
  • APL029 Fernando Lagreca - “Planea”
  • APL030 tlon - “In The Shadow Of Unexpectation”
  • APL036 Emil Klotzsch - “sctl14”
  • APL037 Protogroup – “Anahata”
  • APL038 Arrial – “Terminal 4”
  • APL044 Daniel Blomqvist - “När Andra Sover”
  • APL045 Segue – “Dready”
  • APL047 Twile – “Spanish Cruiser”
  • APL048 Weigl & Hoffmann – “Country Lane”
  • APL050 Slow - “Ends”

Another wonderful mixtape of Autoplate-exclusive material can be found on thirteensongs.net. The mix is called “Down A More Minimal Part” and was performed by long-time Netaudio supporter Larry Johnston.