Creative Conversations 053: REMNANT.exe Is Charging Wave's POWERCELL

REMNANT.exe, one of Wave’s vanguards released ‘POWERCELL’ on heavy hitting label, Liquid Ritual. We were able to catch up with Cosmo, the man behind the project to discuss his growth into the Wave scene, his recent release on Liquid Ritual and so much more.

Futuremag Music: Hey REMNANT.exe, how're you doing? What's new on your side of the world?

REMNANT.exe: I'm doing well! Been busy working on a ton of new music. I've been feeling very inspired lately which is nice.

Futuremag Music: Before we jump into 'POWERCELL', I wanted to do a bit of a dive into your background. Could you chat us through your relationship with music over the years? How did you move into producing Wave music?

REMNANT.exe: Music has been a big part of my life for as long as I can remember. My dad's a guitarist and producer himself so some of my earliest memories are those of me hanging out in his home studio and getting to play around with his gear. I was around 5 or 6 years old when he got an iBook G4 that had a copy of GarageBand on it and he was like "hey this thing has some kind of music program on it, you might have fun with it", so when he wasn't using it I'd be playing around with apple loops on there. My parents generally didn't want me playing video games or watching TV so that became one of my biggest forms of entertainment. I later upgraded to Logic in high school when I realised this is something I really wanted to invest in for myself. In terms of proper music education, I started playing the violin in 3rd grade through my school's string orchestra program, and I kept up with it all the way through college. Playing classical music both solo and in large ensembles for many years has given me a wealth of theory knowledge and musical experience that has directly transferred to my own compositions and productions. Interestingly enough, I attribute my classical music education to my discovery of the whole Wave music community too.

In high school, I attended a summer orchestra camp with a friend of mine who introduced me to a friend he'd met the year prior, who happened to also be a music producer who went by the name of LUDICY (go check him out btw). We hit it off talking about music production, and we ended up staying in contact after the camp ended, sharing our work with each other in the meantime. In 2016 I happened to move to the city he lived in when I went to college and we got to hang out in person again, and that's when he really showed me the whole Wave scene. People like Klimeks, Skit, Yedgar, Sorsari, Øfdream, Skeler, and of course everyone on Liquid Ritual. At the time I was trying to make more mainstream EDM stuff and was starting to get pretty burnt out on it, and this was an entirely new world to me that I slowly but surely fell deeply in love with. I'd just started a side project called REMNANT (the .exe came later), which originally was going to be more retro 80s synthwave-focused, but it very quickly turned into the nameplate of all my more Wave-inspired works. LUDICY also sent me an invite link to the Wavepool Discord channel, and that's where I got to know many of these artists personally, and I found a really accepting and welcoming home for my music, which was something I'd never had before.

WANT MORE WAVE?

Futuremag Music: 'POWERCELL' is a superb Hardwave record, dripping with neo grime and a futuristic sonic aesthetic. Is this what you envisioned when working on the record? What was the production process for the record?

REMNANT.exe: These are always difficult questions for me haha. My creative process usually starts out with me jamming something out on the keyboard. I recall starting this one off with the main arp melody you hear throughout the track, and once I had that down I wanted to see how far I could stretch that melodic theme so I built the rest of the piece around it. I really don't give too much thought to how I "want" a particular song to sound, I just choose sounds that sound cool to me and put them together. I can't really pinpoint any particular influence for this one, I just knew it needed to be big and epic. Though, the second drop does definitely carry a bit of the sound of 90s video game soundtracks, which I think have been a big subconscious influence of mine as I didn't even realize it sounded like that until someone pointed it out to me the other day.

Futuremag Music: With the Wave scene continually evolving and shifting, where do you see the genre moving next? Who are some acts we should keep an eye on?

REMNANT.exe: This is another hard one for me. Wave to me is an incubator. The community's ability to foster burgeoning artists and give them an audience is it's greatest strength. However, I predict the artists that are going to break out of the scene and find the most success are going to be the ones who put their own unique spin on the sound and infuse it into existing genres, sometimes to the point of it not really being Wave music, but more a product of Wave music. I think a great example of this is Deadcrow, who found huge success within the Wave community, and then branched out to Dubstep and Hardstyle, put his own unique spin on those, and now has some of the most consistent mainstream support of anyone from the Wave scene. As the members of the Wave scene find their own sound and their own success and start networking in other communities, that will influence other areas of the electronic music world. I think that's really where things are gonna go over the next few years, just from the interactions I've had with other producers outside the scene who've become inspired by it.

A few artists (off the top of my head) to pay attention to who I think have a really unique sound and aesthetic (aside from all the name I mentioned previously); w/out, Just Connor, Yama, Coreal, SBU, MRKRYL, Mnemosyne, Nick Neutronz, Five Suns, Dyzphoria, Noah B and Heimanu.

Futuremag Music: A bit of a random one, if REMNANT.exe was a cocktail, what would be in it to best describe yourself and your music?

REMNANT.exe: A shot of Viniq, chase it with a glass of Absinthe.

Futuremag Music: To round it out, In partnership with Your Favourite Team, what is a piece of advice or something you wish you knew when starting out following a career in music?

REMNANT.exe: Don't be afraid to ask for help and feedback, and find friends who support and inspire you, whether that be musically or in some other way. Also don't get caught up in the successes of others. Create purely for yourself, at the end of the day nothing else really matters. Sure, it's great to have big dreams and goals for your music, but what good is a world tour having to play music that isn't 100% you?