When we initiated this website, to start off the section of this blog we wrote an introductory article on The Algorithm and the release of his single Tr0jans, before the Polymorphic Code album was out. This group was a clear indication of musicians searching for omni-dimensional music and their formula of unifying djent/prog metal/glitch/dub/dubstep/breakcore /electro/idm/trance seemed too genius to go unnoticed.
A few months on and we had a chance to talk to the band before they played at The Fleece in Bristol alongside Tesseract, Enochian Theory and Red Seas Fire. The three people involved in The Algorithm are composer Remi Gallego who is behind all the material recorded for the two previous albums by the band, live drummer Mike Malyan of the UK metal band Monuments and recently joined live guitarist Max Michel.
Despite the fact that our recorder skipped doing its duty for half of the chat, we managed to revive as much of the information as possible. Along with being extremely down-to-earth and chatty dudes, here is what they had to say about some questions we had, hope you enjoy this read.
A. Watching you use the APC-40 is quite an experience, why did you choose the APC 40?
Remi: I think it is a really good piece of equipment and it has everything you need, faders, knobs, everything!
A. Don’t want to compare musically but you guys take what Enter Shikari did and take it to another level without the vocals. What do you think about that analogy?
Mike: Yea we played a show with them in the 100 Club in London, and that’s where me and Remi got our matching shoes (they show me their black matching converses.) and Max also has identical shoes to these (wasn’t wearing them at the time tsk tsk..) so we were all wearing them. But yea, they have this huge electronic rig and there’s a lot of analogue stuff going on with similar grid design but they are more of an electronic band.
Max: That’s the whole thing about it, I don’t have any amplifier
A. That must be pretty confusing for you…
Max: Yes at the beginning it was but I don’t focus on the sound, more on the rhythm.
Mike: It’s awesome, Max and I were both trying to keep up with the material n if we screw it up we sort of just look at each other and laugh about it and find a way out of it, it’s a lot more difficult but a lot more fun and keeps it exciting.
A. Do you come from a scene in France? Except for Gojira, it is an odd place for high-grade heavy metal.
Remi: I don’t think we are as good as Gojira (everyone laughs) but there is quite a big metal scene with some really great bands like Uneven Structures and Beyond the Dust and generally electronic music like Daft Punk and Justice..
A. What made you choose Armenia as a gig destination?
Randomly went ‘Hey do you guys wanna play in Armenia?’ and they got in touch with our booking guys and then we had the flight details and we thought oh shit! Its happening and we were on the way.
A. How did they like it?
It went down really really well; the next prime minister of Armenia came to our show (the guy with the most current votes) and we had a chat with him. The promoter also hooked us up with a show in Georgia while we were there and it was a bit a weird show but overall good. Armenia is definitely a good party place and we ended up bringing back lots of people to our house and got pretty messy
A. Have you guys heard of hacktivist? Any chance of collaboration there?
Yea we have, some of the guys in that band are based around Milton Keynes and that network is still set in place so maybe yea. We will be doing some shows with them in Russia actually.
A. It is quite UK based this whole new metal (I don’t wanna name it)..
Mike: Call it djent, call it prog metal, new prog metal, glitzy dub djent.. doesn’t really matter. In the end of the day, it deserves a name because it has a following behind it. It’s like someone saying ‘Have you heard of this new music? It’s this new thing, this website…no one would be able to get it or relate to it instantly.
A. Did djent come from the chugging sound?!
Mike: Yea it came from that, Meshuggah said that’s the sound of it and it is a cool sound in itself but I think djent is more defined by a new movement of music inspired by the digital age like the Algorithm and bands like Meshuggah who helped create things like Superior Drummer and the actual tools that add to that like the internet and everyone who is suddenly excited about a band they post it and the network becomes instantly viral down to a person by person basis and that’s what Djent is. It’s not really a lifestyle or genre or anything, it’s just… a thing. It just is. It’s a community.
Remi: it exists.
What do you think of Pirating Music?
Mike: It is actually beneficial in ways…the ability to share. Of course they never have to give anything back to the artist but if you’ve downloaded the album and listened to it for free and you bought a gig ticket, that’s all well and good. But there is actually a level of support from buying the album or just buying a shirt, the material made by the band
You used to be able to record off a radio show and put it on a tape,
A. Do you use the Scarlett to record the music or did you have to go to the studio to record the instruments?
Mike: The Polymorphic Code is entirely the work of Remi, he gave it to us and said here it is, do what you can, now that we have been playing together as a band, we can put ideas forward and see if there is anything that we can contribute musically and make Remi also learn some hard techniques.. It’s all about challenging each other really…
A. This music wouldn’t make sense if it wasn’t challenging, I already feel bad for you that you will eventually have to write a new album.
A. How do you find all the Monuments things and this at the same time?
Mike: This is mostly just shows and the practice in between but with Monuments it’s a lot more time involved with the band writing. But now that both projects are doing more and more, it’s getting quite tricky to look at the time. I have these months sections where I don’t know which one.. but to solve this problem Boris from Chimp Spanner, he played a show (his first) with the Algorithm at Southampton Takedown Festival and he killed it. So he is available to take over the duties and the project will continue and we can adjust it to work!
A. Finally, what does the word Outtallectual mean to you?
I’m guessing it’s maybe another form of intellectuality… not just outside the box but outside the room that the box is in, or maybe even possibly outside the house…or maybe a different planet, another level of a different dimension of thinking.
A. Thanks that’s an omni answer!
Mike: Omnillectual!
It was interesting to talk with the people present at the concert and assess their reaction to the music. They seemed to be mostly there to see Tesseract but had also been very curious about The Algorithm, however as soon as the band went on stage, you could very easily hear the confused cries of ‘Oh my god, that’s insane!…it’s AWESOME’, ‘WHAT THE FUCK?!’, ‘Mate, that’s like….DJENTSTEP’, ‘I cannot believe this music.’ et al.
As The Algorithm takes its music live on the road, it is piling a huge amount of support from previously unnotified fans and is sure to go to the next level – whatever that maybe, in the near future. Well done to these troopers and we shall see what the future brings.
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