Es ist etwas mehr als 3 Jahre her, seit ich meinen ersten Radiobeitrag machte. Es ging um ein Label, das Musik über seine Website unter die Leute brachte. Technisch nicht unbedingt eine neue Sache - Trackerlabels hatten schon Jahre zuvor ihre Lieder über Bulletin Board Systems (textorientierte Onlinesysteme mit Telefoneinwahl) verbreitet. Wirklich neu war an Mono (gegründet 1996) die Qualität der elektronischen Musik von Dope Beats bis Drum'n'Bass bis Ambient. Die technische Innovation war wesentlich weniger wichtig als der eigentliche Output - also eben genau nicht "the medium is the message". Artists wie Vim!, Mortimer Twang oder Dharma machten Tunes, die mich auf Platte auch beeindruckt hätten, und manche von ihnen haben den Schritt auf Vinyl dann später auch getan. Schon letztes Jahr waren mit Subi und Lackluster zwei Mono Artists bei der Ars, und diesmal ist Simon 'h0l' Carless mit von der Partie. Allerdings nicht in seiner Funktion als Mono-Gründer, sondern als Vortragender in Sachen Demo-Szene und Musik-Spielen. Trotzdem hat mich Mono natürlich auch interessiert, hier also ein kleines Interview (in der Originalsprache belassen) mit ihm:
Simon
When did the idea of starting a Netlabel come to your mind?
I guess Mono started more as a .MOD-scene label, actually - just because I was fed up with seeing lots of my (relatively) talented friends who made music not getting any distribution at all. So I started spreading their stuff on BBSes, and soon on the Net, thus...Mono was formed. Not an original idea, though, since Kosmic were doing similar stuff earlier, but fun nonetheless.
How did you get in contact with the artists?
The initial artists were all people I knew through the Amiga demo-scene, such as Twilight, Dreamfish/Hoffman, Subi, and so on. Eventually, I started getting emails or meeting people online who liked our stuff, or found people's tunes I really liked, and...we expanded!
Did you imagine this Internet'n'Music thing to become as big as it is nowadays?
No, but then, I'm not totally sure how big it is yet, culturally. Sure, the Net is a good place to download pirated music, but the best thing is the sense of community the Net can foster, I guess. MP3s are very big, tho - who
would have guessed?
What was the reasons for not releasing .MODs anymore and just sticking to What was the reasons for not releasing .MODs anymore and just sticking to MP3 some time ago?
It was because the vast majority of our artists stopped doing .MODs, or their .MODs were so big they were almost MP3-sized anyhow. Hence.. all .MP3s - well, some .MODs are creeping back in again! It was a little controversial
at the time, but I think it was a good idea, in hindsight.
At first, Mono was putting out Drum'n'Bass and Dope Beats mostly, nowadays it's got more ambient - It that the result of your personal tastes changing slightly or part of a bigger concept?
It's down partly to my personal tastes and partly to what my friends and musicians I respect are composing. I guess it happened similarly with Mo'Wax (mind you, I think they're in their 3rd, not-so-great stage now - hope we
never get there!) But, I think we still got it. It's just a slightly different "it". :)
What are the future plans for Mono/tonik/211? Any real-life releases in sight?
In the future we're hoping to put out some interactive (Flash, etc.) releases (I actually met with someone at Ars Electronica who may be helping us do that), and otherwise more nice retro stuff (Gameboy/C64/whatever!). We don't intend to do any real-life releases apart from possibly a Monotonik label compilation licensed to a solid-media label, cos, umm, we're internet idiots, and we sorta like it that way. Whenever real-life distribution, promotion, and especially money enters the frame, everything gets a bit
messy.
Das einzige, was mir da noch bleibt, ist nochmal auf die Mono-Website hinzuweisen, wo man sämtliche Musik, die dort jemals released wurde, runterladen kann (auch die ganz ersten Trackerfiles) - Checkthisout!
Wien | 5.9.2001 | 15:57 
