Photography by Jeff Heurteur

Heavy mechanical paraphernalia lines the walls of this weeks broadcast – a confronting acknowledgement of tomorrow’s landscape, perhaps. Montreal born, our guest wasted no time in submersing himself in left field thought after relocating to Athens, an environmental framework that’s escalated his work to be one of Perc Trax’s flagship conspirer. To corroborate the claim, his full album release FLAWS effortlessly defends any cross-examination.
 
You can safely deduce that you’d be hard pressed locating extensive media exposure, and for good reason. It’s more so a tactical development that’s a direct imitative of an artist that’s more so inclined to relocate his conscious in the company of virtual explosions, as opposed to reckless vanity. The next hour that defines this weeks installment is a twisted provocation, and we’ll happily sanction your own industrialised retaliation.
 
Your host – Sawf.

Kn:  Not much is known about you from the media perspective.  Tell us about your background and what influenced you musically growing up?

S:  Well, I was born in Montreal, Canada and soon after moved to Crete, a Greek island, and at the age of 17 moved to Athens.  Before I got into techno the music that got most of my attention was usually close to rhythm noise, industrial and weird electronics in general.

Kn:  Coming from a more secluded area of Europe and with a small number of artists in Greece, from where was your inspiration derived and how did you harbour it to progress yourself?

S:  My inspiration obviously was always coming from non greek artists.  Home practice with every gear or software I could get my hands on is how I developed and progressed.  Focusing on a small amount of software or hardware helped as well not to get confused throughout the process.

Kn:  Every artist needs their own space and not being constantly bombarded by stimulus or being constantly influenced/exposed to trends will always breed a fresh orientation – how do you adjust to the outside world (in every sense) whilst maintaining your own path?

S:  I guess the only need I feel to adjust to the outside world is only through my sound whether its a track or a gig.  Being away from european dancefloors where rhythm music gets a proper play out forced me to maintain my own path sound wise.  Also being into techno before the minimal rise of 2005-6 helped as well in order to be fully aware of how filthy techno can be.

Kn:  As people, we are a direct result of our experiences and surroundings.  What would you say has been one of the most pivotal moments that shaped the Sawf sound over the past 3 years?

S:  Well, when 2008 got my first track out, techno had not begun to get the hype that gets now.  So, in terms of heaviness, I knew from the beginning where I wanted to go.  I think what mostly shaped my sound is, as I said, home practice.  There were times that hearing a track from another artist intrigued me to start a track of my own but the result of this work are some tool tracks I keep for myself.  All the tracks that I have released mostly on Perc Trax are a result of endless experiments and the need always to use different elements on each track.  You can add to that the fact that I try to avoid as much as possible using the same sounds in more than one track and I never have a release in mind when starting or finishing a track.

Kn:  This year we saw the release of your first album titled FLAWS on Perc Trax with a remix package following later in the year.  An intoxicating mix of industrialist techno and sound scape’s.  How did it all come together and how did the different tracks fuse to create a single entity that represented your current time and place?

S:  All the different sounding tracks of Flaws have somehow a connection which is actually hard to be noticed even to me.  Usually when a techno album is out there are some sounds, whether its the drum parts or the strings, that are used throughout its length.  I guess this helps people to call it an album and perceive its unity.  In Flaws this is hardly the case.  After some talking with Ali (Perc) we thought that we could give it a shot and collect all of these tracks (that were made in different periods of time and without having an album in mind) and make an album.  You will not find any trippy underlying hidden message in Flaws’ order of tracks.  Of course, current time and place did not play any role on releasing except the fact that it was the beginning of 2011, which looked like an interesting year in techno and hard electronics.

Kn:  With an ever increasing arsenal of releases, most of which have featured on the previously noted label Perc Trax, have you thought about where you would like to direct yourself?  Cross collateralising various media or other ideas that are on a different tangent to your current state? 

S:  Yes – Perc Trax has released most of my work even the most strange and undanceable ones.  Media, except sound, is not my strong point so I would rather leave it on the side for the time being as I think that my sound is still evolving and I would like to focus on that.  Moving synchronised image is something that seems appealing to me but since my technical knowledge is on a low point I would rather not get into it myself.  Other ideas besides 120+ bpm should be some low tempo tracks that i make when i get tired from the speed of the beats and have not a releasing purpose .