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  • Q & A with Simon Heath of Cryo Chamber

Please give us a brief bio of the label. How did it start, til today….

The label was born in 2012 by Simon Heath of cult project Atrium Carceri after his move from Sweden to the US. Cryo Chamber started as a platform for cinematic dark ambient music, a style popularized by Atrium Carceri.  It blew up in 2013 as it become known for it’s consistent quality of sound in a genre long plagued by hobby productions. The label acted as a moderator or filter for the scene. It’s currently located in Oregon but has strong roots in Europe, especially Scandinavia.

Which labels inspired you most to make your own?    

It was actually the opposite way around, as an artist I’ve been around quite a few labels in multiple genres so I knew what I didn’t want out of a label. I went in the opposite direction of a lot of established labels when I created Cryo Chamber. The two key things I wanted was fair payment of it’s artists and to focus on the community aspect for the artists themselves. We have a very strong bond as artists here and we in turn end up collaborating and help each other out, acting as each others mentors in the areas where one artists might be better than another, and vice versa.

Which is the motto for Cryo Chamber?

Ambient removed from the modern world.

Which are the advantages and disadvantages of running a music label today?

The tools for spreading music are a lot better than they used to be. On the other hand that means that every genre is oversaturated with music that is so poorly produced that it wouldn’t have made the cut in the old days.

Which are your future plans for the label?

A lot of people are asking us about vinyl, so we are once again looking into that. We got some great surprises coming out in 2017, but it’s too early to spoil the surprise just yet.

  • Three distinctive Cryo Chamber releases

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Cryo Chamber Collaboration ‎– ‘Nyarlathotep

An 190 minute dark soundscape album recorded by 25 ambient artists to pay tribute to H.P. Lovecraft.

Field recordings from the deepest dark corners of 4 continents. Dusty tapes out of forgotten archives. Strings through crackling amplifiers and distorted drone combine into a sea of pitch black.

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Sabled Sun ‎– ‘2145

This album started the Sabled Sun project, which since then have grown into 4 full length albums in the 21xx series, and 6 hours worth of albums in the Signal series.

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Apocryphos, Kammarheit, Atrium Carceri  ‘Onyx

This album is very close to my heart, having the opportunity to work with 2 people I respect deeply:

Apocryphos, Kammarheit & Atrium Carceri, collaborate on this behemoth of an album. Each utilizing each others strengths to bring forth a dark and emotional ride through distant memories.

Onyx‘ is a soundscape journey related to the reflection of dispirited memories and obscure sorrows felt by mankind. With the multitude of techniques used by each artist, it also reflects the rich history of the dark ambient genre and how it has progressed through the decades.

The signature analogue darkness of gargantuan caves of Kammarheit is combined with the sacral and emotional layering of Apocryphos and the rhythmical bass throbbing and isolated pianos of Atrium Carceri.

This album was created by cross linking 3 studios in Oregon (US), Pennsylvania (US) and Umeå (Sweden). It took over 3800 lines of studio notes to finalize the album.

Links:

http://www.cryochamberlabel.com

https://cryochamber.bandcamp.com/

https://www.facebook.com/CryoChamber/

https://twitter.com/CryoChamber

https://www.youtube.com/user/cryochamberlabel

https://soundcloud.com/cryo-chamber

https://www.instagram.com/cryochamberlabel/

Curated by: Christos Doukakis