FALLT : an interview with Christopher Murphy
by Philippe Petit

Fallt is a label located in Ireland whose name rhymes with quality. Beautiful design, very classy website, and incredible and conceptual records whose claim to fame could be the Invalid Object . 24 releases limited to the original 24 JavaScript reserved words:
break; case; comment; continue; default; delete; do; else; export; for; function; if; import; in; label; new; return; switch; this; typeof; var; void; while; & with.
The 24 designated spaces for this project will be composed by Kim Cascone; Pimmon ; eM; Akira Rabelais; Taylor Deupree; Richard Chartier; V/Vm; Pita; In Between Noise ; Massimo... They also issued an amazing album from Paul Gough, alias Pimmon and have much more treasures to come. We sent questions to Christopher Murphy who started the project and is also the designer of the illustrations to this feature.

	I'd like to know a little biographical information about you... F: I'm 31. I was born in Hong Kong, grew up in Edinburgh, Scotland before moving to Glasgow to study at the Glasgow School of Art for six years (a time that had a great effect on me). On graduating moved to Ireland... How did you get where you are today? F: By mistake? By accident? By chance? By coincidence? All of the above. Which friendly piece of advice would you give to someone who wants to start his/her label? F: Trust your instincts. It sounds predictable but it's worked for us. What used to be tape-only labels are now CDR-only labels. Do you think it makes it easier for people to start their label and run less risks? Is this the reason why you chose to issue CDRs or is it more to avoid the business aspect which occurs when a label trys to get records distributed on a wider scale? F: Complex question. Our first two releases were CDR only because we were specifically interested in the idea of 'multiples', precious objects in small runs. With 'Assembler' though we were so pleased with the results we wanted to make it available to as wide an audience as possible so a commercial pressing made sense. I think Staalplaat work the CD vs. CDR angle very successfully. Their 'Microwave' series of burn-to-order CDRs allows them to release work more quickly and with less concern about financial returns which enables them to take more creative chances. This series is one of the reasons we chose to establish Ferric (our own burn-to-order sub-label). To me the role of a label should be to discover new acts, help them get promotion, distribution, spread the word on their creativity. Do you agree with that? F: That's certainly one goal. Another goal for us though (and one we hope to pursue more in the future) is to work with established artists and challenge them through tight briefs/conceptual approaches to see what (unexpected) results emerge. This is one reason we sent ten childrens' drum machines to ten well-established artists, the results of which will be available as 'Gizmo Variations' in one form or another in 2001.
	What gave you the reason, or motivation to start yours? Weren't you satisfied with other labels'music? F: No, there are a whole host of labels out there doing work we admire. For us it was simply a case of extending the concept of (fine) art/design multiples into the sphere of sound. Most labels have an example, or a favorite other label which they like, and you? Any label you could say was an influence on you? F: There are several labels we admire and you can't help but be influenced by them in one way or another, at the end of the day we don't work in a vacuum. A by-no-means comprehensive list might include: Mego, Staalplaat/Mort Aux Vaches/Microwave/etc., Touch/Ash International, Mille Plateaux/Ritornell... Any label that you think has been influenced by yours? F: Doubtful. Did you start with a certain idea, concept? How came the idea of putting together the invalidObject Series? 360 tracks (24 artists x 15 "60 second long" tracks each)? Would you call it "a massive noise fest"? Or rather "an essential microwave reflection"? F: Neither noise or microwave; there is such a variety in the Series. Part of the reason for the tight brief was to see how these different artists would react. We were very pleased with the sheer scope of the results. You decided to limit the Series to 250 copies only. Don't you think that your music couldn't attract more people? Do you want to keep it among specialists? Aren't you afraid to create collectors that some moneymakers will speculate upon? F: Perhaps this was naive. SO many people tell us: "You'll have no problem selling out 250 copies..." We weren't so sure and 24 x 250 CDs is financially a big gamble for us. I suppose we were just being cautious. To answer the point about "keeping it among specialists" though, we did make the entire Series available to download for free precisely because we did not want money to be a barrier to ownership. The sheer number of downloads was (and still is) something that makes us very happy indeed. How would you describe a typical Fallt act? F: It's hard to describe a 'typical' Fallt act as such. There's usually a fairly hard-to-pin-down untypical'ness about them. Everything seems to be about gut reaction. We have no set pattern that we're trying to follow. We tend, in fact, to develop and grow very chaotically... You pay a lot of attention to packaging and your website is very good-looking, lots of minimal art going quite well with the .microsound music you issue. Is it done by yourself? F: 99% of the design is done in-house. I work under the name Fehler although Fehler, in itself, is something of a collective encompassing several other designers/artists/musicians. In the past I've collaborated a great deal with both Christophe Behrens and Otaku Yakuza. More recently, I've begun to collaborate closely with Angela Lorenz (Ritornell, Orthlong Musork, etc.) a great deal. Angela and I tend to think very alike (uncannily so), but the lines between who does what or who came up with which idea are incredibly blurred. At the end of the day 'claiming ownership' is less important than creating good quality, challenging work.
	Often people do not consider 'microsounds' to be rich and believe that very few is happening... Often associating it with the theory of 'less is more', whereas a lot of things and ideas can be noticed in the music of many so-called 'microsound' artists... Would you say that this is because many listeners : A) Do not listen... B) Do not care... C) Can't understand the subtelties... F : A. I suspect a lot of people don't give 'microsound' (not to mention all music in general) as much time as they should. All I can say is that you get out as much as you put in. This is one of the reasons I personally started reviewing material for our publication '%Array': you listen to sound much, much more carefully when you have to write about it. Could you give us some precisions on the actual scene in Ireland? Any other local label, activists that you feel close to? F: I've never really associated myself with what's "going on in Ireland" as such. I never grew up here so it's quite difficult to slot into a scene here... I tend to work more with overseas artists, etc. But then that's because Fallt was never really considered to be an Irish label, more of a global/non-located label... Anything to say on the musical situation of England today? F: As above, I tend to look at music in more global terms than specifically reflecting different cultures' idiosyncracies. The world is collapsing at an astonishing rate and we're seeing hybrid musics erupting at an incredible rate. There's no question it's an exciting time to be involved in music. Is there anything that you regret or that you'd change if you could? F: I get very excited and enthusiastic about projects we're undertaking and tend to publicise them far too soon. This will be the lesson for 2001. Less publicity till projects are nearly complete. Consider my wrists slapped for publicising the invalidObject Series far, far too early. Any album or band that you wish you had issued on Fallt? F: About a million... But then, to clarify, I don't regret they've been issued elsewhere. What matters is getting the music heard by as wide an audience as possible. A few though (because I can't resist): Pita | Get Out Laub vs. Various | Intuition Remixes Fennesz | Anything Christophe Behrens | MEMDES-173 – 128Mb PC100 iMac Mk2/G4/G3 Pro Gastr del Sol | Upgrade and Afterlife
	What are your goal(s) as a label. Future plans? F : This year might see me give up my full-time 'money job'. I'm struggling to keep up with running Fallt and pinning down a nine-to-five job. People often fail to realise that running a label takes up a lot of time: organising, dealing with artists, taking care of publicity, design, etc., etc. When time is finite you achieve less than you'd hope to. Somewhere along the line, something has to give. At the end of the day, Fallt is where my heart lies but running it full time worries me slightly; I'd hate it to become just a way of paying bills .Upcoming releases? Please give some details on every band, name of the record, etc... F: In the pipeline for 2001: Various Artists | invalidObject Series Finally - (!) - in may ways this has turned into something of the proverbial Albatross around my neck over the last year. With the benefit of hindsight we should have staggered this release but we kept thinking - we're nearly there - and now, thankfully, we are nearly there. I think it will be worth the wait. Stephan Mathieu | Frequency Lib. I'm looking forward to this a lot. I've always loved Stephan's music from the moment he sent me a compilation featuring the most exquisite 'Laub' remix (from Laub's 'Intuition'). His 'Wurmloch Variationen' on Ritornell was a highpoint of 2000 and some of the work he's been sending me recently is just gorgeous. Ted Sulkowicz | Over the Black Dot There was a rumour on the .microsound mailing list that Ted Sulkowicz is, in fact, Pimmon. Who knows? At the end of the day, does it matter? We've had such a positive response to our first single by Sulkowicz on our digital-only sub-label Fodder that I've no doubt this will be a popular release. Aut | Home This will be the first release on our burn-to-order sub-label Ferric and it's a beautiful piece of music. Warm, analog, perfect. In addition to this we have a number of non-audio projects forthcoming in 2001: co-organising a festival titled 'Protocol' running in late April in Belfast featuring Pita, Fennesz, Stockhausen & Walkman, etc.; a new multiple by Christophe Behrens, titled 'Peep Show'; a second installment in our Primer series of periodicals titled 'Code' and probably about a million other things I've forgotten. Lastly I'll need a complete discography. F : Ouch. I hate discographys. The best I could suggest is to list our Catalog page at the website, we've never just released CDs/audio so there are really too many things to mention. http://www.fallt.com