Interview w/ Matthew Cruz from Longinus Recordings
By Nick Caceres
Published 11/01/2024
Even though it’s only been three years, it feels like this little label has been around forever and has aged eloquently throughout its many trials and tribulations. Even though Longinus Recordings is run out of a dorm room in some random town wedged between the great lakes, Matthew Cruz has amassed one of the most iconic rosters in recent memory ranging from 5th wave emo to some of the most cunning edge shoegaze at the moment.
Formed out of an online interaction with Parannoul in early 2021, Matthew Cruz had zero experience with running a label before launching Longinus making it one of the riskier origins covered in this series. Cruz would utilize the limited knowledge and experience in business and physical media he had at the time to keep the label up and running in its earliest period like managing orders, writing the press releases and making cassette tapes. From this point onwards, Cruz would extend his connections to house various albums and EPs from the likes of Asian Glow, Della Zyr and Sonhos Tomam Conta who are now, though unique in their own respective ways, Parannoul contemporaries reigning in a new sound for this corner of music in the early 2020s.
The following interview took place on the night of October 11, where we discussed some recent reissues and fresh drops under Longinus as well as reaching deep into the past, weaving our way up from there through tons of cool stories and so much more.
Longinus Recordings alternative logo
Image Courtesy of Bandcamp
Nick: Hey Matt! What's up? How have you been lately?
Matt: Not too bad. I just finished shipping, I want to say, 500 or so records across the world these past few weeks. So it's kind of been a blur of packing stuff day after day. It's nice to have that behind me and now I can focus on other projects. I'm celebrating that right now.
Nick: I know that one of those big orders you did was the first reissue of “Hikari no Kakeru" by Walrus on wax after being out of print for nearly 25 years. How did you find out about Walrus and were you a fan before working with them?
Matt: So it's been out of print since I think 2000 or 2001. I was not terribly familiar with obscure Japanese Shoegaze before I met Parannoul. Parannoul actually introduced me to Walrus and a bunch of other Japanese Shoegaze bands. He's the reason why they kind of have any, you know, inkling of notoriety in online music circles due to his Rate Your Music interview. When that dropped, I want to say they had hardly any ratings or listens but after that people were like, “wait a minute he's onto something. This is kind of an incredible record.” But yeah no I had never heard of them until I met Parannoul and, you know, everybody kind of shares music with each other like “hey, I know you’d like this, check this out.” It was really good and I needed to see if I can do something with this because I don't know who else will.
Nick: How did you end up getting in contact with the band?
Matt: So this reissue took almost two years from start to finish and I don't mean in a mystique kind of way. It's mostly been trying to figure out who owns the masters of the project and how to reach the necessary people in the structure of whatever organization or people who own that to get their permission to do this, do it correctly. So it was a really interesting situation because I actually found what I believe to be the band members on Facebook. I was literally messaging these people just completely cold in Japanese being like, “hey, I'm so and so. You have no idea who I am. I love this genre of music and this band you were in 20 years ago. Do you have or own this? Is there somebody else on this?” I never got a response from any of the members or people that I thought were the members, except for one, who was actually the lead singer and guitarist, Akitomo Tanaka. He didn't give me an answer or a conversation or anything. I know absolutely nothing about the guy. I was negotiating a reissue with the parent label, Teichiku Entertainment when Tanaka messaged me a pre-save link to “Hikari No Kakera.” In the middle of my conversation with their legal department, the album had been uploaded to streaming, which confused me because I was initially also seeking digital publishing rights. At the time, they were in the middle of transitioning old content to streaming, which I did not know. I ended up figuring out how to reach the proper people to get the reissue in motion by contacting their old band manager, who I found on a scan on the liner notes from the CD on Discogs. He was a professor at a Japanese university teaching music business. So I contacted the university itself because I couldn't find any information or social media of the guy and said, “hey, can you put me in contact with their old manager, Ryo Imai?” I mean, I didn't say I'm trying to do this. I just needed to talk to the professor and whatnot in this university. Probably a very odd inquiry to get but they sent me his way and I said, “you know, I actually need help with this.” He told me that he knew who had the rights to the album. So he was able to put a good word in and be like, “hey, this kid from America is trying to do this, help.” That got the ball rolling to actually turn this from an idea into something that I could actually execute. Very thankful for him and I actually thanked him in the new liner notes for the CD and the vinyl press.
Walrus - "光のカケラ" (Hikari No Kakera) Digipak CD product photo
Image Courtesy of Longinus Recordings
Walrus - "光のカケラ" (Hikari No Kakera) (2000) album cover
Image Courtesy of Longinus Recordings
Walrus - "光のカケラ" (Hikari No Kakera) "Dyed" Marble Vinyl product photo
Image Courtesy of Longinus Recordings
Nick: Dude, you were in the trenches. I believe that’s the oldest album to be reissued by your label. Are you hoping to reissue older records like that? If so, what do you have in mind?
Matt: So I currently have another reissue in the works. A Japanese Dream Pop band. I have been asked this stuff before. I don't really like jinxing anything so I don't like to insinuate that something is going to be reissued and then have it not. Japanese bureaucracy is incredibly slow. It's very painful to navigate and very painful to penetrate. So I don't like to count my eggs before they hatch. But in general, I'm trying to uncover a lot of music that was released in Asia throughout the 1990s and the 2000s, seeing what else is around that people have missed. When you think about it, Walrus, at least in my opinion, one of the best artists to ever have been made, of the Japanese shoegaze scene. It's personally the best for my tastes, but in general, I always think, “if that was discovered only recently, how many other records are out there That not enough people know about that need preservation or just a larger voice to try and have their audience found?” So right now I'm working on a dream pop reissue of a relatively well known band. I haven't found any other albums. I've tried to do other reissues but the music industry in Japan is completely different to the United States. Labels basically own the masters and if you can't reach their legal department or if the band is on a hiatus or something, for some reason that means that they don't want to or they have an agreement with the band or something (label) that they can only do stuff with their permission. It's a weird scenario because I have reached out to various labels about certain works that I would like to reissue, but sometimes it just won't pan out. I usually check after, because I don't really take no for an answer. I do but…you know…I'll feel it out again. I'll be like, “hey, I was here when I asked. I know a little bit more about what I'm doing.” I try to leverage the experience that I have. That's also part of why I'm trying to do reissues ‘cause if I can point to labels that I've worked with in Japan or whatnot and the actual quality of the packaging or the recording that I ended up releasing as a final product. That's actually why I got a label website, not for the Shopify storefront, it was literally just so when I emailed Japanese labels that there was a pretty professional looking spot for them to see this versus a Bandcamp page.
Nick: Going from that, let's talk about an artist that you're more familiar with who recently dropped an album, “Corpos de Água” by Sonhos Tomam Conta. What were your thoughts on this new direction they were taking compared to where they were when you first started working with them back in 2021?
Matt: You know, I would say “Corpos de Água” is probably my favorite record of the year so far. I would say at this point in time, It’s absolutely Lua’s magnum opus. When she was first making music with the “Cyberia” EP or the “Wierd” full-length that we got in March of 2021. I love all of her music. She has such an incredible gift for melody and structure and tension and pacing. I wasn't in love with Sonhos Tomam Conta because of the emo delivery or the tinges of Blackgaze. I wondered how she would expand upon that with her contributions to, “Downfall of the Neon Youth” or her record, “Hypnagogia.” It was a very natural progression. If you paid attention to her music, she kind of shed the whole Blackgaze thing after “Downfall of The Neon Youth.” It still shows up as an influence in her records, like “Maladaptive Daydreaming.” Her most recent EPs was kind of a teaser for the material that she was working on. I thought that it made complete sense from what I know about Lua and the music that she loves. I think that “Corpos de Água” is a record that is very much needed in the current shoegaze landscape and just dream pop in general. Half the reason why my label exists is because I want to platform different perspectives on shoegaze and dream pop in general. I think that by making a record that is inherently Brazilian the way that she did subverts the current Shoegaze zeitgeist that people understand. It's very trendy right now, shoegaze in general and production, but there's nothing really new coming out. I think that having a more cosmopolitan perspective as somebody who isn't born in the United States or has a completely different cultural background makes it a lot easier to make something that's genuinely new and progressive. I mean, look at me, I'm very much not white, I'm Latino. The music that Lua made has always appealed to me specifically and it's music that I would say that I've always had a much easier time loving because it reminded me of the music that I would listen to growing up, the music that my dad would play, or the music when I would visit my grandparents. It’s a record that's very important to me because it’s basically just a confirmation of the whole reason why I even published music in the first place. It's proof that Shoegaze doesn't have to be made by shaggy haired Americans or British people to be good.
Nick: I know that part of the reason why you did a vinyl pressing was to raise money for the UN World Food Program for the people of Gaza and the West Bank. How much have you raised so far with that vinyl drop?
Matt: I'm not sure. I haven't really calculated it yet because I need to figure it out. The test pressings alone are all sold out so that's at least like 200 bucks. I have to see the cost of everything once it goes in. I want to say that at the very least, like a few hundred dollars or whatnot. It kind of depends on the costs of the actual pressing itself. So it's an abstract number in my head right now. We were thinking of donating 10 to 15 percent of every sale but of course that depends on the actual cost of production per unit that necessitates how much we have to work with so we can donate without it eating into the actual viability of the product itself. But, you know, a few hundred bucks. That's really all that I can say.
Sonhos Tomam Conta - "corpos de água" Translucent "água" Cassette product photo
Image Courtesy of Longinus Recordings
Sonhos Tomam Conta - "corpos de água" (2024) album cover
Image Courtesy of Bandcamp
Sonhos Tomam Conta - "corpos de água" CD Digipak product photo
Image Courtesy of Longinus Recordings
Sonhos Tomam Conta - "corpos de água" "água" Colored Vinyl Record product photo
Image Courtesy of Longinus Recordings
Nick: Returning to an OG you could say. Last year you worked with another veteran artist, Xinlisupreme, whose music I'm a lot more familiar with. I'm curious to know how you first uncovered them.
Matt: I have a few friends that are as terminally online as I am, as far as music and whatnot so I had heard of Xinlisupreme before. I knew the story of “I am not Shinzo Abe.” Obviously, I think there's some renewed interest when Shinzo Abe was assassinated because it kind of confirmed, to a degree, Xinlispupreme’s manifesto for that record. I didn't really listen to it as often as I did until I met Parannoul because again, that is a record that he absolutely loves. I didn't even know if Yasumi owned the masters for it or anything because he was on a label. So I wasn't sure if they took it and said “get off,” or if it was something that he owned outright in its entirety. I just emailed him like, “hey I run this label. I publish this general kind of music. Your record is great. Do you want to do something with it?” That led to the tape press that led to the vinyl press. You just have to ask.
Why did you end up choosing that record in particular, “I am not Shinzo Abe,” over other Xinlisupreme records? Are you planning on reissuing other records of his or is that the end-all-be-all?
Matt: Yeah I wouldn't mind reissuing “Tomorrow Never Comes,” his first record. I would not mind reissuing that but the thing is though, it's always hard to gauge interest in albums and whatnot. Sometimes you can release a record and it won't do as well as you think it does, or you can release a record and it'll break your expectations for the interest that it generates. I would like to reissue it (“Tomorrow Never Comes”) but I think at this point I kind of have to develop my label a little more before I can take on some risky-ish projects. But yeah I would not be opposed to reissuing any of their stuff. I would imagine that they own that record, but I believe that album was released on a label, which might complicate things.
Nick: Wasn't it on a British label?
Matt: I know that Xinlisupreme was signed to FatCat Records for a while and the CD was FatCat. We just did, “I'm not Shinzo Abe” because that was Xinlisupreme's most famous work. So from a risk perspective, it is the project that would likely be the most successful. That's probably one of my favorite releases that I've ever done but also the most expensive. It's an incredible record that I was able to give a really really nice treatment for on wax. Even the colorway itself is an extension of Xinlisupreme's philosophy of the record itself.
Nick: How so is the vinyl colorway an extension of his philosophy?
Matt: The colorway for “I Am Not Shinzo Abe” is a direct extension of Yasumi's thoughts about Shinzo Abe. We wanted to double down on the album's political themes and messaging, which we wanted to extend to the design of the record itself. The six spoke red and white pinwheel is made to resemble the Rising Sun Flag of Japan, a symbol often associated with Fascism and Nationalism in Japan, which Yasumi has derided Abe as. The packaging was meant to reaffirm Yasumi's statements, emphasizing that Shinzo Abe was a fascist and will always be one.
Nick: By the way, that album cover is one of my favorites in the whole genre. It's just so simple and perfect.
Matt: Yeah, absolutely. The flash, the expression of the woman that was modeling on the cover, it's just so interesting.
Xinlisupreme - "I Am Not Shinzo Abe" Red & White Pinwheel Vinyl Record product photo
Image Courtesy of Longinus Recordings
Xinlisupreme - "I Am Not Shinzo Abe" (2018) album cover
Image Courtesy of Bandcamp
Xinlisupreme - "I Am Not Shinzo Abe" "Tiffany Blue" Cassette product photo
Image Courtesy of Discogs
Nick: So going to the beginning, what was growing up like for you and how important was music, specifically Emo and Shoegaze, in your life.
Matt: Yeah, I was always generally interested in music growing up. I think like most people, didn't really solidify until you became a teenager or whatnot and kind of started to cultivate an identity for yourself. I went from listening to top 40 pop hits that we're playing on the radio to suddenly deciding that I was going to get really into Swans. I'm not joking. I'm wearing a swan shirt from their latest tour. Incredible live if you haven’t seen them, phenomenal. My dad was a radio promoter in I think the 1980s for Spanish music in Michigan. He's always played music so music's always been a part of my life. My oldest brother plays guitar so it was something I was kind of tangentially interested in, in the sense that I kind of had a predilection for sound or whatnot. I grew up in the midwest, emo is, of course, a thing. There's a scene. However, in high school I wasn't going to house parties or whatnot but it was something that I was aware of and tried to keep tabs on. I would end up going on occasion to festivals with friends in the latter parts of high school or talking about cool DIY bands with people. But in general I would say that Shoegaze for me kind of began in high school when I listened to My Bloody Valentine and it unlocked a door to an entirely different sound that I've never heard of before. I mean, it's not like it's inaccessible or anything. The records are very well known. I was listening mostly to Post-Rock at the time and normal Pitchfork 10 stuff like Modest Mouse and Wilco. I really got into Shoegaze during my last year of high school and the beginning of college just because there isn't any other music genre, in my opinion, that plays with texture the way that Shoegaze does either by considering it or dismissing it completely outright. The way that that genre, I think, thinks about that sound as the greater instrument of the songs and the albums, I don't think is necessarily matched by any other genre of music. I've always been attracted to noisier styles of music and shoegaze is kind of the terminus of that interest beyond, you know, just like actual noise like Merzbow or something. I was on music forums since I was a teenager, so Sweet Trip gets thrown into the mix and Nu-Gaze like “Nowhere,” Silversun Pickups or M83 are a greater exploration so my taste became relatively well rounded. So yeah, that's a very natural journey. I guess nothing terribly surprising. It's what you would expect from I guess a terminally online music minded individual.
Nick: Now here’s where things get interesting. When did you decide to start a label in college? What was the original concept behind what would become Longinus Recordings?
Matt: Yeah it wasn't really a conscious decision or something that I had planned to do from the start. I was on Rate Your Music. I've used that site since I was 17 or something like that. It's the only good site where you can freely explore genres that you like without having to rely on other people. That's what I've always liked about the site. I saw that eye-catching, iconic, minimalistic, beautiful cover and the genre tags caught my eye. I'm like, “oh, Shoegaze? What am I going to do?” So I listened to the record and I instantly knew this was good. It's the feeling you get whenever you listen to an incredible record and it just blows you away, you're completely floored, you're astonished and you're like “how was this made? How did this get created? Who's the person behind this?” It was a moment like that for me. I was just sitting in my bed. I'm like, "did a 20 year old Korean kid really just make a GOAT record?” I thought it was so good that I emailed the guy like, “hey…I don't know you but this is really good and I really want to do something with it.” I emailed him in English which is very interesting when you think about it because I did not know whether or not he spoke English or if he just used Google Translate for everything. So truly a shot in the dark. I just said, “hey, can I make tapes of this?” He said yes. That email basically snowballed into, “okay, I guess I run a label now.” This got an eight on Pitchfork and then I’m selling literally hundreds of cassettes being like, “shit okay, what am I going to do? I need to find some other artists. This Asian Glow chap is cool. This Sonhos Tomam Conta girl is making some good stuff. Let me add them to the mix.” I just kind of went with it. It's kind of overwhelming when I look back on it, but I told a bunch of people that I would do this thing so I have to follow through on that.
Nick: Yeah that must have been nerve wracking.
Matt: It was and it wasn't 'cause you have to figure out how to run a business and what to keep track of and costs. It's not something that I ever thought of. We actually broke even, I want to say, on the first tape drop because I undercharged people who were buying internationally. I wouldn't say that it's hard work, it's just a lot to consider that you might not consider when you're starting a label. But as I've told you, I'm just an incredibly stubborn person and when I set my mind to something or when I want to do something, I won't give up. I decided, you know, I was going to do this and I made a promise to somebody and, you know, several hundred people by way of them ordering a product for me that I was going to fulfill. So I did what I had to to fulfill that promise. That's the way I see it.
Nick: Did you have any experience making tapes or CDs before this?
Matt: No no no it was something that I had to figure out. Like I said, it was a complete impulse. I thought the record was great. I didn't think that it would be the landmark album that it has become, you know, the banner for the current Shoegaze revival, the second wave of bedroom production that we're seeing now, an incredibly influential record. I considered that it had the potential to become that but it just exploded in popularity out of nowhere. Nobody saw it coming. I just kind of had to buckle down and figure out, “okay, 500 people just paid me for a cassette tape. How the hell do I get those made?” I just googled how to make cassette tapes and messed around in Photoshop. It was just me trying my best to make good on the commercial agreement and what I told somebody who lived on the other side of the world that I would do.
Parannoul - "To See the Next Part of the Dream" Limited Edition Smoke Grey Cassette product photo
Image Courtesy of Bandcamp
Parannoul - "To See the Next Part of the Dream" (2021) album cover
Image Courtesy of Bandcamp
Parannoul - "To See the Next Part of the Dream" Limited Edition Compact Disc -- Digipak product photo
Image Courtesy of Bandcamp
Nick: Out of curiosity, what are your thoughts on parannoul’s recent album, “Sky Hundred?”
Matt: I think “Sky Hundred” is Parannoul's most consistent and realized record by far. The noisy palette and songwriting is incredible to me and the compositions are some of the most beautiful that I have ever heard from him. I feel that he struck a very good balance between melody and intense passages of noise and as someone who loves noise like him, it scratches that itch very well. The movement between the tracklist and its sequence is much more fluid than on “After The Magic” or “To See The Next Part of the Dream” and he revisits his lo-fi production style with the skills he's honed over the past three years that I've known him. “To See The Next Part of the Dream” was written about himself, “After the Magic” was written for us, but “Sky Hundred” is written for Parannoul. The songwriting and themes of the record are distinctly more personal and carry an existential poetry that feels more authentically him, even if it's not quite as accessible or understood as his previous records. I believe “Sky Hundred” reveals to the listener what goes on in his mind as a person who has expectations suddenly thrust upon him, rather than "just another depressed Korean guy." All of his records are authentic and personal, but “Sky Hundred” feels like a reconciliation of his dreams and his reality from both a musical and narrative perspective.
Parannoul - "Sky Hundred" (2024) album cover
Image Courtesy of Bandcamp
Nick: Are you guys planning on or at least hoping to work together in the future?
Matt: Probably. I don't really plan stuff out or ask him about what's cooking. it just kind of happens. If he wants to press something, we will press it. If he doesn't, we do not. We have an agreement to continue issuing his first few records and EPs on CD and Cassette. That being said, whether or not he wants to work with me is his choice, and has been since we met. There are no plans at this moment to issue “Sky Hundred” if that is what this question is getting at. Never say never I suppose, but Parannoul's music is his and it's his choice what to do with it.
Nick: Circling back, where did the name “Longinus” come from?
Matt: “Neon Genesis Evangelion.” It's my favorite anime/manga of all time. Very impactful and culturally resonant, especially today. I feel like the themes are in an experimental lane and whatnot. The themes that Hideaki Anno was exploring with are more pervasive than ever, but it was also an anime that Parannoul really liked. He cited it as an influence for “To See The Next Part of the Dream," the same with “Welcome to the N.H.K.” and various other cult anime and films. So I just chose it because I like Evangelion, he likes Evangelion, it sounds pretty good, it's got a good ring to it, so that was it. It felt natural to me. I'm like, “it's both an extension of myself and it was kind of my way of seeing like, you know, we're two strangers on the other side of the internet, but we have something in common.” I didn't mull over the decision or have 50 different names. It was just like, “this will work.”
Nick: So at this time, you have this label. How did you manage to run this label out of what I assume is your dorm and what effect did running this business have on your college life?
Matt: Yeah so kind of a lie when I say that I ran it out of my dorm. I actually ran it out of my college apartment. It sounds more impressive if you think of Rick Rubin literally having a plaque on his old NYU dorm. I would say that it sounds more authentic to me because I was…shit was I a sophomore? I don't remember. Maybe a junior, technically a sophomore at the time. I'm not the most social person in the world. I had a tough time making friends in college. So it's not like the time was really going anywhere. It was just me listening to music or playing games or hanging out with some of the few radio buds that had the same outlook on music and taste in music that I had. So I wouldn't say it really interrupted my college life at all or threw it into disarray. It was just absorbing time that was spent doing other things.
Nick: So staying on college, you mentioned that you were involved in radio before starting this interview, what degree were you trying to acquire and what activities were you doing outside of the label?
Matt: I have a degree in marketing. I went to business school. I don't really use my education to further my label which sounds kind of ironic or hypocritical when you think that I have a degree in business and I generally know what I'm talking about as far as that stuff goes. Music has always just been a passion of mine and I think the music industry in general should be more equitable to artists or spotlight people that aren't usually spotlighted in certain genres of music. So it was just kind of a way to further my own philosophy on what I think people should be listening to or what I think the music landscape should resemble. I don't really do a lot of marketing for my label, despite the fact I very obviously could, but that's just because I know what I want my label to be and I know how I want to position it. Part of that positioning isn't making really corny ads or reels or whatever. It's about being an authentic person that really likes music and is passionate about music and won't cut corners to disseminate music that he thinks is good. One of the reasons why Sputnik actually told me that they wanted to press “Weatherglow” with me was because of that authenticity. It's because I frame my label as a byproduct of myself, not necessarily like a corporate entity or something. I could, if I wanted to, I'm sure that I could but I have no interest in doing that. Music to me is something that's very sacred, Shoegaze especially.
Nick: You also mentioned that you had a stint in music journalism, right?
Matt: Oh yes. I did that basically as an excuse to write about music that I like. I have a very verbose writing style. Music is something that's been a part of my life for a very long time. I really like talking about music and explaining why I think something is so good. It doesn't really matter if what I'm saying is substanceless or if people pay attention. It's just the act of doing something that I find very gratifying. College radio was really just more of a vehicle for me to be able to write in the style that I like to write about music that I love. Of course, I met some fantastic people while doing that and got to do some amazing things as an extension of that. I actually wanted to be a music journalist when I entered college, my original minor was journalism, but music journalism is kind of dying and funnily enough through my label work I realized that I would make a bigger impact by platforming music than talking about it. I still love writing and talking about music, but I mostly do it for personal reasons or whatever. I'll drop a review on Rate Your Music or whatnot. I have to keep the mind clean. My creative writing skills aren't exactly atrophying. I have to write copy for press advances or framing albums on my website or just making a call to action. That is the extent of my stint in journalism. During my senior year, I actually went to South by Southwest (SXSW) where Gyn was performing as Asian glow. So I actually got to see them again which was really exciting for me 'cause that was after I went to South Korea for Digital Dawn the summer before. So that was cool.
Nick: Real quick, to clear things up, what College did you attend to acquire that business degree and what was the name of the college radio you worked for?
Matt: Michigan State University. I went to the Eli Broad School of Business and studied Marketing. The station I worked for was Impact 89FM -- WDBM!
Nick: Circling back, what was it like meeting all of them finally?
Matt: It's kind of surreal because, you know, it's weird to think that you've built something or that these people are popular in a purely digital sense and then for that world to kind of collapse into the physical reality is kind of mind boggling. It's not like I was idolizing these people and I have known these people for like a year and a half. So it was just very exciting to finally meet people that I have been talking to regularly for such a long time. You know, you think to yourself like, “Parannoul is an anonymous artist. Is this guy even real?” which sounds absurd to think of but for the longest time Parannoul was merely a concept. There was a person behind the concept, but that's not what people were interested in.
Nick: He was like a Mid-Air Thief to an extent. It’s like, you meet him and you're like, “Oh, he's just a regular guy that likes to make music.”
Matt: right? It's like, “oh my God, it's you.” Like “shit. Here you are…Damn.”
Nick: Yeah exactly. What did you think of those performances? Both SXSW and Digital Dawn. What was it like seeing them live?
Matt: They're great performers. Paranoul's first ever performance was at Digital Dawn. I mean, it was rough because it was, you know, his first performance in general, but the crowd itself was so excited and so proud that he could have played the worst set in the world and people would have loved it. He gave his all and it sounded as good as you would want a first performance to be. I think the context of the performance itself is immensely more important than the objective quality of it. It was an informal festival that was celebrating a lot of up and coming independent music artists in the Seoul area, removing them from the digital landscape that they had almost exclusively inhabited and turning it into something that could be considered real. So that is probably the coolest thing that I've ever done or might ever do in my life. It's slightly surreal, very affirming and a very interesting experience.
Fin Fior, Wappdi, Della Zyr, BrokenTeeth, Asian Glow & Parannoul - "Digital Dawn" (2022) album cover
Image Courtesy of Discogs
[GYN]. (2022, August 23). Asian Glow - Circumstances Telling Me Who I Am (LIVE @ Digital Dawn) [Video].
[reeto]. (2023, March 18). Parannoul - Analog Sentimentalism live at Digital Dawn [Video].
[reeto]. (2023, April 8). Parannoul - Your Place live at Digital Dawn [Video].
Nick: Did you feel the same way about SXSW?
Matt: SXSW was good. Gyn actually performed “Late Night Stroll” with Weatherday at one of their sets. There's a recording of it online. I was standing in the front with my camera for like 30 minutes recording it, ‘cause I'm like, “I have to do this. I have the opportunity to probably record the only live performance of Asian Glow and Weatherday,” so that's what I did. I actually missed Asian Glow's set for Jane Remover, who flew them out there which I'm kind of pissed that I wasn't able to see, but that was just because of the dates that I was booked as a journalist for the festival by my university. There's not much I can do about that. I had already seen Asian glow live, so it's not like I was missing anything but from what I heard, a lot of people loved that set and they played “The Flag Is Raised” live which is really fucking cool.
[Longinus Recordings]. (2024, January 17). Weatherday Live @ House of Commons (2023 SXSW Topshelf Records) [FULL SET] [Video].
Nick: I know that you have a specific focus, if it wasn't obvious already, on non western artists or non North American artists, if you're considering Brazil. Why did you decide to take your label in this direction? Why not focus on artists local to Michigan instead?
Matt: I decided early on that Shoegaze, Noise Pop, Noise Rock, those genres that I'm sure that depending on the person could all lump into Shoegaze very vaguely is the only genre of music that I feel qualified to really say what I think is good or not. It's not that I'm incapable of doing that to other genres. It's just that I've spent so much time listening to and exploring these genres that if I was going to do anything in the music industry, it would have to be around Shoegaze. There's somewhat of a shoegaze scene in Michigan, but I am kind of cynical and I think the vast majority of shoegaze in the U.S. is garbage. I think most people are worshiping Kevin Shields and like I've alluded to earlier, the vast majority of people that make Shoegaze now are not really doing anything new with the genre. Don't get me wrong, I think there's still some great Shoegaze coming out. You don't have to reinvent the wheel for it to be good but from my perspective, my taste personally, when I've listened to so much Shoegaze, if you're trying to emulate the sound palette of My Bloody Valentine or Slowdive, I would rather just listen to Loveless or Souvlaki than whatever it is you're making because it won't ever be as good. Yeah, it's pretty dismissive of me to say, but part of the reason why I was focused on worldly acts or acts from outside of the anglosphere was simply because I thought that their music was actually trying to do something new. When you are not immersed in U.S. culture and you have the cultural fabric of your home country supporting you throughout your life, exposing you to something that most Americans or Europeans wouldn't ever listen to, it will absolutely influence how you make music, how you produce it, how you arrange it, how you approach it all subconsciously because there's a completely different way of making music in Brazil than there is in America and likewise in Japan or Korea. Some of the genres of music use completely different instruments, different timbres and I think that informs how people make music. When I listen to Asian glow or Parannoul, Della Zyr, Sonhos Tomam Conta I can pick up on that in their music. That's the strength that they have by not being American and having a completely different upbringing. From a literal standpoint, it is made that way so their music will always sound fresh in a way that a lot of American bands won't and they're infused by a lot of influences and use a lot of instruments that wouldn't normally show up in contemporary American Shoegaze. That's why I have dedicated my label to exploring that. Anybody can buy a Fender® Shields Blender™ and make their first shoegaze record, but not every single person understands Bossa Nova or MPB enough to expand upon its textural or production palette into a unified thesis for a dream pop record. Not everybody knows classical Korean folk instruments to turn them into a four song EP about death. Not every single person has listened to so much Japanese shoegaze that the structures and the productions just unconsciously diffuse into Korean shoegaze. It's just a completely different beast and I still think that it's largely unmapped territory. That is just not the case for the vast majority of shoegaze that's being made at this point.
Nick: Interestingly the majority of the original and current roster of your label hails from South Korea. Was that intentional or is that just where the wind took you?
Matt: That's just what was happening. It wasn't necessarily intentional. It's not like I was a Koreaboo or somebody who is needlessly obsessed with a very specific culture. It's just more serendipitous in the way that this record was released, it happened to be Korean, it was really good. This other record that was released, wow, Korea again! fantastic! It just happened that way. I was impressed by several records, more or less in succession by artists that happened to be from Korea. I think there's a bit of an overstatement that there is a greater South Korean shoegaze scene. I can't speak on it because I'm not Korean, I don't live there, but for the most part, a lot of people are kind of lumping the Shoegaze scene into five different people, which is fine. It's kind of how, in actuality, the scene celebrates itself way back when it was only like four or five bands, it wasn't a legit scene. It was just a few bands that liked to play each other's music. Like I said, it was just something that happened. If there was an incredible Shoegaze record that came from China, Ukraine or hell, Morocco, I would have published it. It just happened to be these albums from these countries happen to get on my radar at this specific time. That's just kind of how the cookie crumbled.
Nick: There are some people that we haven't really gone into that much in-depth yet. What was it like working with Gyn, previously Asian glow, and seeing the direction their music took onwards from” Cull Ficle?”
Matt: It’s been an amazing time. I've always loved Gyn's music and how they approach texture and composition and structure. To hear them forego the conventional Lo-fi record like “Cull Ficle” and then expand into something much more abstract on their works like “Pt.2345678andstill” or “Stalled Flutes, Means” or their third off the split on “Downfall of the Neon Youth.” Amazing to see that happen in real time because when you start with a song like “Circumstances Telling Me Who I Am” and then you go into a multi-phase suite of Indietronica Post-Rock on “Look Close, Nose the Reflection” It's pretty incredible to hear what goes on in this person's mind or the leaps and bounds that they're making in terms of experimenting with structure and production. It's been a real treat seeing all that unfold and it's not even something with Gyn, that's happened with every single artist that I work with. Seeing them mature in real time making music they want to make and taking more risks.
Asian Glow - "Cull Ficle" (2021) album cover
Image Courtesy of Bandcamp
Nick: I know that in 2022 Gyn had the opportunity to collaborate with someone who I feel like serves as a pioneer at this point for this type of DIY music. I feel like the scene owes a lot to them and who I'm talking about is Weatherday. What was it like dropping and experiencing the reception for that EP? I remember a lot of people were really hyped about it.
Matt: Yeah, like I said, it's kind of crazy to watch a wave of music in real time become exponentially bigger with successive releases. That solidified a lot of Gyn's work. They were already getting looks from “Cull Ficle” but “Weatherglow” really catapulted them into the limelight. I listened to “Come In” before I even started a label. I love that record. It was very surreal to suddenly have the opportunity to work with somebody that I've looked up to for a very long time from a musical standpoint and not necessarily growing along with them. It's like one of the most daring and audacious artists in the DIY space resonates with one of your friends and they just decided to make an EP and have people latch onto that and love it. It's insane when you think about it. That record was made in a really short amount of time. I want to say they were finishing that record five minutes before it was released. Sputnik told me actually, when I interviewed them a really long time ago, that they were mixing “Center” because they were originally going to leave it off of the EP. They were mixing “Center" five minutes before the EP dropped. Sputnik is an amazing person too. Always had a really good head on their shoulders. They're great about platforming other artists and talking about what music they think is good. It's just been crazy to work with somebody that I looked up to even before I had any interest or did any work in the music industry. I'm very grateful.
Nick: Yeah, they do need to drop though. It's been five years since we’ve gotten a solo record from them.
Matt: “Hornet Disaster” is coming. I think it will probably be 2025. They've been super busy touring so it wouldn't surprise me if that impacted the timeline. I've heard some of the demos that have been passed around in their discord and it sounds great. It'll be great to see what that ultimately matures into.
Asian Glow & Weatherday - "Weatherglow" (2022) EP cover
Image Courtesy of Bandcamp
Nick: Some of my personal favorite moments of Gyn are on an album that you’ve brought up multiple times throughout this interview already which is the three-way split, “Downfall of the Neon Youth,” with tracks like “Nails” and “One May Be Harming” being some of my personal favorite Asian Glow songs. From your perspective, how did that project come about?
Matt: Downfall of the Neon Youth was originally going to be a split between Gyn and Lua. They decided to ask Parannoul since they were all label mates and he agreed. It was surprising to me, because it wasn't something I imagined would happen nor encouraged, and I think it's cool that they went out of their way to befriend each other and discuss music. Not all labels have rosters that are knit together in a way beyond a greater music scene. “Downfall of the Neon Youth” is a really ambitious album that stands as a testament to how music unites people and the dawn of an age where people can make music together regardless of where they live.
Parannoul / Asian Glow / Sonhos Tomam Conta - "Downfall of the Neon Youth" (2021) album cover
Image Courtesy of Bandcamp
Nick: What are your thoughts on Gyn's recent artist name change? I know that some people thought they were quitting music.
Matt: “Unwired Detour” was shock dropped by Gyn, so it does not technically belong to my label's catalogue. Their rebrand to Audinjee came out of nowhere relatively speaking, but they had expressed hesitancy about the name of their project being an alcohol joke. That being said, it's their choice even if it carries the risk of disrupting the momentum and notoriety tied to their previous alias.
Asian Glow - "Unwired Detour" (2024) album cover
Image Courtesy of Rate Your Music
Nick: There's one artist that we have barely mentioned at all yet who is similar to people that you worked with at this point, Della Zyr. By any chance did Parannoul or Asian glow have a hand in forming that connection?
Matt: Yeah, Gyn actually sent me her record. I kinda saw it on Rate Your Music, but it wasn't something that I really considered until Gyn sent it to me and was like, “hey, you need to listen to this.” I remember listening to it and I didn't really like it, the first time that I heard “비타민과 우려 Vitamins and Apprehension,” but Gyn begged me. They were like, “you need to listen to this again. You're wrong” and, you know, they were right. There've been a lot of records that didn't instantly click with me the first time that I listened to them. It's through successive listens when it's easier to gain an appreciation for different styles of production and unravel the entirety of the album. For the most part, I would say that I can easily tell whether or not somebody is talented in about 10 seconds of listening to their music. That's not necessarily a dig at people. I just know exactly what I'm looking for in terms of music curation, production skill and performance. I feel like I can identify that for my purposes pretty easily but I guess it goes to show that you don't really know everything that there is to know about music. I can be wrong about or dismissive about people's works. You know, you can go from dropping a mid album to dropping a classic and likewise, you can go from dropping a classic to dropping mid. It's just how art works. It's just the way the cookie crumbles. I'm immensely grateful that Jin decided to be like “you're fucking wrong. You need to listen to this again because it's a grower man.” Della's music in general has been really important to me over these past few years. “모호함 속의 너 Nebulous You” basically blew “비타민과 우려 Vitamins and Apprehension” out of the water. I think she really matured her sound. “비타민과 우려 Vitamins and Apprehension” is already fantastic. It's an incredible record but I mean “모호함 속의 너 Nebulous You” is just a behemoth of sound. I'm really grateful that Gyn told me, “you need to listen to this again until you get it.” Had that not happened, I wouldn't have released one of my favorite works that I've ever done or met a really good friend. You're not a monolith is really all that I could say. It's cool to have faith in your abilities and you not second guess yourself because I think that's an important part of being a label head or really doing anything like being confident and standing up for what you believe in. But it's also totally okay to be wrong about things. I trusted my friend who knew better than I did.
Nick: What are your thoughts on her approach? How unique is it from other people that you’ve worked with?
Matt: Della's music approaches lo-fi textures in a way that I don't think a lot of artists do. It's a very smooth sound. Usually when people think of Lo-fi Rock or Noise Pop, they think of a very jagged sounding, light dissonance on the track master, you know, just a little crunchy. But Della's music is more wispy and formless which is probably why I wasn't super in love with it the first time I heard it because it was a direct contrast to the type of music that I was platforming. She's not the first person to make like super lo-fi sounding dream popper Shoegaze but her style is something that seems a lot simpler than it actually is because she uses compression in a way that I think creates the boundaries of her sound and of her atmosphere. She's not choking the actual textural palette that she's using. She is making it work within the boundaries that she's defined. She has complete mastery over her atmosphere in a way that a lot of artists do not. That understanding of sound is ultimately what separates good Shoegaze artists from great ones. So her sound was a complete breath of fresh air and that's part of why it didn't vibe with me the first time that I heard it because it was the antithesis of what I was listening to. When you go from a deliberately over-processed and noisy record like “To See The Next Part of the Dream” to a hazy and lo-fi record like “비타민과 우려 Vitamins and Apprehension” you can get almost whiplash, but that contrast is exactly what makes it as good as it is.
Della Zyr - "비타민과 우려 Vitamins and Apprehension" (2022) album cover
Image Courtesy of Bandcamp
Della Zyr - "모호함 속의 너 Nebulous You" (2022) EP cover
Image Courtesy of Bandcamp
Nick: To leave on that, what are some 2025 goals that you have for Longinus Recordings?
Matt: That's a good question. Longinus is a business and it's like a label, but I'm not necessarily an incredibly ambitious person in the sense that I want to work in the music industry full-time. I want my roster to double in size in the next year. I want to release two records. I think music is very sacred and I think that it's best when people have time to work on whatever it is that they are working on to ensure the best possible product. In general, I would say that I hope the reissues that I'm currently planning and working towards end up panning out and that we can release them soon because they'd be really cool. But as far as 2025, I don't know, maybe like secure distribution or something? It would be cool to have our records in the stores or something like that or be able to order for specialty stores that carry more experimental music. That would be cool but in general I'm not really concerned with what goes on in the next year or the next month.
Nick: I just want to say real quick, like, yeah. I think your label is one of my favorite aspects of this current wave of emo. I really think that in the future people are going to view this label as pivotal and influential for this scene. I just want to congratulate you on that because that's such a huge achievement and I'm sure you never figured it would be this big.
Matt: I would say that I'm not really trying to cultivate influence. I'm just trying to show people what I think is good, what I think people should listen to and I'm trying to leverage my platform and my notoriety as a label owner to try and make the music industry more equitable. A lot of my artists represent people that aren't usually a part of the scenes that they're in, whether that be DIY or shoegaze. It's not really about influence or whatever. Any label head will tell you that they think they have the best perspective on music. I'm just trying to advocate for what I believe in while sticking to my guns about what I want for the future of the music industry from an independent perspective. So that's really all that I'm trying to do and I'm very grateful to have released records that people think are very good.
Nick: I think they’re going to be historically impactful for the future.
Matt: I hope so.
Nick: Thank you so much.
Matt: Totally man, totally.