Interview w/ Nicolas Babick from Cyan Sun Records
By Nick Caceres
Published 09/26/2025
For the first time since its initial drop in early 2024, Samlrc's modern Post-Rock milestone, “A Lonely Sinner” will finally receive the vinyl treatment through a humble label run out of a private residence in the Pacific Northwest, Cyan Sun Records.
A living testament to the entrepreneurial spirit, Nicolas Babick defies the odds of what many will expect from a small web label. The Bellingham resident does not consider himself an artist by any means. Instead his business reframes him as a curator of taste that directly benefits any artist who Babick lets hitch their wagon to the Cyan Sun network.
The following interview took place over Google Meets on the night of September 15, where we discussed the “Lonely Sinner” vinyl pre-order as well as Babick’s eclectic portfolio of business enterprise with Luke Stone, Macaque Sauna, and someone who I just interviewed for Sonemic, the one and only Devyn Smith. Babick also reveals the origins of starting the label, and why it’s not as hard as it looks, urging the reader to start their own and send him their music.
Photo of Nicolas Babick.
Photo Courtesy of Nicolas Babick
Nick: Hey Babick. How's the weather up in Bellingham?
Babick: Going good. Summer has been nice. I think we're slowly starting to enter into a torrential downpour soon so enjoying the sun while I can for now. I graduated college a couple of months ago so now I don't have that burden over me, which is interesting since I've been in school my whole life now. I'm kind of just adjusting. That’s how I'm going right now.
Nick: I'm in the same boat. I graduated in May and it's a strange feeling. I don't feel like an adult yet.
Babick: I'm kind of in the same boat in a sense. I think I started to consider myself an adult when I turned maybe 21 or something 'cause at that point I'd been doing Cyan Sun for a year or so at that point. It's kind of hard not to consider yourself an adult when you own a small business and have a job and pay rent and all this other shit. But yeah, I don't think I turned into one until I was like 21 or so, at least mentally.
Nick: Okay. I think a good place to start is that recently you've announced that Cyan Sun will be pressing the modern Post-Rock classic, “A lonely sinner” by Samlrc on wax for the first time ever. At the time of this recording, there's an open pre-order so anyone who's reading this should definitely pick it up. How did this arrangement with Sam and Starrcade co come about?
Babick: So I've actually known Rosalie, who's one of the people that runs Starrcade, for a while now, even before Starrcade was ever a thing. They actually asked me, before they started Starrcade, for advice like, “hey, how do I run a label?” because I'd been doing Cyan Sun for a little bit. A lot of my online friends are from the Anthony Fantano Discord server when I joined that back in 2020. If I remember correctly, she was just generally in that circle. So we've known each other from even before we ran these labels. At one point, I don't remember if it was me mentioning it to her or she mentioned it to me, but at some point we got talking about Samlrc vinyl and I just proposed like, “oh, I could hop on the project and help out if needed be,” and she said that'd be sick. So we got a group chat going with me, her, Adam of Plantasia, Sam, and then cybercrasherstv, who is a collaborator of Sam's that helped us with the project as well. We just, over the course of a couple months, continued talking in a group chat about it and eventually it came to fruition.
Nick: When that album was first released and they were doing the first two CD runs, I kind of figured that it would get picked up and pressed on vinyl by some label. I'm not surprised it's your label. You’ve reissued music kind of like this which I'll get to in a bit. I want to ask, what are your thoughts on the album itself and do you consider “A Lonely Sinner" to be a highlight of last year?
Babick: Oh, for sure. I am very much someone who just is constantly listening to music all the time. I'm also just a huge Post-Rock fan in general. I would consider Godspeed You! Black Emperor one of my top five bands of all time. I love long form music. I love the playing around with textures and timbers with rock instrumentation. Samlrc, I think, just presented a very refreshing take on the style that I thought was super interesting. It's sort of difficult to listen to and not be convinced that it's amazing.
Nick: It feels like a new chapter of Post-Rock, in a way.
Babick: I've always kind of had this delineation of Post-Rock being almost in two styles, what I call the romantic and the evil styles. Romantic style being stuff that's more beauty focused, maybe like certain Godspeed albums like “Lift Your Skinny Fists” or Talk Talk, and then the evil side being like Swans or like Glenn Branca or some shit like that.
Nick: I’d definitely throw Sprain in the evil side.
Babick: Sprain is incredible. I actually saw Sprain in 2022 before they broke up, so even before “Lamb as Effigy” had released, in a living room in Bellingham where the only context I had was their Slowcore record from 2018, whatever that's called. I'm forgetting the name. So I went to the show expecting that and then they played “Margin of Error” in full and my mind was just
fucking blown 'cause we didn't know that's the direction they were going. We thought they were still just a Slowcore band. I remember that being a super surreal experience for me.
Nick: I love Sprain and Shearling, they're both incredible. Definitely going to be a highlight of this decade.
Babick: For sure.
Nick: I want to open up another interesting dialogue. In regards to artists like Samlrc, something I'm sure you've noticed is that going into the 2020s, there seems to have been an uptick of artists who are openly furry with the main players being obviously Sam, but also STOMACH BOOK, I guess Vylet Pony, the controversial Patricia Taxxon and This Is The Glasshouse. What’s up with
that? Is this your doing!?
Babick: It's not my doing. I myself am not a furry. I think part of it you honestly could attribute to COVID just because when we went into lockdown, we sort of, I guess, found ourselves going into more niche internet communities. Like I started really record collecting in 2020 because I was like, “I'm at the house. I might as well start doing something. I might as well start collecting records” which is now a really bad addiction slash habit of mine. I have way too many records at this point, but I think because people were spending more time on the internet, they were learning more about niche communities. As a result, these “internet-based artists”, as I think of them, where they're associated with net labels, they're mostly known through music sharing online as opposed to seeing them at shows or something. I think the uprise in music by furries is just a byproduct of the uprise of online music, or at least what I think of as online music.
Nick: I think before, the only band like that was Car Seat Headrest. I don't know if they themselves were furry, I don't know too much about them, but that can be viewed as almost an origin of that stuff. Then right when 2020 hits, BOOM. you have all these people coming out where their albums are furry art. It's not really what people were used to seeing in that type of music.
Babick: Yeah. I'm trying to think of notable albums by furries pre-2020 and outside of Car Seat Headrest, I'm kind of drawing a blank. So I do think with COVID hitting and internet music rising is kind of when you see that rise with all the artists you listed and maybe some others that I'm forgetting–I'm not super tapped into that scene. I think if I dug deep enough I would notice a trend even more.
Samlrc - "A Lonely Sinner" (2024) album cover
Image Courtesy of Bandcamp
Samlrc - "A Lonely Sinner" vinyl product photo
Image Courtesy of Cyan Sun Records
Nick: Definitely. Another huge success that just occurred on Cyan Sun was the sold out vinyl for “WFLYD” by six impala. When did you originally connect with those guys?
Babick: six impala was all the way back in 2019 when “RUBBER” had dropped. I had been listening to underscores in 2018 or whenever their first EP, “skin purifying treatment” dropped. There's very few instances where I can claim like, “I knew them before I blew up,” but underscores is one of those few. I think at one point on Twitter she tweeted about six impala dropping “RUBBER.” At that point I joined their Discord server, and then I just started talking and being more active in there. Within a couple of weeks, KATT, their creative director contacted me like, “hey, I think you have a great vibe. I'd love to invite you as a pseudo-moderator, like a team member for the server just to help with community stuff” which I said yes to 'cause I was becoming really good friends with them. Ever since then, I've basically been friends with the band for years before I even started Cyan Sun. The first time we ever talked about doing vinyl together was actually when I was visiting KATT at their apartment in Toronto and I was saying like, “yo, we should work together on my label.” This would've been October, a little over a year in, I think, at this point. I was like, “I’m more confident with my label now. We should potentially do something together.” They were in talks with another label at that point of doing vinyl and they said, “oh, if that falls through, I'll let you know.” I'm not gonna say who the label is 'cause I don't wanna bad mouth, but it did end up falling through. They had not the best experience in the initial talks and they're like basically just “fuck it. I'd rather work with someone I know that's like a friend than this company that'll just mass produce it for me” which I think is Cyan Sun's biggest selling point. Every release has a very personal touch to it because Cyan Sun is just me. There's no other official employees. I'll work with visual artists and audio engineers on a gig basis, but as far as official people goes, it's just me. So I think that personal touch is what drew six impala to work with me, along with the fact that I was just friends with the band in general. We've now done two vinyl releases together that have done really well and we have plans to do the third album, “EARWAX,” sometime. I'm not sure when, but it’s definitely happening eventually.
Nick: Do you think that's your most successful vinyl drop?
Babick: I think when it comes to just pure quantity and like money made, yes because they had a well established audience even before I worked with them and, as you said, we sold out all 300 copies within I think 10 days, which is insane to me. The variant called “ribbon” that there's 25 of, that sold out in about 22 seconds or so, and then the variant called candy, that there is 50 of, that sold out in 90 seconds. I'm so grateful for the community and their eagerness to throw money at the vinyl, which allows us to pay for the “EARWAX” vinyl eventually. It's kind of a self-fulfilling machine of one drop will pay for the next and it'll just keep on going for as long as they care. So I think financially and quantity sold, that's the most successful drop but if we're talking almost a personal spiritual fulfillment angle, I think “Superflat” is honestly the drop I'm most proud of, by C'est La Key, just because that album really helped me define what I consider music and what I consider art. I would put that in a top 10 albums of all time list for sure. Just working with someone that influential on me that shaped my politics and ethics around music was just really exciting 'cause Devyn's great. I think we did six drops together, something like that.
six impala - "WFLYD" (2020) album cover
Image Courtesy of Bandcamp
six impala - "WFLYD" Negative Space W/ Ribbon Inlay (aka "Wax Mage") vinyl product photo
Image Courtesy of Cyan Sun Records
six impala - "RUBBER" (2019) album cover
Image Courtesy of Bandcamp
six impala - "EARWAX" (2023) album cover
Image Courtesy of Bandcamp
Nick: Considering that six impala is this large band spread across the world, there is a new band that has a very similar concept of being separated globally but connected through a central idea. What did you think of the latest Gingerbee album?
Babick: I really like that new Gingerbee record. I'm a big screamo fan. Even if something just has secondary influences of screamo, every time the part comes in I'm like, “ah yes, let's fucking go.” I need a couple more listens to probably dive into it more. I've given it like maybe three listens at this point. I think it's a super unique combination of sounds that sort of is another talking point of the proof of the internet being this powerful tool for music, right? I don't know the specific countries of Gingerbee, I think I remember at least one member in the United States, Canada, and Japan or something like that. The power of like, you can just send a file to your friend across the world and be like, “hop on this track and play guitar, do vocals or whatever.” Then it blows up on the internet and well deserved too 'cause that is a really good record that I really fuck with.
Gingerbee - "Apiary" (2025) album cover
Image Courtesy of Bandcamp
Nick: I have yet to give it a re-listen. Back to six impala. Something that set this pairing apart from other Cyan Sun collaborations is that there was an interview last year that was used as promo for the vinyl drop of “RUBBER” as well as just an interesting form of documentation of the creative processes of KATT and underscores. Considering that this is the only video on the Cyan Sun YouTube channel, is this a one-off thing or are you hoping to put out more content like that?
Babick: I would like to do more content like that, but I think that one in specific was very lightning in a bottle almost. Because I live, as you mentioned earlier, in Bellingham which is a 90 minute drive from Seattle, assuming there's no traffic, which is where they just so happened to be playing their first show. So I was like, “oh, perfect coincidence. I can go see them live.” The person whose place I was crashing at, a friend of mine who's also the technical director for the interview, happened to have cameras and have editing software and be in that sphere. So I threw out the idea of, “oh, I think an interview would be sick if we could get that to work. That'd be amazing.” It worked out pretty well with the timing and everything. I think underscores left for her flight like half an hour after the interview finished. So we were cutting it a little close there 'cause it is an hour and a half long interview that's, for the most part, basically just uncut. It's just us talking. I would like to do more interviews in the future, but I think the reason I probably won't is that I really hate boring or generic interviews, especially when you go on the red carpet, it's every question the same damn time. I'm like, “oh my God, gimme something new.” So this was an instance where because I knew these people, KATT especially, I knew I could write interesting questions that would get them talking a lot and be really interesting dialogues that we could have because I understood the internal machinations of how six impala works. At that point we had already worked on the “RUBBER” vinyl, we had placed that order, et cetera. I was able to write questions that I knew for a fact would yield interesting results because I know these people as friends and acquaintances and stuff. I also had KATT's partner, the day before the show, read over all my questions and like give me advice on stuff. I don't think they had that many propositions of what to change, but they were like, “oh yeah, that's a good question. They're gonna talk a lot at that one.” I would like to do more, but there’s a lot of logistical stuff there, especially working with international artists. I'm not gonna fly to Brazil to interview Sam, which would be sick, but I'm not a trust fund kid
Nick: Was this interview at your place? I thought that it was a super cozy atmosphere.
Babick: No. It was at the place of Erie, the technical director, who lives in Seattle which is another reason that it was a very one-off thing. The couch that we're sitting on during that interview is the couch that I crashed on during the week I was in Seattle hanging out with them. So that's Erie’s place because I live in Bellingham and you don't wanna drive all the way up there just for an interview. It'd be too inconvenient.
Nick: Why was Poppy so aggressive towards six impala? Is he not a fan of their music?
Babick: Poppy? I don't suspect Poppy would like the music just 'cause of the high pitch noises. Poppy probably would not like that. Poppy's just aggressive towards everyone that's not a person that lives in the house. The reason Poppy didn't bark at me during the interview was because I had been there for a couple days and Poppy got a chance to acclimate to me, but, in general, I think Poppy's just kind of an anxious dog. So new people are kind of like, “ah!” you know? We ended up giving the dog some Benadryl which is safe for dogs and helps calm them down. I think at one point in the interview you can hear me say all the Benadryl wore off or something like that. That was our method of calming him down.
[Cyan Sun Records]. (2024, November 17). the next morning: an interview with six impala [Video].
Nick: I also remembered you showing up in the chat for the premiere of the final episode of The Good Enough Podcast. I found it humorous that you, underscores and KATT were seated in the same arrangement as them, the only difference is that Jackson Burns has a slightly different taste in interior design and has a much nicer camera. So was that video inspired by any of those past “code red” GEP episodes?
Babick: I love Jackson Burns, I love Luke Stone, I'm acquainted with Jake, I don't necessarily talk to him much, but he’s a cool guy. I have not watched a single episode of that podcast in full, full disclaimer. I've watched clips 'cause sometimes my friends would tell me like, “oh they name dropped you in the podcast,” especially the early episodes. I'd be like, “oh that's funny. Lemme go see the clip.” Actually that's a lie. I watched a full episode once when they used my Rate Your Music list for the premise of a game for one of their episodes. I watched that segment 'cause at one point I made a list on Rate Your Music called “artists people have compared to 100 Gecs” that has over 200 entries on it. I think they use that for a game of like, “guess whether or not this person's been compared to 100 Gecs” and I watched that segment just 'cause it was funny watching what comparison they would've made, and then Jackson reads the comparison and then they're like, “that's stupid,” and I'm like, “yeah, I made the list 'cause I think it's stupid too.” But yeah, I've never outside of that one watched a full episode front to back, not because I don't love those guys, they're great, I've just never been a big podcast guy in general.
Nick: So who did you meet first from that podcast?
Babick: It's been years at this point, so it's kind of hard to remember. It was either Luke or Jackson. We would've met in similar circles like that Fantano circle 'cause both Luke and Jackson were a part of that server at some point. So probably around the same time is when I met the two of them. Then Jake, even though we haven't talked as much, I sort of met him because he knew Luke and Jackson, sort of a mutual friend kind of thing.
[Good Enough Podcast]. (2021, May 17). EP #17 - The 2008 Hamburgler Incident - Good Enough Podcast [Video].
Nick: It's time to switch it up and reel it back to the very start. You said you're in Bellingham, but are you originally from there or somewhere else?
Babick: I moved here when I was 13. My dad got a job at the university here. Before that I lived in Fresno and just California in general for zero to 13 and then 13 to–I'm 23 now–has been all Bellingham. I am planning on moving to Chicago soon just because I like Bellingham, but I need to get the hell out of here. I read somewhere, it's the most expensive city to live in with a population under 150,000. There's also just nothing to do here. You have to drive to Seattle or Vancouver if you want to do shit. A lot of my friends live here. They're great, but I need something new and I don't wanna necessarily move to Seattle 'cause I think that's just Bellingham part two almost, 'cause I've been there a lot. So I'm just like, “gimme somewhere new.” I asked a lot of my friends, especially the touring musicians who have been to all the cities, like, “here's like my five requirements for a city I wanna move to, what would be good.” All of them told me Chicago. So hopefully that's gonna happen in the next couple months.
Nick: What kind of family did you grow up in?
Babick: I guess kind of a nuclear family almost; mom, dad, sister, dog. Something about my family that people find kinda surprising is that it's not a musical family at all for the most part. My sister plays piano, but pretty casually. She just plays it mostly for fun and mostly for enrichment, not as gigs or anything like that. I didn't grow up with music in the house basically at all. My dad is a fan of 60s-70s Soul like Stevie Wonder and Marvin Gaye, that kind of stuff, but he would very rarely play it around me or my sister and my mom. My mom would play music while she was cooking sometimes. She's a big Bruno Mars, Adele kinda listener as well as just various Colombian artists that I can't remember the names of. It wasn't until middle school, I would say, that I started getting into music independently. I started getting super into the Monstercat EDM type stuff and then that continued on through most of high school into maybe like junior year or senior year. Somewhere in there is where I discovered underscores and then into that I discovered six impala. Then from that I discovered 100 Gecs, which that's honestly the crux of what got me into music 'cause I listened to “1000 Gecs” for the first time when it dropped within the first week or two. I was like, “what the fuck am I listening to? What the hell is going on? Music can be like this?” That's when I made a Rate Your Music account and started diving deep into everything I possibly could. I love my family, they're great, but we never really grew up with music like that, interestingly enough.
Nick: Do you play any instruments?
Babick: No. When I lived in Fresno, when I was like 10 or 11, I tried the piano. I started at the same time as my sister, but I quit within a couple months 'cause I'm like, “this sucks. I don't wanna do it because I'm a kid and I hate everything.” After that my parents were like, “oh, try something else at least.” So I'm like, “okay, fine, I'll try the drums.” So I tried that for a couple months and I was like, “this is better, but I don't wanna do this shit.” So I quit that. Then I did choir for four years in high school and I was competent enough to where I got to like the highest level choir they had at the high school my senior year, which was the chamber choir, which is the one where you wear tuxedos and stuff. That got cut short because of COVID because I was a senior when COVID happened. I graduated during COVID. After that I never picked it back up. I think I've lost all singing ability outside of my base voice since then. I don't make any music. I don't play any music. I would like to start it up again, but I think part of the reason I started Cyan Sun is that I always wanted to do something in music, ever since middle school or high school or so. I wanted to do something related to music, but because I wasn't a musician, I guess I thought “I could start a label.” That's how that progressed…in a sense. I do not currently play anything. I can maybe do a karaoke song decently, but outside of that, nothing really. I think not being a musician can give you a good or a unique perspective, but I do think that understanding stuff about music is definitely helpful for someone who just consumes so much music where it's like…well…you're really gonna listen to thousands of albums and you're not gonna know music theory? To be fair, I don't know shit about music theory, but I think that gives me a unique perspective when it comes to talking about music.
Nick: Walk me through the aspirations in your life that led to you launching a label in 2022.
Babick: Honestly, there's a pretty identifiable thing that was my main inspiration. My friend Jen runs a label called Energy Crow Records, which is a reissue-based label of old kind of forgotten Screamo, Emo, Slowcore type stuff. They released in the very beginning of 2022, a compilation by a band called Eyrie, which was a Russian Emoviolence band. It was like a remastered compilation of all their music. I listened to that and I was fucking blown away. I think I got like 200-250 plays within like 36 hours of me discovering that compilation. I was so addicted to it. I was so inspired by the fact that this music got birthed new life into it because of one person that just happened to love it. She got in contact with the band and was like, “let's do something.” They did something and now it's one of my favorite music releases of all time. I like the idea of like, not necessarily to boost my ego or come off as self important but like, doing for others what that release did for me. I could reissue music that people didn't know about, or less people knew about, and now they're getting this new exposure to it as a result. Like in the six impala community, I've been telling people, “hey, you should listen to the new Samlrc record. It's really good.” I've now had multiple people tell me like, “holy shit, this is fucking incredible” because they're six impala fans and, by extension, Cyan Sun fans. Now Cyan Sun is telling them to listen to Samlrc and they're loving it, they're buying it. So I love being able to share music with people and I think running a label is a pretty good way of doing that. You know, investing my time and money into music that I love so that more people can get it.
Nick: Do you think there's a curatorial element to that?
Babick: Oh for sure. I've rejected many artists from being on Cyan Sun before. I could have done a smaller cassette run for them, but it's nothing personal, right? They're probably all the finest people but because I am the only employee, it's my time and money that I'm investing. I run it more like a hobby, honestly. Calling myself an employee feels weird. I think, because it is my time and money that is going into this, I don't wanna invest it in music I don't believe in, right? I have this joke with friends that if Bladee asked to be on Cyan Sun, I would reject him because I'm not a drainer at all. I don't like Bladee's music. They're all like, “you're fucking stupid. You're throwing free money away.” I think if that actually happened, I honestly don't know whether I would accept Bladee onto the label or not. I'm struggling right now deciding whether I would or not, but there is definitely a curation aspect of like I only back music that I think is great and that I want to see succeed.
Babick: Where did the name come from?
Nick: I guess the name kind of came from nothing in a sense. For a couple weeks I was just like, “what would be a cool name for a label?” right? Cyan was, at the time and still is, my favorite color. I just think it looks cool. So I thought, “oh, maybe something with that,” 'cause that'll be a branding aspect of like, “we can make this a cyan logo.” Boom! I was just maybe looking at other label names and band names, just trying to pick out words from them. Maybe the dictionary or something, I don't fully remember, but at some point the name Cyan Sun Records popped into my mind. I'm like, “okay, that rolls off the tongue pretty well.” I looked it up, none of the usernames on social media were taken, the Gmail account was available, the website domain was available, so I thought, “you know what? I think that sounds cool. I think you could very easily make a logo out of that,” which we did. It's a sun that has the words as the sun and I kind of made it up from nothing. Basically just looking around at my life and trying to pick out words of things that would fit well together, basically.
Nick: Who did the logo? Was it you?
Babick: No. I'm not a good visual artist at all. It was this person on Twitter that I'm totally forgetting the name of. I used to be more involved in the SoundCloud scene that existed more in 2021-2022, the Open Pit scene. They were doing all the Minecraft festivals. I think I was in a group chat with some people and I just asked, “hey, does anyone know anyone who makes logos that would wanna make one for me?” One of them offered to just do it for free which was sick. Even then, I still gave 'em like a little something 'cause I’m like, “it feels weird making you do free labor for me. Lemme give you at least something.” So I did end up paying them for it. I forget how much and I'm totally forgetting who it was. I don't think I've talked to 'em for years 'cause I think that group chat and scene dissolved ever since Open Pit shut down. Just some person I was in a group chat with that offered to make one.
Cyan Sun Records logo
Image Courtesy of Cyan Sun Records
Babick: It's like a community thing, you know, just finding people who are cool that do the artwork for you, which is how I run Cyan Sun currently. If the artist doesn't make their own artwork, I'll just commission someone to make something cool for me. Like the Coin Locker Kid cassettes, I think, are a good example of this. I would basically go to Devyn and be like, “all right so what do we wanna do for the cover art?” He would just send me the Instagram account of someone like, “I want this person to make the cover art.” That's what led to Jaeden Fuller or ZaBloo as he is sometimes known, doing the “Empathica” and the “Superflat” cover art. Then at one point he sent Mel's Instagram where she did three of the cover arts. I think Jed Haas is the person who did the “Lars Demos” one. Finding cool people who do cool things and working with them basically. It's my motto. Like if the musician as a person sucked, I don't wanna work with them either. Right?
Nick: Has that ever happened?
Babick: There's never been a time where I open a dialogue with an artist and I'm like, “you suck. I don't wanna work with you,” partially because I guess some artists have online reputations so I just don't contact them in the first place. There's never been an instance where I was working on something and then I was like, “fuck you!” and then we drop the project. There have been times where I was in talks with artists that never came to fruition for a variety of reasons, life, they found another label to work with, just other stuff. It's never been anything personal though.
Nick: I've seen this pattern a lot when it comes to certain reissues. What are your thoughts on people complaining about not using the original cover art for reissue?
Babick: I'm gonna be honest, if people are saying that about Cyan Sun, I've never seen it. I've only seen people being like, “wow, this art is sick.” thankfully. I think I would personally complain about that if like they reissued it with new cover art and the cover art fucking sucked. I'd be like, “what the hell? Gimme the original art!” But I think alternative art can be cool because it's new art for you to look at and be like, “wow, look at this new cool interpretation.” I guess it is sort of a case by case basis. I don't think I've ever seen that for Cyan Sun, thankfully. Maybe there are people out there that think that, but I don't fucking care, I love our visual artists.
Coin locker kid - "Empathica" (2015) caessette cover
Image Courtesy of Cyan Sun Records
C'est la key - "Superflat" (2017) caessette cover
Image Courtesy of Cyan Sun Records
Coin locker kid - "The Lars Demos" (2012) caessette cover
Image Courtesy of Cyan Sun Records
Nick: The last label owner that I interviewed was Matt Cruz from Longinus Recordings. I interviewed him last year and, as you know, he's the first person to release anything physical from Parannoul back in 2021 which he assembled himself. With that in mind, the first artist to get a physical release by Cyan Sun was Macaque Sauna with their album “Yesterday I thought about you.” How did you go about making these cassettes? Did you make them from scratch?
Babick: I don't make the cassettes myself. I think every single cassette we've ever made has been ordered from Bluelight Tapes, which is this very small, I think two-person team outta Chicago that do custom cassettes that you can buy from them. I don't know shit about audio equipment. I don't own any of that stuff. I don't even own a cassette player. If I want to test a new Cyan Sun cassette, I do it in my car. I typically just email them like, “hey I wanna buy some custom cassettes." They're like, “okay sick” and then they'll send me that eventually. That actually reminds me I need to place a new cassette order after this interview because I've been delaying that a little bit too much (laughs). But all of the cassettes have been through them. All of the six impala vinyl has been through Gotta Groove Records in Cleveland and all of the non six impala vinyl has been through Precision Records Pressing, which is just outside of Toronto I think. All of the CDs are Kunaki. It feels a little weird calling yourself a DIY label when you don't make the stuff yourself, but I'm giving DIY guys money to make the cassettes for me in Chicago. So it's like I think I can still call myself a DIY label. I guess that justifies the label still 'cause I still do all the distribution, I help with marketing, I help make sure everything is in order. I basically act like a project coordinator on every release 'cause sometimes the bands will not really know what they want to do. Sometimes the bands will know exactly what they wanna do and I think it's just my job to sort of make sure their artistic vision matches reality in the physical product.
Nick: So going back to the music from Macaque Sauna, for people who are unfamiliar, how would you describe the type of Ambient Noise music that they create?
Babick: My friend Kelvin Graham is the one that is behind the name. He’s been a personal friend of mine for years. He’s visited me multiple times at Bellingham now. He's just a great guy. Go buy those cassettes, he's amazing. I guess I would describe the music as–my friend Tex reviewed that album and he used the phrase, “at ease but not lethargic.” I think that's a really good phrase to use to describe his music. It's very calming, very peaceful, but almost in a way where it's like, “why am I being calmed by this?” It’s almost like an underlying anxiety tied with that in a sense. That's how I'd at least describe the first album for sure and I think that's kind of permeated into all the other ones he's done. I would need to double check with him, but I think the alias is dead now. I think there's gonna be no more Macaque Sauna albums after the last one that we did, just because, I guess, he's moving on to more stuff or maybe like a new alias. He’s sent me demos of new stuff. Macaque Sauna was great, I love doing multiple releases for an artist on the label because that's almost like a marketing point too. If I go to a new artist and they want some sort of proof that I'm legit, like I've done multiple releases with multiple people. They trust me enough with their music to come back and work with us again. I can't reveal what new artists I'm working with right now, but I got some ones that I'm excited about that I know a lot of other people will be excited about too. So I hate doing this, but “big news is coming soon”.
Nick: Would you describe the style of Macaque Sauna to be new-gen?
Babick: I guess. He is really influenced by 2000s ambient, maybe like Grouper and stuff like that. I don't necessarily think of ambient as being a thing that's in a lineage. Maybe just 'cause I'm not tapped into old ambient music that much. Like a lot of the ambient I'm thinking of right now is like post-2000. That's just like a gap in my music knowledge. Maybe I need to listen to more pre-2000 ambient is what I'm taking away from this.
Macaque Sauna - "Yesterday I Thought About You" (2022) caessette product photo
Image Courtesy of Cyan Sun Records
Macaque Sauna - "Yesterday I Thought About You" (2022) album cover
Image Courtesy of Bandcamp
Macaque Sauna - "Yesterday I Thought About You" (2022) caessette product photo
Image Courtesy of Cyan Sun Records
flomble - "aeonium" (2022) album cover
Image Courtesy of Bandcamp
Nick: I brought up GEP previously, but last year you gave Luke Stone's vulnerable masterpiece, “There's Always Another Year.” Interesting enough, Luke was the first interview in this series that I'm doing and while I'm unsure if you saw that one–it's pretty old–he went into great detail breaking down that album and why that was such a personal expression on his part, I'd like to know what you thought about the album when Luke first put it out on his Bandcamp back in 2023?
Babick: I think it's great. As I said earlier, if I don't like the music, I'm not gonna put it on Cyan Sun, right? So anything on Cyan Sun has an automatic endorsement from me. In general, I consider my quality threshold to be great music and above and I think it's a fantastic album, or EP I guess. I love the way it flows. I love house music and I think his take on it being very chill, not necessarily DJ Sprinkles-esque, but something where it's house music that has a specific vibe to it that I fuck with. I think he managed to hit a specific strain with that.
Nick: Shout out DJ Sprinkles. I wish he would make his music more available to people. That's the only gripe I have.
Babick: Often for Cyan Sun, artists I'm looking at, I'll look up if they've done vinyl in the past, if I can find anything of them talking about vinyl, etc. I found a clip of DJ Sprinkles talking about how “Midtown 120 Blues” will not work on vinyl because of the frequencies. I'm like, “fuck, even if I don't do it on Cyan Sun, I would just love to own it in general.” I understand the mentality but at the same time I want to own it on vinyl, you know?
Nick: Absolutely! When it came to putting out this tape for Luke Stone, who came first to pitch the idea? You or Luke?
Babick: I think it was me 'cause I was friends with Luke, and at some point I was like going through my Rate Your Music and saw his EP in my ratings. Sometimes what I'll do for finding new Cyan Sun artists is I'll just go through my catalog of ratings and I'm like, “who do I feel like emailing right now?” At one point I came across Luke, so I messaged him and then because we were friends, it just happened, you know? I was like, “here's the template files.” and he sent me cassette art and it was off to the races. That's one where it just kinda happened all of a sudden. It's not necessarily low effort, but low energy in a sense where I didn't need to do that much to get it out there. I just needed to give him some files and then he gave me some files. Other releases like six impala take a lot more work because vinyl is just a whole different beast entirely. It’s also just a more of an expensive endeavor. I can get $6 per cassette production cost or something like that and I can get a batch as small as 25 cassettes. Whereas vinyl, like the six impala production cost, including the mastering, was over $6,000 for “RUBBER” and then over $6,000 again for “WFLYTD” which is why I don't do vinyl as much as cassettes, even though I would love to do more vinyl. I said this earlier, but I'm not a trust fund kid. I can't just throw money away on vinyl that's not gonna sell, right?
Macaque Sauna - "Yesterday I Thought About You" (2022) caessette product photo
Image Courtesy of Cyan Sun Records
Luke Stone - "There's Always Another Year" (2023) album cover
Image Courtesy of Bandcamp
DJ Sprinkles - "Midtown 180 Blues" (2008) album cover
Image Courtesy of Rate Your Music
Nick: Finally, I want to talk about a certain Screamo band that you had the pleasure of pressing their 2020 debut on vinyl. How did you first hear of Bagdadski Vor?
Babick: I think it was my friend Dani who discovered them and was like, “yo…Russian screamo…check it out.” It might not have been Dani, it might have been someone else, but Dani's like the biggest Bagdadski Vor fan I know of so they can have the credit for showing it to me. As far as getting in contact with them, I just went to the Bandcamp and hit the contact button and I was like, “yo, you wanna do vinyl?” They said, “yeah,” and that's what we got. I think that more people need to do that because I've gotten multiple people asking me like, “how do you start a label? How do you get in contact with artists?” Just email them. Honestly, I sent an email through the Bandcamp contact feature, which is very unofficial, like very unprofessional but I don’t care. That's how I've gotten in contact with multiple artists at this point. I just sent them an unsolicited email like, “yo, I would love to hop on a video call and talk with you about this.” I mainly interfaced with the drummer 'cause he's the only member who speaks English, but we ended up hopping onto video calls. His girlfriend was a graphic designer so she ended up doing the designs for us. I paid Will Killingsworth of Orchid, who now runs Dead Air Studios, to do a master for vinyl and then it happened. That's one where I knew it was a really niche band, so maybe a business person will tell you that doing vinyl for it is stupid, but I didn't care. I consider that to be one of the best screamo albums of all time. I just wanna own this shit for myself and if no one else is gonna do it then I’m gonna do it.
Nick: Do you feel like you're lucky that one of them spoke English?
Babick: I think. If not, I would've just gone like the Google translate, Russian to English/English to Russian route probably. My friend Jen, who runs the Energy Crow Records label that I mentioned earlier, did that for the Kulara reissue 'cause I don't think any of the members spoke English. So she was just doing English to Japanese Google Translate, trying to coordinate all that with them. If that had been the case, I could have made it work. I would just have to find out different ways of communication, I guess, but I love the album so much. I would've figured something out.
Nick: What was the situation that Bagdadski Vor had found themselves in with geopolitics around the time that you got in contact with them? What occurred?
Babick: So obviously there's the travel bans in Russia; you can't enter, you can't leave. The drummer managed to get out of Russia, the other two members did not, which is at least the last I heard from them. It's been a long time since I've talked to them. That is the thing that was stopping them from making new music. At the time while we were working on the vinyl run together, they did tell me they would like to make new music again, but because they were physically separated, they didn't want to 'cause they liked being in the same room working on it together. Because those geopolitical issues have continued and I'm assuming the drummer has not re-entered Russia or been able to or the other members haven't been able to leave or whatever's going on with them, that's just the main thing that's halting them from that. I would love to ship the “Kolhida” vinyl to fans in Russia, but that's just not a thing 'cause every courier service is like, “no, we will not do that. There's no amount of money you could pay for us to go to Russia.” I'll just wait for the day where I can and then I'll make it available on the website and then hopefully they can buy it.
Nick: Were fans and Russia upset about that?
Babick: I didn't get any emails from them necessarily like, “hey, I want to buy the record.” I think a lot of them just have an understanding that it's an American label doing a Russian album on vinyl. Maybe they're just waiting it out. Maybe I'll get an influx of purchases when it's finally available. I didn't get any contact directly from anyone from Russia. I did at one point have a dude with a Russian looking name buy a ton of copies to ship to somewhere else in America, which I thought, “maybe they are gonna send them there…somehow.” Running a label is honestly just troubleshooting when shit happens. When we announced the Samlrc vinyl, I was not anticipating so many wholesalers from China to contact me about buying copies 'cause apparently Samlrc has a huge audience in China that I didn't know about. When I mentioned this to the Discord group that we have with the other labels and Sam, I was like, “you guys know about this?” and they're like, “oh yeah.” I'm like, “why did no one tell me about this? All right. I guess I'll just talk to them about wholesale records” ‘cause some of them are like, “I wanna buy a hundred copies of the record.” I'm like, “you know what, I would love to organize that with you. I'll learn how to create custom PayPal invoices” or whatever it is I needed to do for that specific situation. Running a label is honestly just troubleshooting for the most part. That's the best way I can describe what I do other than coordination.
Nick: That's hilarious. I didn't know Sam had a big Chinese following.
Babick: Before the drop went live I had to double check like, “okay, I need to make sure my Brazil tax is set correctly or whatever.” I didn't realize I needed to double check if my China tax was set correctly 'cause I'm like, “damn…huge audience over there supposedly,” which is sick.
Nick: Shout out to China. Shout out to all the South American artists that are taking over right now. I don't know if you’ve noticed that sort.
Babick: I'm Colombian myself, so I try to notice to a degree. I've actually kind of made it a point to not pay attention to new music as much, which maybe, as a label owner, is a bad strategy. On a personal fulfillment level, I very much, especially this year and maybe like the back half of 2024, have taken an approach of only listening to music that I find interesting in a given moment. So I have a list of recommendations from friends that, at this point, is over 1000 albums long. I'm never getting through that backlog in full. I think just on a mental health level, there is so much music out there, you're never gonna listen to it all. If you attempt to, you're going to die basically before you hear all the music you want to hear. You need to be okay with knowing that there's gonna be a ton of albums that you probably would love, but you're not gonna. Maybe I should tap more into new music 'cause I do run a record label and I should be emailing more people. We'll see how that plays out.
Nick: Back to the Bagdadski Vor. Are you hoping and praying that there's going to be a follow-up at some point?
Babick: Every day. “Kolhida” is one of my top hundred albums of all time. I have so many plays on it. If they drop another record, I'm listening the moment I get the files. I'm playing that shit immediately. They're just so tight and so cohesive in a way that no other band has really matched. It's so bright, which is very uncommon for screamo, being this bright of a record production wise. I think that's what makes 'em really unique, just their way of balancing the aggression with the less harsh elements. I really hope something happens to where they can make music, whether it be they all get to be in the same country again and or whether they decide, “Fuck it. We're gonna go the online route.” Hopefully we get new music from them. I hope I get new music from all of my Cyan Sun artists.
Bagdadski Vor - "Колхида" (Kolhida) (2020) album cover
Image Courtesy of Bandcamp
Bagdadski Vor - "Колхида" (Kolhida) (2020) vinyl cover
Image Courtesy of Cyan Sun Records
Nick: With that, outside of “A Lonely Sinner,” is there anything else you have ready to go down the pipe that you're willing to share?
Babick: I try to keep a cap on new artists I'm working with, but when it comes to artists returning for releases, I tend to be a little bit more of an open book. In a couple of days, probably before this interview goes live, we're gonna announce CDs for Bummer Hill - “Far Removed,” which we did vinyl for originally. Octopantics is like a friend of mine that had one release on the label called “The True Tape of All Things,” which was originally digital only but we are now just starting to talk about actually making it into a tape, which is fun. There’s also going to be a new NEK0BABY album in October. six impala “EARWAX” vinyl will also be a thing eventually. Probably not for a while though. I don't wanna start working on it until after I move to Chicago and I'm settled. So probably not till like late 2026 if I had to guess. Then I also have a couple other new artists that I'm not gonna say the names of, but when they eventually get announced, I'm ready for my friends to be like, “holy fuck, you got X, Y, Z!” That's always so fun, seeing their reaction to like, “how the fuck did you start working with them?”
Bummer Hill - "Far Removed" (2024) album cover
Image Courtesy of Bandcamp
Octopantics - "The True Tape of All Things" (2022) album cover
Image Courtesy of Album Of The Year
Nick: Well thank you for this interview. Are there any final words to leave us on?
Babick: Everyone that's reading this, you should go start a label or start something similar. It's not that hard. You just have to like to do it. That's the best advice I can give. For anyone that's been considering doing something like this, just go find a name that isn't taken, claim the email, claim the social media, claim the website, and just start emailing people that you like. It sounds like fake advice, but it really is that easy, and everyone should go do something. I’d also like to invite any artists reading this to submit your music to Cyan Sun by sending us an email with your music (cyansunrecords@gmail.com). I don’t care if you have a million monthly listeners or one, I’ll work with artists of any size as long as I think the music is good.