Kenneth Masloski: We are here with C-drik Fermont: musician, artist, label manager of Syrphe, a radio DJ, writer and archivist. Thank you very much, C-drik, for being here and talking with me today. I really appreciate it. One of the things that I wanted to start off with is that I'm an entomologist and so I really love that your label or the label is Syrphe and it's the syrphid fly. Is there a particular reason you chose that as the sort of the symbol for the label?

C-drik Fermont: Oh, nothing really deep. And that's funny you are the first person to notice what it is. It's in French, ‘syrphe’, basically. But even in French, most people look at me, ‘What is this word?’ That is great? No, I just like, I mean I like insects in general. I like to observe them and they fly, hover fly, it’s fascinating to me.That’s it. Nothing really special.

KM: OK. All right. Yeah. I just wanted to touch on that because it definitely drew me to or was like an added bonus for me as a person who studies insects and it's like, oh, that's so cool. I know what that is. I love that.

This sort of series is about success, but also rejection and failure. And so I wanted to ask you first, what does rejection mean to you? What does it look like artistically? How does that, how does that - how do you define it?

CF: Great question. Well rejection can express itself in, in many ways. I think in the particular case of what I'm focusing on, like mostly music from Africa and Asia, Latin America and other parts of the world, the rejection would be the fact that either the West still often doesn't recognize the fact that there are people in those places, whether it is Peru or Iran or Myanmar or even Moldova, for example, who do this kind of music and they can't even imagine it to be possible. There's always the same old story of so-called mainstream music versus the rest. And to me, it's a form of rejection. And even though we could be hopeful that it would maybe one day change I think it has improved at some point compared to when it was a teenager in the 1980s.

Of course, you could hear some of this music on the radio depending on which country you lived in. But it was not - the exposure was not as big as it is now, thanks to the Internet. You know all those web radio, podcasts and social networks like Bandcamp, you name it. But even like this, when you see the work of platforms I don't like like iTunes or Spotify, in the end they reject a lot, even though you find a lot of music from everywhere and you can find ambient and you can find electro-acoustic and a lot of mainstream music. But we all know that it’s mainstream people who get the jackpot, get the money and the rest. It's a form of rejection and it's giving hope to people to maybe succeed at some point to earn some money. And it's not shared properly, so I would see rejection maybe like this, and I guess there are zillions of other ways of being rejected.

KM: That that leads me to sort of this next question where the internet has allowed for connections to be made between artists and listeners all around the world that maybe, you know, 50 years ago wouldn't have happened, 30 years ago, wouldn't have happened necessarily. So what then do you think causes - because there still is, I would say, an underrepresentation of African and Asian artists in lots of musical spaces that they exist in, but just isn't sort of maybe they're not as represented in the, say, in the west, western world. What do you think causes the underrepresentation? Or do you agree that there is one maybe first and then what do you think would be the cause of that?

CF: Sure, there is one that is changing. It's very slow and there are different reasons why it's like this. I would I would start from, again, my past the - during that time, it was, of course, worse because there was no internet or one almost no one could really access and we were very few people, I mean, even not me. I got internet access very late in late 90s or maybe 2000. I don't remember exactly, but it doesn't matter. The thing is that we could hardly find any alternative music from Africa, Asia, Latin America, Oceania, except Australia, New Zealand, even though it was not that easy, but also from Eastern Europe. The Eastern Bloc was a mystery for most of us, with a few exceptions, like Yugoslavia, for example. And that has changed. Now we, of course, at least for alternative music, find easily music from Serbia, music from Russia and so on, even though it's not entirely equal of course.

What causes that is, I think, colonialism at some point that it has put in people's minds and institutions’ minds that the other so far doesn't have either the money, the technology, the knowledge, the interests to make such music. I think it's one of the reasons. Another reason is possibly a technological reason. I mean, in some countries, internet access is limited or expensive for the local population. Or there is a lack of interest in this music, but which is fair or other priorities as well. In many countries, people don't have time to experiment with sound. For example, if we speak about experimental music because they need to make ends meet as a priority.

That doesn't mean that it's systematically like this. It really depends on the context. And the context is, it can be huge, like - I would take Indonesia, for example, where there you would find any kind of people doing experimental music or noise of punk music, it doesn't matter. Rich people, middle class, so-called poor people, people from the countryside, from the town, from the city. And that isn't the case in some other countries. I would say I don't know, take Central Africa, for example. It's not the case.

So I can not always point out why is it so. I don't have answers for everything. This is difficult. But I think there is still a kind of domination of probably the West, but always depends on which kind of music we speak about. If we speak about alternative music, whether it is punk or grindcore or noise or even electroacoustic music, then it’s not only the West. It’s the West with Japan, maybe China, Mexico maybe as well and so on and so forth. And there is a kind of domination of the English language, which can be a barrier at some point.

And it's only because we can see a split in Africa, for example, between countries that have been colonized by France and countries that have been colonized by the British Empire. And maybe we could include Lusophone countries that have colonized by Portugal. I would say that in the colonies colonized by Portugal and the British, you have a rich electronic music scene, alternative music scene, metal scene. So, I’m speaking of Angola, Mozambique, Uganda, South Africa, of course, Egypt and so on. And then if you go to the Francophone world, it's often much poorer. Whether we speak about North Africa, which is still fine, somehow, at least Morocco and Tunisia. But in West Africa compared to East Africa it’s so different. There is such a gap. I can't tell it's absolutely connected to the language, but there is something in there. I think it's not an accident.

KM: So as a label head, curator and also a DJ, you have like a lot of opportunities to share the music and art that, you like or that you respond to with people. Does that give you - is there a sort of anxiety kind of being in that position or is it just an exciting opportunity to share kind of what you like and what you… yeah, can you speak on that, I guess a little bit?

CF: It's exciting. I’m not anxious, fortunately. No. I'm happy to share. To me it’ very important. And I'm happy when people share what I share and when they go deeper. I mean, it's important. I just hope I triggered something and that some people think, ‘Oh, yeah, interesting. There is this. So maybe I should dig deeper.’

And it’s not only regarding the West, I would say, because I was telling you earlier, is this kind of dichotomy between the West and the rest of the world. It's not exactly true because I see among, let's call them dominant countries maybe - like the first time I went to China after going to Vietnam, which was in 2005, my friends in China wondered what I was doing in Vietnam. And I told them, ‘Well I played noise music with local musicians.’ And they told me, ‘I would have never thought there were Vietnamese musicians doing this kind of music.’ And I got a similar experience in Singapore when I was looking for music from Indonesia. People told me, ‘Oh forget about it’.

So then to me, it's important to share and say, no, no, no, it's not like this. And you should dig deeper. And I'm also pleased when I share something and then there is a response, like the person gets invited or gets an opportunity to publish something - an interview or whatever - or we collaborate together and do something together. I'm invited or this person is invited or both. We start a band, whatever. I find it amazing. And so, yeah, it is. This is how I see it.

KM: So you have, if people don't know who are listening to this, on your website, you have a resource of like a list, a compendium of all these musicians. And I have used that as a jumping off point myself to find things that I like. Without that, I feel like that's great work that you're doing there because it's just compiling everything into a single place and it's really a great place to start. But do you find it easy to find the things that you're looking for if you do a little bit of digging on the internet? You travel – traveled, I mean, before things were in lockdown, it sounds like you traveled quite a bit. Are these things there? Like these musicians are there sort of, I'm guessing, waiting to be heard right in some ways?

CF: It really depends. It's easier now because I started to do this research not formally in the 1990s and early 80s. It was kind of an obsession back then. I was frustrated to think man I’m getting those tapes and some vinyls, back then CDs, from those bands from mostly the West. Why can't I find anything from Vietnam or South Africa, for example?

So back then it was difficult. So I started this list, this database. And I traveled, like you said, a lot. And so it's a bit easier because sometimes people know what I do and they tell me, ‘Oh, look, my friend is doing this kind of music. He's not listed on your database.’ Or ‘My friend, she's organizing concerts. She's not listed in the database.’ So because it's kind of huge now, it became easier. But nevertheless, there are places where I never managed to find anything. That doesn’t mean these artists, organizers, labels, whatever don't exist there. It's just that maybe there are very few of them. Maybe someone just bedroom producers and don't share the music outside of a small circle. I've met sometimes people when I was in Uganda who never told me that they were doing this kind of music. It’s just when I asked somebody and they heard, ‘Oh, you are looking for? Oh yeah. I also do this kind of music!’

So that's amazing. But in some cases I suspect there might be something and I don't find it. Or I have traces, sometimes I have clues like, oh yeah, there is this article about that. Even that person who made this electroacoustic, even though they’re recording in the nineteen sixties in whatever place, then how you find that, you know, it's a long time ago and sometimes it's frustrating.

I've got some Chinese names - artist names - and I never managed to hear the music and people telling me ‘Oh yeah, I remember this name. Indeed she was doing sound art but I don't know what happened to her.’ And that's a bit frustrating. And I'm always afraid that some people might just disappear forever from that music world. And maybe it's not the end of the world just because I was trying import into our archives. And so it's frustrating for me to think that I don't find - - I'm looking for some recordings of a few composers. No one can tell me what happened to the recordings and me, it's a very deep frustration.

KM: Yeah, yeah, that sounds like it could be really, really tough to try to track specific things down with, like, little clues. You almost become a detective. And so switching, not switching gears, I guess, but sort of talking about your label, Syrphe - the label does a lot of benefits, which are really great. And I know you've got one, a four part series out now benefiting…describe what its benefitting because I don't want to get it wrong, but it's, yeah I’ll let you talk about that first before I ask the question.

CF: OK. The latest compilation is in support of the people in Myanmar who are opposing the military regime and the coup. But now I'm in touch with people there for several years now and I have performed in Myanmar, in Yangon in 2014. And it was a nice opportunity because the country was opening. So we haven't been arrested or kicked out. Ah, I should not laugh, It's not so funny that, when that can happen. But I got the opportunity to meet people at a festival. So there was this kind of mini festival where we performed our free improv and noise and electroacoustic music. I performed those with a French institute with a very interesting musician who plays Burmese music, but he's very open to experimentation. But then I also met a lot of activists through another festival that was happening and there were a lot of talks about LGBT rights in Myanmar and the change of regime, the fears, the hopes, meeting ex-political prisoners and so on and so forth. So it is very interesting to me to see what was happening - this huge change back then, and the doubts of some of those people. Not all of them. Some told me already, back then ‘We don't trust them,’ and in the end they were right. But through that, I'm still in touch with the people there.

And one of them asked me if I would be willing to make a compilation to try to get some money to help them and buy some VPNs, because she saw that last year I did a compilation for Beirut after the explosion and managed to get quite a lot of money. I mean, ‘a lot’ regarding what I do.

KM: Yeah. Yeah.

CF: So it was for helping musicians who lost instruments, who were giving the money to an organization that helps to clean apartments, rebuild apartments and house people who lost everything and so on. This time it's for activists who are LGBT rights activists and people opposing the regime, for artists and activists in general to be able to access the outside world through the VPNs. I managed to transfer some money over there also for them to do something. They don’t tell me what they going to do with the money. I'm not the one in a position to decide here it’s - they're in trouble. Not me.

It's a little thing. I mean, it's nice to transfer so $1900 USD, something like this, there will be a bit more in spring. It's not a lot, but it's at least a little support. And it’s important because the Western - not even the Western - the world doesn't care. It’s not the West is just - all the United Nations says they are being worried. What is this, you are being worried? Hello?

KM: Yeah, what does that mean?

CF: Yeah. So I know that what I'm doing is not going to trigger a huge revolution but we at least can get help to the people and give hope as well. And I think it's important for people to feel they're not being forgotten, whether it is there or anywhere anyway. It could be could be a natural disaster, anything, anywhere. I think it's important. There are many people with compilations for Japan after the tsunami, Fukushima, for example, among other things. Yeah, it's a good thing. But it's important to show this unity of this alternative music world. In the end, so many people from from Uganda, from Belgium, France, the US, Argentina, Hong Kong and so on and so forth, contributed to this. And I think it is beautiful to see this, this support, this unity, because some of those people who are supporting those causes are not in a good position either financially speaking or even living in a very difficult country like Iran, for example. And people from Iran have been supportive as well and it’s amazing.

KM: Do you think that your - well, it sounds like it's important to you, and I don't want to put words in your mouth, so please correct me if I'm wrong, but it's important to you to sort of connect people where you can. Is that fair to say? Like, do you long to make connections between people?

CF: Yeah, of course, to me it's important because I like to travel. That's what I'm curious about, other cultures, languages and so on. But also the world seems so polarized and divided, whatever you call it these days. Perhaps it has always been at some point. But we have those technologies like communication, telecommunication everywhere right now, whether it's with your phone or with your computer, we can instantly or almost be connected almost anywhere with other people. We can read news from everywhere. But nevertheless, the world is insanely divided. So to me, it's important to try to connect people on many levels. It’s not only political or something because I work with people with whom I politically disagree, for example. I mean, the disagreements are not a huge gap. It's OK. But we share many things in music or art in general or other things. And I think if we want to improve this world, it would be nice to try to connect as much as possible. Again, you're not going to make any revolution. The world is not going to change from one day to another and maybe never. But if you could create something nice and fast basis, I think. It's nice and it's not only about the geographic places or ethnic background. It's also about feminism, everything basically. There is also a divide with women being underrepresented, for example. I think it's important to say, you know, it should not be like this at all in this way and we should all work together.

Yeah, so for me, this networking thing is very, very important because
we are social animals after all, even though I like to just be alone with myself, with no one calling me or whatever, I go to the woods and ‘Ciao!’ But on the other hand I think it's very important without communication, there is a lot of misunderstanding and misunderstanding leads to a lot of wrongdoing, I think.

KM: Do you think that the communities of the artists that you interact with in Africa and Asia, are they more welcoming of maybe new and different sounds or diverse kinds of musical projects and things then say like a, not to say Western, but like maybe European or North American group or collective of musicians? Is there a difference in welcoming between regions of the world?

CF: Yes, definitely. I think one of the reasons is sometimes the lack of representation and the lack of foreigners coming to perform there. I experienced it many times and I would say the first time I really noticed it was in Turkey in 2003. I performed in Istanbul and the audience was small, it was like 50 people or something. It was a breakcore and noise event. But it was amazing because people came to me and gave me tapes or CD-Rs and told me, ‘Nobody comes to play here. You should tell your friend, your friends to come.’ And I experience that several times in China, for example, Kandahar, in Vietnam and Indonesia, where the people who attended came not only for music, but also because there was a foreigner performing. Even though now in Indonesia it's a bit different and more and more people performing their work, in China as well.

But the first time was in China was in 2005 and even a few times after that, I remember sometimes performing somewhere and somebody coming to me and, ‘I just attended because I saw the name of a foreigner on the poster.’ And I think, wow, that’s amazing and then the person tells me about his or her experience telling me, ‘I never heard this music. It's interesting. I don't really understand. Could you explain to me what did you do?’ Or some people tell me they enjoyed some not really, but they stayed because they wanted to try to understand.

And also, when I was in Uganda the first time, just two or three years ago, it was very interesting. It was a very small event. In the audience there were people from South Sudan, from Uganda, Kenya and the DRC. So this was pretty eclectic. And all of them staged some unique kind of music, some not. And we discussed it after and this is something that hardly happened, I would say, in countries where people are used to this kind of music. You cannot grab somebody randomly in the street and say, ‘Listen, I'm going to play harsh noise. Can you come to attend the show?’ I suppose they would run away as soon as you start. I mean, very often if you play, whether you play in the U.S. or in Belgium, Germany or whatever, which is not necessarily the case there.

And when I was in Myanmar, it was also the same when we made this small festival. It was free and people from the neighborhood attended with their kids and the kids were dancing. And I thought, that's brilliant. This is amazing to leave loud, noise and free jazz, free improv. And they were staying. So sometimes it's harder to get an audience who likes this kind of music in the Western world, depending also on where you play. Should you play in a small village in the middle of nowhere in Europe, you might have a chance also to have people attending because they don't often have people performing and they may like it or not, they might stay.

It's happened – well one of the best audiences for me was in Cambodia, in a village we performed for the kids, at the border of Phnom Penh the we played in an orphanage as well for the kids. It was an audio-visual performance, the improvised music and theater and puppets. The kids enjoyed it so much, best audience ever, really, because there is still this curiosity, and I realized also in many countries where there was a form of repression, censorship, people are eager to discover everything, anything they can. So when I performed for the first time in countries like Vietnam or China, for example it was great because, especially in the mid-2000s, it was opening, even though it was open since the late 90s, mostly, even though they were things before, people were just eager to discover things. So there were so many, many gigs. You could play in Beijing three times per week, noise music. There were gothic events and metal and punk and rock and jazz and contemporary classical music. And people would attend and they wanted to listen to something, something new. And everything arrived at once at some point in many of those places. So they got psychedelic music, they got rock music, you got harsh noise. And it was brilliant. And after a while people some people get bored, like in the West think, like having this feeling of, ‘I have seen it already. I don't need to see it anymore.’ Also, I realized in some places like China, some people realized they could not makeany money with if they would play harsh noise or experimental music and they switched to something else, like techno, for example, minimal techno, drum and bass. So it became a bit more commercial, unfortunately.

I've got similar experiences, very, very few times in Europe as well. I performed once in France which was, it was basically a jazz and improvised music festival, and I played an electroacoustic music performance. But on a Sunday at 10 a.m., so many young people don’t attend the so-called jazz festival. So that leaves the audience, they were young people, but they were also older people. And there were two older women, I would say, in their late 60s, early 70s. And one of them came to me after the gig and she told me, ‘Listen, I've never heard this music before, but I close my eyes and I just had pictures that reminded me of my youth, of my youth. And it was like a dream. And I really enjoyed it.’ I was so happy.

KM: Yeah.

CF: I was really touched to think, OK, she never heard that before. She enjoyed it. She had a good moment, so really I’m super happy.