Maelcum

Founder of the kosmic Free Music Foundation, coordinator of the musicdisk label Exceedingly Great Grooves (EGG), and member of epinicion and Underground Gabber Source; k8to credits him with "a thousand mods or so" (source: s-tw009-interview-maelcum). Wrote the Kosmic column in early traxweekly issues (TOC) and, in #39 (21 December 1995), "Chord Theory?" — chords are "a valid and valuable tool" but not a requirement for good music, only for certain styles; Trixter and Basehead answered him in #40 (source: s-tw039-chord-theory-debate; Trixter addresses him as "Dan").

Facts (source: s-tw009-interview-maelcum)#

• Founded the Kosmic Loader Foundation in the fall of 1992 with one other person as a loader/ANSI group; ModEdit 1.0 turned it into a music group. The early line-up was Venom (Inspekdah Deck), Lurch and Maelcum.
• Tools: Goldwave 2.1 and CoolEdit for samples (from his own CDs and videotapes), MMEDIT (Renaissance's MultiTracker editor) because it "stays out of my way"; composes by doodling until something works.
• 1995 projects: EGG 3 Feelin' Groovy, the musicdisk Half Baked, the demo Flight (3rd at NAID 1995), and the FTZ CD Nothing Is True with IQ (Riku Nuottajärvi) on their own Area 51 Records — which Basehead describes as Kosmic's commercial division "in spirit" (source: s-tw018-interview-basehead).
• Anti-industry: "throwing a lot of money at bad music doesn't make it any better"; wants to be "the Robert Rodriguez of music".
• Influences: The Cure, Depeche Mode, New Order, Front 242, The Orb, William Orbit, Autechre. Phoenix names him an inspiration (source: s-tw001-interview-phoenix); Basehead stayed in Kosmic out of loyalty to him (source: s-tw003-interview-five-musicians); his music is "desperately experimental" techno without typical structure (source: s-tw018-interview-basehead).
• Behemoth (October 1997) cites "Maelcum's awesome label, Area 51 Records" as one of the small labels carrying tracked music (source: s-tw114-commercial-tracking-debate; see commercial-tracking).
• Coined the "Epinicion syndrome" — a group growing far beyond its talent (source: s-tw018-interview-basehead).

The Quarex interview (#19, July 1995) (source: s-tw019-interview-quarex)#

• Interviewed quarex for traxweekly #19 (20 July 1995) and printed the log "complete and UNEDITED", including his own pre-interview venting.
• On samples and credit: "you're a lot more influenced by Major Tom and ME than necros … WE MADE ALL YOUR … SAMPLES!" — the "rezonant bassy sounds floating around nowadays" are his; he is "the only person that people never credit samples from", and is tired of every interviewee naming necros as their biggest influence (see sample-ripping, instrument-design).
• Self-assessment: "i just hit keys and rearrange notes"; the one thing he knows is drum tracks — "JEEZ GUYS IT'S CALLED A 4/4 BEAT"; calls himself "a pioneer of this scene"; describes "Future Crew-syndrome" — his worst tunes liked for the name, his best overlooked (see future-crew); signed shirts at NAID 1995.
• "I'd like to make kosmic as big as microsoft, but for free"; jokes about being "just one of the 96 in epinicion"; Kosmic had just lost its FTP site, on which "our whole distribution relies". "nitewynd is just me in my spare time" in the same log is a joke, not a fact.
• Defends perisoft: "perisoft is really cool and people should leave him alone. anyone that [messes] with perisoft [messes] with me".
• Quarex names The Bugz Deal as the song that got him tracking, lists Maelcum among his favourite tracker musicians and had about 15 of his old mods on a mod CD-ROM.

Recruiter and influence, as seen in the interviews#

• Recruited thehacker into KLF by e-mail (1993–94) after TheHacker found KLF music on The Sound Barrier BBS; TheHacker lists him among his ambient influences (source: s-tw005-interview-thehacker). nemesis needed to "get a hold of Maelcum" to release Maelstrom through Kosmic (March 1995) (source: s-tw004-interview-nemesis). Let balrog into Kosmic and kept him through a year without releases (source: s-tw042-interview-balrog). Was at NAID 1995 (source: s-tw006-naid-opinion-interviews).
• Named as an influence by ganja-man, impressed by his "we're not anybody" attitude (source: s-tw052-interview-ganja-man), and by mental-floss ("Maelcum / Kosmic") (source: s-tw119-interview-mental-floss); fisherman (May 1996): Basehead and Maelcum "are famous" (source: s-tw060-interview-fisherman).
• On his techno: populus (June 1995) — Maelcum "and some of his gang have made [techno] very smooth and complicated" (source: s-tw016-interview-populus); master-of-darkness — techno that stands out, "like Maelcum and Maral do" (source: s-tw027-faces-in-the-crowd-master-of-darkness).
• shawnm's example of a known tracker with no theory (source: s-tw041-interview-shawnm); khyron (1997): Kosmic members "don't show an ego about anything (except Maelcum ofcourse =)" (source: s-tw111-interview-khyron).

To verify#

• (unverified) Surname Nicholson.

Related#

kosmic · epinicion · trixter · basehead · phoenix · quarex · sample-ripping · thehacker · balrog · traxweekly

Sources#

s-tw009-interview-maelcum · s-tw039-chord-theory-debate · s-tw018-interview-basehead · s-tw001-interview-phoenix · s-tw003-interview-five-musicians · s-tw114-commercial-tracking-debate · s-tw019-interview-quarex · s-tw005-interview-thehacker · s-tw004-interview-nemesis · s-tw042-interview-balrog · s-tw006-naid-opinion-interviews · s-tw052-interview-ganja-man · s-tw119-interview-mental-floss · s-tw060-interview-fisherman · s-tw016-interview-populus · s-tw027-faces-in-the-crowd-master-of-darkness · s-tw041-interview-shawnm · s-tw111-interview-khyron