FIBRE is a future funk producer, residing in the United States. Unlike most other future funk fanatics however, he likes to put a delicate twist on the music he creates.
He has collaborated recently with the likes of Aritus, Tendencies and many more artists that are rising to fame in the recent months and continues to turn heads in the music industry as of today and we believe that it will continue a lot further!
FS: What’s up everyone! We have something a bit different for you now. Future funk producer, FIBRE, is here to talk about the reasoning behind why he is leaving the genre, as well as explaining his plans in the future for everything musically related.
So you announced on a lengthy Facebook post that you’ll be striving for a new sound, what is this in particular?
FI: I made a Facebook post on my page about my direction and what the future has to entail, which ended up being posted and talked about very melodramatically on Reddit which is hilarious. future funk was a fantastic genre for me and I had a lot of amazing experiences defining the late “future funk” sound especially with projects such as Virtues EP.
However, I knew that future funk wasn’t going to be what I was going to continue to make for a very long time now.
I now get that making the same music for a very long time is flat-out boring. I’ve been really impressed at the revival of the French touch scene recently, actually.
There has been some fantastic artists that have been coming to the seams with unique styles that I’ve never heard before that have inspired me to delve into a genre I’ve always longed to be a part of.
This deluge of synth funk, French house with elements of pop and microsampled madness reminds me of the greats such as Justice and Breakbot all over again, but from a new outlook. That’s what French touch is all about, a fresh perspective to an age-old sound enshrouded in mysteriosity and I really dig that.
I plan to have a very solid EP out in 2017 and I’m prepping the release for my last future funk EP with a fairly well-known net label soon. There probably won’t be many FIBRE releases after this remix until 2017 and I’m starting to collaborate with some great artists you may know, but can’t really talk about.
Maybe one or two singles at the end of 2016 – early 2017 and some collabs before a really serious EP release. That’s all I can say about that.
FS: That’s a very nice description of what’s coming up FIBRE! We definitely look forward to what you can conjure up in regards to the French touch side of things.
Will there be anything you miss about the genre at all?
FI: Yeah probably, I think one thing that I will miss was this close knitted community of people who supported me no matter what direction I went towards, including now. I always appreciate to see the support no matter where it comes from.
I’ll also miss the fact that this was the genre that got me more social, helped me network and led to multiple widely successful underground shows. Aritus and I even did a New England tour with Tendencies, DJ Clickbait, ehiorobo and others. I’ll always remember those memories as career defining.
FS: What do you think the future holds for future funk itself?
FI: This is going to be a long answer.
I honestly don’t know because future funk is in a very weird position. This however is just my opinion from what I’ve seen. One of the reasons why I stopped making this sort of music was also because of the things that I won’t be missing.
I can guarantee that from a production standpoint, there are a lot of artists that are making lazy sample based music and are profiting off of this sort of cheap anime aesthetic that future funk has been associated to, without naming names. That’s the reason why some people will call out all future funk producers as lazy.
That was an important concept that I took into account – that I was being associated with a genre I took very seriously but was considered to outsiders as a joke. It’s a very strange concept to grasp your mind around especially in internet music scenes such as this, and I had never seen it to this sort of magnitude anywhere else.
There are even vaporwave producers who will beef with future funk producers and vice versa. I was never the kind of person to get into that sort of thing, but it still was uncomfortable knowing I was a part of it. I never really got into labeling my music with crazy kanji and I was more focused on the vibe of the music I was making.
However, there’s some dudes like Moe Shop that are using the overall look in a very original way, referring to more Japanese based culture rather than some kid selling out by using anime to boost their activity.
I did my own thing, but the market has become so over saturated that I feel that it does not represent my musical direction anymore. So naturally, I decided to bounce out and keep in touch with my closest music friends – some of which have been moving on to bigger and better things.
I have a lot of things to say about future funk and the overall state that it’s in, but I’d be rambling if I went on. So honestly, only time will tell.
FS: Some interesting points there. We do agree with you on the fact that future funk is currently in a weird position.
Moving on however, you just released a BASTION remix of their track New World. Can you tell us a bit more about this?
FI: This is an important remix for me because it hopefully give people a (very) premature peek into the music that I will start to make. It’s a “sever” from the usual music that’s up on my SoundCloud, being very different and giving off different vibes.
Being a sample based artist for 4 years has given me a lot of production skill and that’s just plain honesty, but I have been working on composition, overall structure and sound design. I have a great outlook on my music, and this remix is only the beginning of a long and lengthy process I love to engage myself in. It’s also the first time I got to work with a PR company which is the bomb!
FS: We do enjoy seeing what the guys at BASTION can come out with and produce. Your remix is also sounding extremely on point, we must say!
We’re gonna veer off-topic for a few questions now. Did you decide to create music as a hobby or a project?
FI: I started making music when I was 13; I just turned 18 a couple of weeks ago. I basically started off making really terrible Daft Punk remakes, which ironically led me to improving my sampling. Sooner or later I got into a really small French House scene where I met my first internet music friends, and then I expanded into Future Funk after a year and a half.
That’s where I really saw my music taking off and I continued evolving my sound. I have a hiphop side project, but it’s not really worth linking as I don’t take it very seriously at this point anymore.
The project that I’ve been working on is a French Touch label that’s going to be started up very soon. It’s called Montaimé and I’m hoping that it’s going to be featuring some really fantastic music in the future.
It’s still a work in progress and I can’t talk about whose slated to be on, but it’s definitely something that I’ve been investing a lot of my time into that is going to be a safe haven for artists releasing music in this scene.
FS: Do you think Soundcloud is on its last legs?
FI: That’s one of the things that I’m going to be focusing on and Montaimé will be focusing on. In 2016, it’s pretty impossible to not have a Soundcloud account for your major projects but expansion is also key. I’ll be planning to be doing a lot more expansion into BandCamp and distribution platforms that we all know and love.
As for Soundcloud being on its last legs…? Again, only time will tell. We know that as a company, Soundcloud loses more money than it makes, and I feel that their attempts to generate net gain have appeared sellout-y because they’re desperate.
Monetization as an OnSoundcloud partner generates close to literally nothing; you are better off monetizing on something such as YouTube, and Soundcloud Go turned off many major tracks that caused people to hate Soundcloud even more. As for BandCamp, they are constantly expanding and allow for better user-artist interactions without bodacious fees. It also allows people to be more likely to buy an artist’s music, which is a fairly big deal.
BandCamp takes a fair cut, and everyone is happy. Their business model is a lot more user-friendly than Soundcloud, who is just trying to make money to keep the company alive. Although its understandable, it will probably suffer immensely if they don’t do something that will keep everyone pleased with their services.
FS: Lastly, what’s your opinion on this Daft Punk and The Weeknd collaboration that’s supposed to be going down?
FI: I talked about this with some friends – 2012 me would probably be screaming. But after RAM I haven’t really liked the stuff Daft Punk has been doing, it’s just not my overall style. I’ll keep an eye out for it but unfortunately my expectations are pretty low. That’s all I can say, I don’t feel too strongly about it.
FS: Random Access Memories was definitely a wildcard. Rumors are though that they are gravitating towards an R&B styled album.
Thank you FIBRE for chatting with us! Make sure to follow his social medias below and check out his other tracks in the Soundcloud widget as well: