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Wil-Tron Interview - All things shiny

Author: charlee
Friday, May 5, 2006
Leaving art school and discovering electronic music, Wiltron stumbled across artists such as Dopplereffekt, Auxx 88 and Legowelt. A love for electro sounds was the result. Searching for like minded souls he built a relationship with the monthly club night Meccanoid, and after only six months in production he performed live for the first time in front of the Meccanoid family.

After proving his talents as a producer and live performer in Australia, Wil- tron relocated to Japan for some "quiet time" to concentrate on his writing and brush up on his karaoke skills.

As Wil-tron returns home to support Modeselektor on their Australian tour I thought it fitting to take the time to find out more about the man behind the machine.

You attended art school. What were you studying-

I studied Fine Art. Majoring in Painting. It's fair to say I made a pretty good mess of my degree. I don't think I was ready to move away from home and I became very cynical, very quickly when it came to university and visual arts in general. I still like to sketch and paint, but music has taken over. It has priority for the moment.

What kind of robot is Wil-tron-

Wil-tron is a very basic model robot by day. No flashing lights or bleepy noises. He goes along carrying out autonomous duties 9 to 5. But at night his chest cavity opens up to reveal some of the most colourful neon you've ever seen and a thumping kick drum where his heart should be.

Your debut live performance was at 'Meccanoid' in 2002. Was the set smooth sailing-

Actually it was. There were a few mistakes but I was the only one who noticed. I remember being real nervous for a week or so leading up to that night. I'd only been writing my own tracks for about 6 months. When I agreed to do the show I didn't even have enough material for an hour set. I must have punched out four or five tracks in the few weeks I had to get ready.

For our readers who may be familiar with what a live show entails, could you give us a brief run down-

Right now it's me fumbling away behind a laptop running Ableton. A small 6 channel mixer, midi keyboard controller, a mic and an EFX unit. I'm trying to bring in new elements to the show all the time cause I get bored easily just doing the same thing. I started doing some live vocal work late last year which has been fun. I bought a MicroKorg and a couple of other things in Japan that I'll introduce soon.

What program are you currently utilizing for your productions-

I mainly use Reason. I still have so much to learn when it comes to that program and production in general but I've always liked what I was able to make come out of it. I was shown a few of the basics when I first started but I've never had any musical training. It's just constant trial and error. Sometimes I'll run it with Cubase for something a bit different. I like Wavelab for editing my loops and a little mastering.

Are your Productions available on download or vinyl- Where can readers find out more about your work-

You can find out more things like where I'm playing @ www.myspace.com/wil_tron - there are some flyers of past and upcoming gigs, some photos etc. There'll be some tracks up there soon for people to check out. I'd like to think the vinyl is coming. I've been making some good contacts overseas and I'm working with some like minded people here in Melbourne trying to get a label of own off the ground. It's been a fairly slow process up until now but I know I'll get there eventually.

You relocated to Japan in early 2004. Was there a particular reason for the move-

I guess there were a number of reasons. I had to take Japanese class when I was at high school. Even though I was pretty hopeless with the language it did spark an interest. I'd always wanted to go and live somewhere overseas, just for a year or so and see what it
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