It started sort of unintentionally. In 1998/1999, Chris Rosenau had done his first solo record, and was looking for a way to put it together and give it to friends. His upstairs neighbor was a history of geography teacher, and had a bunch of old maps. He gave some of these to Chris and so he cut the maps up to make covers for his disc. Not too long after, we finished working on some remixes of the first Pele record, along with some friends of ours, and thought that instead of trying to get a label to take interest in these (they were very different from 'normal' Pele music), we thought we'd take the same approach to it as Chris' map project. So, we figured the design, painted the sleeves, and decided on the name for the label, bought a stamp to identify them with, and that was it. It was a very primitive operation, and we really weren't expecting it to go much farther than that.

The concept for the most part is communication. Not in terms of words or a specific idea or message, but something else. Croutons were a metaphor in a story I used to tell where they acted as a device to transform people. So, with the label, maybe the releases affect the listener without really making them think or feel something specific, yet surely instigate and involve some sort of communication.

For the most part, all of the releases have been curated by me, and have involved knowing the person before talk of a release even comes up. But in some cases, this process maybe happened a bit faster, or in one case, I was approached by the artist outright, but I have yet to release anything based on receiving an unsolicited demo. If I had more money to work with, this might be possible, but it's hard enough to do all the projects I want to do as it is.

Nearly all the design work is done by Scott Kawczynski in Brooklyn, NY. We're old friends, and when we started the label, he really had good ideas on how to take our primitive ideas and sharpen them up. For the packages, we always try to have some type of hands-on involvement in the construction, but still have it look consistent in some way. The packaging is rarely decided on based on the music (but in some cases it was - Richard Chartier and Andrew McKenzie both did their own design for their releases). I like the idea of chance - the possibility of juxtapositions - become the familiar or natural. So, to try to have the package too closely "match" the recording might result in too much of what is expected or assumed, rather than something wholly unique.

There is really no benefit, per se, of running the label in Milwaukee. There is a certain amount of support/shops/and events available, but I am much more interested in having the releases be with an interested person wherever, rather than focus on some type of geographical base or something. When you're listening to good music, ultimately, it really doesn't matter where it's from.

When a certain dynamic of internal and external realities coincide.

Stunning? Well thanks! From the time I was 15 - 18, I was in in some punk rock bands, but I really started to develop not only my relationship with my instrument, as well as my concept of music, late in high school and in college. I had a good friend in high school who was an incredible painter that introduced me to a lot of new music and ideas. This extended into college, where I began working with sound and video, and exploring sound more as a piece of a bigger picture. During this time, I moved to Chicago and studied music theory and jazz percussion, which really helped develop some of the ideas I had of my own. After I moved back to Milwaukee, it took some time, but eventually I started working more closely with multi approaches to a project. This is how Telecognac was started - first as a story, then music, then additional text - to create a bigger picture that was both accessible on a small scale, yet without boundaries in terms of 'band' identity or something (even though at one time it had 8 working members). Soon after, Pele started (1997), and this was initially a much more straightforward band - something I was still interested in despite these other things I was working on. It was during this time that I also pursued working with other individuals on improvised music, to counteract the structure of working in Pele. This 'exercise' helped both approaches stay interesting. Chris and I were doing a ton of stuff back then, just recording constantly. We worked on film music, dixieland, improvised folk songs with lyrics, ambient music, the amount of recorded material is just exhaustive. We also started working more with Hal Rammel, a Chicago native who moved nearby Milwaukee who has a long history of involvement in instrument building and improvised music. Through Hal, I met Steve Nelson-Raney, a saxophonist who also has a great knowledge of improvised and jazz music, and teaches at the University here. He and I have recorded one record together, released on Hal's Penumbra label, and play very regularly at my house. Collections of Colonies of Bees is a project that Chris and I have had for awhile that we've recently formed into more of a structured lineup. It's sort of a combination of some of the ideas from Pele, presented in different forms and methods, and is less genre specific than we think Pele was. My work with people from other places/countries usually has worked via sending recordings back and forth, with discussion in between. For instance, I just finished a year-long project with Jason Kahn working with paper as an instrument. Soon I will be starting a project with Lionel Marchetti involving recordings his grandfather made in the 1920s, and percussion installation recordings. As an overall direction, I'd say I just want to keep pursuing what I find interesting.

I've been interested in Japanese music for quite awhile, so it was such a pleasure to get to travel there and learn more about different artists who aren't necessarily known in the U.S. Japanese sound experiments and approaches are something to learn from, just as the culture in general has been an inspiration for me.

I've been interested in Japanese music for quite awhile, so it was such a pleasure to get to travel there and learn more about different artists who aren't necessarily known in the U.S. Japanese sound experiments and approaches are something to learn from, just as the culture in general has been an inspiration for me.

That's very difficult, as it changes so much, but I'd have to say I've been listening lately to recent Charalambides, old Dock Boggs and other Revenant label reissues of bluegrass music, Faun Fables, any new Hafler Trio recordings, and Mats Gustafsson's "Solos for Contrabass Saxophones."

Crouton Music
P.O. Box 070352
Milwaukee, WI 53207
www.croutonmusic.com