Kepz
Kepz's story is a pleasure to tell: as a young teenager, he stumbled upon Audiotool and played a significant role in shaping its early years alongside the first generation of users. Over time, he matured musically from producing playful Trance and Melodic House anthems to crafting a chillier, deeper Dub Techno and Deep House sound. Although still so young, he won the Moog Fest Contest and travelled from Sydney to the USA to play a DJ set at the renowned festival. As Kepz continued to grow as an artist, he began playing at parties and enjoyed numerous releases on various Dub Techno labels. In 2022, he made a deep impression on us when he applied for the developer position we advertised. And now, at the beginning of 2023, Kepz has undertaken his second-long journey in the service of Audiotool. He's come to our Audiotool Basement in Cologne to support us in taking the next important step. But before I reveal too much, read on to discover how the story unfolded from his perspective.
Interview
I'm a Ukrainian born, Australian based artist, DJ and software engineer. I release and perform under my alias Kooscha.
- About Kepz
- I'm a Ukrainian born, Australian based artist, DJ and software engineer. I release and perform under my alias Kooscha, paint landscapes, work at a local record store and now at Audiotool! In the beginning I was making mostly Melodic House and Trance but later started experimenting with Ambient and other soundscapy genres such as Dub Techno. I tend to go through phases of styles as I like to latch on to ideas and explore them as much as possible.
- What influence did your environment on Audiotool have on the development of your music?
- Audiotool's early community can take the credit for shaping my music taste. It opened my eyes to a lot of underground genres that I hadn't heard before. There was a huge presence of really well crafted House and Techno in the early days which I learned a lot from.
- What were your highlights over the last 12 years?
- Being part of the community full of amazing artists back when I was a newbie. The trip to Moogfest where I met and partied with rnzr, Frigolito and Mr. Standfast. Helping with the design of Quasar. And this year finally meeting andremichelle, Snad Breugen, Martin Below and the rest of the current Audiotool staff!
- Please tell the newer users about your experiences with the Moogfest Contest
- I produced a track specifically for the contest and worked really hard on it. But alongside that I also submitted an Ambient jam I made earlier with just one Pulverisateur (my track called 'Lost'). That jam ended up in 1st place. I remember waking up to lots of messages and realised I must've won. I couldn't believe it! I was so happy I'd get to finally meet some of the users and travel overseas by myself for the first time. Moogfest was amazing and I learned a lot about the history of Moog's synths and their impact on our world.
- How has Audiotool changed over the years from your point of view?
- There are a lot more experiments, short sketches and beats being published. It's cool that people aren't afraid to share raw ideas. There was a lot of perfectionist mindset back in the day. Some artists went as far as deleting all of their own work because they thought their music wasn't up to a standard. I think current users are a lot more free and open minded in that sense. Audiotool really encourages a growth mindset.
- What does your daily production routine look like?
- I use Audiotool alongside Ableton. Audiotool is for jamming and having fun and sketching ideas on the go. Ableton for working with hardware, working on remixes, focusing more on polishing. I export and reuse sounds, loops and synth lines from a lot of my Audiotool tracks. I guess I'll just always have a Pulverisateur shaped hole in my heart no matter which DAW I'm in!
- How did you get involved in the subject matter that ultimately qualified you to work at Audiotool?
- I've been in touch with the team for many years. I didn't think there was even a possibility to work at Audiotool one day and turns out no one even knew I was a dev until recently! I was part of Audiotool Next beta testing, then I helped out with moderating for a bit, more recently I got involved with the creation of Quasar. In 2022 Audiotool posted the ads and I was apparently the first applicant in the inbox! I literally dropped everything I was doing and wrote my application within 1hr of seeing the news.
- What are you currently working on?
- Rebuilding Probe together with jujuu. We're ditching Defrac and Java and now using Typescript with our little inhouse framework. We're starting with Probe as a learning exercise before fully diving into the bigger rebuild of the Studio with Andre.
