The Brvtalist is pleased to premiere a new track by Kreuz. We premiere today “Wonkru” that comes off Under Division’s upcoming V.A, out January 22nd on Bandcamp. A massive release with 11 crushing tracks with industrial, trance and rave influences from Analect, AD†AM, Adorn, BRZ, Gus & Jorg, Kreuz, Kaio Barssalos, Matheus Rocha, Paramod, Veta.M and YÅ.
We did a Q&A with Under Division label bosses Paulo Madazio and Pedro Pimenta (Kreuz) about their imprint, Brazilian scene & future plans. Read more below.
-Melanie Havens
The Brvtalist: Tell us about the vision and concept of Under Division, and how is the curatorship done?
Under Divison: The crew was born organizing parties hosted by multiple venues of Sao Paulo Brazil. After few small parties, we launched the label releasing our first VA celebrating our biggest event at that time, both with the same names, Mannaz. By the way, most of the Under Division visual art concept is based in Nordic culture and runes. Actually, all the crew members act as producer hunter, making connections and inviting people that we think that the sound is connected somewhere with us and our objective spreading music to the people, Paulo Madazio and Pedro Pimenta and the label responsible for all the bureaucratic part, artists and repertoire, digital platform and stores distribution, independent campaigns and sales at Bandcamp, press release, artist contracts, art direction, digital presence and more, Matheus Rocha and Alex TB are responsible for the sound engineering, making magic with the track mastering process.
TB: What are some challenges of running a label & party focused on Industrial and hard textures in Brazil?
UD: The most challenging part is to be in a country where culture, art and I’m meaning the music is not recognized, most by the economics, retrograde ideology, politics, lack of support by the state, in other words, no incentive, but that’s ok we born in this scenario and we are fighting against it, in the other way, make business with a less-valuable currency, compared with dollars and euros, make things harder for sure. The rewarding part is to make friends around the world and share the message that we always had clever minds acting in Brazil’s background and underground scene.
TB: Talk about the Brazilian scene - how does the political situation affects it?
UD: As I said before, the feeling that we can’t count on the state, even from the citizen perspective and also looking at the corporate, organization point of view, is frustrating, we are trying to change our generation following the one that came before us and, when we look to the news and political decisions, for sure we agreed that Brazil is walking two steps back and going in the wrong direction to that the world is walking. We observe that some specific countries took similar decisions in their past elections but as the biggest country in South America we always agree that Brazil must take the lead and act as one region lead, spreading good actions and being a reference for in development countries group and for the world, we hope that we can retake the right way soon.
TB: What can the public expect of the upcoming EPs and VAs?
UD: The 2021 calendar is 100% filled, bi-monthly releases in the main label and 1 VA early (Dec-Jan) we decide to run this way now with our 7th release and label 1 year, so we are faithful to our calendar and curatorship.
TB: What are your plans for the future of Under Division?
UD: The fresh news and exclusive info to you is our next release, by Stefano TT a known talent in Brazil and in the world. We are very happy to host and have him with us and trusting in our work, besides the label plans for 2021 we will start a new free download series in EP format first, bi-monthly releases too, and then all the track will be part of the yearly compilation to be release mid-year every year. This series will be called “Raid Tapes” and our main intention will be spread fresh music, fresh producers, make it accessible to everyone and give opportunity to other artists.
And for sure, be back in the dancefloors soon, bringing music to our people.
- Paulo Madazio and Pedro Pimenta