Primordial Void is a DIY label and collective run by Marcel Sletten, a California native who is currently based in Athens, Georgia. Primordial Void started in Lodi, California in 2018, but moved Athens with Marcel in 2021. It has been putting out local releases and hosting shows around Athens ever since. I recently had the chance to talk with Marcel about their experience with Primordial Void and the Athens Music Scene.
Cannon: Tell me about Primordial Void and your life before moving to Athens.
Marcel: When I was 17 I left California to accept an internship offer at a record label in New York. When I finished my internship in New York, I moved back to California and moved from Santa Cruz to the Central Valley near Stockton. I was there for a few years and once things opened up after the pandemic, like 2021, I moved to Athens.
Cannon: Prior to moving to Athens, was Primordial Void mainly releasing music from California?
Marcel: It [Primordial Void] was releasing artists all over the world. The town I was living in at the time didn’t really have a music scene. In the three years that I was living there I only saw like two shows, and they were in San Francisco and larger cities. There was nothing where I was living, so basically the boredom of living out there and not really knowing anybody kind of inspired me to get the label going. I was working with artists all over the world. At the time, I was really working with three main artists who were based in Colorado, Japan, and New York respectively. I didn’t really start putting out California artists until the pandemic hit and I had even more time to spend at home and work on the label. It wasn’t until I moved to Athens that I was motivated to zero in on a local scene, and really followed what a local scene was doing. A few years ago I put out this band called Speck, a post-hardcore band formed in Santa Cruz. I went to a lot of their first house shows, and now they’re based in LA. That was a full circle moment for me.
Cannon: Can you touch on what it was like to get Primordial Void off the ground and how the label has evolved over the years?
Marcel: When I was a teenager I ran a music blog for a few years called MMJ. It was sort of what led me to connect with a lot of these artists I work with now. I ran that blog for four years and after that I decided I wanted to do something that was more creatively fulfilling, which ultimately led to me deciding to start a record label. The first release that I put out on Primordial Void was a compilation of various artist compilations that featured mostly artists that I had covered on the blog. From there it sort of grew into its own thing. I recently started a new blog called Cosmic Trattoria that’s very different from what I was doing before Primordial Void. That first compilation was received pretty well, Resident Advisor actually premiered it which was a pretty crazy moment for us. They had been following my blog and they were interested in a lot of the artists featured on the compilation. From there, we sort of got a lot of attention from the electronic underground scene. Most of the stuff we were putting out at that point was experimental electronic music. From there, anytime I heard something on Bandcamp or Soundcloud that piqued my interest I would reach out to the artist and ask if they wanted to do a release. I was constantly doing outreach to artists and other labels, and it became very prolific very quickly.
Cannon: What does DIY mean to you?
Marcel: It’s important to keep DIY alive now more than ever. The majority of streaming platforms are so predatory, and terms like “indie” “DIY” and “underground” have been abused in recent years, and it’s watered down what those terms mean. Artists and labels that truly follow that ideology I think that speaks volumes. I’ve encountered many artists and labels that brand themselves as DIY but have unlimited funding. I think in a scene like Athens, where everybody is so supportive of one another, there’s this ecosystem where there’s so much freedom to experiment with whatever genre or style and you’ll still have people come out and listen, I think that’s incredibly important. It may not be as stylistically diverse as a place like Atlanta or Ashville, but Athens, being indie rock dominant, the spirit and ethos is what comes through the most to me. Athens has taught me that contributing to your local scene as much as possible and following the people in your scene that you think are interesting and innovative is incredibly important, regardless of where you are.
Cannon: Are there any bands that come to mind right now that have your attention and that you think are especially innovative?
Marcel: He doesn’t really play live anymore, but Surface to Air Missive is one of those bands that got me interested in the contemporary Athens scene. Obviously I’m a fan of all of the stuff that came out of here in the 80s and 90s, but when I was getting into contemporary Athens music prior to moving here it was Surface to Air Missive, Antlered Aunt Lord, and The Dream Scene, which is Javier from Deerhunter. All of them are still based here, but Surface to Air Missive is in my opinion of the greatest current Athens artists. I also love what Sword II is doing out of Atlanta.
Cannon: Can you talk about the evolution you’ve seen from the local scene since you moved here in 2021?
Marcel: I’m not as familiar with Atlanta’s scene as a whole because I don’t make it out there that often. With regards to Athens, I mean, what I’ve witnessed in the five years that I’ve been here, was that when I first moved here there were a lot more house shows going on, one of the key issues [of Athens] is because it’s a college town and has such a transient population, making the music scene itself very transient. You have people who were putting on really amazing house shows and bringing back that energy that Athens didn’t have for a really long time. It’ll come back for a year or two and then it’ll be gone again. I’m sure in a year or two from now it’ll come back. That’s kind of what I’ve noticed here and that can also be applied to the local experimental and electronic scene. There were definitely more people that made the type of music I made for the first few years I was here, more noisy and ambient stuff. A lot of those people have since moved away, but I can see how a in year or two from now that could revert back. That has definitely been the trickiest thing to navigate in regards to booking shows or establishing relationships with people who live here. When there’s not a real support system of house shows, you really start to feel the shockwaves of other businesses closing like Buvez.
Cannon: Is there anything that you’re excited about in the future, or any prediction of what’s coming next in Athens?
Marcel: That’s kind of the thing with Athens, it’s unpredictable. I think, hopefully, and I don’t know if its realistic prediction or not, but in the next couple years I hope that there is a motivation to establish more of a house show scene and establish more DIY venues. Spaces like Bolo-Bolo and Workshop stopped booking shows, and those were located right outside of downtown. I hope that motivates more people to get the live scene going again. I know so many people, myself included, who get burnt out from playing the same venues over and over again. Flicker is definitely one of my favorite venues in town, but people can suffer from Flicker burnout. That’s not a fault of Flicker whatsoever, but a fault of the scene not having the support system it once had.
Cannon: Before we end, is there anything you want readers to know?
Marcel: I definitely want more people to know that we [Primordial Void] book shows here, and that’s something I want to promote as much as our own releases. I want to encourage more people to get involved, zines like Hoi Polli have been awesome and I want to see more zine culture come back. Especially in a place like Athens where punk is so huge, I would love to see more house shows and zines comeback overall.
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