Seance Radio was founded in 2013 by Spectralband, he gives us an insight into the thought process behind the radio station, future plans and some background info on himself…
What were the reasons behind the decision to set up Seance Radio?
We (The Clairvoyants) had a show on Rinse FM for several years, using the show to share our platform with other DJs, artists and promoters was our main motivation and when the show ended it was a big factor in the decision to set up Seance.
Once you break a routine that you’ve maintained for a long time you sometimes lose a bit of motivation so I wanted to act quickly. Rather than setting up a Ustream or Mixlr account and just broadcasting to anyone who was only interested in listening to us I wanted to build another platform to help promote others and more importantly the music 24/7 not just 3 hours a week as was the case with Rinse.
I already had the knowledge of how to set up websites and an internet only radio station and had gained some experience from working for an established radio station and so Seance was created.
Why the name Seance?
The name stems from the whole Clairvoyance related theme, in the context of radio Seance is a gathering of people (listeners) to make connection with the music through a medium / clairvoyant or in this case, The Clairvoyants.
When did Seance begin broadcasting?
We launched on 21.07.13 with a couple of test broadcasts but we had no other DJs on board.
Our official launch date was 11.08.13 and we’ve been running 24 hours a day, 7 days a week since.
The very first people to join Seance were the guys behind the Portuguese record label Reaktivate Records with a weekly 2 hour show hosted by Quantic Spectroscopy, Kinetic & Jönsson Tõll. K1971 label management allowed us to broadcast their monthly podcast as did PVS’s H.omevvork podcast and we also added a couple of syndicated radio shows such as CLR, Blind Spot Radio, Sleaze Podcast, Slam Radio, Dave Clarke’s White Noise and more recently The Black Dog’s Radio Dogma and Marco Bailey’s Elektronic Force. Those shows along with The Clairvoyants Seance Radio show were the nucleus. The remaining hours in the night were mostly a combination of old mixes including the guest mixes from our Rinse show as they were pure music without any talking.
The Clairvoyants have more than one show, why is that?
There were a handful of DJs who were due to guest on our Rinse show so we contacted them to let them know what we were doing and ask whether they still wanted to be involved and the response was positive so we created The Clairvoyants Presents: show which is a weekly show which features an hour mix from a guest of our choice and has featured the likes of Rebekah, NX1, Kamikaze Space Programme, Viktoria, Manni Dee, Pfirter and many more. The Presents: show mainly focuses on established DJs and producers and we wanted to have a show that focuses on the DJs that either don’t produce, are in the earlier stages of their production careers or are simply more renowned as DJs and so we set up the Spotlight: show from which a handful of DJs that featured have now gone on to have their own regular shows such as Berlin based DE vs. Troit and also Joanna Jago & Wasteyouth who are behind the Resistance is Futile show. We also collaborated with Kamikaze Space Programme to devise the Kamikaze Space Podcast which ran for several months.
Although primarily a Techno radio station what other genres can listeners expect to hear?
Over the course of the past year many shows have been added to the schedule, we now have a mixture of exclusive live and pre-recorded shows and have started to branch out from just Techno and into the realm of electronic music on the whole with shows like Machine Woman’s Sonic Disturbances that focuses on electronica and combines music with interviews, Simon Heartfield’s Secret Self Radio show during which, he supplies an hour of eclectic gems and personal favourites from his extensive music collection. Dylab a Melbourne based Acid producer has a monthly live slot and we hope to run a feature on him in the coming weeks about his set-up.
Eventually we hope to run a feature on all of our artists.
I’m behind the fortnightly Parametric Activity podcast which is a Drum & Bass podcast and has a different guest each time showcasing their preferred sound and there are more shows in the pipeline and the desire to add some more forms of electronic music such as Dub and early Rave music to the roster.
Any other plans as a brand?
We already have our own free Android and iOS apps developed and on the market and we recently ran a competition to give away some samples of our merchandise range which I hope we can launch and expand on.
I’ve signed an EP to be released both on vinyl and digital on the Seance record label later this year, once the label is up and running. I think that’s enough to concentrate on for now and then I’ll take it from there.
What sets Seance apart from other stations?
Although I don’t pay attention to what others are doing I’ve always been fully aware that there are other more and lesser established stations out there. I think many more will come and go so longevity is key, but in order to achieve it you need to move with the times, the concept of radio has evolved so much in recent times and will continue to do so.
Seance is there for all to be enjoyed… it’s not been set up by me and my mates for me and my mates. Also, as with anything in life staying humble will stand us in good stead.
Name some of the highlights of the past year and a half?
The biggest highlight has been the response from other people, not necessarily in terms of quantity but the trust that artists have shown in us by either choosing us to host their existing shows or willingness to work with us to create a show from scratch.
In terms of listeners, I can honestly say I’m hard pushed to think of a country or region where we haven’t had any listeners from, for that we are grateful and hope for your continued support moving forward
Written by NK1
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