Downfall

Downfall is an ambient-industrial music project, an experiment in noise, undertaken by Kurt Hoelscher.

It is the culmination of an almost 20 year long exploration through different methods of creating a unique sound, and through a variety of post-industrial electronic musical genres, such as electro-industrial, industrial hip-hop and terrorcore.

An interest in music developed into an interest in making music early on. Not long out of high school, influenced by musicians such as Skinny Puppy, Front Line Assembly and Nine Inch Nails, Kurt and a friend started messing around with software musical sequencers and trackers. This birthed a sound best described as a fusion of industrial metal and hip hop, which within a few years had begun to establish itself firmly as a 5 piece musical project within the local Sydney scene.

Fast forward a few years to Kurt working solo once again, having not found what he was looking for in a band environment, and messing around with a new generation of computer based audio software, such as Fruity Loops. Lacking any real sense of satisfaction with the same old music he'd always created, he began to experiment with other electronic genres and explore what other techniques were available to him.

This spawned a new wave of interest for Kurt. Further influenced by artists like Ultraviolence and Delta-9, a distinctly different sound emerged - angrier and edgier than before, with a heavy use of aggressive-sounding samples from movies - that proved to not be satisfying in the long term, but which inevitably helped pave the way for future derivations.

Early 2007, Kurt stumbled across a piece of modular audio software called Audio Mulch, a far more flexible and improvisational environment for musical composition, which very quickly became second nature - a sound developing that Kurt hadn't been aware of being interested in, but one which he found he was incredibly drawn to and fascinated by. His music began to take on a much more organic and ambient feel, resulting in what became known as Downfall.
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Downfall is an ambient-industrial music project, an experiment in noise, undertaken by Kurt Hoelscher.

It is the culmination of an almost 20 year long exploration through different methods of creating a unique sound, and through a variety of post-industrial electronic musical genres, such as electro-industrial, industrial hip-hop and terrorcore.

An interest in music developed into an interest in making music early on. Not long out of high school, influenced by musicians such as Skinny Puppy,... (read more)