Their decision to release on their own label seems to have something to do with the delay in release “I think we were putting that off for a long time” Augustin laughs and mimics “‘oh lets just keep making music and worry about that later!’” It was our family and friends that were like “you have to release this. It’s selfish to sit on it.” and thank goodness they did.

Listening through Birds Don’t Fly, you’re almost annoyed at yourself for not having heard it sooner. I wondered how it must feel, to be the musician who makes this music and know you have to withhold it for some time. I asked Mike if that was at all frustrating.

“Throughout the years I’ve made so much music that I’ve never released. And I kind of like it like that, it’s very personal you know? making music. And sometimes when it’s being shared..” Mike almost winces when he explains the latter. It amazes me that someone with such a strong library of music could ever feel nervous about releasing it. Unlike other musicians, Mike’s confidence seems to be centred in the approach and process of how he creates - as opposed to the aftermath and attention, which others tend to thrive on. It is, however, very annoying to hear he has an endless selection of amazing music we’ll probably never hear in it’s entirety, but that’s FINE, Mike.



Aside from the music production side of things, running a label was an opportunity for Kunzite to put their business caps on.. or, business space helmets.. or… business cosmic crystal hats? Whatever. They got into business.

“Doing the business stuff is really boring.” Mike admits bluntly, and I relate with him instantly “Neither one of us is really a ‘business man’ at all.”

Augustin further explains “We love to make music, generate music and just be in the studio. But in terms of like, business aspect. Thats not either one of our specialties.. But its been good! Cause we’ve had to force our way through learning.” his positivity has no limits. “The way things are with the music industry as we all know, everything is so different now. With streaming, its like a whole different world. Although its been a lot to wrap my head around - I’ve been amazed at how empowering some of the new systems are” He expresses “5 years ago it didn’t exist like this, let alone 10 or 15. It’s empowering the artists big time.”

With the rise and independence of technology and online services, most of what was once traditionally an ‘industry task’ can be done by ourselves. Augustin goes on “It doesn’t make sense to make label deals like it did a few years ago. Its really shifting, thats why you have huge artists taking care of things themselves.”

On the subject of other labels, it didn’t surprise me to discover that Kunzite had been offered a few deals prior to their release.

"We had plenty of labels who were interested that wanted to release it, throwing deals at us. We could’ve spent a lot of resources ourselves to promote it. But really, the idea is to watch it grow from this little seed and see how it moves.”



However, with growth comes time. The internet is a wonderful tool, as mentioned - anyone can upload anything. And everyone does upload everything... But at what point does the internet become a place of value and when does it breach into an overwhelming ocean of content? Circulation of music online today is no easy feat, even for these professionals.

“Theres been a few days where I was getting frustrated - just ‘cause, it’s slow.” chimes in Mike, regarding the album two weeks into its release “I didn’t understand how Facebook worked. Well, I understand how it works but I just figured you post something.. and all of the followers see it. And thats totally not the case. At all.” a man with almost 700k followers under the name Ratatat, even sharing Kunzite via this page was somewhat of a challenge. Algorithms having restricted the audience who saw this announcement to just a mere few thousand - a crowd even I wasn’t part of.



“People would tell us ‘albums don’t even matter anymore, its all about the single’.. And I see now why that works.” Augustin almost embraced this fact “People are so over saturated with information and new content - even if its something amazing, the next day theres another avalanche of information and they’ve forgotten about it.”

As free-spirited as Augustin appears to be - he addresses the realities of todays music industry and internet culture with true sincerity. “Thats one advantage of signing a deal with a label, they can get you in all these places and saturate the online scene a lot more. That helps, it definitely helps. But with this, I see it as more organic. We wanted to start small and go down that route.“ the shining light of positivity that he is, he details further “The cream will rise to the top no matter what. It’s not 100% of the time, I know that. Every now and then I’ll discover something online and be amazed that not everyone knows about it. But generally, I see the cream rises to the top.”