Candle Nine – “Beauty Comes From Imperfection” (2013)

Arhiv Arhiv Last updated 4 October 2026

Location: email
Interview date: 04.11.2013

Already familiar with Candle Nine? It’s a one-of-a-kind blend of genres like alternative, electronica, IDM ( Intelligent Dance Music – aka Braindance), “glitch”, industrial, post-industrial and noise rock.

“Beauty comes from imperfection” is the motto of Candle Nine, the musician whose real name is Stéphane Jean Michel. He was born in Bay City (Michigan, USA) and is currently based in Chicago (Illinois, USA). Ever since his humble beginnings, when he was still a songwriter strumming an acoustic guitar, he has loved exploring musical aesthetics in forms we’ve already heard and know, and repackaging them. Let’s call it “provocative recycling”, something that offers a creatively fresh, different take.

His first experience with a “sequencer” in 2006 pushed him into new genre territory. There he draws heavily on “break” projects like Gridlock, Haujobb, Converter and Download. Their sound is hugely popular in electronic music and IDM and has helped popularize it. Candle Nine’s music is sharp and destructive, often laced with complex rhythms and rhythmic shifts, but with its own mix of ambient sounds, “glitch” synths and percussion, it’s also very personal, even downright moving.

In 2010 Candle Nine released his studio debut “The Muse In The Machine”, where we get to witness the painting of a futuristic soundscape that conjures up a haughty mix of dark moods, balanced out by flashes of “bright” synth curtains. The tracks are marked by extraordinary dynamics and the blending of many different musical elements and phases. A prime example is the song “Penumbra”, which kicks off with its occasionally scary yet punchy sounds, coaxing the darkest thoughts out of the listener. That’s followed by an adventure toward the “purification of the soul” through a positively charged “glitch power noise” melody that lifts the whole composition into the light. Candle Nine can’t stand inertia. His music is an experience of perpetual change in musical form!

On 01.11.2013, Candle Nine released his second studio album “Lost + Directionless”. The title alone hints that it nudges the listener, as a separate personal identity, to go looking for their own path. The album’s aim is to awaken a unique take on its content in every listener as they surrender to the meditation of ambient rhythms. The songs “Nowhere” and “Nausea” recall the punchy, fragmented rhythms carried over from the previous album, but compared to the debut, “Lost + Directionless” is a lot calmer and more melodic. The keyboards are used even better and more polished, and Candle Nine has leveled up the vocal arrangements too. This is an album that will instantly quench the fierce thirst that built up among Candle Nine fans during the three-year wait for a new studio outing.

When did you first feel the urge to express your thoughts and feelings through music?
Candle Nine: Art has always drawn me in. When I was very young, I did a lot of drawing and painting. I still love to paint something every now and then, but first and foremost I’ve always had a deep love for music. It was only in my teens that I started writing my own songs on an acoustic guitar. I’ve always loved how ideas can be expressed through music in so many different ways. Like how a classical piece can stir up so many different emotions in us and set off so many thoughts without a single word being spoken. That’s what makes sound interesting to me.

How do people react to your kind of music?
Candle Nine: I think every listener reacts to it in their own way. My motive is to share my own feelings through the ideas in the music I create, but it’s not my intention to force them on listeners. What feels right to me is that everyone who listens to my music forms their own opinion about it and lets themselves go to the point where the music draws out their own feelings. The only goal is for the music to touch the listener. It doesn’t matter how. If it touches them, then I’ve done what I set out to do.

Do you feel you’ve already hit the peak of your creativity, or is it still on the way?
Candle Nine: I definitely feel it’s still on the way. Even though I’ve always enjoyed what I’ve created so far. Along the way I’ve met many wonderful people who are excellent musicians and composers, and I count many of them as great personal friends. I’m constantly learning from them, so I keep developing, growing and maturing as an artist. That’s why it’s hard to say when I’ll actually be at the peak of my career. At the peak of my creativity as a songwriter. The peak of artistic creativity isn’t the same as the peak of commercial success, and the two need to be kept strictly apart.

Let’s talk a bit about your previous album “The Muse In The Machine“. At the end of the album there’s a remix of two songs featuring the excellent artists Access To Arasaka and Autoclav1.1. How did that collaboration come about?
Candle Nine: The remixes of both tracks at the end of the album were Tympanik’s idea. Since it was my first album, the thinking was that it would be a good move to grab people’s attention. I honestly don’t consider those two tracks part of the album myself. They’re bonus tracks. I like both remixes anyway. I got to choose who to ask for remixes, and Access to Arasaka and Autoclav1.1 were my first choice.

We waited three years for your new album. What’s its core message?
Candle Nine: The album focuses on the theme of identity. How our experiences, the decisions we make and the little things can shape us into who we are. A kind of asking “Who am I?”. A question that never gets an answer and isn’t meant to. At first I put all my effort into just getting the album out. And now that it’s finally out, I don’t have any particular expectations anymore. I just hope people enjoy it. Of course, I still have to take care of getting the new release properly distributed.

What are your plans for the future?
Candle Nine: I have a plan that I’ll put into action very soon. But I’d rather not dive into it right away, so the ideas for it don’t start drifting in a different direction. One idea I can mention is that a while back I said, half-jokingly, that if Propellerhead could add MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) support to the Reason music software, then I’d make an entire project in that MIDI “enabler”. Right now I use Cakewalk SONAR Producer. Reason is the opposite of what SONAR, Pro Tools or Logic offer. It’s a minimal add-on that involves a lot of audio recording and less focus on the actual composing and production. With all that said, after nearly three years of “stressing” and wrestling to find the right sound for “Lost + Directionless”, I realize I absolutely have to take a little break.

As you know, Slovenia is a small country, with barely two million people, where IDM and industrial music aren’t that developed. What would you like to tell our readers in closing?
Candle Nine: I should probably start by saying that I personally really don’t like “scenes”. I don’t feel that “scenes” actually do anything for motivation, inspiration and creativity in the music itself or in the artists who supposedly hang out together because of them. I’ve always had the feeling that “scenes” exist only to keep themselves going. That’s why I think the terms IDM and industrial, which are often abused as a guide for grouping people into a “scene”, aren’t that important at all. All that matters is the music. Of course I understand that “genre” has its place and its purpose, but it often clouds things for the listener, making it harder to tell good music from bad. Genre classification is certainly good to a degree. Mainly as a signpost for people discovering music. What matters is that you don’t become a prisoner of the box a genre defines, because you can stagnate in the prejudices that come from bowing to the genre mold you’ve picked.

You can find more useful info about Candle Nine at the links below:
https://www.facebook.com/candlenine
http://candlenine.bandcamp.com/
https://soundcloud.com/candle-nine
http://flavors.me/candlesayshi
https://twitter.com/candlesayshi

interview conducted and text translated by: Nina Ferkolj
edited by: Aleš Podbrežnik

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xE9_3QjSE08