There’s a particular kind of producer who doesn’t talk about the industry much — not because they’re disengaged, but because the work itself is too absorbing to leave much room for it. KROL is one of those people. Twelve hours a day in the studio, every day. Not grinding, not hustling — just working, because there’s always something to do, always another detail worth getting into. That kind of commitment tends to show up in the music, and his does.
The story of Telluric Village, the label KROL co-founded with Aman Umber, begins not with a business idea but with a specific sound. The two had been making music together that didn’t quite fit anywhere else: a blend of house and R&B, warm and solar, quite distinct from what KROL does in his own name. “At some point, it felt like that sound deserved its own home rather than being scattered across other people’s release schedules,” he says. So they built one. “Telluric Village is really about that freedom. A place where we can express something without putting up barriers, mix whatever we want, and let each project breathe.”
That ethos of breathing room runs through everything he does. When you look at his release history — ALNOS06 on A.B Records, the Airfunk Special, work with Positive Future and Velvet Spirit — what stands out is how different each project feels, and yet how clearly each one belongs to him. He’s thought about this. “I think every track, every project deserves its own universe, its own story,” he says. “I’d rather give each release the world it asks for than force everything to sound like one continuous statement.” ALNOS06 leans into rock. The Airfunk Special is far more electro. Both carry his signature, but they earn their own image.
Ask KROL where a groove starts, and he’ll tell you: often, with a kick. “Depending on the machine, how it reacts, how I’ve set it, that alone can hand you a groove.” He builds outward from there — a melody, a synth, a bassline — deliberately leaving the rest of the drums until the end. “I’m a little afraid that programming them too early might lock me into a loop and close the track down before it’s had room to grow.” It’s a small but telling detail about how he thinks: structure as servant, not master. The framework exists to protect the moment of discovery, not to determine it.
That balance between the precise and the instinctive is something people often reach for when describing his music, and he’s lived with that description long enough to have his own answer for it. He spent years studying drums and music theory before he ever touched a machine, so a deep attention to timing and feel is simply part of how he hears. But he’s careful not to let craft become control. “Most of the good moments come from the hardware doing something I didn’t plan and me deciding to keep it,” he says. “The precision just holds the room steady enough that the instinct can do its thing.”
There’s a strong relationship between KROL’s music and the people who collect it. He has a following among vinyl heads specifically, though he’s cautious about drawing too straight a line between format and creation. “I’d be making this music either way,” he says. What moves him is something more long-range — the permanence of a pressed record, the way it outlives you, the different hands it’ll pass through, the different rooms it’ll end up in. “I love thinking about where a pressing might end up,” he says. “That timeless side of it.”
He holds a similar openness when it comes to DJing. He’ll play vinyl or digital, without hierarchy, as long as the emotion is in the music. “You can’t forget there are so many talented, very independent artists who don’t necessarily have the means to press three or four hundred records,” he says. “Their music deserves the same support.” The set and the studio are different activities — one much more instinctive, the other far more deliberate — but they share the same underlying purpose: carrying an emotion, a message, from one place to another.
When it comes to the French electronic lineage, KROL doesn’t feel the need to position himself against it or define himself through it. He simply grew up inside it. The history is close, the culture genuine. “The electronic music made in that era left a mark that won’t fade,” he says. But equally formative was the American music his father pushed his way early — funk, house, the kind of timeless records he still listens to every day. “There’s a particular colour in that music,” he says. “It’s a real source of inspiration.” He draws from both without conflict. He’s lucky that way, he says, and he means it.
The studio rhythm is relentless but not punishing. Close to twelve hours a day, with deliberate breaks — five or ten minutes of silence every hour or two. “The important thing is to never reach the point where it starts to disgust you,” he says. “That’s counterproductive and pointless.” It’s a philosophy that’s produced serial output without visible strain: a consistent stream of releases, each fully realised, none that feel like filler. On slower days, there’s always an edit to work on, a cut to refine. The work doesn’t stop; it just changes shape.
As for Telluric Village, the next step is expansion — not in scale, necessarily, but in reach and purpose. KROL talks about showcases and about making the label a platform for artists whose work is exceptional but who don’t get the visibility they deserve. The next release, TELU03, is where that starts to become real. It’s the right kind of ambition: built from the music outward, not from the idea of a brand, which is exactly how the label started in the first place.
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