Techno Music Blog: February 2011

Monday, 28 February 2011

Perc Interview from Earwiggle Dublin

One of the few producers around who can claim to be putting a fresh stamp on the techno genre is London producer and label owner Ali Wells aka Perc. A gradual shift into the depths of underground techno has led to his position as one of the very best in the game; a producer with a relentless work rate and mammoth discography to match. Ahead of his live appearance in Dublin this Friday, Ali took a few moments away from putting the final touches to his debut album to kindly answer some questions we put his way…

How long have you been producing, and what inspired you to start originally?

I started at the age of 16 and I bought my first drum machine (Roland TR626) the day I got my GSCE results, so it’s been a while. At that age I had been in bands for a few years but was starting to realise that a group dynamic was not really for me. Electronic music was creeping into my life and the more I read about the DIY/home studio methods of producers the more I wanted to get involved.

You have released music on such a large amount of labels. With a lot of commitments to releases/remixes etc. do you have to limit the time you spend on each track?

No, by putting in long hours I can work on something until I am happy with it. When I rush, due to a deadline from myself or a label, then I am rarely happy with the results. I spend a lot of time in the studio, maybe 40-50 hours in an average week, some tracks and remixes come together in a few hours, whilst others have been tweaked on and off for up to a year. Every track is different but I know when one is ready to face the outside world.

You’ve taken an interesting route over the last number of years to where you are now. In a way you’ve done things in the opposite manner of many other producers, in that as you became more well-known and successful, your sound appeared to become (for want of a better phrase) more purist. Is this how you would describe your path?

Hmmm, I don’t see myself as a purist. I have a knowledge of house, techno, rave, drum & bass etc going back a long way but I like to think I combine my influences rather than adhering to any of the existing templates of how techno should sound. There are people out there still serving up purist Millsian loops and Basic Channel dub-techno clones. It would bore me senseless to stick to one of these well worn formulas. A good example is my track ‘Stoq’ on Stroboscopic Artefacts; it pulls on dubstep, industrial and techno and (hopefully) creates something new. Maybe my sound has become more compatible with the established techno sounds of Berlin or Birmingham etc but I like to think I mix in enough unrelated elements to not be filed amongst the hardcore purists.

By shifting your sound, you may have risked alienating part of your existing fan base. Was that a concern to you at any stage?

I make music for myself first, if I am not feeling a track even if I think it has dance floor or sales potential then it will be scrapped. If I looked at my more successful tracks and churned out copies of those then I would be dead in the water in a matter of weeks. I have to be excited with what I make and I like to think people can hear that in my tracks. Whilst my sound and style does develop and shift there is still a clear Perc sound/aesthetic that has been about since day one. The spitting snares, the big kicks, the broken beat stuff, and the kinds of distortion I use. Some things are constant whatever I am making.

You have continued to release vinyl on Perc Trax, when a lot of people and labels around you moved primarily to digital. Can you give a background into how you first started collecting vinyl?

Strangely enough my first decks were cd decks; this was a long time ago when playing from cd was commonly seen as fake or cheating. Then when I got my first paid gig I rushed out and bought a pair of 1210′s, giving me a month to learn how to play vinyl. My first purchases were looped up tribal and acid techno, which I found quite easy to mix and my collection has grown since then. Perc Trax carries on to do vinyl for a number of reasons, but if the day came when releasing vinyl was losing serious money then I’d have no problem stopping the 12′s rather than risk the label as a whole. I love vinyl but I can see a vinyl-less future for techno at some point.

Can vinyl survive? Will younger djs somehow embrace it or are we looking at a future dj culture that will bear no resemblance to the original model?

It will survive for a number of years but I don’t think it will be around forever. Younger djs are embracing it but I am not sure they are enough in number to replace people dropping out of the vinyl market. I laugh when I see a facebook post about a release that is coming out on vinyl and digitally, almost every comment is ‘vinyl for me!’ when most people posting will grab the release free from a blog and not even pay for the download. A lot of the ‘vinyl forever’ stuff is purely show, people trying to look like the real deal when they get most of their music for free from unauthorised sources.

Much of your recent material is industrial influenced. Is this the last area left in techno to truly experiment?

I think there has been an industrial element in techno since the very beginning. Even the old ’88 acid tracks created with a drum machine and 303 shared an atonality that a lot of industrial music thrives on. I think it is an interesting area that still has space for innovation and exploration, certainly within the grey area where techno, industrial, drone and noise music meet. I think for the more forward thinking producers techno is just a vehicle to carry their experimental sounds to a wider audience via the established system of djs and dancefloors. Of course Techno has other areas to move into apart from the industrial thing, some of which will be blind alleys whilst others will open up whole new worlds of possibilities. Going back to what I said earlier about the established templates that a lot of techno follows, it would be a shame if what was once seen as future music becomes too focussed on replicating past glories.

Industrial is also a style of music that could claim to have been a type of active techno before ‘techno’ the term was first coined in Detroit. Would you agree?

Yes, it was/is machine music, focussed on texture and rhythm over melody and lyrical content. Whilst industrial music has always featured vocals, they are often treated as another instrument, equal to machine generated sounds and that is the same with all but the most commercially driven techno. Without studying old Mills/Wizard playlists I am sure industrial music was as much an influence on the early Detroit producers as Kraftwerk. Not just through the choices of sound used but also due to a shared approach to music-making and the (mis-)use of discarded machinery.

Is techno as an experimental art form, sometimes weighed down by the now defined sounds of influential cities like Berlin and Detroit, or is it important that techno has reference points like this?

The reference points are important, to use a cliché, it is just as important to know where you are from as where you are going, but people get too bogged down in these cities and their history. Techno has often been at is most innovative away from these major hubs. Perc Trax’s Sawf is based in Athens, which has a tiny techno scene and his range of influences are truly his own, not those dictated by a select group of hyped clubs and record shops. People should remember that moving to one of these cities does not instantly make you a better DJ or producer. Often with the amount of competing creative types in the city such as Berlin your chances of making a name for yourself are reduced.

It’s argued that the innovators of today are not the producers but the people developing forward thinking software and equipment for producers. What do you think about that, and how has technology helped you over the last five years for instance?

The software developers and hardware companies have a part to play but talented people will always find ways to adapt and use a piece of gear beyond what the designs intended. It is easier than ever to make functional dance music that will ‘work’ on most dancefloors. This does not mean you should be making it or that it has any lasting value. Using preset sounds and samples is an easy way to get a few digital releases but without some innovation and thought you will not go much further than that. Technology has helped me a lot, the switch from a fully hardware based studio to Ableton interfacing with a few choice pieces of kit gives me a flexibility that I could not have imagined before. For remixing the ability to creatively and accurately edit audio visually has been a massive change for me, so much better than staring at the screens of samplers and grooveboxes.

Your debut album is about to be released. For someone with your prolific output, it seems like an album could have come a long time ago. Presumably you were holding out to do something a bit more conceptual then, that is not just a collection of 12″ club tracks?

I think the change in my sound has meant that an album is more viable for me than it was 3 or 4 years ago and now my drone/ambient tracks are getting good responses when before they were often overlooked in favour of my club tracks. One thing that really bugs me is when a producer waters down their sound to make an album more suitable for home listening. If people want an album to soundtrack their dinner parties then they will go for one from a producer with pedigree in that field, not a techno producer suddenly softening their sound. For me the classic techno albums are exactly that. Planetary Assault Systems on Peacefrog, the classic Joey Beltram albums on Tresor and Novamute, Vaporspace’s debut on Plus8 etc. Yes, there are some drone/experimental tracks on my album but they are far from easy listening. If anything they present more of a challenge to the listener than the dancefloor tracks as the sounds don’t have the tried and tested framework of a club track to cling on to.

What else can you tell us about the album?

Not a great deal right now. Roughly 10 tracks, more broken beat than 4/4. It is not a concept album but the title (to be revealed soon) focussed on two elements which run through all of the tracks. There will be one 12” released before the album and one after. The remixes for the first single are done and I’m blown away by who has remixed my tracks and what they have done with them. I know it is all very secretive at the moment but I don’t want to say too much until the album is finished.

How important was it for you to release it on your own label? Did it bring an extra creative freedom that you might not have been afforded elsewhere?

For an EP I am happy to send 3 or 4 tracks to a label and if they only want two of them then that is fine, but for an album I need 100% control. To submit an album to a label which they then start picking apart would kill my passion for the album dead.

Finally, what’s on the horizon for the rest of 2011?

The first half of 2011 is focussed on finishing and promoting the album. Aside from that a new collaboration between myself and an Italian producer is about to surface. The first fruits of that new project will be out at the end of March. Details of that will be made public very soon. Perc Trax has a full release schedule with albums from myself and Sawf plus EPs from Forward Strategy Group, Donor/Truss, Dead Sound & Videohead and Samuli Kemppi. From June or July onwards I have no real idea, a few festival appearances are confirmed and I guess I’ll start recording tracks for some other labels once the album is in the can. I don’t really know and that is what makes it exciting for me.

Reposted with permission from Earwiggle Dublin via Techno Music News

Tuesday, 22 February 2011

Melt! Festival 2011 Announce New Acts.

The Melt! organisation. Today announced several new acts for the 2011 festival in Ferropolis, Germany. White Lies, Digitalism, Jens “Jence” Moelle and Ismail “Isi” Tüfekci join the Berlin-based Melt! Klub Weekender with squealing synth sounds, brute breaks, and belling bass lines.

This year Modeselektor are curating the Melt! Selektor Stage for two days in a row and the labels Live At Robert Johnson as well as Bpitch Control are taking over Sleepless Floor. There is also the Total Confusion party at Big Wheel and an additional special celebrating the legendary Detroit techno label Planet E with label boss Carl Craig DJing back to back with Radio Slave – joined by label mate Loco Dice.

Many festivalgoers will be pleased to hear about our continuing co-operation with Ostgut Ton, the label which is connected to Berlin’s Berghain like no other. The label’s about to take over Big Wheel Stage for four hours on Sunday – yes, there’s a Sunday at Big Wheel, folks. Melt say they will soon be announcing the Ostgut line-up.

Last but not least, there is a planned small but nice Dial Records homage at Big Wheel on Saturday. The full line-up reads as follows: Lawrence, John Roberts, Pawel & RNDM and Redshape presents Palisade (live).

3-day tickets are available only at www.meltfestival.de/tickets. There will be NO 1- or 2-day tickets available for Melt! Festival 2011.

Friday, 4 February 2011

Stephan Bodzin Interview from ResidentAdvisor.Com

Reposted from ResidentAdvisor.Com

These days you're more likely to find Stephan Bodzin in the clubs than in the studio, writes Jeremy Armitage.

Bremen producer Stephan Bodzin is standing in the middle of Club Moog in Barcelona surrounded by people – label people, hangers on, fans even. People wait their turn to chat. “Look at him,” says Oliver Huntemann, Bodzin's DJ collaborator. “It’s always the same. Everywhere we go, everybody wants to talk to Stephan.”

And it seems Bodzin wants to talk to everyone right back. A bit of background might explain it. This is a man who has spent the best part of his life cloistered away in the studio making records, hundreds of them, although you wouldn't know it because until 2005 none of them had his name stamped on them. But then he decided to do a Buttrich, stepping out from the shadows to make records on his own terms, this time under his own name. The response was immediate and overwhelming: here was a producer who had seemingly come out of nowhere (which actually wasn’t quite true: he’d come out of trance) that possessed that rare thing in dance music: a fully-formed sound of his own. If you hear a Bodzin track, you'll immediately know who is behind it: the melodies, the Moog bass and the hissing hats are instant giveaways. People dubbed it - unfortunately for other producers in his hometown - ‘The Bremen Sound’. Bodzin also seemed able to churn out a record a week, most of them good. What resulted was pretty much instant fame.

All’s well that ends well, you’d think, but nowadays Bodzin has moved onto the second part of his grand plan. Last year, at the age of 36, he learned to DJ for the first time, and he's also just put together a live show – not such a bad move in a world where even successful producers find it hard to subsist on mere royalties. But one look at Bodzin, beer in hand, happily chatting to the people in the club, and you sense another, more benign motive to new career move: This is a man who needed to bust out. If you'd been tinkering in studios since you were five, you'd want to get out of the house, too.

Finally it’s our turn to meet Bodzin, and his first move is to immediately buy us beers (Bravo. He's obviously getting this new partying thing down pat). He’s very willing to chat, but I manage just a couple of questions: “Did you choose this club because it was called Moog?” “Yeah, kind of,” he whispers before being dragged away by another well wisher. Soon he’s up on stage preparing his gear, and when his set cranks up it becomes obvious just how much he’s enjoying this second life as a performer. And it's very much a performance: Behind his space-age controllers, Bodzin seems determined to make the party jump around through sheer willpower alone - white-gloved (?) fists pumping, he dances as hard as anyone in the room - and while the result is still a work in progress in terms of flow, what Bodzin lacks in club experience he makes up for in enthusiasm. Later Huntemann takes over and the room finds a more even groove (“He’s been a DJ for twenty years now” Bodzin explains), with Bodzin in the box egging his labelmate on as the night settles in for a party. Chances of getting an interview tonight: slim to none.

So we make our appointments, and call Bodzin on press day.

How are you feeling, Stephan?

[gravelly voice] Uhhh, I'm really hungover. And I’ve got four interviews today…

You’re sounding a bit more, er, subdued than when we saw you at Moog…

Yeah, I'm not this kind of cool, minimal, relaxed DJ. No, that's not me. I'm into the music. I love the music. I don't need drugs to jump around. I have a few beers always but that's it. I have to move to it. That's what I'm producing for, to make people dance and have fun.

I was surprised in Barcelona because that night drew quite an electro crowd. But your sound doesn’t necessarily fit into that. It’s not quite techno, but not quite electro either…

It's techno.

So how did you manage to come up with it? It's so recognizable...

What happened was that I’d decided to take a break from producing. I didn’t touch music for a whole two years after around 2002 or so. I needed to regroup. Me and Oliver Huntemann had been doing Kaycee and other stuff in the nineties and I’d kind of come to the end of the line with it. So I just stopped doing music completely and tried to figure out what I really wanted to do. And then after two years, I just started producing again, but this time very intuitively and free of all the stuff that's on the market and what other people play. And it just happened that the music I was making had a signature to it that somehow I’d created over the years. I didn't have a plan or anything.

"I love James Holden as an artist. He's a real freak. He's eating music - I love that - and he's spitting it out."

So it’s true that you were making trance through the nineties?

Everybody wants to talk about that!

It’s a very interesting history though. Maybe it explains something about your present sound.

Well, me and Oliver Huntemann were involved in a lot of projects. I don’t like to talk about it too much. I'm really ashamed of it actually. No, it's part of my life and you have to get where you are somehow so finally I think I reached something that I'm quite satisfied with right now.

What do you think about that kind of music now?

There's a big market for it. There are some big guys working on that but it's definitely not what I want to do anymore. I did that for a long time and was quite successful, but I broke with that and I'm pretty sure I will never go back to that again. But the love of melodies and synths has stayed with me I think.

Someone else who came from trance but broke with it is James Holden, and he doesn’t like to talk about it either. Do you like his music?

I love his music. I can't actually play any of his tracks when I DJ, but I love James Holden as an artist. He's a real freak. He's really into his stuff. He's eating music - I love that - and he's spitting it out just like it comes. It's cool really, somehow.

Hands in Gloves: "Because I am Michael Jackson,"
- Stephan Bodzin.

Do you remember how many records you’ve made over the last year or two?

[Thinks for a long time] Fifty? I’m not quite sure. A lot. After that two years off, I went through a really manic period in the studio. I would get up at seven in the morning and then make music until twelve o’clock at night. It just felt really liberating to make exactly the kind of music that I wanted. I’d have an idea and get it down, then another idea…

What kind of music were you listening to when you were growing up?

I was definitely listening to early electronic stuff between five and ten years old. My father was a big fan of Kraftwerk, Tangerine Dream and Klaus Schulze and all that stuff in the seventies. He had a big studio with all these original synths and analogue stuff, all the Moogs and the Arp modular systems. So that’s what I grew up with. I was turning knobs when my friends were playing football. My father showed me everything about those synths. In a way I feel that I’ve come full circle back to that situation, you know?

Are the Moog sounds in your music analogue?

No, they’re done with soft synths, which is better because they actually stay in tune. And you can program them. But I do really respect guys like Âme who get such a great sound with just analogue, but that’s not the way for me. I’m not a purist about gear.

Have you ever done anything else besides make music?

Actually, no. When I was a lot younger, I produced different styles of music such as theatre scores and some classical stuff. I had a piano education. But I've never known anything else other than music. I've been living with and from music for as long as I can remember. I just can't imagine another kind of life. Maybe when I'm older I'll get into some other stuff, but I just can't imagine that now.

You said that after Rekorder 10, you wanted to take a break from producing and concentrate on DJing and playing live for a while. Is that still the plan?

Yeah. You know, everything has gone so very fast the last six months. I started DJing last February so everything is really fresh. Sometimes it's strange for me to see that there are fans, you know? I'm happy with that, and it's a real adrenaline rush, but they are real fans. I meet a lot of people who say, "Cool to meet you. You're my man." I respect that. But I still need to get used to it.

Have you ever been a fan yourself?

I guess when I was really young, like ten or twelve, I was a fan of some heavy metal stuff like Motorhead. There’s always been amazing music out there, but no, I’m not the type to be a real fan.

Did you learn to mix just recently?

Yes! I’d always had some turntables in the studio but I never used them. They were Oliver Huntemann's. I mixed my first two records in 2006. In February, I stopped producing for two months and worked on my DJ skills for eight hours a day for two months. That was quite fast. But I had bookings a few months before I had even mixed my first record so I was really afraid of the first gigs. But for me, DJing was kind of a discovery of a new way of life. Now I can't imagine life without it. Playing live and DJing is big, big fun.

What were the first two records you mixed together?

I guess it was some Rekorder stuff because I know them very well (laughs). I think I started with them.

"I had bookings a few months before I had even mixed my first record."

Do you remember your first DJ gig?

It was in Hamburg in a very small club to about four hundred people. I was shaking like crazy. I remember that. I played four hours and it was a crazy party – really fucked up! But I was afraid. It took me six minutes to beatmatch each record, and even then they were just short mixes. But then I really got into it last year. Now everything is working perfectly and I've had so many gigs as a DJ. It's cool.

Has DJing made you think more about how a DJ uses your music?

Yes, sure. Now I can hear if a DJ has been in the studio, if the track is easy to handle or if for example there's an ending or a spot that you just can't mix. When I’m making records, I won't do that anymore. DJing also definitely changed the way I produce because you get the response at the club, which track is running well and why and where. That's very good information for the week.

Which do you prefer? DJing, producing or playing out live?

I guess I prefer DJing, playing live and then producing. It's a tough question to answer as my answer always changes. I'm very into my live set now – I’m working on a big show for 2008, which is really exciting. I'm looking for new and strange equipment for a more futuristic show, like a body touch controller so I can touch my arms and have drums or something like that. And some infrared controllers around the stage so I can run around and have some sounds and lights or whatever. I think next year will be great fun. I also need a better stage dance!

But on the other hand, I haven't produced a track now for maybe four weeks now. I can't remember the last time I did that. So I'm really looking forward to my next studio session. And today I bought about twenty records so I'm also looking forward to my next DJ gig because I can play them. I have been listening to them all day. So I really love all of those three sides of my life.

Is one of them easier than the other?

DJing is easiest. That is really partying, too – not just hard work. When I play live I need to carry the equipment and do soundchecks, and deal with trouble with the stages. And also with airlines sometimes it's really hard work. The studio is definitely work too. You have to work on the DJ thing too, but it's quite a bit more fun.

Are you stopping some of your collaborations now?

Yes, we finished the production of Rekorder. We will close the project and the label forever so I feel very lucky and proud. Definitely proud.

Which is your favourite Rekorder? I like number six a lot.

Yes, I like it too. I’ve been playing it for a long time but actually my favourite is the zero. It's a secret somehow. It's really floor-smashing. We just produced it a few weeks ago and that's my favourite. But I haven't stopped producing with Marc Romboy – I only stopped producing with Thomas Schumacher and Elektrochemie, which I did for a few years. They want to be a full time project so I just decided to stop because I need more time for me to do my own stuff. I couldn't work day and night. But I'm still working from time to time with Marc Romboy and Oliver Huntemann.

Your collaborations with Oliver Huntemann and Thomas Schumacher are more electro, but the tracks with Marc Romboy seem a little housier.

Yes, somehow it's deeper and a bit housey. It all depends on the guy who you're in the studio with. Marc Romboy always brings a very deep influence to the music. I love the way he's hearing and working with music. But for me, I need to do different kinds of music. As long as it's electronic and I can play it.

Finally, many other DJs and producers namecheck your releases but which producers do you rate?

There are so many good producers out there. Where can I start? For the last year, one of the bigger producers is definitely Booka Shade, who made all this Get Physical stuff. Walter is actually the one and only producer there – he’s been producing so many artists. I also love Radio Slave. And I love the new, reborn Josh Wink – he’s such a great producer.

Radio Slave's a bit like yourself in that he’s a bit of a production machine.

Yeah, unfortunately I haven't met him yet. But I would really like to say hello and (giggles) be a bit of a fan.