Electronicbeats // Interviews

Monika Kruse

Wed, 27 Aug 2008 16:05:23 GMT

Monika Kruse, is one of Germanys biggest DJ’s, playing a mix of high-energy techno and house to clubbers all over the world. From humble beginnings, DJ’ing in a local bar, she soon made the step to organising her own raves, everywhere from abandoned bunkers, to not quite abandoned military bases. Her profile as a DJ continued to grow, as she was booked for bigger and bigger clubs, culminating her being voted Germany’s 4th best DJ by the readers of Raveline.

So this is your second album? No actually it’s my first solo album. I did 2 albums under the name GTMK but this time I wanted to do something just by myself.

Was it something you’ve wanted to do for a long time? Your DJ career goes back a long way. When did you decide you wanted to move into solo production? Well, It was a wish for a long time of course, but time went by and I had some personal problems that took a while to solve and get over. Then I had to get the power and the energy to get back to myself. It was one of my biggest dreams to do a solo project.

Are you pleased with it? Yeah of course! As an artist if you do a track you can work on it forever! It got to a point when I said; “that’s it.” I’m excited; I hope the people like it too.

I know it’s a pain in the ass to listen to, with the spoilers, but it’s already on the net and. . .

That’s one of the things I was going to ask you about: MP3s and digital distribution. Being a DJ do you play with MP3s? I still play with vinyl because I love vinyl. The music is more real. For example if a play a CD with it’s like grrr, silver, nothing! Sometimes if I look at the title on a CD I’m like what is this? But when you have vinyl you can look at it and see the image or colour and know that a track you want is on it, a kind of visual connection. Vinyl is still in my heart, but I suppose one day I’m going to spin only CDs. For now though, I think well I have a record label and I put out records, so I have to support vinyl!

How do you feel about your music being available on the Internet? Well I mean of course I get pissed off with people sharing files for nothing. They don’t respect the work behind it. As a musician you have to put a lot money into your studio, put a lot of time into your music. Exchanging files for free means “we don’t have respect for your music” that’s my opinion. They [illegal file sharers] don’t know the artist they want to listen to first, but then I say if you really like the track listen to it a couple of times, then buy it.

It seems a lot of people now have an expectation that because of the Internet, they should be able to get music for free.For me now that is my biggest gripe, like I have less time, so you give something from your life through the music and people don’t respect it.

So you don’t download music yourself then?! No of course not! Sometimes people give me CD of an album, but then I go to the store and I buy the album! Sometimes even if I get the downloads from the album that I really like, I still go out and buy it on vinyl.

I prefer vinyl myself but it seems there are so many digital DJs around at the moment. Yeah there’re so many young DJs now and vinyl doesn’t mean anything to them...

People who produce the music want people to play on vinyl, but the people that want the music don’t want to pay all the money for vinyl so there’s a conflict. The good thing about digital downloads is that people in countries who really can’t afford to buy records, where there isn’t that choice, then it’s good to have some digital platforms where they can get the music. Every side has its pros and cons.

It was your birthday a while ago, and you played at Berghain? Yeah I played a couple of days after my birthday we had an amazing party haha! I left the club at 5 o’clock in the afternoon, but then went onto another club. It was really great I had my friends playing there like Heartthrob, Tony Rohr playing live and Gregor Tresher. That was his first time playing at Berghain.

And you worked with Gregor on the album? Yeah that’s right, he was co-producer on the album – so it was like a little family around me, it was fun! And I love Berghain, it’s an amazing club I always call it my living room. I feel at home there, I can go there just for a little drink. It’s like if I play, I still like to dance; if you play somewhere and your finish your set you cannot have a dance afterwards as people want to talk to you and it’s impossible.

Have you always had this connection with Berghain? It was another club before called Ostgut before, but I never went there that much. I played there once. In the first month of Berghain I was going there as much as I could!

Let’s talk about you new album. It’s called Changes Of Perception and is quite different from what you’ve been doing. Is that where the title came from? Well I’ve changed musically over the years, more than one time, because as you get older you change or get bored of one style, as it’s not evolving anymore; I always need a challenge. I was getting kind of well known with loopy techno and after a while I sort of got bored as the records all started to sound the same. So I thought hey OK I can play these records from 5 years ago, but is it going to be interesting? No! And then with other productions and systems, new sounds and plug-ins, it became really interesting with new influences within minimal techno and other parts of electronic music. I found it more interesting for me with this kind of style. I was open-minded after buying techno to drum & bass, chill-out and vocal house, everything that I really liked. I thought hey I’m bored let’s make a change. Not so hardcore, so it got slower and slower and slower. So that’s where the name came from.

I wanted to give it a personal touch as I’ve changed over the years, not really as a person, but by the way I see things which is normal; you get older you get wiser, you understand more about life about situations and why people behave in certain ways. It’s like an expression for musical change or doing live music for me is in my soul. You can put a lot of ideas inside.

Listening to your old stuff and then the new album you can really hear the change. Did you plan write an album or was it just a collection of ideas you already had? Of course I had some ideas that I wanted to express on the album, my love for different styles. I’m influenced by Chicago house, Detroit techno as well as dark monotone techno and acid. So, I said I don’t only want to have one style. Even when I DJ and always play different styles. That was the main idea, but I couldn’t bring all of what I really like about electronic music together, or there would be a drum & bass track on it, a dub track. I just put the most important styles on the album.

It’s not a collection of 12 inches but all of the tracks could be used on the dance floor, do you agree? I liked a lot of the percussive sounds. Me too. I really like bongos, tribal sounds. I had one colleague I worked with in the studio and he called me tribal Monica haha! I was like “you have to put this and that sound in”. Maybe I still am influenced by funk or meringue. I really like African music with all the different elements, so that’s kind of one of my roots.

How is working with someone else producing the album? Did it make it harder or easier for you? Umm, easier because I always come to a point when I produce by myself that I doubt what I do. If I work by myself there’s always a point when I say is this any good, shall I leave it, put more energy or time into it? It’s nice to have someone I can ask ‘is it good, is there more I can do? Shall we go on?’ In the past I had not so much time to work in my own studio because I lost connection with things; synthesisers, new programmes. To be a good producer you always have to be ahead of time. So I knew Gregor from earlier productions, we did some records on Intacto, and Terminal under the GTMK and it worked very well. I wanted to work with someone who could do what I wanted, be it reverb or particular sounds. It is hard to find a producer who can really hold himself back, and just do what I ask.

What does the future hold? Next year I am going to do a new mix, but I really want to develop some new artists on my label [Terminal M]. I have decided to have not so many artists on the label. I want to have a family. That is one of my biggest aims, to find young talented artists who are consistently producing good music. Then we can on tour as the Terminal M family!

Text by Gareth Owen

Danny Tenaglia

Tue, 19 Aug 2008 08:24:46 GMT

One of the most successful New York DJ’s who broke out of the city in the early 90’s, Danny Tenaglia, has championed both the tribal sound, and the mammoth set. With a new residency in Ibiza’s cathedral of decadence, Space, and a mix to match Danny Tenaglia managed to find a very quick five minutes to chat with Electronic Beats;

How is going in Ibiza? Amazingly. I've been playing for over 5,000 people each week! I'm happy to call Space home.

The new mix is titled 'Futurism', but contains a broad selection of older & newer tracks. Were you picking tracks with a futuristic feel, even if they are not recent? Nothing on there is quite "old": No Garage classics or anything like that! I selected tracks that convey what my sets are like now, in 2008, which happens to be, in my thinking, a very futuristic time.

Do trends in dance music affect you? Trends themselves don't affect me, but I am tremendously affected and influenced by how producers use new technologies to make amazing sounds. Throughout my career, that has always been what's bridged me from one sound to the next. In the '90s, when most of New York was playing anthems with big snare build-ups, I was discovering Maurizio and Basic Channel and those types of minimal German grooves.

How do you continue to be inspired? The music! The artists that make up my history are continually inspiring, as are new producers, like Luca Bacchetti, Radio Slave, Davide Squillace. Dubfire's recent reinvention is exciting too.

You are famous for mammoth sets - which goes against the current trend for 2 hour slots. Is it harder to get clubs to give you free reign over the decks for up to 20 hours? Lately we've been reserving marathons for extra-special occasions only. If every gig I played was 20 hours, I'd be a very tired DJ! Clubs are generally very willing to let me play for as long as I'd like, but an ideal set time for me these days is four hours: Just enough for a memorable journey.

What does tribal mean to you? Do you like the tag? What's there not to love about tribal? Tribal is drums, percussion, some element of darkness. The first four tracks of "Futurism" CD One are very much my tribal side.

How have you incorporated new technologies into you set? I use my Macbook Pro to organize my music files, and will be moving to a software program like Traktor from Native Instruments in the near future, but for now I stick to CDs.

Text by Gareth Owen

SENOR COCONUT

Mon, 30 Jun 2008 12:00:02 GMT

Uwe Schmidt, has been making Latin influenced music as Senor Coconut for over 10 years, but it wasn’t always Cha-Cha and Bossa-Nova for the Frankfurt native. A drum kit, EBM and Acid House all appear in a musical career that has seen him release work under 40 different aliases. On his latest album, Around the World, he takes club music ‘standards’ such as Sweet Dreams and White Horse, and gives them a once over with the Latin treatment. However Electronic Beats wanted to dig a bit deeper and find out a little bit more about where the mysterious Mr, ahem, Senor Coconut came from.

What was the first record you bought? Your background intrigues me! Well, that’s a tricky question. I think I bought my first record when I was ten, Sesame Street or something you know!! Haha! So, the answer to that would not really very substantial you know.

OK, So what was the first record that was important to you? When did you first start to listen to music consciously? I started to listen to music consciously when I was about 13 or 14, at the beginning of he ‘80’s, when electronic music was going mainstream, like the second or third wave of electronic music. After Kraftwerk and the whole seventies thing, which was a period of experimentation for these musicians; David Bowie, Brian Eno these kind of people. Then there was a moment when this was exploited with New Romantics, that kind of thing. At the time I just listened to mainstream radio stuff which was rock, not so much electronic, some punk, stuff like Adam And The Ants for example which I really liked. Back then, looking at it, it was a strange choice. Then, from there, there was a whole wave of electronic stuff that popped up like Visage. It was mainly stuff from the UK. It was nothing left-field. Depeche Mode, Ultravox, that kind of stuff, popular and mainstream. What got me was the different sound it had, I had two bigger brothers, who were listening to seventies rock, progressive stuff, my parents were into normal German pop music, which was, well still is really boring. So that was my background, and then suddenly there is something different coming out of the radio, which was drum machines and synthesisers, and of course they had different looks and a different attitude. I found that very interesting, and I switched, from the early guitar wave stuff, to the electronic sound.

So how did you take this interest in music, to then creating music? I began to make music around the same period I guess, ’82 or ‘83, because someone told me that when I was drumming along to music on the table with my fingers that you’re actually playing an instrument and I said “no!” but that was the moment when I thought maybe I could play an instrument. I was like twelve and was interested in just trying that out. So I convinced my parents to buy me a drum kit, and I just played drums in the basement, just playing by myself, I never played in bands, or with any one else, I just played for myself.

So you just drummed alone? Yeah, well I wanted to learn, so I listened to music, to tapes and tried to learn the rhythms just to entertain myself. I never really had plans to be a musician.

Then, I started to get into drum machines, with Heaven 17, that whole pop thing. The way they programmed the drum machine for example, I was like wow! What’s that? I can’t play that! And that was really what I wanted to do. So when I was 15 or so maybe, I sold the drum kit. I was still at school, I had no money of course. So I just managed to get a little bit of money together, and bought a little drum machine. Then I was sitting at home for 2 years, just programming the drum machine with nothing else, I didn’t even have a tape recorder.

I changed school at 17, and then my whole environment changed. I had new friends, new teachers, different entirely. There I got in touch with people who also had drum machines, synths, whatever. A classmate had a four-track tape recorder. They also listened to different types of electronic music, which I had not heard before, they listened to a lot of tapes, cassettes; that was in fashion, it was the only way at that time to distribute independent music. So, there was a big, big tape scene. They listened to Industrial and Electronic Body Music; that whole end of the 80’s had quite dark electronic music. Suddenly a whole universe opened up to me.

It was a completely different world underneath the mainstream and I really got into that. I was listening to abstract electronic stuff, early Hardcore and Industrial. Also, the ‘poppier’ end of underground music. These guys were like my real contacts – they had already made songs, done cassettes, which I really hadn’t done. I just used my drum computer for like 3 years!

So for the first time I thought about how to make a song, no a track, to see how it all works. Just programming a drum machine is one thing, but then making song or a track is another thing. So I began to record with some friends. We found a little tape label to release our stuff and we distributed that on Front Line Records.

It was all calling people, sending faxes, making networks and contacts, sending tapes around. We sold like two hundred tapes or something of a certain release, but it was still a hobby, I was still at school.

How old were you then? Like 18, 19. We did that for quite a while, listening to more and more music.

So how did your sound start developing? The first thing I did was very rhythm orientated, very dark EBM. I wasn’t interested in melodies, I wasn’t interested in pop. I had a certain, very mechanical sequencer sound in my head, so I just programmed sequences, and layered them on top of each other, and made long; quite dark tracks actually. Then I began to sing on top and that was the first project I did, which was called Bent House. It was also the first record I released. I was still working with friends, but I got pretty fed up about working with other people. I realised it was quite naive to think that I could just sit with someone and work, and think you have the same ideas. When you are young, you think the whole world thinks like you, I found out pretty fast that people have different work speeds, different interests. People would rather go and have diner or something that finish a track. So it was two slow for me.

So I just started to do it myself. I bought a synth and a tape recorder and started like that.

I bought an old analogue Moog, which was very unfashionable at the time, it was before Acid House, digital was coming, samplers were in and the analogue stuff was really cheap. I bought the Moog for like 200 Deutschmarks or something. Nobody wanted it. I just went to the junk shop and bought the stuff that nobody else wanted, but I still really like it. I was listening to Cabaret Voltaire for example, who still had that analogue sound which was not so popular in the mainstream. I really had this sound in my head, but I couldn’t do it with just the analogue equipment, so I borrowed some equipment from friends and just sat in my house for months, programming this stuff. Other people my age were going to parties and stuff, and I was just sitting at home, basically painting, or drawing, not even watching TV; just programming all summer. It was not an attitude or anything, it was just what I wanted to do. Then a friend, who also had a tape label listed to the songs I hade made. When he listened to the stuff, he said thought it was really good, and suggested that I should make a record. It was around ‘88. And I said I didn’t think so, I didn’t think my stuff was good enough and I didn’t know how to do it. I had no contacts, I didn’t know how to approach it in a practical manner so he said he would take care of that. He got me a record deal. He first found a studio, then a label. With the studio, we got it at the off times. The owner was a really cool guy. He said; well, I don’t get it, but I like it. He had a lot of money, as he worked mostly with advertising companies and the studios were empty at the weekend.

So music for adverts was usually made there? Exactly yeah, and this was in Frankfurt. So, this friend of mine got him to let us use the studio on the off days, late nights, weekends. He also lent us his engineer, who was very young guy, younger than I was and he was really into my kind of music, he went to the techno club in Frankfurt. So I just had these two drum machines, and the moog, and we started to record, which was really slow. As we had the off times only, we obviously had to give the studio up if they needed it for something. It took like almost two years actually to record to the album and mix it with a friend. It was finished in ‘89.

I had year off before university, so I was working in a record shop. The guy there had a couple of record companies. He was really on the pulse of what was happening as he received all the new records. Suddenly there was like Acid House, and all sorts coming in. So this guy, who had heard my stuff, said that anything that I had, he would put it out! I was like wow!

Acid House was just empty, to me it was the ‘90s and the ‘80’s was all the EBM, Front 242 kind of stuff, which had a political subtext. This was just two machines for ten minutes, and no message.

So I continued working on music, and this guy released it. At this time, I was still studying when I found out I was making money from it!

So that as a surprise? Obviously it wasn’t your motivation. Erm it was never my intention to make money from it. I mean from the first moment I thought it was a ridiculous idea to do it anyway! So ok yeah, if they want to pay me, why not? But looking back now, I think everyone just ripped me off! Like everyone I guess starting out in music. So it took me a couple of years to find out what the real figures were.

Then I started to play live, jamming with friends and stuff. I was still at home, living with my mother, but there was some money coming in which really helped in the first years. I had no pressure on me.

There were a couple of coincidences actually. I was just living with my mother; my parents had split up, so I was really free to do what I wanted. My mother was busy, well, with herself, and my brothers had a left a long time ago – they are 16 and 20 years older than me. So I was just there, studying, but well, not anything important, I was studying philosophy…….

OK…. It was like you do it, or you leave it. It doesn’t matter really with philosophy; you don’t even have to finish. I actually studied for five years, and the music was going parallel and erm, I got really bored with the philosophy when I realised I could make money from music. So I decided to leave university without finishing anything.

What did your mother think? Well, she wasn’t really that happy about it, above all because I was still living with her. As well I was like having these Acid loops going on for days… and looking back now I think I was driving her crazy! If you are making music you are in it, but for someone else it’s a real torture to listen to the same pattern over and over for days. I mean she was cool about it, she couldn’t really not be, I mean she didn’t have a plan B either, so I just continued, and things started to work, and she became really completely OK with it. She really had no money, either. My other brother, and myself were supporting her, so that was something that made the whole situation possible, and workable for us.

So this was the ‘90’s? Yeah the early ‘90s.

So how did you become an artist with so many aliases? Was it to explore different styles? It started as working method after I finished my first album. After it was mastered, when I woke up the next morning I had, well nothing to do!

So on my next project, I started to fill the time when I couldn’t mix, or be in the studio, with ideas for the next project. I tried to widen my horizons, listen to new music, as it was very exciting time. Every day there was new music coming in…

Was around the time drum and bass started to get popular here [In Germany]? Yeah definitely, and things like LFO. It was really like wow, cool, I have another idea! At that time the record industry was still operating, even on a small scale, with major industry contracts and major industry ideas. So, I was offered artist deals where I was always bound to a name, or a likeness, and I said OK, nice idea but I can’t sign an exclusive deal, if you pay me like a thousand Deutschmarks come on! How can I survive? So people started to modify the contracts, we just signed for a name. So; Atom Heart for example. Then I could do what I liked under another name for a different label. This was a really creative time for me; I was releasing like three EPs a month or something. I was finishing an EP around every week. A lot of people were asking me for music as well, so I was doing stuff under lots of different names. It started off as a practical thing, how to get around the record companies and contracts, to make everyone happy really. Then though, I started to associate different styles of music with these names. The names, the likeness and the musical idea developed at the same time, so I started to think of different musical ideas connected to different aliases.

I wanted to do a jazz moog record for example, so I invented a name for that which was just a name, but then it kind of became this alter ego or a character. Something that starts from just a practical approach grows into something very complex. Universes of people. I had invented Lisa Carbon which is a female character, for some very simple lopped music, with infinite Moog solos on top of it. So it became; Lisa is doing that. That’s her sound. So, Once you have designed that character, you have parameters for that project. Once you have defined it, logically or subconsciously, it’s simple to get back to that.

So when did the name Senor Coconut first appear? Well with my first album, I had, naively banked on getting all of the money, which didn’t happen as the record company went bust. So my friends, wanted their equipment back as I had finished this album. I had basically no money to buy stuff or live from. Then my girlfriend at the time, who was a student went on an exchange trip to Costa Rica…. So no money, no music, no girlfriend! Then by luck, my friend the producer, who got me my first record deal, had by this time set up a record label. He said that if I could give him three albums of different stuff, he would release them all within the year, and get me all of the equipment I needed. But it was going to take six months or so to organise. So I finished these albums for him, gave all of the equipment back and with the money left over bought a ticket to Costa Rica.

Wow! So yeah, I went to Costa Rica. I was just hanging out, doing nothing travelling a bit maybe. There I started to listen to Latin music, consciously for the first time. I got really into the music I was hearing there, this was ’92, ’93. Raggamuffin, Salsa, this kind of stuff, I was really impressed with their musical… language. My background was one language, drums, programming and things, but this was completely different, it was way more complex and I was really impressed. What I wanted to do was to incorporate that into what I had been doing. I was in Costa Rica, for 3 months, and I came back in March, which was a really bad to come back. It was winter! So as soon as I got back, I bought another ticket and went back to Costa Rica for another 3 months and then came back again to Germany in the summertime. When I got back, this guy was like, ok cool, I have sold your albums, here is your money. I have a sampler for you, and you can start making music!

So you started to bring Latin rhythms into music? It was more the whole musical language, which coming from a percussive background, the whole harmony thing, was like, wow, what’s going on there? I have to get in to that! At that time, I also stopped listening to club music; I was also getting bored making music for the dancefloor. I had worked with DJ’s , which was quite a disappointing experience, on both a musical, and human level…..

Also, when I started to incorporate this stuff into what I was doing, both the dancefloor, and the record labels, were like, hey what’s going on! So people weren’t getting what I was doing, and I was starting to feel really limited by making tracks for DJ’s. There are in fact more things you can’t do, that you can do….

So, I managed to find someone finance my own label to release my stuff. They gave me complete freedom to do what I wanted, and were like OK this is good because it’s different and no once else is doing stuff like this, or not many people. I was really happy to be able to do whatever I wanted.

Then in ‘96, the label had been gong for two years, and I found that I suddenly had a five or six tracks that had this kind of sound I wanted to have, with the Latin influences…..

At this time, I had left this whole analogue thing behind, pretty much as soon as I left the dancefloor actually. Of course, by this time, it had all become really fashionable! But by then I was really into sampling.

Suddenly one day I was in bed with a fever…. I was sweating, and was really ill. Suddenly, in my head I saw the record sleeve, which said in big typography; Senor Coconut. I was like OK good name, try not to forget it!

So I wrote it down, and that became the name of the record, I just had to finish the album and that was at the end of ’96. By this time, I had split with my girlfriend and had decided to move back to Chile. I had friend, from Chile who was living in Frankfurt at the time, whom I had done some music with but he wanted to go back to Chile. So basically I packed up my stuff, all of my equipment and moved to Chile. The first thing I did when I got there was to finish the last three songs for the album.

When I sent it back to Germany, they thought I was nuts…..! The record label released it, of course, as it was my label, and we sold a thousand copies, but people thought I was maybe just going a bit over the top.

Then I got a fax from Toya Tei, from Dee-Lite, who had started a new label in Tokyo. He said he had just received a copy of the album and he wanted to release it, in Japan. Then it went crazy! I got to record with the Yellow Magic Orchestra and stuff…..

I did know about that! How did that happen? I sent them a package, as I felt that I could hear their influence in my work, as by that time I had listened to a lot of their stuff, so I just wrote this innocent little letter saying how I liked their music. I didn’t really know how big they were in Japan. My friend managed to track them down, and he was really pleased that we had. So, they invited us to Tokyo and we met, and then they came to Chile to work on me with the next record… So suddenly I was in the Japanese scene, which is actually quite small.

The plan was just to go to Chile, and be on my own I was not really interested in the scene there, or really even the culture so much, I just wanted to be on my own, and be very far away. It was pre-internet, I had no phone….. I thought that living twelve thousand miles away, no one would ask me to come and play. I just thought I wouldn’t play anymore, and that was fine with me.. It was too far away. But, the people started contacting me, asking me to do festivals, I was getting invited all over the world, and I didn’t really understand why! People were saying it was good marketing move, to move to Chile, but it wasn’t a marketing move haha!

Was it a conscious decision to cover, or reinterpret well known songs? Why do you come back to that? When I started to dig into Latin music culture, I listened to a lot of compilations, a lot of different styles to compare what I liked. What repeatedly occurred to me was that there were a lot of cover versions, well, Latin musicians would not call them cover versions, and maybe if you came from a Jazz background, you would refer to them as standards. . At a certain stage a song becomes part of a collective consciousness, and from there on becomes part of a set, its not about covering, its about taking an idea from the past, into the present and the future. When you listen to Latin musicians covering western songs, seventies songs for example, they wouldn’t now the original lyrics, or the meaning of them.

It really fascinated me from the very beginning, how when these songs are reinterpreted in this way where the musicians don’t always know the meaning of the song, or the lyrics and they adept it. Hearing songs reconstructed in this way can make you see the original in a completely different light. I don’t like the word cover so much, as it is too much of a contemporary term.

Do you care about how people perceive your music? Do you care if people see it as a novelty? Well, making music for me is a very ego-centric thing. I don’t really think about anybody but me! Really. But then, there is a second stage where I am really classifying what I am doing within the world.

I am not the kind of artist who exists just in his own head. I am aware of what goes on, but It is a case of choosing the right time to think like that, so normally when I make music, or the concept for the album, I roughly know whether it will be popular or not. I make so much music that is deliberately not popular, and when I am doing it, I know it! It is really a case of rejecting popularity; also I know how to communicate and with whom. To a certain degree of course, but I think I know where Senor Coconut works for example.

As Nietzsche said, your work selects your audience.

INTERVIEW BY GARETH OWEN

ROLAND APPEL

Mon, 16 Jun 2008 12:15:35 GMT

Working as part of trio or a group for your whole musical career must be a comforting thing, especially when one of those groups is the Truby Trio. Probably even more so when you make up a significant part of critically acclaimed Fauna Flash, and quirky disco posters Voom Voom. However, Roland Appel clearly doesn’t crave that comfort. He wants to make music with no compromises, music that expresses exactly how he feels, and how he wants to sound.

Dark Soldier was the track that bought you, as a solo artist, to everyone’s attention and now there is an album. Has it been a long time coming? Well, I started producing and writing songs, about two years ago. In the beginning I just wanted to produce and write and not work especially on an album, just to see how it would be. It was my first experience of working alone, then after a while there were a few songs and then it was a case of “ahh ok….!” that could be an album! But in the end, the process was not that long. When the album was finished, it was maybe a year in all.

That’s not so bad! No, It was quite a fast process, because it was only me. I rented an engineer, and a studio so it was very important to be prepared, as obviously studio time costs a lot of money! It was not a case of jamming in the studio, and seeing if something happens. I had a very clear picture of it, and of course I was the only one making decisions so……

You just mentioned that your original intention was not to make an album. At what point did that start to change? When I saw that the songs were all following a similar direction, I started to see how they could start to fit together, in German we say ”Roter Faden” which means that there is a continuing story, there is something that links these things together. I was working on each song with the same singer, the same voice, so it was clear then the songs were not that different. The first thing I gave people was Dark Soldier and then I had a lot very nice offers to make a record.

Everyone was like, “yeah it’s great its cool, do you have more” and I was like “yeah….” . So the next thing was; “so you can do an album right?”. I was like…. “OK, why not!” I didn’t want to sit down and have it planned before I started. I was so tired from all the other projects, where it was always, what next – contracts, albums, studio time, deadlines, all this is not good for the creative process! I still did not know what it would be like to work alone. Was I going to run out of ideas after one song? Or will there be more? I really didn’t know! So all I could do is see, and try. It was important that I didn’t want to have the record deal before… the first step was always the content, the music, then everything else around that can come afterwards.

In the end it was really good, I didn’t have to think “do the other people I am working with like it or not”. I can just concentrate purely on the music.

Dark Soldier was such a huge hit. Did you feel under pressure to follow it up? No, because most of the songs were 70% finished when I took them to the Winter Music Conference and played them to the guys from Jazzanova. I think it would have been different if Dark Soldier was all I had, but the first three 12 inches were finished and we had already decided that Dark Soldier would be first one, so we never knew what a hit it would be when we were working on the other songs…

It’s interesting because everyone in the scene knows Dark Soldier, but when you look on iTunes or something, a lot of people in places like the US, they are much more for New Love.

It was actually pretty strange that Dark Soldier was such a hit, because on one hand you have the techno guys playing it, then you have someone like Gilles Peterson who loved the tune and supported it. It seemed everyone was playing it, which for me was actually quite interesting! It was really perfect though, because it left me free to go in whatever direction I liked. For everyone it was clear; it would be different from Dark Soldier. There is no point in making Dark Soldier 2 or Dark Soldier 3, so for me it was very good!!

Your background has been working in pairs, trios, groups, for a very long time. Most people work alone first, then collaborate. Did you feel a need to move away and express yourself? Yeah absolutely! I realised when I was doing Voom Voom. I loved every project, everything was really cool but it’s always a compromise you know? There were a lot of ideas I wanted to try with everything, the artwork, how it looks, everything. I had a very clear picture of how that should be and the way it happened was a really natural process. 4 years ago I moved to Paris and we closed our studio. I sold my stuff and it was quite clear that we wouldn’t come back and work together. Then when I returned to Munich after a couple of years, it was still quite clear that we wouldn’t start again. Everyone was working on their own stuff, so I knew it was the right time.

So are these projects on hold, or completely dead? Well never say never, but for the moment I am too busy with my own stuff and remixes… and I must say, I am really enjoying this new situation. After fifteen years of living, working and touring with the others, we are still good friends and I think the reason for that is that we stopped the projects! Haha!

I was playing in Vienna at the weekend, and I met Peter Kruder (Kruder and Dorfmeister) and it was all good, but at the moment none of us could imagine working on these projects again. For me, I enjoy the travelling alone, making decisions alone and being able to write just my own music, I am really really enjoying that, but I didn’t know in the beginning if I would enjoy it because I had never done it before. It was a perfect situation though, at the moment it isn’t interesting for me to work with the others; there is no challenge in it.

Did you seek any advice or feedback from the others when you were making the album? What do they think of it? I never play something before it is finished. It wouldn’t make sense, having left a group situation, to then seek another opinion. The only person I play sketches or ideas of tracks to is my girlfriend! She is the only one. I didn’t want to start to question my own decisions; if someone didn’t like the bass drum for example, if someone had said that to me, I would go back to the studio and that would influence me! So no, I definitely didn’t want to do that. I mean, the engineer is there, the singer is there, there are other people involved in the process with me and of course afterwards, when I had finished, I gave them the stuff, but not before then!

And did they like it? Of course haha!! Of course I was happy about that, but if they didn’t like it, that would be ok too, I wouldn’t care. But they played it, charted the tracks, so that of course was really nice. However, I think it is a big mistake to try and make something that everyone should like; there should always be someone who doesn’t like it!

That’s the problem with the commercial stuff; so many people at the radio and stuff, saying “ah you know make it a bit slicker here...” and that just kills the whole thing. I would rather someone say they hated my track, than not to react. You have to be prepared to stand up and say something if that is how you really feel. It makes no sense to be everyone’s darling!

Was the fact you were alone the biggest creative influence? The title of album refers to that… Yes definitely. There were many times when I was questioning what I was doing, trying to understand why I didn’t like a particular element and after working in the studio for 15 years with other people, that was sometimes very strange! It’s like a couple that are together all day long, every day, it’s like one of them going on holiday alone – you experience things completely differently, you see things differently. You could go down to the beach, or not, and nobody would know, or even care! That’s what it’s like working in the studio alone after being with the others for such long time.

On the other hand, this is very interesting. If you go with this experience, it will take you to another level and for me it was such a great experience. I really loved being alone so much that there is more coming. I am already working on new productions

So is another album planned? There is nothing planned in terms of dates, labels, etc, but I know now I am capable of doing an album; so of course, at some point there will be a new one!

And what about touring? Are you going to play the album live? No, not live. To be honest the whole money situation with playing live …. I did that with Fauna Flash, and I don’t want to have to do that again. As a DJ I tour around the world, so I still get ‘play’ the album

On Vinyl, or CD’s or Serrato ? At the moment it’s CDs; which for me, is a very easy way. It’s funny as the first show, on my birthday, was at Fabric and it was the first time ever I arrived to play a gig with no vinyl! I always had both, and it was strange experience, but also a relief!! I was like, ok, I can just go now haha! No heavy bags.

I don’t think people care so much now anyway. Yeah defiantly with Final Scratch or Serrato, everyone is using something. Really, it’s just about the music; none of those girls on the dancefloor care what you are playing from, they are not even interested!

It’s always the men that care… Exactly, we do this to bring the people music that is different and new to other things that they can hear. They just want to dance and that has nothing to do with what you are playing from.
The only exception is the Maiden Voyage project that I am working on with Rainer Truby, it’s a nerdy collector thing and it’s only ‘old skool’! There, at that night, we just play the originals, but that’s my private thing because I’m a record collector for disco and boogie. So when we do this night, we only play on vinyl,but that is just for me, as it’s fun. I don’t care if someone else is playing old music digitally.

So were you road testing the album when you were DJ’ing? Absolutely. I am a big big fan of that. I originally had a slightly different bassline in Dark Soldier and always when I played it, something was missing… you could see it from the people. You could see that they wanted just a bit more. I would never, ever have seen that if I wasn’t playing the tracks in club; in the studio it is a different situation. DJ’ing is actually part of the process, because of course tracks sound so different in a club.

Do you have a favourite track on the album? Angel. In the beginning it was totally different , the structure is now much more song based… I was working on the vibe for such a long time, I always felt there was more there. I remember exactly the day, when I just changed a few things and it just felt absolutely totally right. You really have to have the feeling of bonding with a track and of course, I like Dark Soldier for helping me out so much!

Do you have favourite?

Yeah, New Love. I love the disco vibe. It is also my girlfriends favourite, and she insisted I tell you how much she likes it!! Haha that’s great! That’s the tune that is really big with the US house guys like Quentin Harris, Dennis Ferrera and Martinez Bros; they are really on the New Love tip.

The tracks are very much songs Absolutely! I find it so boring to make ‘tool’ music, I was always most interested in the arrangement. Sound is important, but it is just one element.

What is your musical background? Do you play any instruments? Yeah keys and I am also a drummer. I used to be a studio drummer, I am a professional ha!

That’s the difference I think though, I have this band background and music is about communication, conveying something and when you can play instruments, that is totally different to when people are coming from the computer world where they don’t play, or cant read music.

So what’s for the immediate future? Well I have just completed a load of remixes that are just about to come out and of course the main thing is playing DJ gigs with the album. I am playing the Southport Weekender, a new venue in Barcelona, Singapore and Asia; then after the summer we have a US release and tour.

Are you getting a lot of remix requests? Yeah it’s crazy! Even before Dark Soldier was officially released, I got a request from one of my favourite labels Freerange, and then just lots and lots more; 2 Banks Of Four, Sonar Kollective and Mule, who I really like. I am really in a happy place right now because all of the labels I really like are asking me to remix their projects! Always they send me the originals and I always think, “well what should I do with it?” They are all such great tracks to begin with. It’s perfect!

Where was the studio you worked in? Munich, it is the studio Giorgio Moroder worked at when he was there. All the stuff he is well known for was engineered in this studio by one engineer, who sadly passed away 2 years ago, but my engineer had worked with him for 16 years. All these platinum records on the wall, working on the very same equipment he used, so of course if I said to him “OK, disco snare” he knows exactly what I am after!

What is the scene like in Munich? Oh it’s great from an electronic point of view. We have Permanent Vacation, Compost, Gomma, Disko B, Gigolo. Hell is always there; there are lot of good bands and 3 excellent clubs. Everything is great – there are so many live acts and DJs there, its pretty good.

And what do you think about Berlin? It’s crazy! I think just now it’s the best place on the world for electronic music.
I know at first it seems like everyone is going to Berlin, but there are so many good people here, so many important people and the whole creative scene. The galleries, arts, movies, everyone is there doing their stuff at such a high level. I think that leads to a very special situation.

So, are you happy with the album? Yeah, actually I am! It’s strange to say, but I am. What is quite interesting is that there are not any songs I don’t like. That always happens in projects!

INTERVIEW BY GARETH OWEN

FALKO BROCKSIEPER

Thu, 12 Jun 2008 14:10:05 GMT

Falko Brockskieper is probably best known as the head of Sub Static, the label he runs in conjunction with long term collaborator MIA. He is also a rather good DJ, Producer and is about to make his live debut, showcasing his new album, Heavy Day to the masses. We spent some time on a sunny morning chatting techno, house and moving to Berlin.

So you moved here from Cologne – you did art there?
Yeah, I moved to Cologne from my home town to stay at the academy of media arts. I graduated in 2002, stayed a few years more and then about three and half years ago, MIA and I thought it was time for a change.

Are you still involved in the arts? Apart from your music.
No, not at all. The reason why I started with arts was because I was really into graphic design. I do all of the graphic design for our labels, and for a few friends as well, and some other stuff in that direction. It was really about media design, but as I got into music more and more, it stopped, and now the stuff with the label is my only outlet for that! But it’s fun that way, when you do something like that you are doing it just for yourself, it’s not about some customer that doesn’t understand!

What prompted the move to Berlin?
Well, first I got really tired of Cologne. In the end, especially when you are involved in the scene, it’s a really small city. It’s a nice city, but for me personally, I got stuck there a bit too long. Within a few weeks I decided I needed a change in my life, and decided to move to Berlin. You know, like everyone! Ha ha! In Cologne, people were maybe a bit critical, but really the reason everyone does it, is it’s worth it. I didn’t regret it for a single day. Here, just by walking through the streets you can find an influence, or find that every day there is something going on at a club, or a party, or something happening. In Cologne it was like, do I go to the one party, or not!

Sub Static was set up while you were still in Cologne though?
Yes, the first release was 2001. It started in Cologne when MIA and I met. We shared that fascination and we thought it would be good to have our own little playground for what we and a few friends were doing.

So do you still work with the same artists?
There are few artists that are still on board like René Breitbarth, a long time friend. His was one of the first records. He did one last year and will probably do an EP this year. Things definitely move and change, you meet new people and you change the style of things a bit.

Is there a certain sound you are looking for?
It’s really different most of the time. We are definitely not the label that thinks that such and such a sound is cool, so let’s see who is doing that. I think it makes no sense. It makes the label appear artificial. So most releases are quite spontaneous – we hear something from an artist, and it’s just that feeling, “Yeah, we need that.”

Categorizing electronic music is a really difficult thing but how would you describe your sound?
It’s weird whenever I write about my own stuff, I sometime make fun of it and make up stuff just for that record, but really the term I really like is just: techno. Ha ha! Because for me that is the one place where it started, where I got in touch with that overall style. I am really not a fan of tiny sub categories. For me what I am doing is techno, even if sometimes I want to do a more downbeat track, or even something a bit more housey. So techno and well, maybe house are the genres I see myself in!

How did you get involved in music production?
Well, I started DJing in 1993 in my bedroom, of course. That’s where it started. I was getting into raves and I found it all really fascinating when I was like 17. I started DJing and then about six or seven years later I started to try and make my own productions. I guess, you know, the classic way!

How do you feel about performing the album? You haven’t played live before!
Yeah, well the release party will actually be the second time I will have played it live. So we shall see!

How was the making of this different to Host Deluxe?
Well, the first album was much more, let’s say, naïve. It was much more simple. Well, I guess my music was more simple! At this time I didn’t have so much pressure, we just had our little label, we didn’t think about, how can we market this, or whatever. It was just, send this to distribution and they will sell it. But if you want to survive as a label and as an artist, you have to think about these things. Competition and the more commercial side of the underground music scene has increased so much in the last five years, to the point where it’s now completely different. So I had to really think. I wanted something you could really listen to on a CD and I wanted some DJs to play it, so it was a much harder process to make it. I really had to think more about the style of everything, about what I was trying to say to people. It’s actually a totally new approach, which is what everyone now is doing. In some ways that is really quite sad for me, as the innocence is lost a bit, but on the other hand it’s interesting and challenging, especially when you are into graphic design and things like that. You then get the whole picture.

What other artists are interesting you right now?
Well, I think first off the most well known DJ’s are not the best ones. The irony is that if you are a big DJ, you have to have some big records to play out, where one has nothing to do with the other. For example, Mark Schneider is one of my favourite DJs. He is a really good example of how DJing is a real passion for someone, he’s not trying to be fashionable but he still is, because he goes his own way. I mean artists, its always changing, but Jay Haze I am really into. Jay has the approach to go beyond what it is common to do. I really hope his new album format is going to work out. I really like the album.

He’s remixing a Lament as well?
Yes, him and Mike Monday. It’s going to be a two track release, no original and I am really excited about that too. Mike Monday and MIA are also paying at the record release party at Watergate, which is the starting point of some shows to support the album. Just don’t ask me where yet!

INTERVIEW BY GARETH OWEN

BOOKASHADE

Thu, 12 Jun 2008 13:56:25 GMT

Booka Shade are arguably the most famous German music export since Kraftwerk. Starting life as a synth-pop duo, they slowly but surely gravitated towards harder techno sounds, threw off the shackles of being a major label act and started to create their own vision of electronic music. The rest, as they say, is (dance music) history. Riding the crest of a wave that saw them as both label bosses and musical creators, Booka Shade released their second album Movements to almost universal acclaim. Named as album of the year by Resident Advisor, they clocked up a staggering 200+ shows across the globe. So with the release of their latest, most personal album, The Sun & The Neon Light, looming near on the horizon and preparations well under way for upcoming US shows, Walter and Arno spent some time talking to Electronic Beats about difficult third albums, inspiration and not conforming to people’s expectations.

So you must be pretty busy right now…
WALTER: Oh yeah. We are getting so many calls from people, the people we are working with and stuff, ‘Can we do this, can we do that.’ It’s like, hey, we leave NEXT WEEK! Ha ha! Just get it ready, hee hee!
ARNO: Its funny, we always have this immense pressure when a tour starts, any band does, the lights, sounds, visuals. We would obviously have forgotten something if there was no stress!
WALTER: t’s different than with the Movements tour, as there we perfected as we went, it got better and better, but now, we just don’t have the time. It has to be at the point that for the first show, Coachella, it has to be perfect.

Do you feel pressurised having Coachella as the first show?
ARNO: Pressure?! Ha ha! What pressure? (They both fall about laughing). We do a little bit, yeah. It’s a bit better now, we now know the gear works, we had a secret show last weekend outside Berlin where we tested everything. But you know failing is ok, it’s human, and we needed to take that risk because everything with our set up now is new. After the last tour, everything was really well, basically crashed. You could really feel the equipment falling apart by the end of the tour. Now all the music, arrangements, all of the equipment, the lights, everything is new but we feel less pressured having done one show already.

So is this your difficult third album? Or your perfect third album?
ARNO: Hmm. The production was like you say, the difficult album! It was our second album proper, and looking back, sure we had some horrible times. In January, for example, we wanted to throw the whole album away and start again, we just didn’t feel how everything should come together. We loved the songs, but we just missed that overall view. At this point our tour manager, who until then had heard nothing, heard some of the stuff. We thought we might as well play it to him, as we were going to start again, and we played him the stuff, and he listened to it and came back, and was like ‘Are you guys crazy?! You have all these great songs, and you’re going to throw them away…’. So we then spoke to our staff, all the guys at Get Physical, and the feedback we got was that there were just a couple of changes needed here and there. So we made them, and suddenly there was this picture. It was always there! We were also just a little bit stuck with which single to start with, and once we had this, the picture was in place.
WALTER: So we decided to go for the more planetary thing, which funnily is actually not really a single but more like a club track, and after Numbers and all these more song-based things on DJ Kicks, that kind of music, we wanted to do something different, and people perhaps didn’t except that. We don’t like to always give people the same Booka Shade sound.

When I heard the album, it wasn’t what I expected, but after a few listens I got into it much more.
WALTER: Yeah, after Movements, it was a funny time. We didn’t plan for it to be such a huge success. We didn’t intend to have an album with four or five worldwide club hits on it. I remember the day we played Pukkelpop and when we played In White Rooms people were just going really crazy… I mean Arno was starting to cry, and I was standing there just thinking how can we top that? Is there any way to do that better? This was a really big question for me, a turning point in the production of the new album, because we then said it just doesn’t make sense to try and do an album with seven club hits, to do just the same thing again. So we had a drastic change, a break, and said let’s go back to what we really like, more cinematic stuff, our other sides, more deeper atmospheric stuff.

With tracks like Duke?
Exactly, very much John Carpenter inspired. But you know the Sun & The Neon Light feelings, we really experienced that on the tour, we definitely had those much darker parts. Copacabana, for example, was really written at the Copacabana… you know that’s not a story, that’s really true [the song] and you can see that our state of mind was not in the best shape at that moment. You know to write song like that, when the sun is shining and you are actually at the Copacabana…. but all of those experiences went into this album and then there was the birth of my son which was very important for me, so from that point you really grow up again, it’s the next level of your life and…

You see that there is more to life than music and clubbing?
Exactly! There is a lot more going on around you and this reflects in the album. It shows musically that you know we want to go more into songs.

So it was clear before you got to the studio that this was not going to be another Movements?
ARNO: Well, we worked on the album for about 15 months, but in-between we had DJ Kicks, we’ve had the shows, the DVD, we had a lot of different things going on. It was a constant songwriting process, but yeah, we knew we didn’t want to do a pure dance album, that was for sure.
WALTER: There were a few things that were perhaps present on the old album, elements of In White Rooms and Mandarin Girl, and we just had to scrub them out, get rid of them!
ARNO: We had the chance to be working on a particular sound very early on, first with Freemind by DJ-T then with our own stuff. That then transformed into this blueprint that was later called electro house, which is just now being beaten to death, all the sexiness has gone. It’s like the kind of riffs we started to use, there are lots of people now doing that, so why should we continue doing that? We need to look for something new and it took a long time to find, let’s say, a new musical language. ‘Duke’ was one of the first songs that gave a hint of how the album should sound, this darkness, tension, a slower beat and a minimalist melody.
WALTER: Also the playing live. At the beginning we thought we’re a club act, we have to have that punchy sound, and then the audience started to get bigger and bigger, and then we played concert halls and then we said “OK, we can do other things now in the show, it’s not really necessary to play four-to-the-floor all the time, but we missed the songs.” So we said, “well why not try and do a track with an orchestra, having these strings coming in over breaks and things.” These were just ideas for the live show which started to become a bit deeper, a bit more soul-orientated.
It all depends though. At festivals, for example, where there are so many people and you have just 50 minutes, we do try to make the biggest impact. Like at Coachella, we’re playing in the dance tent, so we are going to really go for it. Even there though, we are going to try it out with these big strings and try and do something new.

How was it to work with an orchestra?
Well, we have actually worked with an orchestra before because we also do film music from time to time, and stuff for adverts. Also, when we were doing major label pop, we had the chance to work with orchestras then, so it’s not completely new for us. It’s always a great feeling though.

Did you conduct?!
ARNO: Ha ha, no not conducting! Walter did the string arrangements, then a guy we have known for many years, a conductor, wrote the sheet music and conducted. We did it here just outside Berlin with the Brandenburg Orchestra. A great hall with a 40-piece orchestra, it was amazing. We didn’t want it too big though; we didn’t want to go Hollywood!

How do you feel about touring the album, considering how many shows you played on the back of Movements? Your commitments are different now...
ARNO: I am afraid…! I am afraid that it will be very long. It’s more dates, more midweek dates and it is planned as far ahead as December, so we know for the next seven months what we will be doing. It’s roughly the same process every time, you start with Europe, then you go to America which is, of course, the most important market, so you have to go a few times, first with a small tour, then a bigger one. In the autumn we go to the smaller cities, these more rural Texan places.

What is it like touring the backwaters of America?
WALTER: Well we did Calgary in the past, which was really funny.

Do people get the music there?
WALTER: Well, in the DVD (Booka Shade Moments Tour DVD) all those people at the beginning, going absolutely nuts, that’s in Calgary! That is Calgary! People were chanting “Booka Fucking Shade, Booka Fucking Shade”, it was very crazy.
ARNO: I am really curious to see how somewhere like Texas will be…

Austin could be fun…
ARNO: Yeah, exactly, but before we have only really played big shows in LA, Miami these kind of places. We will be playing at Lollapalooza, which is really a kind of rock-based thing, I mean we are playing directly before Nine Inch Nails…! We’ll have to wear our metal clothes.

And you are playing Glastonbury, too.
WALTER: Yeah, we are headlining the dance tent. I mean if you told me five years ago I would be even playing at Glastonbury… All these people that support us, like being on the iTunes pre-sale list, I mean it’s just crazy, and the only reason is that the head of iTunes guy is a big Booka Shade fan, a big supporter. It’s the biggest platform for downloading in the US, and ahead of a tour there, for us that is just amazing…
ARNO: “It just goes to show how far you can come with independent structures, and what we love is that we made the right decision a few years ago when we said we don’t want to work with major labels anymore. We were fed up with it, we needed to find some other way to promote and release our music. We strongly believe that it’s a great time now for independents; there is so much you can do with the Internet, places like Beatport for example. We have had so many offers from big companies wanting to use our music, offering us a deal and we can say, you know what, apart from money, what can you offer us? We don’t need that, we have our own structure. However, we are also completely reliant on the people at Get Physical, the label, because really, we have nothing more to offer than the music itself. It’s like the guy from iTunes, we can’t give him any money, he just likes us! That’s really good, that’s healthy. We have the rights, if someone wants to use our music, they have to speak to us!”
WALTER: “On the last album, we spent €5000 marketing it. That’s it. Philipp from M.A.N.D.Y said to us if you are really honest with yourself, and you are doing the music that you are really into, be it free jazz or whatever, you will be successful. For a long time we felt like a pinball of the music industry. All this chart success and all this stuff in the end was not making us happy. I mean we did some really fun stuff, but there was other stuff that was just getting worse and worse. In the end we felt like we had Big Brother watching us all the time, and we just said that’s it, enough!”

TEXT BY GARETH OWEN

THE KILLS

Thu, 12 Jun 2008 13:38:17 GMT

Despite a recent history of mental and financial breakdowns, The Kills’ personal and creative chemistry has remained untainted. Indeed, from tonight’s encounter it’s immediately evident that tabloid hounded Englander Jamie Hince has lost none of the brooding intensity he shares with his enigmatic Floridian musical co-conspirator Alison Mosshart. Sitting side by side on a battered leather sofa, pale-faced and clad in regulation Velvet Underground black, they are the picture perfect rock n’ roll hipsters. On a conversational level though, they are far from strung out clichés. Full of humour (Jamie comes across like Leslie Nielson’s edgy younger brother in his deadpan delivery), they constantly finish off each other’s sentences like psychically conjoined twins. There is little doubt that The Kills are currently and collectively in a very good place indeed.

Following an extended period of missing in action/getting lost somewhere in a recording studio in Mexico, the twosome have returned to the pop culture fray via mascara-splattered long player ‘Midnight Boom’. Regardless of a lengthy and painful gestation which saw them descend on numerous cities throughout the world in a series of misguided attempts to invoke the desired musical impetus, the end product is their most powerful and focused testament to date. With numbers as stirring as ‘Black Balloon’ and ‘Tape Song’, the post-recording session love bites courtesy of a certain Kate Moss should swiftly become a mere afterthought, even to the most celebrity obsessed ears. Rather than maturing gently with age, The Kills have gained confidence to distil their sound into a series of childlike brush strokes. A couple of tracks, namely ‘Cheap & Cheerful’ and ‘Alphabet Pony’, were formed around Jamie’s newly acquired MPC-60 hip hop drum sequencer and take their cue from playground chants inspired by ‘Pizza Pizza Daddio’ – a sixties documentary focusing on inner-city American school children.

Über-hip Anglo-American sleaze rock duo The Kills joins Electronic Beats in a suitably darkened room to consider the merits of God, squats, ghosts, and oddly monikered fake meat….

If you were to play someone just one key track off Midnight Boom to succinctly sum the record up, which would you choose?
JAMIE: ‘Sour Cherry’ I think. It’s not the best on the record but it’s the one I like playing. It depends. Different songs suit different people. I’d sort of weigh up the individual and then play them something accordingly.
ALISON: …depending on what they are wearing.

As a band you seem very much out there on your own. How do you avoid unwanted outside influences?
JAMIE: We live in a bubble. We just do our own thing and aren’t really phased by that much. Every so often industry people will say to me, “your new album has sold so many copies” or whatever, and it generally surprises me because I don’t give it much thought. Also, I think with a lot of bands, people’s reactions to them are quite important to their evolution. I really appreciate our fans but I don’t actually care what they think. If you’re on some kind of personal journey like we are, you can’t consider what other people think of you or what they want you to do.

Do you ever wake up to find yourselves on a Lynch-esque road trip?
JAMIE: Our life is a road trip. We’re so drawn to touring. That’s the norm for us. To me, being in the studio is weird; being on the road is where we want to be.
ALISON: Completely. But it’s not like a typical road trip. I wouldn’t be surprised if someone told me this was just a big practical joke and we were being driven around a movie set. We just get out of the bus, play a show, climb back into the bus and do it all again. It’s easy to forget where you are.

Which European destinations are particularly close to The Kills’ hearts?
JAMIE: Paris and Berlin. I lived in Berlin for three months, on Oranienburger Strasse at the Tacheles squat a long, long time ago. I worked on it, building bathrooms and so on. It’s weird visiting there now. I keep going to see it with all this excitement before leaving slightly underwhelmed. It’s all bloody Novo Hotels these days.

Do you view London’s rapid development into an all-encompassing shopping centre an act of cultural terrorism?
ALISON: We leave London to record these days. We leave England. To be creative you have to leave. Unless you’re loaded.
JAMIE: Well we live in Dalston, the last little bastion of East End poverty. Artists and musicians always gravitate to the poor areas. We don’t have a Starbucks in Dalston, just little Polish and Turkish shops.
ALISON: We’ve got a Tesco now. I discovered it the other day.
JAMIE: Yeah, a Tesco Metro. I’ve been battling with London for years now, but I think the most exciting place to be isn’t necessarily the best place to live and I still want to live in London, even if I have more fun in New York or Paris.

Is 2008 what you imagined it would be?
JAMIE: No. When I was a kid I thought everyone would be wearing silver and riding around on jet packs. I’m attracted to nihilist things, so I love the way we’re destroying cultural standards and destroying most things with any value. We really are. Things are a lot more throwaway now, but you never get what you expect I suppose.

Are you keen believers in the paranormal?
JAMIE: I have a curiosity for it. Ouija boards definitely work, but I think once you give way into believing in such things there are a lot of things you have to give way into believing in, like destiny and religion. I’m an atheist through and through. I think when you’re buried, that’s it. It’s over. The afterlife seems like a clever thing to make people believe in, because then people don’t feel like life is urgent. Religion causes people to feel they have to suppress a lot of things in order to achieve something after death. If you don’t believe in God and the consequences of your actions you’re probably going to act like a crazy chaotic nightmare, which is not what they want you to do. Everyone always says “I don’t believe in God, like an old guy with grey beard, but I do believe in a force.” It drives me fucking mental. Yeah, everyone believes it’s a fucking force. But it’s fucking not.
ALISON: I believe in ghosts, but I’ve never seen any. Friends of mine have. My friend saw a cat person outside the window one time. I’m not sure about Satan, but I love that fake meat ‘Seitan’.

How has the chemistry between the two of you developed over the past years?
(awkward laughter) JAMIE: We’ve become more psychically linked with each other. You wake up in the morning and just know by the way someone blinks whether to stay away from them, or whether they want some support, or whether there’s going to be inspiration to write a song. We can read each other much, much better these days. We’ve never imposed rules on each other. From day one we’ve always been allowed to scream blue murder at each other so there’s not any censorship involved. I think that’s helped our friendship a lot. There’s no kind of politeness involved either. We just behave however we like to each other. If we feel angry then the other person gets the other end of that person’s wrath. There is a hell of a lot of catharsis in our friendship.

Do you see a long-term future for The Kills?
ALISON: We don’t see it ending.
JAMIE: Feel that this is our life, so I’m not sure we’ll always be making records and touring, but we’ll certainly be doing something.

TEXT BY MARK FERNYHOUGH | PHOTO BY HEIKE SCHNEIDER-MATZIGKEI

MARK STEWART

Thu, 12 Jun 2008 08:51:15 GMT

Mark Stewart has been at the cutting edge of the British underground for the best part of 30 years. Initially starting out in Bristol with his first band; The Pop Group, he forged a path for post punk bands that had a bit more to say than “there is no future anymore…” After sowing the seeds of a scene in Bristol that would go on to give the world the likes of Massive Attack, Portishead, Tricky et al, he disbanded The Pop Group and headed to London for a number of collaborative projects that continue to this day. As much at home with Sound System culture of Jamaica, as he is with Electro Rap of DJ Assault, Mark Stewart has forged a path that sees him take his influences in the most mercenary way. A natural joker, and as hard to pin down as an angry cat, I sent my questions to Mr. Stewart and hoped for the best….. A month or so later, this is what I got back. [At this point I had not heard the album].

How did this album come about?
It was recorded between Jamaica where ragga beatsmith Jazwad, laid down some of the track skeletons. We also worked with Capleton, Elephant Man and Turbulence, Patric Pulsingers’ studio in Vienna , Grime Crew, The Bug and Indian desi stars were added in London then off to Berlin for Adult.

Who did you work with?
Lee Perry, Adrian Sherwood and Eric D Clark.

How did you create the songs?
I kind of initially think of a concept like radio play, and then contact the people I need to illustrate my point. I’m currently on Mad Mike, Aux 88 and DJ Assaults’ ass.

What was a typical day in the studio like?
Every location was bizarre in its own way. In the studio in Vienna I was constantly harassed by a 7 year old. Vancouver was so physical it was like working in a sweat box.

What was your main influence in creating the album?
The 200 unreported wars going in the world today, and the shadow war.

What is inspiring you musically now? Who do you think is cool?
I think my mates who are fighting in Burma and helping Indian tribes protect their land are cool. Currently there’s talk of a collaboration with Brodinsky, who I like. I love Sebastian’s cut ups / Burial/ Yo Majesty / Lady Saw/ Vice Versa / Leo Ferre/Early Roxy / Adult (again!)/ Jamaican sound system; Stone Love.

How do you inspire yourself creatively?
Open the curtains, then I look behind the mirror.

Do you think that music is capable anymore of offering something completely new?
The real art of now is juxtaposition; putting things that shouldn’t go together then a spark creates something new.

Does it grate to be referred to the godfather of trip hop / punk funk?
It’s strange, because over the years I’m supposed to have inspired about ten different scenes. I suppose its because I’m constantly genre crashing and people are inspired and run off with it.

Would you rather people concentrated on your newer work rather than referencing the past?
I always KISS THE FUTURE.

Do you think the Pop Group is still relevant as some people do?
As much as the Velvet Underground is still relevant…

Does it bore you when people want to talk about the Pop Group, things you did nearly 30 years ago?
Sorry G cant answer this one.

Last piece of music you thought was crap?
The national anthem.

Last piece of music you thought was great?
Keith Hudson; Studio Kinda Cloudy.

What’s the worst rumor you have ever heard about yourself?
That I am the anti-Christ.

MARC ANTONA

Tue, 13 May 2008 10:14:04 GMT

Marc Antona has been making quite an impact lately. With a string of releases on Dan Ghenacia’s Freak N Chic sub label, Micro Fibres (which he co-runs) and a staggering amount of live shows over the last couple of years, it’s a wonder he manages to find any time to spend in the studio. With recent releases such as the Warehouse and One More Sugar EP’s creating a buzz amongst DJ’s and more 12”s planned for the near future, Marc Antona is a name you will be hearing a lot more from over the summer.

Electronic Beats caught up with Marc for a quick chat about his recent ascension to dance floor stardom and where he finds inspiration for his musical creations.

How are you today?
Good, relaxing from a hectic weekend in Italy…

How did you get into music production?
Music has always been my passion, from my tender age till now. I decided to make it a living few years ago and just got into the process of productions.

Were you a DJ?
Not really, I play live. I like the idea of throwing my own tracks on the dance floor.

How did micro-fibres come about?
That s quite funny... I was partying in dc10 in Ibiza with my friend Dan Ghenacia (Freak n’Chic label head and resident DC10) and we were talking about the possibility of a sub label for Freak n Chic. We both find the idea seductive and put all together on our way back to Paris.

How would you define a typical Marc Antona release?
Its hard for me to define my own work, you, tell me…☺

You have performed at a lot of prestigious clubs / festivals – do you prefer the studio or playing live?
There’s nothing better than playing live.

You output has been prolific of late! What does the future hold?
I have been very lucky… to play in prestigious club such as Fabric, Space Ibiza, Alter Ego, Tenax, Rex Club to name some. I hope it will keep going this way but as long as I can keep releasing tracks and make a living out of it, I am fully satisfied ;-).

Your productions have a distinct, wobbly sound – is this something you actively try to capture?
It’s all very organic. There’s no strategy behind this, I just produce what I feel.

What influences your music?
Everything, rain, sun, friends, parties, family but I am mainly influences by other producers.

How do you work in the studio - do you have prefer analogue or digital equipment?
I am all digital.

Tell us one thing about Portugal that we may not know.
This is a dream destination that few people know, with a real electronic music culture... so keep the secret for your friends ;)

NEON NEON

Sat, 05 Apr 2008 10:51:21 GMT

Albums with a concept are risky affair, especially in the context of Pop, and even more so when the subject is cocaine smuggling auto baron of the 80’s, John DeLorean. On the surface this makes it all the more surprising, but dig a little deeper and you find that unlikely pairing of Super Furry Animals front man Gruff Rhys, and left field US Hip Hop Producer, Boom Bip have created an album of almost perfect contemporary “Pop”. After blazing a trail through the SXSW festival in the US, and releasing their debut album Stainless Style to critical acclaim, they touched down in London ahead of their long awaited debut UK show at Fabric. They spent some time talking to Electronic Beats about how you make an album about a man who paid to have the perfect face.

Are you excited about the show tonight?
BRIAN: Yeah the shows have been going really great, and we are really excited about Fabric! We have the Magic Numbers coming out. It’s going to be great!

So how were the US shows?
BRIAN: We just did SXSW, stopped in LA for the record release party, which was great, a really good party. And now we are here in the UK.

So when did the two of you 1st work together?
BRIAN: Well, first of I did a remix of a song called Father Father for the Super Fury Animals, and we had, well a sort of bartering system! So in exchange for the remix I had Gruff do the vocals for a track of mine called Do’s and Don’ts, and that was our first real collaboration. We are both pretty laid back people, we just trust each others taste, and things just seemed to work out really smooth, so we decided to try and make an album together. We’ve definitely become friends over the course of things!

So how did you get from there to an album about John DeLorean?
GRUFF: We were looking to make a record that was different to any of our others, and so it was good to write about something impersonal. It guaranteed it would be outside of anything we had done before. The music demos that Brian played me were very shiny, and err... aerodynamic! I was trying to write lyrics and catchy hooks you know themes that would mirror the music. At the time we were actually looking at a lot of books about 80’s concept cars, and I ended up trying to write one song about DeLorean, but when I started researching his life, which was so eventful, there was just so much information.

A mine of information? Or I guess inspiration!?
GRUFF: Exactly! There was so much inspiration, its ridiculous. I went to write one song, and ended up just writing song after song about the different chapters of his life. It all came together, and helped tie the record together lyrically and musically.

Tell me about some of the songs on the album - the Michael Douglas song for example.
Haha, well we have taken a few liberties with his life, a few interpretations!
The scenario is that DeLorean is hanging out at some Hollywood party, and he is looking at his newly designed chin implant in Michael Douglas’ mirrored sunglasses. Then there is Belfast, about the factory which is like a Disco anthem and Neon Theme which is like piece of library or music or a film score.

On your Pitchfork media mix you include Tenebre by Goblin – was 80’s soundtrack music also an inspiration musically?
BRIAN: Yeah, well really I think our first inspiration was a lot of Italian Disco, and power pop and synth pop for the 80’s. A lot of the tracks I put together for Gruff to write to were all very much influenced by those sounds, so when we got together and starting writing lyrics, that’s when the DeLorean theme came about, and started shaping the records. That’s when the music really found a true direction.

So you weren’t clear where it was going at first?
BRIAN: Exactly, when we started we were taking music from different eras, and forms of media, and finally we found the DeLorean story.

So how did you work together? Was it a laptop affair, or did you spend a lot of time in the studio?
Well, that was one thing we made sure of. We needed to be able to be in the same room together and write and record together, we didn’t want to it by post. I have done things like that before, and that’s fine, but there is something about just sitting in the room with that person, and hanging out, vibing, and feeding of each other. I knew an entire record would be too much to do if we were doing it by post.

You have some unusual guests on the album – Spank Rock, Yo Majesty, who don’t, on paper, seem to work with a Disco and power ballad influenced sound.
Well, we wanted the music to reflect the story of his life, and to be honest there were definitely some dark, edgy moments in his life, one of those – the track with Spank Rock is the coke bust track, and we really wanted to reflect that in the music and the lyrically on the track, so he seemed like the obvious choice

Same with Yo Majesty, we wanted something harsh and grimy, but also sexy to balance out of the album, as it is very much power Pop. To add dynamics, it works to have people like Fat Lip and Yo Majesty.

So do you se this as a concept album? That is sometimes a dirty word….
Yeah, definitely, some people are scared and there have been some bad ones for sure, but it was a lot of fun for us – we enjoyed every second. We highly recommend for other bands to step outside themselves and give it a shot.

The initial idea was always to have something different to what we are used to, as soon as we grabbed on to that theme, it was just the perfect excuse for us to make a record we really enjoyed.

Stainless Style is out now.

MISS KITTIN

Mon, 17 Mar 2008 16:04:14 GMT

Meeting Miss Kittin in person is exactly as you would imagine: black hair, black clothes, black nail polish, tattoos creeping from the bottom of her sleeves. What is surprising, however, is how relaxed and friendly she is. Her voice is high and she sounds almost Russian, although she originally comes from Grenoble in France. Besides that, she also has a very charming and mischievous look in her eyes, like a naughty little girl which, let’s face it, she probably is!

Miss Kittin seems to have a knack for being in the right place at the right time. The last eight years have seen her connected to everyone from Felix Da Housecat to T. Raumschmiere and her debut album (‘I Com’ with partner-in-crime Hacker) made her an instant success all over the world. When I ask her about this, she describes it all as a ‘happy accident’ and tells me that she doesn’t even enjoy being the centre of attention. “I hate people looking at me, which is why I prefer to DJ when I can. Behind the decks I can dance, have fun and be safe.” I tell her how ironic it is that often the very people who shun the spotlight have fame thrust upon them. She merely smiles, shrugs her shoulders and sips her peppermint tea. As a DJ, Miss Kittin is known for hard, fast techno and for getting the party started. Even on her website she writes that DJing is her ‘first and main love’. She definitely seems to know what the crowd wants, proven by the fact that she is being booked now more than ever to spin all over Europe and even America. It is difficult for most artists in the music business to keep one career alive, let alone two, but like everything with Miss Kittin, it all appears quite unintentional. “I love all music – playing it and making it.”

The new solo album ‘Batbox’ is the first time she will be releasing her music independently without the support of a major label behind her, but she doesn’t seem at all worried about sales. “If people like it, they will buy it and if they don’t, it doesn’t matter,” she says. “I’m not doing it with the intention of selling.” The music on Batbox is quite different to I Com, it’s far less electronic and more song-based than anything she has done before. A lot of this is to do with the fact that she made the album with producer Pascal Gabriel (www.melophobia.com) who has previously worked with the likes of Kylie Minogue, Boy George and Sophie Ellis Baxter. She tells me “At first I was very hesitant to work with him. I’m really not into pop music, but when I saw his studio and how he works, I realised I’d been very judgmental and it was actually a very creative experience.” The album was pieced together in Pascal’s studio in London over several months and Miss Kittin had the opportunity to really experiment with her songs before committing them to tape. “Pascal is very crazy and very free in the way he makes music. He never told me what to do; he just let me play with everything and encouraged me. He even let me play bass guitar on a few tracks even though I don’t consider myself a real musician at all. It felt like the right way to create something fresh.”

The result is fresh – an unusual but cool blend of beats, dark synths, deep bass lines and very clear vocals. In fact, Miss Kittin’s voice has never sounded better. She tells me: “Until I worked with Pascal, I never realised how vocals were even meant to be recorded. Before him, I used to record everything so fast and simple. It was a joy to be able to have the time to do everything so completely.” The lyrics are almost gothic at times – although she disagrees when I use that word – and always slightly paranoid. Sometimes, her voice sounds like an alien calling from another planet...

‘Eyes staring at me, people looking unhappy, let’s be deaf and blind....’

This is highlighted by the vocal effects on many tracks, using delay and reverb to make the voice sound ghostly and distant. At times, the arrangements are a little eighties, perhaps not so unusual for a man who once worked with S-Express, but it never sounds cheesy or too trashy. To my ears, it is electronic music for people who don’t normally like electronic music. She agrees with this statement and tells me “People would be surprised, most of what I listen to is guitar bands or mellow things like Nick Cave. I grew up listening to punk music, that was my first love and even today I would prefer to listen to something made with real instruments than techno.” The best thing about Batbox is that is really well produced without sounding commercial, which is perhaps one of the hardest tricks to pull off. What will be interesting to see is whether the music is embraced more by the electronic community or by the mainstream. Miss Kittin does not seem to mind either way: “I make my music only for myself. If I like it then that is what’s important, not how much I sell or to whom.”

The artwork for the album also has a special story as it was made by Rob Reger, creator of Emily The Strange, the little dark animated girl who has in past years become an icon. If you haven’t heard of Emily before, you should definitely google her and have a look. She actually kind of looks like a teenage Miss Kittin! “Rob never usually makes album covers, though everyone has asked him in the past,” Miss Kittin smiles proudly. “It just happened that I was playing a gig in San Francisco and he was there. We got talking and he’s a fan of my music, so the discussion just came about naturally. I love his work, so of course I was thrilled when he told me he would do it.” She tells me that most of the good things in her career have developed in the same way, connections becoming friends, and friends helping each other out. “There is no longer so much money in the music industry, so it’s important that everyone helps out when they can.”

All too soon, Miss Kittin’s manager sticks her head around the corner and informs me that my time is up. Ironically, the screaming children have just left the cafe and Miss Kittin herself is getting very relaxed, telling me travel stories and reeling off a long list of what new bands and artists she has recently discovered. Before I leave, I ask her about her upcoming gig at TAPE club in Berlin. She says “Berlin was one of the first places I ever played, way back in 1999 with Hacker at Club Discount. The people here are tough because although they are relaxed, they have high expectations, so you have to be good. So I’m looking forward to it, but I am little nervous!!” I thank her for the interview and she feigns wiping sweat from her brow and smiles that naughty smile back at me “Mission accomplished!”

Miss Kittin’s Batbox will be released on February 1, 2008.
TEXT BY JASPER GREIG

BRUNO PRONSATO

Mon, 17 Mar 2008 09:17:17 GMT

Steven Ford aka Bruno Pronsato has a manipulative approach to rhythm. In another lifetime he was a drummer from Seattle and now he’s an acclaimed Electronic Music artist based in Berlin who indeed ‘has got the ultimate Funk!’ [Magda in an interview for EB].

Ever since early releases on Orac, followed by esteemed records on Philpot or Telegraph and eventually Hello?Repeat, Ford has always created idiosyncratically fashioned rhythms to disorient a dancer’s mind. Now his second album ‘Why Can’t We Be Like Us’ goes deeper and beyond the dance floor where you listen closely and contemplate. It’s more like electronic Free Jazz.

How’s life in Berlin? I know this question is becoming superfluous, but still, why did you leave Seattle behind for Berlin?
Berlin is great. I have some great friends here and I’m getting a lot of work done. Sammy Dee and I [the duo’s called Half Hawaii] have really picked up the studio schedule the past month or so, and it's really nice working and hanging out with him. Seattle was a good place to work, but eventually the inspiration level waned. I needed a place with a little more activity, and of course, Berlin was the next best bet.

What in your artist career ever since being a drummer in Voice Of Reason set the course for Electronic Music?
Voice of Reason was a band I was in for a few years. It was with my brother and a couple of other friends. We started up some time around the early nineties. Over time I got a little tired of dealing with 4 people's schedules, different tastes. Being in a band became more of a chore than a musical adventure. I started to get into the stuff on Mego [experimental Electronic Music label based in Austria] a couple of years later, which then set the course for Electronic Music for me. More on the experimental side I guess. Then I discovered Pantytec [Perlon founder Zip together with Sammy Dee], and said to myself, this is really something that I wanna do.

I’m sure your new album will be categorised as ‘minimal’ again, although it’s so multi-layered and intricate. Isn’t that term just overused?
‘Minimal’ to me is really just a simple term used to easily classify a certain new breed of Techno. Musically speaking, I think it’s pretty boring, this so-called ‘minimal’. But it does have its place. Somewhere, on some dance floor. I can enjoy it (sometimes) like many others, but I’m not so into the debate about what it is, or how it is or isn't destroying Techno. In general, it’s the people that decide what stays and what goes. And the opinion is pretty strong that people are tired of the sound.

What, would you say, initiated the rise of so-called ‘Minimal Techno’? For instance, we’ve been facing for a couple years now, a new school of artists particularly from the US and all the way down to Argentina (though most of them live in Berlin now)?
Well, like all genres, Techno was looking for something new. It found it in the so-called ‘minimal’ sound. A lot of this owed to the easy access of music programs. On the one hand this is good, on the other, we have an overdose of the same sound. I think what happens is really something of an average. We have a million people using the same software, using the same sounds. As a ‘scene’ or culture, we have sort of adapted ourselves to this. And what we have adapted ourselves to is pretty much mediocrity. Now, people are taking a step back and saying ‘wait a minute, are we growing, or are we standing still?’ And I guess we all know the answer to that question.

Why did you choose Hello?Repeat to release your second album?
I have always had a good relationship with Jan Krüger. We’ve done two previous records together. He is not only a great record boss, but a good friend. So I thought it was the next logical step after a couple of EPs and a steady friendship.

Your debut album ‘Silver Cities’ on Orac isn’t quintessentially different from ‘Why Can’t We Be Like Us’ – yet your second album sounds more developed and complex, sort of musically more mature, whereas ‘Silver Cities’ seemed to have quite more a focus on the dancefloor. From your perspective, what has changed?
Well, a great deal has changed. Mainly a more focused approach to music. I want to be a little more musical, expressive and contemplative. Less of a sound-design approach. I have grown as far as that goes. Keep the four/four rhythm, but explore more ways to make it interesting for the listener and, of course, for myself. I wanted to make something more personal, something with a little more depth to it, not just a collection of dance tracks.

The album sounds literally, beyond mere experimentation, very personal. Like an abstract collage that doesn’t really close itself from any atmosphere. As if you’ve transformed impressions and emotions into sound and made it all rhythmic. On the other hand, the album title ‘Why Can’t We Be Like Us’ is emotionally very strong. The same with the track titles. What’s the background? What and who are you referring to?
The background is really hard to say. I was working for a couple of months trying to figure out which direction that I wanted to take. It actually worked in reverse. The first track that I decided I would use for the album was ‘Why Can’t We Be Like Us’. After I established that mood, I knew the direction that I was going to take the album. Something moody, I guess. The title is sort of a reference of how ‘we’ view ourselves in a relationship. The ideal ‘us’. The question of ‘Why Can't We Be Like Us’, is just me/us asking, why can't we be like that?! Why are we fucked up... I'm glad you can see the personal side of the album. I really wanted it to have that feel.

What’s your focus now? In music, in your career, in life…
I’m really just letting things happen around me. At the moment, I’m just enjoying playing and making music. I don't wanna stress myself out too much with a goal or anything. I just wanna let things happen.

‘Why Can’t We Be Like Us’ previously released on Hello?Repeat.

SEBASTIEN TELLIER

Mon, 17 Mar 2008 08:43:17 GMT

“Everything is perfect for me! I think I'm living the better part of my life,” purrs the ever dapper, perma-bearded Parisian, musician and actor Sebastien Tellier.

His joyous affirmation is hardly surprising considering the cinematic upward arc of a career he’s enjoyed since his debut ‘L’incroyable Vérité’ (The Incredible Truth) released back in 2001. From working with the Coppolas, acting in Roman’s ‘CQ’ and providing ‘Fantino’ for Sofia’s Lost In Translation soundtrack respectively, to tugging tears from eyes the world over with string-laden ‘La Ritournelle’ back in 2005. One could find him anywhere, from playing stages with The Magic Numbers to hotel lobbies for art festivals such as Paris’ Nuit Blanche, or the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London. Simultaneously, with his iconoclastic take on the hirsuit, tailored suit and sunnies ensemble he became a fashion icon, publicly adored by Karl Lagerfeld, Marc Jacobs and Chanel. Not bad for an artist whose work verges on the conceptual, focussing on the drives at the core of humanity as the titles L’incroyable Vérité and Politics attest.

Always languid, but never lazy, the green-eyed lady killer took 2007 by storm, scoring Mr Oizo’s (aka Quentin Dupieux) flick Steak with Q. D. himself and Ed Banger’s boy-wonder SebastiAn, whilst spending evenings at “the same party at Le Baron.” However, the highlight of the year, and perhaps a testament to his achievement, is Guy Manuel De Homem-Christo (one half of Daft Punk) offering his production skills for the first time ever outside of Daft Punk on Tellier’s third LP; the goosebump inducing, sensual jam ‘Sexuality’. A match made in modern Gallic heaven, what with the affecting tones and melodies of Tellier and the wit and drive of Homem-Christo, he more than completes the goal of the record of explaining to the world “the latent concept of sex”. If there were an award for Album Most Likely To Spontaneously Induce Activity of an Adult Nature, this would win hands down.

With that in mind, let’s talk about sex, shall we? There seems to be something about this album that’s ‘super-sexual’.
I love US r’n’b. The music has to be cool, and it was a really big problem for me as a French person to do it well. We haven’t got that same feeling and it was this problem, this ‘confrontation’, that grew in my mind until in the end, I decided to make a sexual record. Mainly because I love US music but not US lyrics, so I wanted to add not ‘intelligent’, but sensitive lyrics. I tried to make intellectual r’n’b. I try to explain to the world the latent concept of sex and that’s the goal of the record. I’m very happy to be in a sexual society. My previous record was called ‘Politics’ and of course it was about politics. At that time, I thought it was the most important rule in the world and now I think that sex is the most important rule, because seduction is at the centre of everything. So for me, sex is more important than politics. That’s why I talk about sex in my record. I always try to find the core subject matter to talk about.

It’s funny that you say sex is not part of the French heritage…
I’m talking about music. In the US, the music is a bit obvious, but me, I need a little intellectual thing. You know it’s so sad when you go to a party, a discotheque or a club, and you have sex with a girl but the day after you feel a bit dirty. I hate that feeling. For me, real sex is when you have the feeling and then the sex, not the sex and then the feeling. After all that, I love nasty sex too but I want something more.

Is that why you hooked up with Guy Manuel De Homem-Christo?
The only place in France where you can find some good food for the spirit is in the electronic world. On my previous record, I did very seventies music – however sex is a sophisticated thing. For me, to have a good ‘sex party’ you have to follow what is special now. I know in my heart I am a seventies guy, but I don’t want to have seventies sex. So I made this record electronic because I wanted to have a sophisticated album. G. Man knows the world. He knows fashion. He knows what I don’t know, so I needed his skills on this album. G. Man is very important in the respect that we used drum machines and synthesizers, but I don’t care about his fingers [on the consoles], I care about his mind. What was important was not the notes played, but the discussion between us. G. Man is such a good producer. He can sing exactly what he wants played and always, whatever he sings, is wonderful. I was always a fan of Daft Punk and wanted to work with G. Man and now, with him I can reach the levels of Daft Punk. What a great feeling that is.

Did you know him prior to your collaboration?
No, not really. He did a wonderful art movie called ‘Electroma’ and they used one of my songs in the movie. So I said to myself ‘Daft Punk love my music’ and was confident to ask them if they would like to work with me. Without them using my music in their movie, I don’t think I would have been confident enough to ask G. Man to work with me. In fact, I never asked him directly. One evening, Guy came to my apartment, we listened to some demos and that was the beginning of the work.

So there’s quite a community in Paris then?
Ah well. You know it’s always the same party in Paris, it’s always the same club like Le Baron, then after that it’s the same party in the same apartment. If you imagine in the UK countryside it’s a bit like Paris. Okay it’s a big city, but the pace is a bit like the country. At the same time it creates such an ambience to make a good record. You can take your time and people have admiration and love for musicians. It’s a very comfortable position to be in as a musician in France.

What came first? Steak or Electroma?
Ah, Steak! That was a very interesting adventure. I’m a very good friend of Mr Oizo. The thing is, London is a paradise of the music world, but Paris is a very small world. It’s so small you end up knowing everybody, so in the end Daft Punk, Oizo, Phoenix, St Etienne, Air are all known because it’s so small. Though, to be honest, I can’t remember which came first or who introduced me to who.

Without mentioning Sarkozy, do you think France is a little conservative?
Hehe, yes! There are a lot of problems with change for French people, for me too. Every change is hard. French people like tradition, with wine and cheese and the ‘spirit’ that goes with that. But me, I try to break this spirit inside me, to be different for each record. If you make a record with the same mindset as before, there is no point in making a new record.

There seems to be an affinity to cinema and the cinematic in your work…
Yes, the cinema is a kind of obsession for me. When you’re a filmmaker you have to imagine you are making a record, so a movie with energy and emotion. When you make a record you have to follow the rules of movies like suspense, surprise, tension. I think that a musician has to work like a filmmaker and a filmmaker has to work as a musician. There is a kind of crossover.

Can you mention some of your favourite films and soundtracks which work together?
Certainly. A Clockwork Orange with some tracks by Wendy Carlos. In fact, before he was a guy and she’s a woman. I love that! A musician, a transsexual, it’s beautiful. I also like Morricone’s songs in Sergio Leone movies. Oh, and if I could work with John Woo! I would love that. I also love the music from the Miami Vice TV show.

What do you think about the new electronic producers of now?
I love SebastiAn, Mr Oizo, Phoenix. I love the sound of synthesizers – it’s completely outside reality because it’s a fake sound. You can’t put an image with the song and I love that. It’s a new discovery for me because before I was only playing a guitar. I don’t want to live in the past, I don’t want to live in the present either, I want to live in the future. For me, all these guys – SebastiAn, Oizo, perhaps even Justice – are the future. Well, Justice are okay, but there is nothing behind the facade. SebastiAn though, it’s a new kind of music but you can find some spirit behind it.

INTERVIEW BY JEAN-ROBERT SAINTIL | PHOTO BY LAURENT BOCHET

HOUSE IS A FEELING

Tue, 19 Feb 2008 17:30:41 GMT

In August 2006 at the Weekend club in Berlin, Prosumer and Murat Tepeli performed live when vocalist Elif Biçer, inspired by their performance, spontanously joined them onstage marking the start of their creative relationship. From that very first moment, it was all about passion and faith that led to their debut album ‘Serenity’, which is finest Chicago-reminiscent House for your mind, your body and your soul. An album in two versions: song-oriented on CD and strictly for the dancefloor on Vinyl. I met the charming threesome backstage on the Electricity Festival in Luxemburg.

Elif, that night at the Weekend club you spontaneously walked behind the decks and started to sing along with Achim (aka Prosumer) while Murat was all absorbed by the machines. And now you are touring a debut album with the boys. That must be a hell of a feeling, considering that you weren’t really a House singer before?!
ELIF: True. I started with Two-Step and continued with Jazz… then I met the boys. It was like love at first sight that night at Weekend. Their live set was dope and I was simply in the mood for singing. There isn’t much more to say. You know, if you’re passionate about something, then you see people, who express that same passion with their music and all of a sudden you end up producing together such a great and harmonious album… that’s overwhelming! We let ourselves to be guided by a feeling and eventually this record happened.
PROSUMER: I have to say, we are in an exceptional situation as artists. I can’t think of a better environment to work. And I’m not just talking about the three of us. There’s Panorama Bar/Berghain, where I’m one of the residents. That club runs also our booking agency (where Elif works by the way) and our record label. I’m not just earning my living here. This environment has become home to us. There’s pure faith in what we do, especially on the part of the label. They never asked to prelisten anything. We recorded one track the day before mastering and another one after mastering had already started. Tell me one label, that would do that.

And besides a label that many people tend to relate to Techno. But the debut album is pure House music…
PROSUMER: That’s a huge leap of faith! The label founders basically say that Ostgut Ton is not a Techno label, but rather a music label. They’re open to anything.
ELIF: Everything that’s good prevails, and everything that has been produced with passion catches on. I have to say, the boys provide a very pleasant basis for my singing. Each one of us gets all the space to be oneself.

You guys have great confidence in one another. You can hear that on the album and see it onstage indeed…
MURAT: You have to build up confidence first, because the tracks emerged from very personal circumstances, that you can’t give away easily. It’s then even more beautiful when someone responds exactly the same way you felt that moment without having to explain yourself. Something magical happens in that moment. That’s fun and precious!

Making music is just something intimate…
PROSUMER: You know, Murat sends me his tracks and I write songs like ‘Serenity’ or ‘I Got Mad’, where I reveal myself completely. I have never the feeling I’d reveal myself in a negative way. We make music together and there’s absolute confidence. And when we record a track with Elif the day before mastering with me standing on one side, holding the mic, and Murat on the other side with Elif’s lyrics in his hand, it’s not because we’re out of it. We just know Elif will make it happen and it’s gonna be on the album. We have faith, that’s that!

And House music is so much about faith…
MURAT: House is a feeling. It’s just a lot about jamming. Get together and get something going.

That’s musical freedom…
PROSUMER: Exactly! It’s freedom. Today I let myself to be guided completely and I think Murat and I have that in common and Elif just fits in perfectly. We got a flow. Of course on the one hand that flow is based on our machines that we use, on the other hand on our influences, but then, and probably most importantly on us as individuals.
MURAT: I’d say, togther we have the balls to do what we wanna do and to let it happen. It’s amazing to let go and to abandon yourself to music. I believe, this togetherness is often missing in music.

And that amazing feeling makes the music timeless. Real emotions arise…
PROSUMER: It flows. At this point I have to say that I don’t feel as uncomfortable with my voice as I used to. I still believe that I’m not a great singer, but I’d say people take my lyrics from me. I’m honest. That’s untouchable. Of course you can like it or you think it’s shit, but it’s honest.

There’s honesty – no doubt! The lyrics are moving, because they’re absolutely human. As a matter of fact you do highlight the spectrum of House. ‘Serenity’ makes you emotionally so many things and definitely makes you wanna dance…
MURAT: Now you can imagine how I felt, when Achim sent me the vocals for the first time. You send him ideas, a track, and after two or three hours he sends vocals back. You find yourself sitting in the corner, overwhelmed, and thinking ‘That’s unbelievable!’. He lives hundreds of kilometers away from you [Murat lives in Cologne, Achim in Berlin], but he understands you.
PROSUMER: I know this will sound terribly esoteric [everybody laughs], but we’re blessed with all this. For me this music is so therapeutic. I guess, for the three of us. It’s true, [with sarcasm] Music is the answer to your problems [we laugh even more].

In ‘Lov’ you quote a Paul Johnson track called ‘Tic Toc’ [Cajual: 1994]. Is there more than just reminiscence?
PROSUMER: We would never use a quote to reproduce something that we didn’t really feel. About ‘Lov’ I have to say, that at the time I had my first affair with a guy. By the way that was when I came out and told Murat [laughs]. For the first time I rested with my head on someone’s chest and heart the heartbeat. Instantly I had these lyrics in mind ‘My heart skips a beat’ and ‘I don’t wanna miss a beat of your heart’. Of course it wasn’t the true love, but nevertheless there was a feeling. That’s why the line ‘My clock goes tic toc’ from the Paul Johnson track fitted in. In that moment I could take it. The same with ‘A Path’ [Fingers Inc: 1986] in our live shows. I wouldn’t do that, if it would be just reminiscence. There are analogies between my lyrics and Robert Owens’ lyrics. I mean, emotionally it’s somewhat alike. So I can use the quote and be authentic. Chez Damier, whose music means a lot to me, once said: ‘What is life worth, if we don’t share our experiences’. I think, he hits the nail on the head.

‘Serenity’ previously released on Ostgut Ton.

INTERVIEW BY PEYMAN FARAHANI