Trickski

Ahead of his performance at Adult Disco, Daniel Becker from two-piece German outfit Trickski brought us up to speed with all that's been happening in the world of the renowned proponents of deep and soulful house. Trickski were originally mentored by jazz musician Rainer Truby, before melding their jazz sensibility with club influences after they were signed to Jazzanova’s Sonar Kollectiv imprint. They've since been selected by renowned tastemaker Gilles Peterson to play at his Worldwide Festival in Singapore, collaborated with Sydney's own Jamie Lloyd and then there was their facetious re-edit of Phil Collins entitled, er, 'Pill Collins', which proved something of an online sensation when it was posted to the group's Soundcloud page. Over to you, Daniel!

Pulse: How’ve you been since your last Aussie jaunt? Fill us in on select highlights, both musically and/or otherwise? Daniel Becker: Compared to other djs and producers not much has happened since we really like to take our time for everything and not rush things too much to "stay in the playlists" with half-baked stuff, but generally speaking I think we reached another level in producing. We had some lucky shots as beginners. When you are naive you can do great things since you don't care about all the rules that you discover later on. But in the last two years I think we finally found our sound, our way of doing things and not feeling rushed, disappointed or pressured by the whole industry, which is a great thing. I think you can hear our sound pretty well on the last two 12"s.

And how about Phil, or rather ‘Pill’ Collins eh? Yeah 'Pill' was on the Before and After EP. We new that it was a dope tune the minute it was done. That is the best feeling, when you know that a tune is just dope and people love it. Even though it is 100bpm slow which makes it 'unplayable' for about 90% of the professional djs people still love it. We were at the worldwide over all top 10 at soundcloud just in front of Royksopp etc. By now more then 20 000 people have checked it there. I still love it and play it whenever I can.

Any other cheeky re-edits/remixes in the pipeline? Hmmm, there's not many since we were busy with the album. There is a remix on DOG coming up, probably one on Suol and one for DJ Hell for his remix compilation that's on the cheeky side. And there's a little more to do in the 'not finished yet' folder. Lets see if we let it off the chain!

You guys are finally gearing up to release your debut album, Suol. Why has it taken so long for you to bite the bullet and drop that first LP? It's partly due to the long process of finding our sound. We have had about 3/4s of an album laying around but it did not come together. Also we did not have much time in the studio. You know, we like to take things slow.
 

"... many tracks deserve to be erased, far more than those who deserve to be released. One cannot always get in touch with the mighty, mighty soul, you know?"

Did you alter your approach in the studio considering you were making an album as opposed to an EP? Well we were working with vocalists again; Ernesto from Sweden, our label mate Fritz Kalkbrenner and [tadaaaah!] ourselves. We did not want to produce a banging club album, we wanted to do a proper artist thing; something you can listen to at home, in the car and before you go out. It was not supposed to be something that is only good for heating yourself up, for getting 'the pump' (sic). Considering that we did not include the DJ-tool modules and kept it more playful, direct and on point with most of the songs

What can we expect from Suol; a continuation of the sounds you’ve showcased on past EPs or something radically different? We did not want to change our sounds due to the label that we release our album on. Chopstick and Johnjon are great people, very open-minded, super supportive and have a great feeling for deepness and catchiness. The label isn't as big as Sonar Kollectiv and maybe it is easier to focus when there are less artists to take care of. We feel happy there. Really.

What can we look forward to from your upcoming shows in Sydney? Great music, fun, deepness, surprises, raw energy, catchiness, cheekiness, pretty girls (I hope!). It is really hard to describe your own night since as a DJ you see things from another perspective. You work it. You do what you feel like is the best, the most fitting thing. You guide people and are guided by the crowd. It is a ping pong situation, and thus I cannot tell you precisely what you can expect - I can just tell you that it comes from the heart!

When people talk about house music having 'suol' - sorry 'soul' - what do you think that means and how is it evident in Trickski's productions? Uff! Such a 'brainer' to end! I thought I was done and started to relax. These days there are just way too many tracks that follow 'pattern X' since many artists put too much focus on pure functionality on the floor. Too much functionality can kill the soul though. It limits yourself when you either want too much or too little, you have to know what you want and express that. It is about the essence, the soul, not more and not less. I guess that's soulful; when your soul is in the music - not a 'Best of Motown' sample or another accapella from a soulful track on Defected. I think that is the case in almost all Trickski tracks, and that is why it takes us so long [to make them]. We need to seriously feel what we do, otherwise ssssssss-traightto-the-bin... normally it takes some time to really kill a track. But many tracks deserve to be erased, far more than those who deserve to be released. One cannot always get in touch with the mighty, mighty soul, you know?

Chris Honnery

Trickski play Adult Disco in Sydney on Saturday March 12th. Win tickets and check out the Facebook event page.