Oblique Industries

Oblique Industries has been making waves around the world from his hometown of Melbourne.  With his music signed to such diverse labels as M_nus, Canadian down-tempo imprint Interchill, and French progressive label BUS (amongst others), it's clear to see that this Melbourne-based producer is not one to be restricted by the boundaries of genre. A regular sight at many Australian festivals Oblique takes some time with Pulse on the eve of his first European tour to talk about his musical passions, experiences so far and plans for the future. 



Pulse: So you recently won the M_NUS remix competition for Richie Hawtin’s Ask Yourself, and are now getting a release through that. You’re probably sick of questions about it, but how are you feeling about it a few weeks along? Oblique Industries: I don't know if I'll ever get sick of anything about this! It's been a pretty amazing experience so far, the response has been bigger than I ever expected. It's a really exciting time for me so far, and I still have the release of Arkives to look forward to. It just keeps getting better!
 


You’ve spoken about wanting to break free from the four on the floor sound. What do you think of the increasing popularity of dubstep, UK garage and other UK bass genres? How is affecting the rest of the dance music scene? I don't want to break free from four-on-the-floor entirely. A lot of my favourite music has the four-on-the-floor beat so I don't see it completely leaving my sound anytime soon, but as a producer it can be quite easy to box yourself into a certain sound for a whole range of reasons. I'm into to a lot of different styles of music and traditionally my own music has been pretty eclectic, so limiting myself to one particular sound or kick drum pattern feels a bit restrictive to me, like I'm closing off artistic possibilities for the sake of adhering to the rules of a certain genre. At the point of putting the Plastikman remix together I was really feeling like a needed to break down the walls I'd put around myself stylistically and just write what felt good to me.

I'm loving a lot of that 'Bass Music' sound right now and I'm definitely noticing it's effect on the rest of the scene recently. I'm hearing the influence coming across to other genres quite a bit these days with big dubstep wobbles finding their way into techno tracks, etc. It's all about continuing the evolution of our music and I think these times of flux where genres are merging to become their own thing, when the rules aren't so well defined, are the some of the most musically exciting times in the dance music scene.

In a previous interview you mentioned that your remix of Ask Yourself took only five days to bring to fruition. Is that the usual and what’s your production process like (if you have one)? My tracks can take anywhere from a few hours up to a few months to complete in extreme cases. The average time is probably about a week, so the remix was a bit quicker than usual, but remixes generally are a bit quicker for me because there are already established themes and ideas to work with. My remix for Kaya Project was the quickest track I've made in years, taking about 10 hours all up. My process generally starts with a whole bunch of messing around, noodling about with drum patterns and tweaking synths until something hooks me in. From there it's all pretty specific to each track, I'll get a bassline or a melody or another percussion part in my head and work on bringing these new elements in. I'll generally have few loose movements going before I begin to arrange it into a track.

Many of your tracks seem very percussion driven and you're also the Australian percussionist for Kaya Project (Interchill/UK). What does that involve? How has your involvement in that project affected your electronic output? I became a percussionist almost by accident. Most of my musical history before Oblique Industries was performing in rock bands as a vocalist/guitarist, so I really wanted to keep some of that live element in my shows and my writing. I found some cheap roto-toms and cymbals one day and started incorporating them into my live show, then after a while I started getting requests to play percussion for other acts, including Kaya Project whose music I was already a big fan of. It was arranged through the promoter of a festival we were both playing at and we actually only met for the first time as we were about to set up on stage before the set, but we got along really well immediately and we've continued to play together whenever they're in Australia ever since.

My set-up when I work with them involves my original roto-toms (which are awesome because I can re-tune them very quickly for each track and I'm a sucker for tuned percussion), some drum-kit toms, hi-hats, cymbals, a darbuka and various shakers and other small percussion bits. It's always great to get back to that more physical, hands on way of performing with acoustic instruments. in my own electronic production I tend to think like a drummer when I'm programming percussion parts and working with the amazing world-music inspired sounds of Kaya Project really helps inspire new and more exotic rhythmic ideas for my own tracks.

Obviously, you play live as well as producing, what form do your live shows usually take? It really depends on the show. For some of the bigger shows I've done here in Melbourne, I have brought along things like my percussion kit, my cello, etc. But as I play more and more shows away from my home city and airplane baggage allowance becomes an issue, the show has had to become a bit more streamlined to just my laptop, a small MIDI controller and, if I can fit it, my drum sample trigger-pad. I've got some new toys in mind for my future shows so things are likely to change a bit soon too.

How do you think playing live and producing work together, do you follow a similar approach with both, or are they completely different skill sets? How do your live sets inform your production and vice versa? They are similar processes in many ways but the intent can be very different from composing a piece of music for someone to enjoy listening to in their home to putting a set together to rock a festival dance-floor. The way I approach my live sets is actually more like remixing than anything else. In fact sometimes I'll go back and remix a track or rewrite a section to make it work better in the set. I generally split each track out into about 7 to 8 different parts so I can have control over individual elements while I'm playing. I think of it as kind of like composing but on a larger scale. Obviously, I was producing before I was performing live shows so a lot of the process of putting my show together came from the way I produce, but there have definitely been a few ideas I've come up with while playing live which have made their way back into my production over the years too.


 
You’ve previously mentioned that many of your career highs were at music festivals. having played at several of Australia's best music festivals, and constructed a resume that most DJ's would be jealous of, how do you find the multiday festival experience as a performer?  I love it! I was going to multiday festivals for years before I got to play at them so I'm always thankful to be in a position to contribute to that experience for others. It's a great feeling to be on stage doing what I love and looking out to see so many people enjoying my music. There really is nothing like it that I've ever experienced. Multiday festivals can be a bit of a marathon effort, especially if I'm playing on the last day. I'm a music lover as well as a performer so I'm always interested in seeing other acts, and sometimes I have to make the difficult decision to go get some rest before my set while some amazing act is on, but playing to a big festival crowd is one of my all-time favourite things.
 
Many in Sydney believe that the proliferation of one day music festivals has hurt the scene, what are your thoughts on music festivals generally? Are they an appropriate forum for electronic music? Do they draw people away from regular events run by smaller promoters? I really appreciate the diversity of the events we have here, and I think there is room for many different formats in our scene. Some artists suit a smaller, more intimate club night much more than they would suit a massive festival and vice-versa. Most good artists will play a very different show depending on the venue and the atmosphere of the event, so booking them for a smaller night somewhere after the main festival is a great way to see a few different sides of an artist. Also, some artists are just plain out of reach to smaller promoters, so sometimes we need the bigger events to actually ever get them out to Australia in the first place.

The M_NUS competition was actually sponsored by a Coca-Cola energy drink “Burn”. What do you think of corporate sponsorship? Do you think we’ll see more of it in future? I have absolutely no problem at all with any sponsorship as long as it doesn't start to interfere with the creative process. I've seen amazing things that would never have happened if it wasn't for a big corporate sponsored event putting many great and very different talents in one place at the one time. Anything that can help our scene grow is a good thing in my opinion.
 
Many Australian artists (Deepchild, Mic Newman, Jaytech, Tornado Wallace) have jumped the boat to Berlin and other parts of Europe in recent years, What are your thoughts on the Australian scene, how do you think it colours your productions/outlook. Are you planning on sticking around? I love Melbourne and I really think it will always be my home, but we are a very long way from the rest of the world. The distance alone can make it very difficult to get past a certain point in an artist's career without moving overseas for a while. Just getting bookings from outside Australia can be hard when it's so much easier and less expensive for promoters to book another act from closer to home, so we really need to bring the game to them. Artists like the guys you mentioned are playing an important role in showing the rest of the world that there is some great talent coming from Australia that's worth the extra effort to book, so I prefer to think of it more as representing Australian electronic music abroad than jumping the boat.

I'm actually about to head to Europe for some shows from July until September, which I'm super pumped about!! This will be my first time in Europe so I'm really excited to get in as many shows as I can while I'm there. As to whether I'd actually re-locate to somewhere in Europe for a while... We'll just have to see how this trip goes! Anything is possible, but I can't imagine I'll ever stay away from Australia too long between visits.

Since you travel around Australia a fair bit, you obviously get a bit of exposure to the local scenes across the country. How does Melbourne compare? Quite a few Sydney artists have also moved down there recently, is the scene flourishing as much as some claim? Melbourne really has some incredibly talented artists, I count a lot of my friends here among the inspirations for my own music. I've been really impressed by local artists in every city I've played in so far and each city has something special that sets it apart from the others, but Melbourne has a very strong, deeply ingrained music and arts culture and there are a lot of great promoters putting on great events so there is always something good going on down here.

Having won the competition, do you have a specific battle plan from here on in? Winning the competition has been an incredible boost for me, both career-wise and personally. It has really opened a lot of doors for me that would have been much more difficult otherwise. I'm working pretty hard planning my trip to Europe, talking to a lot of promoters and other artists about playing some shows while I'm there. It's all really beginning to take shape now, I've got a few shows in the pipe so far and I'm hoping to lock in a few more dates around other parts of Europe before I leave too. I also have a few tracks coming out over the next few months with various Australian and international labels, which I'm really excited about. Apart from that, I'm just keeping super busy in studio working on some new tunes as well as working on a few new bits and pieces for the live show. Exciting times ahead!

Europe/Asia Tour Dates:
22.07 MINIMAL TRIP & FRIENDS: GREEN ROOM, PARIS, FRANCE

03.08 SUMMERCAMP: MÄDCHENINTERNAT, BERLIN, GERMANY

05.08 AN ON BAST & OBLIQUE INDUSTRIES: KLUB NRD, TORUN, POLAND

06.08 AN ON BAST & OBLIQUE INDUSTRIES: 8 BITOW, POZNAN, POLAND

08.09 OBLIQUE INDUSTRIES: DADA, SHANGHAI, CHINA

10.09 ABOVE-6: X-HALL, NAGOYA, JAPAN

Oblique Industries on Pulse