Pulse Radio - Latest Interviews

Alex Arnout - Keeping It Fresh

http://pulseradio.net — Sat, 26 May 2012 01:13:50 +1000

Alex Arnout; label boss and A&R of Dogmatik Records, DJ, producer and prolific engineer talks to Ellie Hewitt about his latest release 'Sound Byte EP', label loyalty and the Birmingham scene.

Your new release the ‘Sound Byte EP’ on Turquoise Blue has an R&B vocal sound in my opinion, would you say vocal house is having a resurgance in popularity at the moment? I think vocals have always been around, it's just the spotlight is maybe focusing more on this at the moment. The difference I guess is that people are using full on vocals as opposed to vocal snipets. It all works tho, house music keeps on recycling these things with a difference everytime it comes around. It also gives the girls something to sing to in between techno tracks. [Laughs]

With the two original mixes of Movements in Soul and Give U, is there a specific sound you were going for? That's only two tracks that I've done, if you look at my back catalogue it's completely all over the place. I don't really have a specific sound in mind when I write music, I write music as a way of expressing myself or how I'm feeling at the time. If I'm writing too much clubby stuff, I tend to go a bit deeper with my next few productions and vice versa. I really don't know what's going to come out when I'm in the studio. I know people plan things and won't go down certain musical roots because it doesn't suit their ethos or playing styles but I just go with it, if I write a drum & bass track, so be it.

The release includes a remix by Laura Jones, from a label point of view how important are big name remixes to a release? It definitely helps if you've just set up a new label as the big name remixers have their own set of followers that may have not come across your label yet, I guess it's a good way of directing traffic towards what your doing. Personally I go for remixers that I think can do me a slightly different take on the straight up house thing, I like my remixers to have a bit of an edge. It keeps things fresh for me and hopefully for the masses.

You've been running your imprint Dogmatik since 2006, is there a mission statement behind the label? Is it just to put out good music or...? Dogmatik for me is about establishing a solid stable of great artists and producers to counter all the famous for 2 minutes tracks that go around. I don't really use it as a platform for my own productions, I just want run a quality label that people will appreciate. I want people to listen to the music 20 years down the line and still find it relevant and fresh rather than a musical fashion of the time. I think we've achieved that by having the likes of Maya Jane Coles, Stojche, Alison Marks and Dusky establishing themselves as quality artist through the label.

In the five years you've been running the label you will obviously have seen alot of changes in the industry, do you think that artists have the same loyalty to labels? (current artists on Crosstown compared to five years ago and current artists on Hot Creations for example) I think artists and producers are more into flexing on labels they may have followed and loved for years, why limit yourself to one label and a couple of releases a year? I write about 50 tracks a year, I can't expect one label to put all these out. I love getting my tracks out on labels that I've respected for years but I'm also into working with new labels that have the right attitude to what house music is about. Gone are the days where you're signed up for life and aren't able to release for anyone else. Obviously you have to respect the labels that pushed and promoted you early on in your career when no one else would but it's not a bad thing to spread your wings a little.

You’re about to headline at Corsica Studios and then the next day you play in Birmingham, do you find contrasts with the Birmingham and London 'scenes' (people often have quite negative views on the Birmingham scene, what do you think about clubbing there)? I don't really agree with that, although the scene might a little smaller than in London, Birmingham or any other city has it's local heroes, great record labels and producers. Birmingham for instance has some great venues in the Rainbow, PST and the warehouses in the same area as well as great parties like Below, Face, Cloak N Dagger, Circo Loco in the arena and Coccon in the street. You also have great producers like Subb-an and Adam Shelton to name a few. The House scene is very healthy and vibrant all over the UK at the moment and I can't tell you how much respect I have for cities in my experience like Birmingham, Leeds, Bristol, Manchester and Sheffield that have carried on pushing this sound when it was truly in the minority. It's good to see those guys coming to prominence now the scene has exploded again.

You have spent a long time honing your craft, what are your thoughts on 'break through DJs' who are relatively new to the industry? My thoughts are, well done! I take my hat off to anyone that can make a living in this scene. There are obviously certain producers that get thrown into the dj gig aspect of things where they've never spun before but It's down to them to learn the craft fast to benefit their careers. I read somewhere that if you haven't made it as a dj by the age of 35 you should forget it. I don't agree, DJ'ing never leaves you, even if you never made it on the international circuit. I know a few unknowns that'd give him a run for his money. [Laughs]

You are considered a 'go to' engineer of the deep house sound in London, describe the role of an engineer? Have you done engineering outside deep house? Yes of course, I've recorded bands and various musicians for solo or different musical projects, I'm mainly into making music, whatever the genre is. As an engineer I listen to what people have to say and the direction they wanna head in and try and emulate that for them. I find that some people are a bit ashamed of mentioning that they use engineers. Why? Be proud that you're making a living in music by investing in a good engineer. With the age of digital music, you don't really get the credits that mention who produced and engineered the the tracks so it is a bit different these days but when I'm reading interviews with producers naming kit lists and how they work so hard on their own when they clearly use engineers and have no clue about kit, that kinda winds me up a little.

Would you agree that in the music industry you have to create your own position and job? What have you got yourself listed on Linked In? Unless you're working for an established label or promo company, then yes. It's just like any other business in that regard. Set up your own thing and alocate your job titles. I worked on my own for years but I've had to take on a couple of good friends to help me out with the label. We were designing the business cards for everyone and fell about laughing with some of the job titles we were given ourselves. You literally just make them up.

Listen to Alex Arnout on Pulse Radio

Sam Potter - Black Out

http://pulseradio.net — Fri, 25 May 2012 21:42:54 +1000

Sam Potter new endeavour 'Black Out' takes place entirely in the dark. Ellie Hewitt talks to him about sensory perceptions, performing in the dark and getting out of 'tribe culture'.

Black Out takes place in the dark, how did you come up with concept? How do you intend for this 'sensory experience' to add to the audience's perception of your music? The whole idea is about perception, how we consume live music and how we react to sound as humans. So in one way it's how we behave when we are restricted to having just one base sense and the other is how different music can be when an artist is anonymous and free to be who they want to be. The results of each show are so different I still don't have any intention on making people feel a particular way, there's obviously stimulus like the type of music played. the shape of the room acoustically and even any press released prior to a show that influences peoples experiences but it's such a personal experience I can change what people will feel too much. I collected anecdotes from my last show and they ranged from people reliving childhood memories to people remembering they needed to call their mum.

With live music there's often the attitude that stage presence is key, how do you manage to commandeer the show in the dark? I feel by eliminating this element there's more space for the musician to concentrate on their primary goal, to make good music. By being in such a different reality and experiencing something so in contrast to everyday life the need of getting that feeling from seeing a band perform is gone.

Do you think the crowd still feel your physical presence or is it just about the audio? I think they feel more the physical presence of their own bodies, noticing things about themselves physically they might not have felt ever before. Bands have influenced the space physically before by introducing woodwind sections that walk between the crowd and singing in peoples ears but it is mostly about the audio and the affects it has physically on each individual.

What kind of music and soundscapes are there in the show? Is the music for every show the same? There's a very considered response in choosing artists that are curious and can surprise so this goes through to the programming as well, it's important to keep each line-up eclectic and to keep the audience in a space where they think anything can happen.

There was a huge queue for the Barbican Blackout event, how important is the venue to your performances? The venue is important on an acoustic level but also like theme park rides there's a level of suspense that can be used. It'd be perfect to use somewhere like the pyramids where people's expectations are shaped by the long walk down the ancient steps into the darkness. Until then budgets will keep them in more conventional venues but if anyone reading has a nice zeppelin factory get in touch.

So you are now working with Swimming 'binaural pioneers', can you tell us what it's like working with them and for those that don't know what the definition of a 'binaural pioneer' is? It's nice to be working with such intelligent and imaginative guys. The binaural thing has the potential to be mind blowing, in essence your lending your ears to someone else and experiencing the world (a world of Swimming in another room) through someone elses viewpoint. It's a tricky concept to describe without experiencing it yourself...

How difficult would you say it is to be experimental in the music industry without being called pretentious? Would that label bother you? There's a very fine line and I think the only way you can get out of having big ideas without being pretentious is by being bloody good at them. It's labels like that that stunt growth of some bands, and it'd be dangerous to think about it too much as a musician. I think most good musicians work outside of a world where the music industry encroaches too much, to be thinking about figures and forecasts and stuff is not for our kind of heads, else we'd be shit accountants some other place.

Is performing in the dark a statement about music or the 'scene'? Not really, I guess part of it is to get out of that tribe culture where you go to a warehouse party knowing it's gonna be one particular thing with one particular crowd. Things are pretty disparate now anyway so we should celebrate that fact when we can.

Chymera - Mythology, Music and Misadventure

http://pulseradio.net — Fri, 25 May 2012 20:51:10 +1000

Cork born, Berlin based Chymera's forthcoming album on Connaisseur Recordings 'Death By Misadventure' is out on June 1st. Ellie Hewitt talks to Chymera about lion bodied, goat headed (with the tail of a snake) creatures, bashing his head on keyboards and his sonic palette.

If you met someone who has no concept of dance music how would you explain to an outsider what you do? The first thing I say when speaking to an "outsider" when they ask what I do, is say that I am a musician. If they ask what kind of music, I say electronic. Usually they will say "oh you're a dj" to which I reply, not really.. more of a live performer. Usually that's enough.

Does your name Chymera have anything to do with the mythological creature (body of a lioness, head of a goat and tail of a snake)? Sighting a Chimera used to be an omen of a powerful natural occurance, how would you say that relates to your music? Well, I took my name from the mythological creature and just modified the spelling after I saw there were already two other acts using the name "Chimera". As far as the meaning behind it, there is none of relevance to me, I just liked the sound of the word. I needed a name for my first live gig and so I used that. In fact Chimera can mean various things in literature and science too. Anyone can read any meaning they want into it. Indeed most people pronounce it differently too, I've heard all possible iterations of it over the years. The correct pronunciation is kim-air-ah.

Having worked in Dance Music if it doesn't work out,. have you got any back up plans / job aspirations? I have no backup plans at the moment. This is it. I worked the daily office grind for 7 years and that has given me a solid appreciation for how lucky I am to be able to do this career now. I always had aspirations to do woodworking of some kind. That could be just a silly fantasy though. If I shelled out for the correct tools and started it, I might find that I don't enjoy it after all. In reality, I have no idea what I might do if I ever got tired of music. I just hope that day never comes.

When it comes to productivity are you pretty consistent or does it come in fits and starts? Technically I make music most days of the week. Just 99% of it is rubbish. The music making process for me is often quite frustrating. I just have to keep working and churning out stuff until I hit a good streak of tracks. Usually once every 2 or 3 months I'll come up with a winning streak. I just finished my new album in January of this year. Since then I've working on 3 techno tracks and for the last month I haven't been in the studio at all because I was in New York on holiday and working on some promo mixes. It's good to have a little reset period. I will probably re-enter the studio later in May with a whole load of fresh

You've had releases out on a real variety of labels NRK, Cocoon, Delsin, Ovum which have quite distinctive reputations for different things, do you think that helps your widespread appeal? I think that all my music has a sonic palette which is quite uniform across the spectrum, in that it's very recognisable as a Chymera track to an outside listener but there is also some variety from bigroom techno sounding stuff, to straight up house or deeper. For this reason, my music has found a place on various different labels. With a lot of them however I have always considered myself a bit of an odd man out on the labels in comparison to the rest of the roster. Melodic techno and house does not quite fit neatly into a box every single time. But it's true that my music appeals to various different faculties of dance music. I've even had famous drum and bass producers get in contact saying that they love some of my tracks

You enjoy listening to 'early Metallica' - have you ever considered sampling any for your tracks? Would you say dance music heads are snobby about metal and rock music? I have sampled many metal bands for my tracks already, just usually in a way that's not so noticeable. Actually I don't find dance music heads snobby about other forms of music at all. I know many people who were metalheads back in the day before getting into electronic music, like myself. In fact the only thing that dance heads tend to be snobby about is other genres within dance music.

Your new album coming out on Connaiseur recordings is called 'Death By Misadventure', is there relevance behind the title? I'd love to spin a great story behind the title but in reality, there is none. I wanted a quirky title. There is also a mention of death in my first album title from 7 years ago (Everybody Dies, Even Horses) and I didn't intend to have another mention in this second title, but that's just the way it worked out.

Were there any 'Misadventures' in the production of this album? I mean if you call banging my head off the keyboard for months at a time a misadventure, then yes.. plenty.

In my opinion, until recently 'albums' were a dying format, do you think it's sad how digital everything has become? Will the album be a physical CD too? The album will indeed come out on CD as well. Although my very first albums were bought on Vinyl, it actually in the 90's when I got a CD player that I bought the bulk of my non-electronic music collection. I love CD as a format. The artwork for this is really special too, it was done by a friend of mine from Belgium, Sander De Mol and it's a cardboard digipack. It looks really amazing. I do think that digital albums only are quite boring. I don't really see the point in buying an album digitally when the CD generally might only cost a couple euros more and then you can rip it to digital anyway in full quality, and you get the artwork too. Of course I have an ipod and that is how I listen to the vast majority of my collection now, so I guess at the end of everything it's still the music that counts. I only hope that people actually buy the entire album and not just selected tracks because I spent a long time sequencing it properly and it should be listened to from start to finish.

It says on your website/biog that you always produce tracks with that 'trademark Chymera feeling', could you describe said feeling and does the new album adhere to it or is it more experimental? The Chymera feeling I'm talking about is that melodic, slightly epic edge that most of my tracks have. The album is a little bit different in that not every track is based around a hook or riff, some of them are more atmospheric, giving equal weight to all the elements. It's also more of a listening affair than a dancefloor album. I don't really think dancefloor albums work in the traditional sense.

You were in Barcelona for three years and now you are based in Berlin, is there anything you miss about Barcelona? The scene? The food? The food, the city, the weather and the architecture, and of course my friends that still live there. I do travel about about twice a year anyway to catch up with everyone. I also go straight to my favourite restaurants. The food in Berlin is just rubbish in comparison. I don't really miss the scene too much to be honest. There are a bunch of cool clubs and events, but nowhere near as much as in Berlin. Although I'm always much more interested in bars than clubs.

Cork had a reputation in the late 90s for being a real deep house music hub, do you have any fond memories? Funnily enough I was never into dance music when I lived in Cork. It was only when I left to go to College that I started getting in interested in it. I went to the famous Sir Henry's only twice, and one of those times was for a metal gig. It was only years later that my music came to the attention of Greg and Shane from Fish Go Deep and they invited me to record for their label and to play several times at their club night. So all my memories of Cork and dance music are very recent indeed.

Listen to Chymera on Pulse Radio

Roberto IV

http://pulseradio.net — Fri, 25 May 2012 20:32:53 +1000

Leicester born techno- enthusiast Roberto began his plight into dance music like many teenagers of the turn of the century did; at a semi legal drum n bass rave. Since then, he has drifted into the more sophisticated realms of techno, inspired by elements of both Dutch and Detroit branches of techno which he fuses to create his own, unique brand. Over the years he has made a few endeavours; running uber popular Kai Zen parties, and will soon be releasing an EP on Shlomi Aber’s Be As One imprint, as well as fair few remix projects, too. Oh, and what’s more, he has provided us with an exclusive mix. Chloe Warnock spoke to him before his set at Be@t TV (check it here)

When you were starting out can you tell us about some of the early crew you were involved with that first got you into dance music, DJing and eventually production. Are any of them still about? When I was 15 I started going to Drum n Bass events such as Sonic Boom, which was one of the best parties in Leicester around at that time. I used to go to a shop called 5HQ in the centre of Leicester which specialised in D&B, and I eventually got to know the guys that worked there and met more people involved in the scene. I also would listen to tapes recorded from raves, and that in turn inspired me to buy my first pair of turntables and start collecting records.

Your forthcoming track is due to be released on Shlomi Aber’s Be As One imprint. He seems like a good person to be involved with in terms of his close associations to the likes of Cocoon, winning a Worldwide award, and so on. Are you able to tell us a little bit about how this all came about? As a fan since its early days, I feel honoured to be a part of the Be As One label. Shlomi is also a fantastic producer in his own right and I have a lot to thank him for; the hookup came when I started sending him tracks a few years ago, and over time he helped me push my production skills further- giving me feedback and sending me away to work on it until he felt like I was ready to release an EP.

How do you feel when someone remixes your tracks, like Samuel L Session and Steve Rachmad did last year? Do you sometimes wish you’d done it that way yourself, or does it perhaps provide inspiration for your next track? It's an amazing feeling when a respected producer remixes your track, that feeling of anticipation right before the first listen is second to none. For me, having Steve and Samuel remix my tracks was an honour because they have both had a huge influence on my productions. They both delivered fantastic mixes of each of the tracks and took them into different directions which I could have never envisaged.

Are there any producers you'd care to share with us, that you're predicting big things for? I'm really into a French producer called Voiski at the minute, and my fellow label mate on Affin Chris Page who is from London is coming with his own cool style. There’s also Phase who is continuing to do some great stuff on Token. Watch out for a guy called Jay Clarke, too!

So, how was it to play Fabric last year? I hear you had a good time? For me Fabric is one of the best clubs in the world and the people who run it are very passionate about what they do and that really shows. The music policy for each room is spot on and the line ups are always second to none. If I have a weekend off from DJ'ing I like to go down and hang out- I always come away with lots of fresh ideas for when I go back in the studio.

Obviously, Fabric is great for the old CV, but it is pretty different to Public Life, which has on the sly played host to A Guy Called Gerald among others. What began your affinity for the former toilet? It was always pretty crazy to think you were raving away in a former toilet! I found out about Public Life through an old friend. She recommended I go and check it out because they were doing these crazy daytime techno party's at the time, and we did a few dates there with my Kai-Zen parties. It was always great fun and really suited the techno vibe.

I've heard you're influenced by Detroit groove… Are you a fan of C2, Planet E and so on? Who else from Detroit's influenced you? Of course I'm a big fan of Carl Craig and the whole Detroit Techno sound- I love the soul in those records. I also love Robert Hood and Jeff Mills. For me, Robert Hood is a true pioneer

After the release on BAO, What's the plan? What else do you have in store? The first Ep on Be As One will feature a number of tracks by myself as well as some remixes by Blawan amongst others. I also have an Ep forthcoming on Affin at the end of May called 'First Principles' which features a remix by a very talented Russian producer called Unbalance, and another Ep on Jamie Anderson's Artform label called 'Stepping Stone' featuring fantastic remixes by Rod (Benny Rodrigues) and Greg Gow. I've also recently remixed Jamie Anderson's classic 'Inova' as well which will be out on Artform later in the year.

Sounds good! Is there an underlying theme to the mix you have provided us with? It features a number of my own forthcoming tracks and generally shows what I’m into at the moment. It’s just pretty representative of what I am about, really. I hope you enjoy it!

Listen to Roberto on Pulse Radio

Tale Of Us - Exclusive Interview

http://pulseradio.net — Fri, 25 May 2012 19:15:47 +1000

Running the Life & Death parties and record label, productions for the likes of Visionquest, as well as some epic Dj sets (check their Pulse podcast recorded at Nordstern here) has seen Tale Of Us, quickly cement themselves as one of the leaders of the new school of techno. Prior to their set, Tara Hill spoke to the duo about getting into music producion, working with Seth and the VQuest crew and Panorama Bar.

Listen to Tale Of Us on Pulse Radio

DJ W!ld - D!rty Talk!ng

http://pulseradio.net — Fri, 25 May 2012 03:52:10 +1000

Deep, dark, fluid house music is what Cocoon family member Dj Wild does best. His new album ‘Dirty’ released this month on Cabin Fever delivers a slice of just that - deliciously infused with the spirit of classic house sounds and packed full of late night jacking cuts. Jenna Roberts catches up with the modest French producer ahead of the DC10 opening party to chat about the new release and to find out what it takes to be Cocoon Hero.

You are often described by the music press as one of the an 'exciting new talent'. How do you feel about this, taking into consideration the fact that you have been DJing and producing for many years, and are actually something of an underground house veteran? Well it's always nice to see that people notice my music and sound and get excited about it, but the hype comes and goes really fast, especially nowadays. So I have to figure out what's important to me. I don't like to jump on some "hit-trains", I'm focusing on my sound and enjoy doing what I do; playing (as a DJ) and producing the sound and music that I love. That makes me move and I want this to last as long as possible. I wouldn't call myself a "House veteran", this is such a strong title, the people need to decide this, but 16 years is quite a time [Laughs].

The new album 'Dirty' is like an autobiography of your musical life, taking the listener on a journey from underground Paris to the terrace of DC10 via 90's New York. Was this the intention? I tried to create an album that reflects what I play. I took a different direction from my first album, 'Palace', and it was quite exciting. I had a good time during the process, and this album reflects my relation to music at the moment.

How would you describe the different direction from Palace? It's normal that you have a constant evolution in your music, and I also find new ways and have new ideas to create music. But as you can feel and hear, my music hasn't changed totally. So you will recognise my sound on D!rty. On this album, I set the focus a little bit more on darker and deeper aspects.

I think Wild Style epitmoises that deep, dark sound, tinged with acid and oozing sex. Is this what you interpret as the essence of House Music? Yes! That's my type of house music!

It's this that made you the perfect candidate for a residency at DC10. How does your residency at Ibiza's 'Temple of Dance' compare with the underground parties of Paris? [Laughs] There is nothing to compare and this wouldn't be fair. In Ibiza you have a special flow and atmosphere, everybody is in a different mood. Both parties have their different "attractiveness", but as you said, DC10 is the temple of dance.

What are you most looking forward to at the notorious Circo Loco opening party on 28th May? First of all, Ibiza! Then to have fun, as always. I like it when clubs are not to crowded, so you have some space to dance. And of course, I'm looking forward to really good weather with lots of sun.

Later that week you'll be shaking the streets of Birmingham, as a Cocoon Hero @ the renowned Rainbow Venues, which shares a surprisingly similar story to DC10 - alfresco, noise abatement orders, stripped back décor. What does it mean to you to be a 'Cocoon Hero'? I'm always happy to be part of the same crew as Sven and Ricardo, and I appreciate that my agency organizes everything on a high level. But I see myself as an individual artist, what matters to me is to play music and to have a good relation with the crowd. And, of course, releasing music that I dig!

Tell us about the WMC Miami Cocoon Showcase: It was one oft he best parties in Miami (with Circo Loco). The location, 'Treehouse', was really nice and not at all cheap or commercial, as with most of the other events.

How's everything going with your label 'W'? Any exciting projects coming up? It's going great, at the moment I'm really happy with the remix project for my last album 'Palace' which is including Kerri Chandler, Art Department, DJ Sneak, Radio Slave, Chris Carrier, Fries & Bridges, Gauthier DM, Jay Haze and SIS. Now I'm focusing on some tracks which I produced and played last summer, the focus is on the dancefloor.

Is it a difficult transition going from underground DJ to 'international star'? What advice would you give to DJs hoping to gain bigger recognition for their music/skills? I wouldn't consider myself as an international star, I come from and will always be underground and w!ld. [Laughs] My advice is to simply be yourself, to find and represent your own sound. Work and train hard, because the road is long and tough and many people want to have your place. But in the end, it's worth it!

WMC or Sonar? Sonar for sure.

Rex or Fusion? Fusion.

90's DC10 or today's DC10? I would say both, but I know only the DC10 from today...

Roof On or Roof Off? Roof off.

Acid House or Soulful Disco? Both.

CDs or Vinyl? Vinyl for sure.

Male vocal or female vocal? I like both, but it always depends on the voice and the track.

Sarkozy or Hollande? None.

Listen to DJ W!ld on Pulse Radio

Lord Of The Isles - Dalston Revival

http://pulseradio.net — Fri, 25 May 2012 01:09:31 +1000

Lord Of The Isles is Scotland's latest musical export to turn heads in the world of house music. A popular edit of Tina Turner's "What's Love Got To Do With It" for Cole Medina's label followed by a string of well received releases on labels like LA’s Adult Contemporary and American Standard, Japan’s Ene Records and the devastating Hot Blob EP on his own “Little Strong Recordings” in the last year have earned the mysterious Caledonian a strong reputation. Now this weekend he appears in London for the first time as part of the Revive Her monthly residency which takes place at the East End's Dalston Superstore Club. I caught up with him to find out more.

Your chosen 'nom de plume' is Lord Of The Isles. Which of the Scottish isles does/would your territory include? Skye, Hebrides, Knoydart, Ardnamurchan and the Kintyre peninsula.

One of your better known musical emissions was an edit of Tina Turner's 'What's Love Got To Do With It?' What gave you the idea to take on something so brazenly pop? Well bit of a strange one that. We were having a typical family Christmas party a couple of years ago and someone had brought round Singstar for the Playstation. I was practically horizontal on the sofa after drinking red wine all day when my wife and her sister got up to sing 'What's Love Got To Do With It?'. I’ve never been a fan of the song but when I heard the intro that evening, I was like ‘eh? that’s amazing, really beautiful’ (I blame the red wine). So I thought I’d sample the beginning to see what would happen. A couple of nights later I sat down and completed it in two hours. Very quick for me! Suppose all the hard work had been done. I just added the solo in the breakdown some additional percussion and a new melody. It sounded fat straight from the off.

You have recorded on a host of international labels, including LA's Adult Contemporary and Japan's Ene Records. What are the pros and the cons of working with labels overseas? Suppose the pros are getting your music listened to by a geographically wider spectrum of people and the cons are not really getting the chance to hook up personally with the people involved.

DJ Harvey recently included one of your tracks on his X Mix CD, quite an accolade. Is he someone who you enjoy listening to play? Yeah, I like his outlook on music. Great DJ.

Which other DJs are you still prepared to drop your hard earned dollar on when they come to town? The ones that spring to mind that I’d like to hear are Theo Parrish, Levon Vincent and Kyle Hall.

Before I forget, what does love have to do with it? Isn't it all about money these days? Is it? I don’t see much of that stuff! It’s all about the love for me right now.

Your own label is called Little Strong Recordings. What's in a name? It was an affectionate Native American name for my son when he was little. My daughter is called ‘Never Shuts Up’.

This Friday you're on your way to London to DJ, tell us something about what we can expect to hear in your set. Some new music, some old and some unreleased/unheard music.

London crowds are notoriously fickle in their tastes. Is London a city you enjoy visiting and DJing in? Are they? Thanks for the heads up! I love coming to London. I’ve never played there before so I’ll let you know how I get on!

The party you are playing at is called ReviveHER. You can probably tell where this question is heading. Have you recently revived anyone? (Male, female or otherwise). I had to give a Budgie mouth to mouth recently, it was tricky but he pulled through.

Lord Of The Isles will be supported by Gatto Fritto, Voices Agency DJs. Men & Machines, Bi-Bop and Nicholas Feel at ReviveHER at Dalston Superstore tomorrow. Tickets & Info

Listen to Lord Of The Isles on Pulse Radio

Isolee - Good Things Take Time

http://pulseradio.net — Thu, 24 May 2012 11:54:33 +1000

German electronic maestro Rajko Mueller, AKA Isolee, is on his way to Australia to play at the Opera House for Future Classic's party as part of the annual Vivid LIVE festival. Ahead of his much anticipated live set, Pulse's Morgan Richards caught up with the acclaimed producer of revered tracks like Beau Mot Plage and albums such as Rest to chat about all things Isolee.

Pulse: The word "isolé" means or isolated or insulated in French. How does this relate to the sort of music you make? Isolee: Honestly, I did not really want to put the meaning of the word forward in the first place. You have to see that I chose this name in Germany where it was more about how the word sounds, and also the way it is written. Grammatically, it's in the female... um, how do you say...

The feminine form? I wondered about that. Yeah, feminine. I did not really want people to put it in relation to me or my private life. I was more thinking that it's a nice and interesting word and everyone has some association to the meaning. I don't want it to be seen as some kind of autobiographical description or whatever. It's just a name, I think. If I had lived in France, I wouldn't have chosen that name. It would have too much importance.

You lived in Algeria for five years when you were a kid. What was that like? How has it influenced you in what you do today? It was a very important part growing up for me. I learnt to speak French over there. I was at a French school, a private school. It was quite privileged. And in the beginning, I did not speak one word. I really had to learn from scratch to communicate with all the other children at this time. There is also the experience of being a foreigner in another country, and being in another culture. But I think in general, it's very difficult for me to say what would be different for me if I hadn't grown up there. It's part of my history.

Perhaps that experience influenced the name Isolée in some way, is that possible? Maybe, I don't know. It's a way of playing a little bit with this French influence. Especially on my first album, I was making a lot of references at this time. Beau Mot Plage is named after a beach in Algeria, it's just written in another way. But I'm aware that no-one around me knows about that, so it's also a source of names and ideas that I can use and makes sense to me.

Your latest album is called Well Spent Youth. I have to ask -- is that a reference to the Joan Jett album Misspent Youth? I think it's called something like that. No. I don't know that album.

Is there some other story behind the title? I mean, you started making music at an early age, is that something -- No, not really. I don't want to tell stories with titles. I don't want to give explanations, and titles are not going to explain the music. It's more about creating some tension or mystery. There are different meanings involved. You have this track, and you have a title for it; how does it appear to other people? It's a bit of a game. Also, I always like it not to be really obvious. Well Spent Youth; it sounds like a slogan, maybe. But in the end, I think the interpretation of all this is more the journalist's job than my job! [laughs]

Hey, I'm trying! Let's move on. Looking at the three albums you've put out, there's at least a five-year gap between each one. Does this mean we're going to have to wait until 2016 for your next album? I wish not! But sometimes, when I see the rate that I'm producing at, it looks like yes... I can't really say. Of course there's always a lot of other stuff happening, different stuff.

You mean projects outside of music? No, I'm mainly doing music. But for example, when I finished Rest, I moved from Frankfurt to Hamburg. This was kind of a new step in my life -- moving to another city and getting my studio ready. And sometimes you have a year when you are not very productive, because of changes in your private life or whatever. In 2007, for example, I had a sports accident where I broke my ankle and was out of making music for a while. Also, for me it takes a lot of time to see which direction the new album is going to take. I'm experimenting with different things. A lot of the time when I make music, I throw it away because I'm not satisfied with it.

You're a perfectionist, then. I don't know what it actually means, protectionist.

No, no -- I said "perfectionist"! Ah, OK! Yeah, yeah, maybe sometimes you can try too hard. I don't know if it's a good idea to try to make perfect music. I don't know if this is possible. If the music works very well in one situation then I think you've done a good job.

Your music is quite organic sounding. On tracks like My Hi-Matic or Schrapnell, for instance, you've captured this really rich, warm guitar tone yet somehow turned it into something unexpected and different. How do you bring these elements into dance music? Most of the sounds I record myself. Then I look at what I can use in a track and process them. I have a lot of gear in my studio, so that can take a while. Especially on We Are Monster, it was a little bit in my aim to make something that sounds more like recordings than generated sounds. In the end, it's trial and error. You try a lot of ways and take which works best. I'm not going after some sort of concept. I'm just making things and seeing what comes out. That's usually how I work.

What else do you have on the cards for this year? I'm not going to ask about a new album, so soon... but otherwise, what are your plans? I was touring for most of last year, and I felt that it was time to stop and focus on working on my studio. So earlier this year I spent quite a bit of time building my studio here at home. I'm still getting used to it. Either it doesn't sound how I want it, or I just have to learn it... Actually this year my plan is to spend more time in the studio and put out some new productions.

So we might not have to wait another five years for the next Isolée album? I hope not. [Laughs.] I'm trying my best to be quicker!

Listen to Isolee on Pulse Radio

Bloody Beetroots - Monegros Mad

http://pulseradio.net — Wed, 23 May 2012 23:44:37 +1000

Theres no mistaking the The Bloody Beetroots are continuing to keep us on our toes, pushing the boundaries of electro punk and techno with their ever changing DJ/live setup. With their ongoing shows around the world taking them once again to this years Monegros festival we talk to the Betroots discussing all that is 'live', strange places to DJ and what three artists influeced their sound. Check it out!

SBCR, Great to catch up with you! Where in the world are you now? Good Morning Gentlemen , I'm in Death Valley roasting my balls in 46°C . I Like Dust!

When you started out, how did you describe you music to your family members? I would reasonably say: Electronic Chaos, Post Electro Shit or just Boom Boom.

You have a “1977” tattoo on your chest. Some may know, but many don’t know the meaning behind it. Care to enlighten us? I was born in 1977. Nice huh?

You play a combination of live sets and DJ sets. Tell us more about what your setup consists of? Bloody Beetroots is a structured project : Me as Electronic Producer (The Bloody Beetroots) , The Bloody Beetroots Dj Set (Me as Dj and Tommy Tea as Stage Fxs Assistant) . The Bloody Beetroots Death Crew 77 as Full Live Band. In studio I use a bunch of outboards, some vintage synths and shitty machines for fucked up producers. As a DJ, I use one mixer , 2 cdjs and one microphone (Tommy plays samples with a MPC500). On stage with my lovely Death Crew 77, I play some guitars, basses, synthesizers and use one microphone.

How do you try and incorporate elements from the live show into the DJ set? I just don't try. It comes easy and natural . I believe that now more than ever there is a need to build a bridge between artist and crowd ; The Bloody Beetroots DJ set is exactly that , a kinda fusione between a live and a club event.

Your playing Monegros Desert Festival again this year. What do you think of the growth in festival popularity in recent years? It's a great Festival! The vibe is incredible and the location makes it special! I used a photo taken at Monegros for my BEST OF RMXS. I had such Good Times !

A desert isn't the standard place to DJ are you able to share any stories from some other strange places you've DJd? That's strange cos i'm in the desert with a shotgun in my right hand right now!

Who are the top three artists, dead or alive that have influenced you the most over your career? Tchaikovsky, John Lydon and Kraftwerk .

You just got robbed of all your records and the thief is kindly offering to give you ONE back. What is that record? Forget about records, let's start composing new music. I hope the thief can sing or play something

Music wise, what does your release schedule look like? What plans can you fill us in on? It's kinda busy till september. DJ sets, new records, mad studio sessions between London, Venice & New York.

Listen to The Bloody Beetroots on Pulse Radio

Little Nobody vs Koda

http://pulseradio.net — Wed, 23 May 2012 15:04:20 +1000

Little Nobody and Koda are both playing at this weeks IF? Records label party called Soundwerks. From Melbourne, they represent two generations of ‘techno’ from the city. Little Nobody is something of an elder statesman, having started IF? Records in 1995, creating one of the first electronic music labels in Australia to providing an outlet for local producers on the live circuit. On the other hand, Koda is one of the current techno artists emerging from the live underground techno scene in Melbourne and is playing his first Sydney show.

In a different style of interview, each artist was asked to pose questions to the other, providing a different take on the usual DJ question and answer format.

LITTLE NOBODY VS KODA

Little Nobody (LN): Who are your current musical heroes, and how are they different from the ones you worshiped in primary school? Koda (Koda): If I was to name one [hero] in techno, it would be Speedy J. I find his work brilliant on so many levels. It’s hard to remember what was on the playlist in primary school. I never remember being passion about anything musically until early high school, which largely consisted of hip-hop. I still listen to lots of hip hop so nothing has changed much!

LN: How would you define the live Koda sound, and how has it changed in recent years? K: I guess the techno I put together is a result of the many genres in electronic music I’m drawn to. Everything from European techno, to sound design to house. My interest in sound design and more abstract forms of audio has grown over the years and definitely shapes my approach to techno.

LN: Do you think there's a bona fide "Melbourne" sound or style? K: Hard to answer, Melbourne's electronic scene is fairly well balanced and diverse. It never seems there are any boundaries, which makes for fairly constant change and a demand for something new.

LN: You've worked extensively with IF?, in collusion with other Melbourne artists like Ben Mill and Enclave. What do you think you have in common with these guys? K: I think we all share the same passion for techno in general and want the parties to keep happening!

LN: If someone offers to buy you a drink at the Sydney gig, what should they get from the bar? K: In order of preference: 1 - Carlton Draught 2 - Melbourne Bitter 3- VB.

LN: What is it about working under the IF? label umbrella that appeals to you? As I said earlier, everybody involved is really passionate about what they do and it’s very motivating working with everybody [at IF?].

LN: What do you prefer to eat for dinner prior to playing at parties? Whatever holds down the many Carlton’s, Melbourne’s, or VB

KODA VS LITTLE NOBODY

Koda (K): What was your initial drive to put if together back in '95? LN: I was doing a radio show on 3PBS-FM that specialised in electronica, industrial and techno. So I was scouting the local live scene for sounds and stumbled across some brilliant live electronic artists like Voiteck, VOID (later TR-Storm) and Guyver 3, none of whom had record contracts at the time but bloody well deserved them. So, instead of complaining too much, I got together with two mates and started our own label to support the Melbourne crew.

K: Who or what were the biggest influences on your musical projects back then? LN: Definitely Voiteck and Steve Law (Zen Paradox) in Melbourne, Sub Bass Snarl and Biz E in Sydney. DJ Shadow's first album "Endtroducing.....", Underground Resistance, Jeff Mills, Scanner, Jammin' Unit and the Force Inc. guys in Germany, DJ Rush and Chicago's Relief posse, and Mike Ink and his label Profan.

K: And what about now? LN: I think it's mostly people on the labels I work with at IF?, We Call It Hard, Auricular and Gynoid Audio. Aussies like you, Ben Mill, Enclave, Craig McWhinney, Alkan, Sebastian Bayne, DJ Hi-Shock, Kultrun, plus internationals Aux 88, James Ruskin, Lucy, Perc, Inigo Kennedy and Bas Mooy.

K: Has living abroad had an impact on your creative outcomes? LN: For sure, since I've been hanging out in Tokyo for the last 11 years and am no longer privy to the stuff happening in Melbourne. But there's some brilliant stuff happening here, and the audiences are so receptive to variety and pushing perimeters. Also there are a lot of different influences, not just Japanese.

K: Is there a "golden era" or defining point in time in techno for you? LN: Good question. I don't think so. It's constantly evolving, and there are always new directions that I end up loving. There have been moments of sheer brilliance. I'm thinking 1994-99 in Melbourne, the mid '90s output from Chicago, Detroit and Germany, and the latest wave of techno over the past four years.

K: What’s your favourite city or venue to play to? LN: I don't really have one. I love playing Tokyo and Melbourne as they're my homes. I also have a lot of mates in Sydney so it's a treat to play there. Otherwise the scout hall in rural Holland was a bit crazy.

Grab a free download of Sebastian Bayne's 'Dark Of The Moon' from IF?'s 'Soundwerks EP' on the Soundcloud link below.

IF? Records presents Soundwerks at One22 this Saturday 26th May. Tickets at RA.

Listen to Pulse Radio

Dario & Marco Zenker - Bavarian Basing House Bread n Butter Brotherhood

http://pulseradio.net — Tue, 22 May 2012 22:28:56 +1000

Before derbruden Zenker come to London to play for Bread N Butter at Basing House we caught up with Dario Zenker to talk Harry Klein, kung fu and he gives us his guide to Munich.

How’s your year been so far, what have been the highlights? Great so far. Heavy winter in Munich. We are celebrating our five year anniversary with Ilian Tape and beside that working a lot as usual. One highlight was the birthday party at Harry Klein with Claro Intelecto Live and Regen. Then Dario's gig at Panorama Bar where we went with all our friends and Snafu in Aberdeen gig wise. There is a lot of amazing music out there right now, hard to pick just one name.
Otherwise FC Bayern and the Champions league Final.

When were you first introduced to electronic music? Well super early actually as our mum was a gipsy and following the roots of Frank Lloyd Wright in Chicago and Wisconsin. So we were born behind a Warehouse on the parking space where our mum lived and we grew up. The Tent we lived in was owned by Farly Jackmaster Funk and Jeff Mills.

You started your label Ilian Tape in 2007. Why and what is the music background behind your label? Ilian tape is our baby.Run by Marco, Andi and Me, it was founded in 2007 actually. I was running the old dub label from my dad called hometown music but it didn't work out so we just had to create a new label because we had already stuff lined up.The first record on Ilian Tape by Lee Van Dowski & Dachshund was actually supposed to come out on hometown music as 005. We had the master cuts already done so it went quite fast. As we were distributed by Intergroove for the first 4 records, we took a break until beginning 2010 because we lost a lot of money with Intergroove. Since Ilian 005 we are working without distribution.That just gives us more space and freedom, and we really like to do whatever we want and we are in fully control about everything.

You also run the HarryKlein-Label and a resident in the same-named club. How it came about? Yeah Marco and me are running Harry Klein records. It was founded by all residents of the club end 2009. We are just taking care of everything. I used to play on Stock 5 party at Harry Klein club like 6-7 years ago, so I've got involved into the whole thing. We played there more and more and suddenly I had a residency. We really grew with that club as. Our whole style of playing and interacting with the crowd was actually experienced there and of course all other shows we played at already, but Harry Klein was like our space to experiment and test our own productions and really to connect with the crowd.

Tell us a little bit about the general inspiration / influence for your new projects? There is no general Inspiration. Music just happens out of nothing. When we produce music together for example we just smoke and laugh a lot. That's how it goes mostly. We just jam. We just moved into a new House in the Turkish Town of Munich. Most amazing area of the city for us. The only hood where you have the feeling of living in a big city. Super multicultural. That is probably our main influence right now. But besides that love, food, music, kung fu, friends, weather, dancing and the list goes on and on and on.

What’s happening in Munich? Well we have a very old Techno/House scene already. Since beginning of the 90′s or so? The scene is pretty big overall. But of course there is a small more intimate crowd aswell. If u catch a good night the people are very open & enthusiastic for the music.of course the city has a big influence on the nightlife aswell. I think it’s the bavarian mood, very good atmosphere.

Some of your tracks are very reflective and almost experimental, are you influenced by ambient and experimental music at all? No not really. We just wanna create a certain atmosphere in our tracks that goes another direction than just super functional stuff. Of course it has to be functional in a way too, but that is not the main goal.

Who are you on the day to day outside of music? What else do you like doing? Mark US & Diri D. Playing football, robbing old women, stealing cars in the Landwehr Avenue and just running Munich.

The Zenker's must-see-guide for Munich:

- Beer-garden: The most lovely one ist the one called "Menterschwaige" . It is close by the Isar and just beautiful. You can even see FC Bayern players there once in a while.

- Shopping: The Vintage Stores Kleidermarkt and Alexa. Munich is not the best shopping city for me to be honest. So go VINTAGE!

- Culture: Techno City Munich!

- Outside: Everywhere at the lovely Isar. My favourite place is at the Grosshessloher Brücke.

- Bar: Jazz Bar Vogler at the Glockenbachviertel. Live Jazz. Good Whiskey.

- Restaurant: The greek place called Paros is Haidhausen. Amazing greek food and great service.

Bread & Butter has got 3 x 4 Ilian Tape Ep packages by artists including Dario & Marco Zenker Lucas Mari, Regen, Imugem Orihasam, Stenny, Andreas Zacco, to give away to just 3 lucky winner + FREE Entry for two at 5 Yeas Ilian Tape @ Basing House. To win simply tweet this article with the message "Zenker Bros @PulseRadio" Winners will be announced 25.05.12.

Listen to The Zenker Brothers on Pulse Radio

Peter Van Hoesen's Time To Express

http://pulseradio.net — Tue, 22 May 2012 21:52:50 +1000

Over a period exceeding twenty years, the Time To Express head has drawn inspiration from a plethora of musical styles from Belgian Synthpop to EBM, New Beat to Detroit Techno. Currently residing in Berlin, Peter continues to churn out intricate yet grandiose production work alongside a chaotic touring schedule. Mime caught up with the man ahead of his performance at the Dystopia launch event next month.

Describe to us the mechanics of both Foton and Time To Express. Foton was founded in Brussels around 1999 to create a platform for experimental electronic music. Right now it's on hold creatively, but it still functions as the administrative and legal context within which Time To Express operates. Time To Express was founded in 2008, primarily as an outlet for my own techno productions. Over time the label has opened up to other artists, mainly friends and people I feel comfortable with. I intend to keep it that way.

How do the Berlin and Brussels scenes differ from each other? Brussels is a fragmented city, in many aspects. This makes it a very interesting, challenging place. It takes a while to understand all the different scenes and codes. To me Berlin feels more cohesive. It seems that people work together in an easier, more relaxed way than in Brussels. There is more of a supportive attitude towards local talent. This explains the blossoming of a rich electronic music scene, in my humble opinion. Fertile grounds breed talent, this is how you keep a scene alive and thriving.

Explain your inspiration and process behind your production work. That's a difficult one. Life in general is probably the main inspiration. And I try to work in the studio on a regular basis, keeping a steady pace. I try not to over-analyse the process too much. It's very much an intuitive, energetic process, not so much a cerebral one.

Explain your objective and approach to live and DJ performance. My objective when playing a techno set, be it live or DJ, is to present a physical experience. I want people to be sucked into the music. When I play house or new wave it's different - this is more about the selection and the sequence of the tracks. I guess the emphasis is more on the musical side of things, whereas with techno the emphasis is on the total experience.

Tell us about your drive and motivation – how much of your personal life experience and acquired sagacity filters into your work? My drive. I feel like there is only one thing for me to do in this life, and that's to make music. It's very simple. It's very hard for me to judge the influence of other aspects of my life into the music, I feel it's not up to me to do that. Judging one's own artistic output from this perspective seems like a complicated issue to me.

Tell us about your latest ‘Sendai’ project – why/how is the partnership of audio and visual important to you? With Sendai we try to give the audience an experience which works on both senses - auditive and visual. Here also the idea is to capture the audience, to totally pull them into our world during 50 minutes. The visuals enhance the music, thus enhance the total perception. When we play live we try to present the tracks from our Geotope album in a new context, enhancing and remixing them within an improvisational framework. Every performance is radically different.

Where next for PVH and TTE? We're currently in a redesign phase for the label. This means that we are looking into setting up a second, smaller label for more experimental music. Alongside that we have some thrilling release planned for 2012. I can't say much about them at the moment, but you'll definitely notice them when they arrive.

What are we to expect for your set at the Dystopia launch event? 100% contemporary techno.

Peter Van Hoesen will perform at the Dystopia launch event alongside Dadub on the 2nd of June in Shoreditch, London.
Tickets are available from Resident Advisor and Ransom Note. Further information can be found via the Dystopia website.

Listen to Peter Van Hoesen on Pulse Radio

Troy Pierce - Jokes, zombies, techno and things.

http://pulseradio.net — Tue, 22 May 2012 20:09:32 +1000

This week's podcast comes from one third of the team behind Items & Things, Troy Pierce. Jenna Roberts speaks to Troy about the difficulties of running a label, upcoming Sonar parties and his lost tapes of abstract electronica.

(Photos courtesy of Robert Bellamy)

(Scroll to download Pulse.077 - Troy Pierce)

For many 2011 was seen as the launch of Items & Things although it had actually been in operation before then. Can you tell us a little bit about the history and last year's 'rejuvination' We started the label as a sub-label of minus at rich's suggestion. He gave us the opportunity to release stuff outside of the "minus" sound and it was really generous of him to give us that chance. In the beginning it was tough to find the type of music that the three of us had in mind which was a big reason there were so few releases in the early days. Later on when it was decided that Minus would no longer handle the business end of the label we let it rest for a while. That was mostly due to our hectic schedules and no free time to do all of the A&R and office tasks that are necessary to run a label. I think that Magda originally brought the idea back to Marc and i to get the label going again. We were super lucky to find a great label manager who could take our lose concept and shape it into a proper label again.

Obviously your departure from Minus was well documented, but one year on, how's life different for you running your own smaller label as opposed to being a part of one of the techno powerhouses. Definitely a lot more decisions to make and more responsibility, but with that, a much more rewarding experience. Seeing new artists like Madato playing live and really rocking the place is a nice feeling.

The label will be throwing two parties at this year’s Sonar – Items and Things meets Get the Curse daytime on 14th June and the Down & Out event on 15th June. What can we expect from these? Any special surprises? I am really excited about both parties, Barcelona is always super fun and a rooftop party on Thursday with the guys from Get the Curse should be no exception (tickets & info) . Friday night should be really cool as well, City Hall is a great venue and the Sonar crowd will just add more juice to the feast (t ickets & Info). Expect to get sweaty and have fun, be surprised if you don't.

I know you personally have been a fan of Get The Curse, can you tell us a bit about the relationship with the label? I don't exactly recall how it started, I had been getting the promos from them and was really impressed by the releases. I think soon after either Tomas (More) or Clement got in touch an we started to exchange music. The first time I met Clement in person was actually last year at Sonar, we hit it off right away and things have grown from there. I played for their Get the Curse night in Paris at Rex club and we have hung out a few times since then. Cool guys making making/releasing great music.

Is it true that you are working on an Items & Things compilation with Tomas? Yeah there is an Items & Things comp that will be coming out in July. There are tracks from Tomas, Madato, Danny Benedettini, Marc, Magda, Rework, 15 tracks in total over 4 vinyls.

As an artist, do you find it difficult to balance a fascination with weird and abstract electronica and the expectations to release dance/club music? TOTALLY. It's a struggle. It can get a bit boring making dance music all of the time. I definitely go off on weird tangents in the studio and have a lot of tracks that will probably never be released but i find really interesting.

How does this come across in your performance? Are there any places you find you can really push the envelope? I do always try to mix in some weirdness with the normal stuff. There are some places that it goes over better than others. Berlin is great for that sort of thing.

What’s your current DJ set-up? Are you still using a combination of Traktor, Abelton and Maschine? How's this effect what you can do? Yeah thats pretty much it. I like using traktor and maschine, it makes more creativity possible. I think it's fun to use bits of tracks and mix just a hint of a familiar baseline or hook in. Keeps things interesting for me and makes every nights musical selection unique.

What’s your opinion on the current trend of labels having Vinyl only releases? I think it's a little weird to limit your music to a single medium. it seems unfair to the people who don't have/use turntables. from an artists perspective i want the most amount of people to have the chance to hear my music regardless of how they listen. Sort of an elitist attitude to take, but whatever, shooting themselves in the foot in my opinion.

Quick Questions
What Items and Things make the best sounds? Creativity and the unexpected.

What Items and Things would you save if the world was about to end? That's such a hard question without the proper qualifier.. is it ending like exploding and i am screwed no matter what? or is it like "the walking dead" ending where most people are turning into zombies? Maybe it's like "about to be whisked away on a spaceship" ending which is confusing because why is someone that has a spaceship to save humanity saving me? I make dance music and dumb jokes.
I guess i would take a toothbrush and tooth paste because no one likes skanky breathe and green teeth.

What Items and Things do you want that you do not already have? I have become quite enamored with a motorcycle of all things. Triumph Thruxton, top of my "want" list.

What Items and Things would you erase from the world? Dumb people is the first thing that come to mind.. (ones who stand still on the moving sidewalks in airports mostly) COME ON!

Tell us about the podcast you’ve recorded for us. I wanted to make a podcast that I would listen to more than once. I guess that sounds a little odd but so many times I hear podcast that are like a greatest hits of the week or something and i get bored halfway though. I wanted each track to be one of those WTF tunes that you have to track down. I hope that it's something out of the ordinary and interesting.

Download Pulse.077 - Troy Pierce here.

Listen to Troy Pierce on Pulse Radio

Pure Ivy Radio Episode 8: Mr. Wilson

http://pulseradio.net — Tue, 22 May 2012 13:33:23 +1000

After a short break, Pure Ivy Radio, the series that has brought us sterling mixes from the likes of Alison Wonderland, Thomas Gold, Valentine and Cadell amongst others, returns to Pulse with an exclusive mix from the Sri-Lankan born, Sydney based singer/producer/DJ extraordinaire Mr. Wilson, who plays Pure Ivy Saturdays this weekend, May 26th.

Pulse: What kind of music inspired you as a kid growing up? Has Sri-Lankan music creeped into your influences at all? Mr. Wilson: R&B & Rock, I can say in the vocal melodies of my music there is a little hint of Sri Lankan musical scales in there somewhere.

When did dance music grab a hold of you? I always liked dance music & certain records that would come out when i was growing up, but it wasn’t until i started working with Tommy Trash about 4 years go that i really started delving deep into the genre.

How and when did you get into DJing? I have been messing around on the decks for a while now but i do have Tommy Trash to thank for the most part as he gave me his 2000s just before he left to go abroad on his advenutres & that’s when i really started honing in on the craft of spinnin!

What about production? I co-produce the records that i write as I always have the main producer taking the wheel, but my strength is in the songwriting!

How did you start working with Tommy Trash? A band mate of mine introduced me to Tommy as he was looking for a singer with a bit of a rock edge on his next upcoming single at the time Need Me To Stay and that’s how i met the man!

Tell us about your experience playing at the Monterery Festival in California. How did that come to be? It was an amazing experience & it really was part of the training in becoming the vocalist i am today! Plus it was an honour to perform on the same stage as the artists that first came into the scene at the famous 1965 Monterery festival when Janis Joplin, Otis Redding & Jimi Hendrix were introduced to the world & i saw the burn marks where Jimi burnt his guitar, that was the stage!

Which artists are inspiring you at the moment? David Jones, Federico Scavo & of course Tommy Trash!

Name three tracks that never leave your record bag/cd case? Steve Aoki - Ladi Dadi (Instrumental) (Tommy Trash remix)

Seamus Haji & Cevin Fisher - I Love The Music (Manuel De La Mare & Alex Kenji Remix)

Riva Starr & Fatboy Slim feat. Beardyman - Get Naked

Can you tell us a little bit about the mix you’ve recorded for Pure Ivy Radio? How did you decide to approach it? Well i have been to ivy many times before and I know they the crowd love their vocal house records more than the super heavy electro instrumentals, so i approached the mix in that way & i have got so many really cool new house tunes and if it was up to me I would play that all day and all night! So I gave it that feel with of course my new collaboration with Kid Massive (UK) to open the mixtape with.

What can the crowd expect at your upcoming gig at Pure Ivy Saturdays? Funky House toons, a lot of live vocal action with me performing my old & new upcoming original records and a lot of punchy energy in the room.

What’s on the cards for Mr. Wilson this year and into the future? A lot of new records through Ministry of Sound, Universal & One Love/Sony. Plus a lot of touring!

Listen to Pure Ivy Radio on Pulse

Shockone: Moving On Up

http://pulseradio.net — Mon, 21 May 2012 11:23:33 +1000

After storming the country as part of Creamfields, Perth native and drum and bass crusader Shockone is right back to business. Between endless touring and putting the finishing touches on his upcoming album, Shockone speaks to Pulse about the festival, what makes Australian fans so unique, his legendary live shows and the long awaited debut album.

Pulse: You just wrapped up Creamfields in Australia, how was it to play back home? Shockone: It was really amazing actually. Living in London now it's so great to come home to the hardcore fan base, who are always amazing to play to. It's also awesome to see the crowds and the fan base grow everytime I come back. I really appreciate everyone coming out to shows and it's so encouraging to see more and more people enjoying the music.

How do festivals compare to club shows for you? Both are so different and I love each for their own reasons. The vibe of a club show at capacity is so intense. When people are crawling over each other and just going mental in the dance, it’s amazing. I also feel I can connect with the crowd on a slightly more personal level at club shows, which is essentially what it's all about for me. However, festivals are just so much fun on the whole. The fact that there are so many other artists around to party with and it’s just generally a really fun time on and off the stage.

What were your goals with making your upcoming album? I didn't really start with any goals in particular. I just started writing as many things as I could, putting down any idea that came to mind, and after a while the album and songs just started to naturally take shape. I'm a strong believer in kind of just writing and letting the subconscious do its work over time. I don't want to say too much as I haven't finished it yet...

What can fans expect? They can expect an album of what I hope is great music, regardless of genre. If you are a person who says 'this or that genre is shit', then you might not like it because I have never written music from the point of genre being the defining characteristic. There will be a bunch of songs that hopefully make people want to lose their shit, regardless of what ever label you want to put on them.

Who did you choose to work with on the album? Collaborations so far include, Phetsta, Metrik, Reija Lee.

Is the album more dubstep or drum and bass driven? As I mentioned earlier there’s no one genre that is going to dominate the album. It's about songs and music, not genre.

How have your experiences changed since moving to England? Not a whole lot to be honest. The biggest thing I notice living here is being in a larger network of peers doing the same thing as myself and not feeling to disconnected/isolated from the dance music world. I find that really motivating and exciting. I feel there is a certain degree of friendly competitiveness between producers over here and I really vibe on that. Playing alongside more artists every weekend and hearing new tunes they have done and vice versa, we all obviously get talking about all the music we are doing and I find that energy and communication a really positive force for my own song writing.

What do you try to achieve with your live shows? Well, my live shows are just DJ sets, and I don't mean for that to sound like a DJ set is of any less artistic merit than a 'live' show, because I don't believe that is the case. For me DJing is all about communication and energy. What I love about it is I can get into the same state of mind as a person in the crowd and we can be on a totally level playing field with each other, essentially just sharing great music and the energy that music is creating amongst the crowd. For me that is the big difference between a traditional band performing and DJing. I think the sensation of say, playing an instrument in a band, and the place your mind goes to when you are doing that, is a very different place that the crowd is in, not that that is a negative thing, it’s just different. However, with DJing, because you have a certain level of disconnection from the music (i.e. you are not creating that music through the synergy of say 4 or 5 people) you can appreciate the music on a level that is a lot closer to the way the crowd is experiencing it.

How do your Australian shows differ to shows in England? On the whole, I think Australian crowds are a bit more excitable. I don't know why, maybe it's because they aren't as spoiled for choice or something. I've heard a lot of DJ's say it, Australian crowds are just so easy to get going, which is great as a performer. With London crowds, I feel you have to work a bit harder to get them onside and to get them going, and I don't mean to hate on London crowds because I love playing there! Maybe it's an education thing, you know? London is where it all came from, so they've seen everything before, so it's harder to give them something new and exciting that they've never experienced before. I think really, at the end of the day, it doesn't matter where you are in the world, people are people, music is music. You can have a shit gig anywhere in the world and you can have an amazing gig anywhere in the world.

What would you like to achieve next in your career? Obviously the album is my main priority at the moment. Beyond that I have plans to do something bigger, live performance/show wise. Please do not read this as 'SHOCKONE IS GOING TO BE DOING A LIVE BAND ACT' like everyone else, because it doesn't necessarily mean that. There are so many amazing options for live performance entertainment out there at the moment and I'm just very excited to explore that world a bit more and see what I can come up with.

What are your plans for the rest of the year? Write music. Play shows. Drink vodka. Spend time with my wonderful girlfriend. Not in that particular order by the way.

Shockone's Current Top 5

Shockone – Chaos Theory

Knife Party – Centipede

Dodge and Fuski – Come Again (Phetsta Remix)

Pryda – SW4

Shockone – Home Feat. Reija Lee

Listen to Shockone on Pulse Radio.

Rudimental - Feeling The Love

http://pulseradio.net — Thu, 17 May 2012 22:13:40 +1000

Their sound spans many a genre, from Garage to House through to Drum & Bass, all we know is that they call it "UKness" and whatever it is, they do it well! With their brand new single 'Feel The Love' taking the radio waves by storm Rudimental chat to us about the new single, run us through the remixes and tell us a bit more about the process behind the video. Check it out.

You just dropped the video for your new single ‘Feel The Love’, which has had a massive response! Tell us some more about the video and what made you choose Philadelphia? Out of all the pitches for the video we read through, this one was the one that jumped out at us. It connected straight away with us and felt like a no brainer! We were like, 'Rick Ross on horseback? Yes please!'.

You’ve teamed up with vocalist John Newman, how did that relationship come about? (Piers) I met John in the pub! We hit it off straight away. I ended up playing keys in his band and he ended up moving in with my parents. We are all very close and write a lot together. He is an amazing talent.

People are already dubbing ‘Feel The Love’ as this summers festival anthem! – is this a welcomed accolade? Yes! We've all been working hard in music for a couple of years and it feels great to be getting some recognition. Without sounding too cheesy, we are literally living our dream.

You’ve released some remixes to go with the release. Tell us some more about the remix package. We are really happy with the remix package. Something for everyone in it. Cutline have delivered a Dubstep remix which is crazy! Scuba has done a house Remix which is big, it goes off in the club! Chuffed to have Scuba involved, absolutely love that tune Adrelanin he did! Then there is Fred V & Grafix, Dusky and Gorgon City (Foamo & RackNRuin boys new project which is signed to black butter). We have also done a remix of FTL which is I guess more in the vein of Spoons which we released before FTL... It's got all new vocals from John on it, which are defo worth checking out!

Your productions have spanned genres from UK Garage to Drum & Bass but where would you say your sound lies? Soulful UKNess

You’ve got a few remixes under your belt yourself now including the likes of Ed Sheeran. Got any more remix plans you can fill us in on? We've just done a remix for a label we all grew up with called Defected Records which has been an honor! The remix is coming this summer, ready for Ibiza. We hope you like it!

What can we expect from a Rudimental set? Live? DJ? Whats your performance flavour? Come and see us to find out!

Along with a busy DJ schedule ahead of you what does the rest of 2012 have planned for Rudimental? Album plans by any chance? Djing at festivals this summer which is our first time at a lot of places so it's exciting. Outside of that it's about focusing on finishing the album. We've been working with some amazing vocalists. Then we are also launching our live show at the back end of the year, which we can't wait for.

Listen to Rudimental on Pulse Radio

Alex Niggemann - Variety Is The Spice Of Life

http://pulseradio.net — Thu, 17 May 2012 14:06:33 +1000

With a new LP recently released on Poker Flat and a rising international profile, the future is looking bright for Berlin beatsmith and Soulfooled boss Alex Niggemann. The variety loving producer chats to Kit Phillips about his new album, studio techniques, and the breakfast of champions.

Pulse: Hi Alex, lets start with some serious questions; what did you have for breakfast? Alex Niggemann: Pan cakes and fruits…

Your older work with Marc Poppcke (L’Aurora for example) was very melodic, while some of your later stuff (Berlin Down the House, Play House, Mama Said) had more of a funky housey vibe, and your Poker Flat releases have been quite techy; how do you manage to be so versatile? There’s nothing to manage. It just happens. I always said, that there’s no certain sub-genre to put me in. I always liked many different styles of music and I don’t think that this will change. As I’m also not only producing electronic music, there will always be different inspirations, which I’ll include into EDM. Right now I just stepped back to my roots of dark, synth-influenced Detroit techno-house. Even, if there’s a lot of other sub-genres to find on that album.

Your latest album on Poker Flat seems to signal a return to a more melodic sound on some tracks, especially tracks like the opener, Don't Wait. Should we expect more of the same from you in future? I’m a composer and producer. I love to play melodies and combine fitting harmonies to it. All my musical experience comes from playing the piano for more than 20 years. I love music and it’s different possibilities to create moods. A-tonal songs definitely belong to this as well, but I like diversity. Musically orientated songs spread their power trough melodies, letting you dream, feel sad or happy. A-tonal songs get you into a certain “trance” be repeating parts in loops. It is more a sound-design orientated way of doing music. So as you may see, you will always have to expect the unexpected. Again, you won’t be able to put me in a certain sub-genre in future.

I also noticed that there's quite a bit of progression in the album and it seems to get a bit darker and moodier towards the end. Were you thinking of it in terms of a DJ set, easing the listener into the vibe? Yeah, for me an album has to tell a story. Working with tensions/excitement. Like in a good book or movie. There are people saying, the best tracks should be at the top of the album listing, because that makes people buying an album. But I don’t want to push people to buy the album. For me it’s more important that people understand, what I want to create. The album in total should be like every single song on it or like a dj-set. Having a beginning, a peak and an end.

A lot of your housier output is very sample based – do you do a lot of recording or source them from elsewhere? What role do samples have in your work generally? I wouldn’t say that the housier stuff is “very” sample based. Well besides from the drums, which I don’t play live and a chord here and there, a lot of things were still self made and played. There’s nothing wrong about sampling, but I try to keep it as “live” as possible. I like to say in the end, that a song is 100 % my own work. So I don’t take much time to search for sources of samples, no. It’s all about the idea I have in a certain moment.
On the album for example you’ll find 99% self-played/recorded instruments, sometimes even the drums.

One of your new tracks Come Into My World has really nice details which add a lot of funk and groove, and I’ve read in previous interviews that you place a lot of emphasis on having a good room set up with solid monitoring - I’m guessing you’re a bit of perfectionist in the studio? Oh, yeah. Sometimes just a bit too much; which leads to the point, that a song isn’t always really finished. With every single time I listen to it again, there will always be something I’d like to change. I’m really happy that I started the album, when the constructions of my studio were completed. It gave me a lot of inspiration and a quality basis to produce it.

You spent some time studying audio engineering – what is the number one thing that you’ve found helpful and use regularly in dance music production? Seeing a song as a picture. Placing instruments at certain places, which you can only do, when you know about how to do EQing, Halls, Delays and Panorama and their single preferences and possibilities. Recording is an art as well. You definitely need to know at least the basis of making a recording sounding good!

What do you think is the most important part of your studio? The monitoring and the sound of the room, without that, you can be as much creative as you want; if the sound quality in the end isn’t good, you may not be able to transport the feelings in your song, which you wanted to do through instruments or melodies. For me my Yamaha Clavinova (Piano with MIDI function) also had an important role in creating Paranoid Funk. It’s so much more inspiring if you play notes with different velocities and aftertouch etc., than only taking a sample and selecting a bar in the piano-roll.

Any tips for producers on how to get a bit of that full range, hi fi sound that we hear in your productions? Except study your EQ’s, no. What I learned is, that the sentence, “your are only as good as your technique” is totally wrong. The only thing which is really important is, that you definitely need to know how your stuff works/sounds. It’s all about knowing your technical equipment 100%. I saw people producing in a shitty room with a laptop only and just a pair of speakers doing brilliant productions. If you work constantly in a certain environment and you know about the problems/difficulties/sound in it, you know how to correct or interfere in the sound.

You started your label Soulfooled in 2010 – two years later, how is it working out for you? Brilliant. As you might know, we started it just as a fun thing; to have more possibilities to release our own stuff; having a platform. But right know, we came to the point where we needed help. Schedule is getting more and more tight and we are so happy that we built up a family with high class artists around it, that we have to hire people caring for all this. I don’t mean only big artist. I mean people who are really doing great music, even if they aren’t that famous. We want to give something back and support. For example, Salvatore Freda, David Durango, Sebbo and Nico Lahs are really brilliant producers, without getting the attention that should get in my eyes/ears.
By the way, our iPhone app is just out! You may wanna check it out!

What do you look for as a label owner in acts you sign? I’m so looking forward to enlarge soulfooled as a party brand. We start more and more events, where we can bring the family together. It’s always more fun to be with people you know and appreciate, than just traveling and playing alone. I’m also really looking forward to see how talents Francys, Balcazar & Sordo or Mario Aureo will hit the spot with their upcoming releases. They are soooo fucking good! I’m really proud that they decided to join us!

What’s been the best night you’ve had out in the last 6 months, and what music do you listen to outside the club? There have been a lot. Honestly, it would be really unfair to just pick out one or two; because you can’t compare a beach or boat party with a club or festival. As well as you can’t compare cultures of all he different countries I’ve been to. Cultures are different, which I mean 100% in a good way. I like the diversity…I can just say it again!

Listen to Alex Niggemann on Pulse Radio

Monkey Safari - Club Swingers

http://pulseradio.net — Wed, 16 May 2012 23:42:25 +1000

With their new album Happy Body Music out now on Mambo music we speak to Monkey Safari about their club, The Charles Bronson in their hometown Halle.

You guys are just releaseing your album Happy Body Music, can you tell us about the process and what to expect? We´d been working nearly half a year on the tracks on the album. We have a lot of fun in different kinds of music and we didn´t want to make a compilation of dance tracks. So we tried to give the listeners a good view to the whole Monkey Safari mind. Of course there are some techy and housy dance tracks on it but also some of our roots like Hip Hop, Funk and Big Beat. It should be an album for the dancefloor and the couch in the same way.

You guys run the Charles Bronson club, what inspired the, possibly crazy, idea to open your own club? In the past, we did a lot of party’s in off-locations. But we had a huge risk (public authorities, money etc.) with this parties, so we searched for a fix location in our hometown Halle to build up a club with international standards and to make more parties for the hungry crowd.

The club focuses exclusively on electronic dance music, what's your main ethos behind the club? We love electronic music, its different styles and the way you can dance whole night long, and the feeling of losing yourself in another world, we think it´s not really possible with other kinds of club music so that´s the reason why we create an electronic dance club. Our philosophy of the club is very simple; Groove, Love and Happiness! That means good international booking together with great local artists for the groove. We put a lot of energy in details, soundsystem and modification of the club, for the love. So the people see we love the whole thing and don´t want to earn just money. For the Happiness you just need friendly 18 to 66 years old people.

How do you go about approaching and booking the talent to want to play at the club? We listen a lot of music and play a lot of different parties on the world so automatically we meet other nice artists and often we listen to their sets live. If we think it fits we speak to their agencys and some weeks or months later they come in to the Bronsonworld and have a lot of fun.

How do you juggle your own career as artists and running the club? Do you prefer one more than the other? Sometimes it´s hard. You know every day only have 24 and both things are very interesting. We have a lot of fun with both, but producing and DJing is the thing we prefer. As Monkey Safari we´ve got no limits in the world and with the club you´re fixed in Halle.

What are your future plans? Which aspects of your career will you be pursuing / focusing on for 2012? This year we play a lot of festivals and gigs during the summertime, doing some remixes, working on our release after the album in autumn on Jackmode and we maybe we need to build up some new toilets in the Charles Bronson…..the rest we´ll see.

Listen to Monkey Safari on Pulse Radio

Age of Consent - No Underage Chat

http://pulseradio.net — Wed, 16 May 2012 23:09:59 +1000

Age of Consent have just put out their single Heartbreak, calling it a "sort-of gothic-electronic track", it comes along with a stunning video produced by themselves, along with some help from Gareth Phillips. Pulse talks with the boys, discovering who has influenced them the most, who their favourite DJ of all time is and what records they would save in a house fire!

Age of Consent, How are you? Where in the world are you right now? Sitting next to Darren in our studio in East London staring at the horizon of a sunset mural on our wall. We are also working on our next single.

How do you describe you music to your family members? Midnight Percussion Music.

Talk us through your musical history, how did you get into making music? We met at Glasgow School of Art, graduated, tried to be artists & got exceptionally poor, then we formed a band. A well-trodden path. Then we moved to London and started a new band, which is Age of Consent.

You’ve done a lot of remix work in the past. What’s your approach to remix work? We usually try and work with people we like, which actually makes it really difficult sometimes, because it's hard to shred a song to bits when you actually really love it. Basically though, we begin by deconstructing the track & then we focus on whatever the most arresting element of the music is to us. We both have contrasting interests, which is what's great about working collaboratively. Then we play about with it a bit, trying out ideas, essentially aiming to write a whole new song. There's usually multiple versions we come up with, so we glean the most interesting bits from them and start on what becomes the final version. This is why it usually takes us ages to do anything.

Tell us some more about your new single ‘Heartbreak’. Heartbreak is a sort-of gothic-electronic track, sung from the point of view of a character who's in love with someone who's not around anymore. A love-song to the afterlife, if you will. It's dark, bittersweet and danceable containing nods to some of our favourite artists. Nerdy stuff like Prince's 1980's drum production techniques and auto-detuning analogue synthesizers are things that really get us excited. Maybe it's because we went to art school & we are inquisitive, but it's more likely it's because we're basically just 2 nerds working in a windowless room.

You're releasing this on your Inside Animals label, can you tell us a bit about the imprint. We've always wanted to run our own label & starting this band allowed us to do that. It's really cool to be able to be in control everything we do - from our photographs to the videos, graphics and obviously the recordings, having the label let's us be creative. I think this is something we value most highly about being in a band.

How do you guys work in the studio? What's the process behind the creation? We have our own little recording / rehearsal studio in Hackney that we use as the AoC HQ. We try and treat it as a sort of 9-5 thing. However, I am using the numbers 9-5 extremely liberally. We meet in there everyday to work on ideas for visuals, remixes, live shows and, obviously, songwriting. Usually, one of us has an idea - sometimes it's a melody and sometimes it's more oblique - something like a "vibe" or "groove". Using vocabulary that may normally be regarded as wince-inducing, words like vibe and groove become normality once we cross the threshold of the studio. When it comes to music terminology, neither of us are very technically minded, so phrases like "turn up the pill bit" and "make it sound a bit more like a wasp" become common. I'll leave it up to you to decide what they actually mean.

Who are the 3 artists in history (dead or alive) that have had the most influence on your music and why?

1. Martin Gore (Depeche Mode) is an incredible songwriter. He's managed to make a 30 year career out of writing songs about loneliness and bondage that are essentially pretty weird, but brilliant.

2. We both totally love My Bloody Valentine. There's not much I can say about them without sounding insincere, because we don't really sound like them ourselves, but you can still listen to Loveless now & get goosebumps. The way Kevin Sheilds blended the instruments into something completely unidentifiable is what I find fascinating. You don't really know where one instrument ends and the other begins, but just sounds like a feeling or anemotion, even if you don't know what he's singing about.

3. Suicide are also another major influence on our band. Not necessarily because of their songwriting, but their aesthetic approach. Songs like Cheree and Ghost Rider were released in 1977 but even today, they still sound cutting edge. As a band, they had a much more clearly defined role than we do - Alan Vega would 'sing' like a murderer and Martin Rev would operate the drum machine & synths with riffs so simple, it always seems like you've heard them somewhere else before.

If you were in a house fire and you could only save 5 records, what would they be? Music for Airports by Brian Eno, Merriwheather Post Pavillion by Animal Collective, Loveless by My Bloody Valentine, Some Great Reward by Depeche Mode and the Trainspotting Soundtrack.

Who is your favourite DJ of all time? A tough one, but I think it would have to be Soulwax / 2 Many DJs. They have taken the art of djing from being something passive and uninvolving to an active experience that, as an audience member, you totally feel you're a part of. Musically, they are complete masters of their art.

Tell us some more about what’s to come for Age of Consent. We are really excited to be releasing our 2nd single, Heartbreak, on our own label as digital download & CD on 11th June. We will be debuting our live visuals at the launch party on the 13th June. It's at the Macbeth in Shoreditch and is totally free. There's also a free download of our cover of Ghost Rider (by Suicide) for the first 100 people to arrive. Also, T.w.i.n.s will be playing live and Is Tropical are djing. We've been getting support from Lauren Laverne at 6 Music, so I think the launch party is going to be busy - arrive early!

Listen to Age of Consent on Pulse Radio

Bill Patrick - Berlin via DC-10

http://pulseradio.net — Wed, 16 May 2012 20:54:22 +1000

Bill Patrick is fun to eat tacos with. He’s got a handful of records he just finished rescuing from his Mom’s house in Long Island and, while I hastily lay waste to some mid-grade Mexican food, he enthusiastically goes through them, noting some favorites. It’s an eclectic collection to be sure, but all music that has earned its own place in his musical history and development as a DJ. Mr. G, Halo + Hippe, Lexicon Avenue, Richie Hawtin, Funk D’Void…Watching someone flip through rediscovered records is inherently vicarious fun. It’s a chance to relive the joy of finding something new combined with the nostalgia and ingrained memories that only a record sleeve can bring back.

It’s exactly this excitement about music that has brought Bill and I to a cramped restaurant just south of Union Square in New York about a week and a half after wrapping up WMC in Miami. As the host of Pulse Radio’s next foray into the world of quality musical programming, it’s only fitting we give you the chance to get to know him a little better.

His story is one not often heard these days, when the overwhelming majority of new artists get in front of your eyes and ears because their most recent record found favor with an influential label or DJ. Bill Patrick, who has on occasion been referred to as a “DJ’s DJ” bought a pair of Technics in 1998 and has since stayed the course of following his heart and the music from his suburban Long Island upbringing to New York City, through a few seasons in Ibiza (Lee Burridge was his roommate) and ultimately to Berlin where he currently resides. Of course there’s a lot more to the story, but he’s never had a Beatport Top 100 release, and if I could be so bold as to speak for him, he doesn’t want one either.

After migrating from punk music to the rave scene in the late 90’s Bill caught his first break when he was given a Saturday residency at legendary NYC clubbing institution Vinyl/Arc in Tribeca from ’02-’04. Given the club’s pivotal role as home to Danny Howells’ near-mythical 15 hour sets, it’s an impressive achievement for any aspiring DJ. But Bill cracks a smile as he explains that his Saturday nights were sandwiched between Danny Tenaglia’s Fridays and Body and Soul’s Sunday night events. Without his saying it, it’s clear this was the petri dish from which his true appreciation for the art of DJing was born. Beyond simply serving as an apt environment to hone his ability to take the dance floor on a musical journey, Arc also introduced him to Nick AC and Mike Bindra, two individuals who would factor heavily into the next stage of his career.

For many, including Bill, Arc’s closing in 2004 was the end of an era. The club began as Vinyl in the late ‘90’s and had ushered scores of people from up and down the eastern seaboard into the warm embrace of the underground. But its shutting was also to serve as the catalyst for the next chapter in his career’s evolution. In 2004 Robots was born. It was a New York project he embarked on with friends and fellow DJ’s Dennis Rodgers and Nick AC and one that Bill admits to initially being somewhat hesitant about. Robots began by bringing monthly, techno-influenced, parties to the inauspicious confines of a 100 capacity mini-club tucked beneath a French restaurant in the East Village. After a couple years worth of good parties and word of mouth, they outgrew Café Deville and successfully moved the soiree to Cielo where they ultimately ended things somewhat abruptly in fall of 2007 when Nick had to move to London to attend to some familial obligations.

“I really enjoyed the idea of going out on top. A lot of promoters and parties…”

“Run them into the ground?” I finished. “Yeah, I feel like we ended it at the right time.”

As a DJ, Radio Host and current A & R for Guy Gerber’s Supplement Facts label, Bill is not often without a few irons in the fire. Such was the case when Robots came to an end in 2007. He’d been spending the summer seasons in Ibiza living with Lee Burridge and meeting more people in the scene than he’d ever imagined. “There’s only so much you can do in America” he says (as I wonder to myself if he’s still correct today or just back then.)

It was 2003 when he first played the terrace of a no-frills club out by the airport called DC 10. His manager at the time was Mike Bindra (Made Events, Electric Zoo Festival) whom he’d met during his Arc tenure, and Mike, as any manager and future festival organizer should, thought Bill and DC 10’s owner Andrea Pelino should meet. “He didn’t know who I was, so he gave me an hour and a half slot on a Wednesday. 30 minutes in, he came over and invited me to play next Monday at 4. Back in those days the terrace was only open until 6 so it was a pretty big deal.”

With this kind of a foundation laid back in 2003, along with an undying affinity for all things house and techno, it’s not hard not to credit this experience and his seasons living on the white isle as the inception point for his ultimate move to Berlin “5 minutes away from Ryan, Shaun and Seth” But it was actually a surprise visit from Sven Vath one night while playing Underground in Ibiza that seemed to resonate most clearly with him. “You belong in Europe” he said. “You’ve made your mark in NY. You need to take it to the next step.” Bill continues, “part of it was work driven, but part of it was life driven.” His friends were getting married, having kids, and generally receding from the scene that was his life and source of income. “I felt I still had a lot to offer as a DJ.”

Living in berlin is a life choice that essentially puts your money where your mouth is when it comes to electronic music. It’s vibrant and progressive but it’s a choice you remember you’ve made every day (or night) you wake up. The distance from home is probably equal parts blessing and curse for electronic artists working there, but it has a strong bonding influence on those who’ve chosen to make their homes there and pursue their dreams. Amongst a sea of other industry relationships of great importance, Bill clearly credits it as the birthplace of his relationship with the Visionquest boys whom he refers to as a family. He spends most days off the road with Ryan and Shaun at record stores or at their apartment. The three of them going through new music on their laptops and playing it for one another.

With the narrative of his career through to present day established, I begin asking him about what he’s got in store for listeners when Private Stock debuts on Thursday, May 31th. “We come from a generation when everything was on the radio, and now, with the Internet people can just listen to only what they select…People need to expand.” He goes on “ Some people who listen to me or Seth may have never heard a Neil Young Record.” He goes on to list artists from a large range of musical eras and genres including Grace Jones, Grizzly Bear, A Tribe Called Quest, Biggie Smalls, Nirvana and Quicksand as influential to his current sound and worthy of showcasing. “I like a lot of indie and down-tempo and of course will be featuring a bunch of house and techno as well. This is something that as I’ve gotten older, I’ve found it important to listen to and introduce a bunch of different types of music. For producers especially, I think digesting a wide range of music is a critical process involved in making innovative and consistently refreshing dance records.”

As you can hear from the show that’s linked to at the top of this page, Bill’s slightly mischievous format is to get a few of his fellow artist friends into the studio, have a cocktail or seven, play music from everyone involved, and basically select not oft showcased gems and pieces of music that may have been overlooked, forgotten or just simply need to be heard again. In a sea of self serving radio shows and podcasts relentlessly driven to shove the newest music down our throats-regardless of its quality or relevance-it’s a slightly off-center offering we’re happy to add to our diligently curated selection of podcasts and exclusive mixes from today’s top artists and influential DJs.

The fact that A-list artists are happy to sit down with Mr. Patrick to help him showcase the less championed side of music that’s either peripherally or directly contributed to the current landscape of house and techno music is a testament to the ethos Bill rather effortlessly eschews. “ Be cool. Be fun to be around. Tell some fucking cool stories. Hang out after your gig and go to after parties but handle your shit. Don’t be the guy drooling in the corner. Don’t be stuck up and don’t be a dick.” I agree on all counts.

Later that night, as I stand behind Bill and Guy Gerber playing music to a see of Verboten attendees while Greg Paulus effortless integrates live trumpet into an impromptu performance, I can’t help but smile. This fun, humble guy from Long Island stands firmly between one of the industry’s clear leading men, and one of it’s fastest rising stars occupying and owning his own and hard won distinction as a true selector. A selector’s selector, if you will.

Welcome aboard Bill, we wait with baited breath for Private Stock, premiering exclusively on Pulse Radio Thursday, May 31th.

Listen to Bill Patrick on Pulse Radio

Bill Brewster - Dance Aficionado

http://pulseradio.net — Wed, 16 May 2012 12:17:06 +1000

Bill Brewster is one of those guys you would secretly envy, and you only need a quick glance at his CV to understand why. Originally a chef and then editor of a football fanzine back in the 80s, Bill now spends his time DJing around the world, running his deep house label Forensic and re-editing old disco, funk and rock records as one half of Fat Camp. Though his most well known endeavour has been his literary adventures into the world of dance music, writing books such as Last Night A DJ Saved My Life and the DJ manual How To DJ Properly with his writing partner Frank Broughton.

With an impending tour of Australia on the cards - which includes a set alongside San Soda for Co-Op's Third Birthday - we caught up with the dance music aficionado for a quick Q&A.

Pulse: The book you wrote with Frank Broughton, Last Night A DJ Saved My Life, is a very detailed chronicle of the DJ. How did you and Frank go about your research, particularly for some of the early chapters? Bill Brewster: Firstly, we pooled our resources to see what research material we had between us, like old magazines, books etc. Gathered all of our interviews together and then worked out a plan from there, which involved spending about a month or six weeks in the British Library going through old magazines and newspapers, and then going over to New York and sitting in the Library of Performing Arts. In between that, we compiled a hit list of potential interviewees and began trying to track them down. Most of the British ones, we had enough contacts to be able to locate without too much problem and the New York ones we often just opened the phone book and looked for their names. That's how we found Francis Grasso, Terry Noel and a few others.

What was the intention of How To DJ Properly? Was it simply because there wasn’t a book written on it? Or was it borne out of a need to educate? I suppose education is one part of it, but we felt that too many people involved in dance music were really stuck on mixing as the sole aspect that required any skill, which annoyed us. So we wanted to write a book that was funny, irreverent, but still had loads of nuggets of information in it, whether you'd only just bought decks or you'd been doing it for years.

I remember when I first came across it. I thought (in retrospect quite arrogantly) that it was a silly notion to learn to DJ from a book because so many people that I knew had learnt on their own, when in actual fact it’s a brilliant and very informative handbook. Was it a hard sell when it first came out? Actually, no, it wasn't at all. Obviously some DJs were a bit offended by the fact we seemed to be telling them how to do their job, but generally it came out and got great reviews and sold really well.

How do you feel about the current quality of online music journalism compared to the pre-internet era? Do you think that music is a subject better suited to the online format? The quality is worse now than it was when I started because many of the writers online are keen amateurs, rather than professional writers. Everyone thinks they can write (and take photographs), when there is a skill to it, like any other creative act. There's certainly more about music than there's ever been, but the quality has suffered. There are very few people writing online that I'd actually trust or want to read.

What book are you reading at the moment? 33 Revolutions Per Minute by Dorian Lynskey

What was the last mix, podcast or mix CD that you really, really enjoyed? Debukas' Mystery Mix for DJHistory.com

What was the last meal you cooked for a group of people? Two days ago, my friend Suzi, her bloke and me.

Name three of your most treasured vinyl from your collection. VIP Connection - West Coast Drive

Latin Breed - Maranatha

51 Days - Paper Moon

What are you DJing with these days? Vinyl, CDs, laptop? I play CDs, but I'm dabbling with the darkside at home.

You're on your way to Australia to play soon for the first time. Have friends given you any advice for playing down under? No they haven't. Give or take a few idiosyncrasies most places are pretty similar and the variations are as much to do with the night or club you're playing as the country it's in.

Will you have any time to relax and do any touristy stuff whilst you’re here? In New Zealand, I have a few days spare and I'm going to do a bit of tourist stuff. But in Australia, sadly not. I'd like to have met up with my nephew, but it doesn't look like it will be possible.

A bit macabre, but what will be your funeral song? I don't care. I'll be dead.

Listen to Bill Brewster on Pulse Radio

Hot Chip - Maturing Potatoes

http://pulseradio.net — Tue, 15 May 2012 13:11:25 +1000

A bunch of school mates formed UK synth-pop band Hot Chip in 2000. Fast-forward twelve years later and they’re all grown up and coming on strong with their fifth studio album. Guitarist Owen Clarke talks to Pulse Radio’s Emily Tullock about maturity, being the oldest guy on the dance floor and how the charts are a “terrible state of affairs”.

Pulse: Where in the world are you and what are you up to at the moment? Owen Clarke: I’m currently barefoot in my kitchen in London. The lights are on even though it’s daytime because it’s dull and wet outside. I’m wearing a very nice blue dressing gown.

How would you describe the sound on the new Hot Chip In Our Heads that’s coming out on June 11th? A bit more singular, a bit more interlocked and of course electronic. It’s quite tough but also has elements of light and shade within that.

Hot Chip formed in 2000 – is there a sense that you’re all getting a bit too old to keep playing the same light, fun electro songs? Well human beings have always found it very difficult to deal with age but it’s also a benefit, I think, that brings on changes. I think listening to the very first record; Coming On Strong, it was very much made as an in-the-home record. It was very referential. It was about the Beach Boys and Stevie Wonder and Queen and it was quite a young record – not naïve but if you go through the records it’s not like they’re audibly getting older but you do have to change the way you’re thinking. You don’t want to be the oldest guy on the dance floor, you don’t want to be singing about teenage heartbreak when you’re 25 even. It’s good if you look at yourself and try and do the thing that you think is most exciting. And not try to emulate youth. The experience of withstanding vitality I think is much more important.

Would you say this is a more mature album? Mature sounds - not dull - but not severely exciting. In a way, the last record sounded like us unwinding and maturing and becoming more professional. But we’re not that much more mature this time than the last one. There are less songs about wrestling or silly things like Stevie Wonder not being able to sing. There’s still an escape and a humour but there’s a different way of dealing with the themes. The themes have always been the same – love and questioning relationships, introspection and reviewing things and talking about music itself. Those things are still there. If you look across the records they’re factually maturing. This one is maturing in the way it sounds sonically – it’s not more mature but there’s a progression. We’ve figured out how to make music and by doing it together for a while we’ve figured out when to either butt out or chip in. We’re just trying to make the songs as good as we can and as neat and as punchy as possible. That’s the thing that I feel is more mature about the record – the sound. There’s peaks and troughs even though there’s slower songs and longer songs. Even though everything is weaving around it’s from the same space.

Did you do anything differently or new this time in terms of the sound? The last record we did out of a studio which was really just a basement and we did that DIY thing where we produced everything ourselves. We were doing it in a patchwork, pirate-ship way; sticking everything together. This time we were working in a proper studio, that was the thing that we did differently – it doesn’t sound that revolutionary, there’s no headline “Band goes to recording studio” – but for us it was quite a step. But a very comfortable step for us to make. In terms of doing things differently it meant that we opened up on the record. We got a percussionist to come down and play. We got a saxophone player in. Basically we just had fun with it with our friends in the studio but it also has this raw element that was still ours. We found our own world but inside this portal other world. That was the thing that changed this record.

With the fifth studio album is it easier or more comfortable to create the songs together? It’s quite hard to write a song with five people - I think that’s the frustrating thing when you look at a Beatles record and you see by Lennon and you know that everyone’s had an influence on the way the record sounds. Even Justin Bieber, the song credits, there’s about seven writers involved and yet the song goes “baby baby … baby”. When the songs came through as demos they were pretty much written but in terms of adding some melodic aspects and arrangements, when you’re amongst friends you can say whether something is bullshit which is quite a powerful thing. There’s lots of little things that edge into the songs and knock them like a pinball machine to get somewhere good. A lot of the song writing would get done before the studio – I think that’s a strength in a way that you’ve got the core but you put in different aspects.

Made in the Dark was very popular in the charts - is there any pressure to replicate that mainstream popularity? The only pressure we have is from ourselves really. Over and Over and The Warning seemed much more popular in the UK in terms of actual chart success. Ready for the Floor was never as big. The charts, especially now, are a terrible state of affairs. It’s not that much fun to write for them really. We just try and write songs that are fun pop songs. Sometimes it does work for the charts as well. But our priority is just writing what we want to write that’s fun but also a bit odd. In the spirit of say Phil Spector or OutKast – they’re very poppy but they also sound a bit odd. They’re not some sort of Euro dance or a kickback with a guy laughing through the chorus. If we wanted to do that, we could do that. But we don’t. We want to make something fun.

Are you planning to come to Australia any time soon? We’re in the midst of planning it. We’ve got our maps out and we’ve got our little flag. It would be great if we can. It takes a little while to get there. Even when you’re on a plane it takes 24 hours and the plane is going 500 miles an hour. But yes we are coming over. I couldn’t say when at the moment. We love coming over. We haven’t really toured, in my memory, in the past few years. It’s definitely time to come over.

What’s next for Hot Chip? We’re gearing up to the live tour. And we’re also waiting for the record to come out– we’re quite excited about that. We did a video recently which was synchronised dancing which was quite fun. We’re also picking out our most exciting songs that will form the live show for the next few weeks. Then get out there and see how it goes.

Hot Chip’s new album ‘In Our Heads’ is out June 8 via Domino. Pre-order now via iTunes.

Listen to Hot Chip on Pulse Radio

Bass Clef - Keeping it reel

http://pulseradio.net — Mon, 14 May 2012 22:08:22 +1000

This week's podcast is an 'excursion in 4/4' from Ralph Cumbers aka Bass Clef. With the sun shining over Hackney, Ellie Hewitt spoke to Ralph from his London studio about his latest album in terms of modular synths, being punched in the head and some of its literary influences; as well as his love/hate relationship with his trombone.

Scroll down to download Pulse.076 - Bass Clef.

Before we start to look at the new album, how do you explain your day job to your grandparents? Sadly they're no longer around to have to explain to – but luckily when they were, I didn't really have to, they knew from a very early age I wasn't going to be good for anything except music! My grandmother in particular, who was a pianist, was a huge influence on my life.

Your LP 'Reeling Skullways' recently came out on Punch Drunk (available on WPP here) how are you feeling about it, now it's out of your hands and into the public's? I'm happy. Already trying to record the next album!

It's got a strict 'no samples' policy, what was the reasoning behind this? That's not true actually! There are samples (my vocals, violin, drum machines) It's just not sample-centred, as opposed to my other albums, and a lot of the time I was using the digital waveforms, envelopes and filters inside the sampler, so using it like a synth instead.

How did this effect the production process, is it something you'll look to continue? Yeah definitely – it involved basing the tracks around the modular synth – which is a process I love.

How do you go about structuring an album like 'Reeling Skullways'? I had to narrow down 25 tracks to 9. It's always hard but you just move by instinct, chiselling away until you get to something that feels good. It's very important to me that an album has an arc, or a story, and works well in one listen, and rewards many listens.

The title 'Reeling Skullways' is related to the Brian Aldiss sci-fi novel 'Barefoot In The Head' can you elaborate on the book and how it inspired you? I like the double meaning of reeling (like being punched, but also 'reel' is an old word for a dance), it sounds a bit like what happens in your brain when you're listening to or making music. As for the book well – it's a cracking read, give it a try and see if you can see a connection.

Do you have any thoughts on links between sci-fi and dance music? I guess it's a really ingrained connection in popular culture – going right back to the soundtrack of 'Forbidden Planet' through the Radiophonic workshop and Doctor Who, to 'Blade Runner'. EIelectronic sounds were very futuristic, and synths came in to view in popular culture at the same time as spaceships and satellites.

With track titles like 'Walworth Road Acid Trap Door' and 'Stenaline Metranil Solar Flare' are said tracks supposed to reflect the title? I spend a lot of time creating track titles, and they mean a lot to me, but it's not something I could or would want to elaborate too much – I like it to stay mysterious and also to be a starting point for people to imagine their own stories, for there to be enough room for the titles to mean different things to different people.

As a classically trained musician who often performs live, do you think there's an expectation for you to get your trombone out? Yep maybe so. It's a love/hate relationship I have with it for sure. Some gigs I'm very happy to play it and find new sounds, sometimes I only want to do hammer the electronic boxes.

You recently dressed up as an astronaut for a music video, how was that? That was a fun, if intense, day – head crammed into an authentic eastern bloc helmet that was at least 5 sizes too small for me, I didn't pass out on set though so all good.

You've always had this literary alter ego as it were, with releases named as Coseph Jonrad, can you tell us a little bit about where Joseph gets to vocalise? Magic & Dreams was a project I started when I was at a total creative block, trying to write Bass Clef material. So it was like bunking off school, and going to do something fun instead. Then I realised it was a project that could go further and it needed a name.

Can you tell us about the Paper Round Tapes. I remixed 12 albums that I loved as a kid, and listened to obsessively whilst delivering newspapers. I remixed them all, in order, track by track, just using the original records and a bass guitar. Released one a month for a year – it was a lot of work but also a wonderful creative process.

You've given Pulse an exclusive mix for our podcast series, can you tell us about this? It's an excursion through 4/4 territory, with a heavy use of some of my collection of locked grooves records and DJ tools – almost entirely vinyl – plus a bit of drum machine, sampler and effects units. I had a great tine making it, I recorded about 3 hours or so and then just trimmed it down (and took out the really bad trainwrecks.).

Download Pulse.076 - Bass Clef

Listen to Bass Clef on Pulse Radio

Holic - Higher Frequencies

http://pulseradio.net — Fri, 11 May 2012 21:02:39 +1000

Starting our partnership with bastian of the Japanese deep underground Higher-Frequency, James Huxley speaks with Japanese national Tomoki Tamura about the move from Japan to London, running parties transglobaly and launching Holic Trax.

You started running the night in London. What made you choose to do this over Japan? I love Japan of course and it was my first home, but I had been playing out and promoting back there for a long time and was craving to do and see new things. I wanted to dive into the UK clubbing culture as I had always thought of London as the capital of dance music. I love that London is a city with a really mixed culture so we can enjoy cultures from all around the world in one place. Naturally, such range is reflected in the music here in London and it’s the main reason why I came here in the first place and why I am still living here. I’m really happy I made that original decision as I still love London town.

How do you feel the two cities differ? Of course London is the biggest city for in the World for club music, but Tokyo has some nights that are of amazing quality. Basically the night culture is different, in London everyone goes to parties and in Tokyo you have many more choices such as karaoke, izakaya (sort of like a Japanese style pub where you can eat & drink until the morning) and more amusement spaces. London has got more people who go to parties but of the people in Tokyo that do go to dance music events, it seems that these people really love house music a lot. My opinion is that the people in London come to enjoy the whole vibe of a party more whereas people in Tokyo come to check out specific DJs and artists.

Tell us about how the birth of Holic came about? We started HOLIC at AKA (The END) in 2008 as a monthly Thursday night. AKA was the perfect venue for what we wanted to do on a weekday, mixing up the latest deep minimal sound and the classic house sounds together. We had an amazing relationship for 2-years with the venue right up until the End / AKAs incredible closing finale!

Can you remember your first gig in London? I used to live in west London long time ago and my first gig was at some bar on Portobello Market. It was a pretty spontaneous gig, I had passed by the Bar on the Monday and after a few drinks I asked if they needed a DJ. The next thing I know is I am walking back to the Bar with a bag of vinyl in tow. It was the clichéd first gig – no payment and no people - but I was just really excited to play music in London having grown up so far away in Japan. Can I remember the bar name? No, no clue!

What clubs and parties did you go to and how did they affect you? As I mentioned before, when I first moved to London I was based in the West and so my regular spots became the Notting Hill Arts Club and Neighborhood on Sunday. After a while I met a few cool people and found a great party called ‘Faith’. I was totally overwhelmed by that party; without really looking for it, I had found an event I had always dreamed of! Faith nights are excellent in that they cover quality dance music from old and new. I think if you are a proper house DJ, you can’t play minimal house all night long, you need to play a range of quality house that connects with people and maybe some uplifting disco tunes at the end of the night. The End/AKA is one place I still miss a lot! If you never went there well I am really sorry but you missed out. [Laughs]

What is the musical ethos you take towards booking artists on the night and scheduling releases for the label? Do you take the same approach to both? I don't try to follow any trend, I just want to play and put out timeless quality house music. When I listen to past sets we have recorded at our parties from 5 years ago, I still love them! The same goes for our first and future releases, I don’t want to get bored of a HOLIC TRAX record. We like deep sounds, but as James Brown once said ‘Whatever we do, it got to be funky!’

What is your vision for Holic Trax? I have already signed a few releases with bigger, known names but I will listen to anything and release any music that I think is great from fresh artists as well. I want to make a crew of HOLIC TRAX artists with a similar strong vision of music and involve them in throwing label parties in Japan and other countries. There are so many great artists in Japan and other Asian countries that do not get enough exposure and I want to change that by hooking them up with my label.

What can you tell us about the debut release, HT001? It is a real honour to be able to release new music from one of only underground hero that is Mr G. He had given us 4 excellent tracks for a EP and we would have been stupid not to have made them the first release for our label. He is the ideal person to start our HOLIC TRAX as he is someone with a distinctly soulful and uncompromising style. When you hear his music and see him live, everybody feels something special - that is I want for my label.

What’s the future for Holic? We do regular HOLIC parties both in London & Japan now and would like to spread this in the coming year to some other countries. While we have our regular spot at Café 1001, we always try and look for new venues that allow us to showcase the range of artists we associate with. For instance at our last party I took us back to our roots for an intimate day and night party that combined 3-live bands with different sets from our residents at the Notting Hill Arts Club. On the label front I have signed new music music from Chris Carrier, Kate Simko, Tuccillo & some others for an EP and remixes. It’s pretty exciting sounding stuff and we can’t wait to share the Holic sound to our current audience and hopefully some new fans to.

This interview will also be syndicated on Higher Frequency Japan. Check Higher-Frequency.com for cutting edge interviews, news and mixes. (Much like a certain website we know...)

Listen to Tomoki Tamura on Pulse Radio

Radio Slave - OneMore Interview

http://pulseradio.net — Fri, 11 May 2012 17:42:54 +1000

Following only a relatively short amount of time in dance music, Matt Edwards has cemented his position at the top of the techno tree, through his unique approach to production and remixing, legendary DJ sets and his on point techno imprint. Before his set at OneMore this Saturday, Ellie Hewit caught up with Matt to discuss subzero Welsh mountain raves and USA EDM.

You’re flying over to London to play in a car park, are you able to tell us experiences in any other odd venue choices? Oh my god ! I've played in all sorts of places and maybe the craziest was on top of a mountain in Wales. A close friend came up with the idea of extreme parties and decided to hold an impromptu event for a small group of friends but up a mountain! So, a small convoy of cars headed along this small path and by the time we reached the top only half the cars had made it. You needed four wheel drive or nerves of steel. The soundsystem was then set up in the back of a Lada Niva next to a huge roaring fire and the few friends who were there had a go at dancing whilst a gail was blowing around us. Most of the records I took got burnt by the embers from the fire which was blowing directly into the dj set up and needless to say it wasn't long before everyone was huddled back in their cars trying to keep warm ! It was a really funny experience and one of many from the mid 90's.

The Onemore event has an impressive VJ line up and a light show, compared to your residncey at Panorama, how do you find audio visual experiences add to your sets? I'm not a huge fan but understand their worth and this is something the Panorama Bar do really well at. The lighting guys at that club are so good and they're always adjusting the lights to create a really amazing enviroment.

In a previous interview you said " Berlin is great. It’s got a real community spirit with regards to the electronic music world. There doesn’t seem to be much in the way of rivalries or politics that I found when I lived in London or Brighton" Four years on, has your opinion changed at all? Not at all and I'm still really enjoying the pace of life here ! It's not for everyone and of course I spend the majority of the year travelling but I love Berlin for it's people and the city itself.

If you had the power to bring anything from the Uk to Berlin what would you bring? Mini cheddars, a good indian restaurant and The Sunday Times with supplements.

There seems to be quite a lot of talk about LA at the moment. Do you have any thoughts on the US scene at the moment? It's great that there seems to be all this interest in EDM or whatever in the states but for me there's always been a scene there. It's where house music was born. Whether the people there will ever recognise this is another question as kids think EDM equals some guys throwing a cake in your face or smashing a laptop on stage.

You run the Cabin Fever series as vinyl only. What's the idea behind this? Purely to get around risky samples, or do you feel a bigger responsibility to keep vinyl alive? Cabin Fever is about pushing electronic music in new directions or presenting old music in a new way through the medium of vinyl. It's about having fun and yeah, keeping vinyl alive. I'm travelling every weekend around the globe and I very rarely see DJ's using vinyl. I myself travel using CD's or USB sticks as I can't risk losing my records. Four years ago I lost my records six times over the summer. The worst being for a week whilst on tour in the USA. I went straight from the Panorama Bar after my Birthday to Mutek and didn't see my records again for a week.

For the rest of 2012, rather than telling us what you have in store, can you tell us what you definitely won't be doing? I definitely won't stop buying vinyl! I'm an addict and already mapping out some places to go digging for records around the globe !

Can we expect any Rekids parties in UK in 2012? Yes ! Look out for some special events with myself, Nina Kraviz and friends.

Radio Slave will be playing One More this Saturday at Hearn Street Car Park - Tickets & Info

DJ W!LD - Dirty is released on Cabin Fever on May 14th (Cabin Fever's debut artist album, available on CD & digital)

OneMore will be at Off Sonar, at Cabaret Berlin intimate surroundings with a residents and some very special friends. Tickets & Info

Listen to Radio Slave on Pulse Radio

Seekae - Vivid Focus

http://pulseradio.net — Fri, 11 May 2012 13:34:18 +1000

Sydney electronica trio Seekae have come a long way in the past year. Their 2011 sophomore album +Dome was a critical triumph which saw the band further flexing their growing production skills and experimental songcraft. Fans lapped it up too, just as they did the band's much lauded support sets for UK post-dubstep heavyweights Mount Kimbie. Towards the latter end of the year, the fellas even showcased their sounds on a successful tour of Europe.

With a new album in the works and an upcoming performance at the Sydney Opera House as part of Vivid LIVE, 2012 looks to be a year of new frontiers. Pulse's Henry Johnstone spoke with Alex Cameron of the band during a rehearsal break to find out more.

Pulse: Hey Alex, what’s been happening? Alex: We’re just sitting down for a friendly game of chess at the moment. We’re currently in rehearsals.

Ah nice. For Vivid? Yeah for Vivid and for our new record and things. But yes today we’re specifically focusing on Vivid.

Anything special planned for that show? Yes we’re going to be playing a bunch of new material and also approaching old songs in a new way - we’re going to have a small string section accompanying us. It’s going to be a whole new experience.

That’s going to be pretty amazing playing with a string accompaniment in the Opera House. Yeah it’s exciting. It’s going to be a lot of work over the next month but overall I think it’s going to be a really positive thing. It’s exciting.

Will the strings be more centred around the new stuff you’ve written, or are you going to incorporate them with some of your old material too? It’s a combination. You actually caught us just as we’re deciding that. It looks like a lot of it will be with the old material because we used strings on the last record. We want to open things up a bit more musically when we play live. The strings will also accompany some of the new tracks as well though.

Did any of these new tracks eventuate from the material you recorded whilst on tour in Europe? Bits and pieces yeah, there’s a couple of things we wrote whilst we were living in Cambridge that have popped up again as we were going over all the material we’ve currently been writing here in Sydney the past couple of weeks.

How did you guys find the crowds responded to you on that tour compared to audiences here? Was there much of a difference? It was a different experience that’s for sure. Different in the sense that it was actually quite inconsistent. Some places it was crazy, like for instance in Edinburgh where we played this packed out club and we couldn’t really believe it. And then the next night you’d play Birmingham and it’s relatively empty. It was at that point where one night you’d feel really good and then the next night you realise it’s still an uphill climb to try and get our name out there in Europe. But the vibe was there on most nights, which was surprising.

What’s come out of doing that tour that has been beneficial for you? I think we’ve got a lot of new relationships with different people in different cities now. We’ve made lots of friends and there’s lots of things we’re working on now. It was definitely a positive experience and not something we’d ever take back. At this point though we’re just concentrating on our writing and getting that finished so that we can have a new record as soon as possible.

Do have an idea of when that might be? I think at this point it probably won’t be completed until the back end of this year. So it might be out early next year maybe.

What is the new material sounding like? Are you still trying to strike that balance between digital and organic? Which way are things heading? That will probably be our battle forever I think. At the moment we’re writing a whole bunch of different material and just seeing what strikes us as the best. We’ve got a couple of demos finished and a couple of others that aren’t. At the moment there’s a bit more singing on some of the tracks and they’re also quite digital as well. So there’s vocals now but it’s also less organic in other ways. I still couldn’t tell you what it’s going to sound like but it’s definitely going to be different from our last record.

So are the vocals little bits here and there or do you have verses happening? Well we’ve always written in one way or another and now it’s time for that to crossover into our music. There are certainly going to be lyrics on this next record and we’re all going to have a sing, so it’s a step up for us.

You guys were all in non-electronic bands before Seekae. What kind of music were you into back then? We were all into electronic music from a young age, I guess just the easiest outlet when we were younger was to get drums and guitars and make a song that way. The type of music we’re into has never changed, it’s just the type of music we want to make has. I think we want to cover more ground and say more with each track and I think that’s where the need to write lyrics is coming from. The idea that we want to say more.

Are you still being influenced by UK bass and house sounds at the moment? Yeah, absolutely. As much as it’s an influence though I don’t think we strive to sound like it, but we always listen to that kind of music, so it’s always going to be a part of what we do at some level. I guess right now we’re not necessarily focusing on what we want to sound like but more on the songs we’re writing. Composition has always been so important for us and we want to make sure we’re capturing the right mood and saying as much as we can musically.

I watched the live DJ stream you all played for inthemix about a month or so ago, which was a lot of fun. Yeah it was!

Two of you had matching shirts on. Had you come straight from work or something? Ummm…I can’t recall that day. I think that was us trying to get a little bit dressed up [laughs].

Oh right, sorry! That was a lot of fun. We don’t get to DJ a lot and when we do we always try and have fun. We’re not very good at this stage, but it’s something that we like doing. We like sharing music that we’re into.

Do you all have jobs separate from music, or is the music full time now? On and off at this point. We had to stop working full time because we’re on the road a lot and have so many commitments within music now. We try and work here and there when we can. Plus George and John are about to start uni again, so we just want to be writing full time at the moment to try and get as much music out as we can.

You’ve got a tour of the US and Japan coming up later this year right? That’s the plan, but it depends. If we get the record done then there’ll be room for a couple of tours, but it’s not confirmed yet.

Header image by: McLean Stephenson

Listen to Seekae on Pulse Radio

Truth in l.i.e.s.

http://pulseradio.net — Fri, 11 May 2012 01:33:00 +1000

Purveyors of raw, analogue house and techno, Brooklyn label L.I.E.S. - an acronym for Long Island Electrical Systems - has risen to prominence fast since its inception in 2010. Very much a low key, DIY imprint, it's the singular vision of label boss and longtime record shop employee Ron Morelli. We sat down with Ron last week to talk about the state of the scene in New York, some of his label's key releases, and how L.I.E.S. like to keep it in the family..

So let's talk a little about your home city. It's become a bit of cliche that New York's scene ain't what it used to be; but between l.i.e.s., Underground Quality, Deconstruct, Plan B recordings- there's a lot of great records getting shipped out from there at the moment right? Yeeeah. I would say so, for sure.

Yet you've been quoted saying the party scene's still pretty whack. Is that still a knock-on effect from the Giuliani crackdowns fifteen years ago? Yeah I mean it’s a number of things, and I definitely feel that the city has changed so much, you know? There isn't a proper night life infrastructure here for underground music. There are warehouse parties going on out there, but there are always caveats (as everyone knows) with the police, but also budgeting. It’s hard to have parties that are really underground and consistent, because you know the venue's always switching and there's maybe not so much of a loyal following; where if you had an underground club with resident DJs that the crowd trusts then people would go there all the time. But that doesn’t exist now, you know the club scene's like high end flashy clubs, hotels not places made for real underground music.

The places with the best systems are often a bit slick and soulless and then the real warehouse parties and underground parties have whack sound.. Yeah. You know its like the spirit is there for the party, but [regarding] the infrastructure for the party-you know, the money’s not normally there, so promoters suffer for it in the end. It’s like a no-win situation really.

I understand you still work at A-1 [a used record store in East Village]. So listening to records all day, recommending and re-ordering - the job must have played a big part in forming the aesthetic of your label. Well you know the shop is only used records, so it’s not trying to be at the forefront of the scene or anything. But obviously it somewhat shapes… you’re always learning you know? Always being put onto something new. The world of music’s infinite, there's always something to find, which undoubtedly contributes to one’s taste… so yeah, sure.

Let's talk about l.i.e.s. You're the sole proprietor of the label right? Yep. I do it all..

Something that's become a trademark of your label is the speed at which you put out new music - twelve records since last April by my count. Is that due to having so much dope shit on your hard drive that you want to put out, or is that just the pace you enjoy working at? It’s I think a mixture of both. I'm very fortunate at this point to be around a lot of very productive and creative artists here, and they’re always getting music to me. I feel very fortunate to have people who wanna work with me, that’s really the main thing. The other thing is that I'm trying to be professional and have a release schedule and keep to it. So if I don’t get things into production immediately there’s always a margin for error in pressing vinyl (at least I’ve had some very unlucky experiences over the last year and a half with issues of pressing). So my whole thing is that, once someone finishes a record, I want to put it into production immediately, because then, when things get into production immediately you have like a push pull where you can sub things in and push things out, and then the record's ready to go.

I think it's also better to work fast because with the speed of the internet and the amount of labels out there, if you're not keeping active, I think you're forgotten pretty quickly. I was talking to a friend the other day, saying it's not like the 80s where you’d listen to a tape over and over again, and eagerly await the next Public Enemy tape or record to come out which could come out in two or three years. Now if you wait two or three years you’re forgotten.

I heard the other day that people have now found a way of nicking soundcloud clips even if they’re just up for streaming… so yeah, you’re right, you need to get it out there before people are driven to stealing shitty rips! Yeah, you know the piracy thing's a double edged sword you know, it's like the more people that have your stuff the better. But at the same time if everyone paid the couple of dollars stuff costs in digital then everyone – the artist, the label, even the listener – would ultimately benefit. But it's gonna happen, I don’t see any way of it really stopping, unless the internet begins to get regulated, which may happen, may not. I think major labels have lost so much money over the years, they must be clamouring to the government about figuring out ways to change their business, beacuse things are getting a bit stupid.

Some of the best music you put out has been on white label, in my opinion at least. That Terekke ep mind fucks me every time I hear it! Where'd you find the guy? He lived in Brooklyn for quite some time, we didn’t really know each other, we’d never really met, but we’d both been to the same parties without every really meeting. I wanna say I came across his music on soundcloud, we think that’s what happened. And then when we met it turned out I recognised him from parties and stuff, so yeah kind of a pure coincidence really. At this point we’re working on more music for later this year.. But yeah, he’s great.

White label seems to fall into line perfectly with the overall aesthetic of your label - speed of release, little promo, a certain anonymity I suppose.. Yeah, you know the white label series was kind of circumstantial as to why I decided to do it. I was advised by my distributor that sales, for whatever reason are not the greatest overseas in the summer time. I had stuff that I wanted to come out last summer, and i'm like yo i'm not gonna stop my release schedule cos they think that this is the case, because in my opinion if a record's good it doesn’t matter whether its summer, winter, fall, spring or whatever, people are gonna buy it. So I was like how many of these do you want. Ok 200, well i'll press 300 and keep 100 here in New York. And that’s how it happened, and i'm just kind of rolling with it now, you know. It’s a nice little sub-label within a label, or something like that.

SvengalisGhost is another guy that's seemingly come out of nowhere. While a lot of labels seem more concerned with booking big artists, big personalities, an image I suppose, you guys have gone the other way. There's something special about hearing some serious heat from a guy you've never heard of before. Now you’ve got a solid group of artists associated with l.i.e.s., are you still looking for unknown names to add to your roster? Sure, I mean, I'll always wanna hear new stuff. Definitely. There’s always a desire to hear music from people whether they’re known or unknown. If it’s good, and theres a relationship, then I'd be into putting it out, of course. I think a lot of it is being in the right place at the right time and being around a certain group of people. Everyone I’ve generally worked with I've been around for years, and Svengalisghost, Mark, although we’ve actually never really met, he's a very close friend of a friend of mine in New York, PorkChop, and that’s how I know of his music. For years me and Porkchop DJ'd together and he'd play CDs of Mark’s music, and by the end of the night we’d be so drunk he’d hand over all of these CDs to me. Once the label was going I contacted him and we decided to work together. He’s an amazing dude, a very talented person, who's been making music in Chicago quietly for probably the last ten years.

l.i.e.s. have released house, records techno records, I guess, er, 'ambient' music – I know that Steve Moore’s record for l.i.e.s. is his side project, that he’s more involved in a synth rock band [Zombi]. Would you be tempted to put out a record that barely conforms to an electronic music aesthetic at all - that incorporates guitars, something more in line with synth rock? Well sure, yeah. One of the new white labels coming out has guitars all over it, it’s funny you mention it actually. It's by this guy, Torn Hawk is his artist name, but his real name’s Luke Wyatt, he’s a pretty well known video artist. He did all the PPU dvds, I don’t know if you’re familiar with the People’s Potential Unlimited label from DC?

I’ve heard a couple – well seen a couple, yeah Yeah so he did all the dvds for that, and he did the Steve Summers video for l.i.e.s., and the new Versatile video for i:cube, and a lot of video projects. He made a record that’s coming out in a month or two, and it’s somewhere between noi and cosmic disco, and like balearic slow stuff, so it’s kind of… as long as when I step back it all makes sense in a cohesive manner then it’s a pretty much an open platform for whatever kind of music I see fit. It just has to make sense when I step back and look at the catalogue, it’s like does all this make sense together, you know?

That diversity, it's reflected in your dj sets. I saw you play all sorts of records at meandyou in Manchester last year. Being head of an in-demand label must have helped your djing career; conversely, the day-to-day demands of emailing, pressing and such can't leave too much time for busy touring schedules.. Well everything keeps me busy you know. I have a full time job, on my days off i'm running a label, on my days on i'm running a label. Im hitting the road a little bit now too. I'm also trying to work on producing music which I have little time for nowadays, so yeah i'm pretty damn busy at the moment!

Your main collaborator seems to be Jason [Letkewitz]. He's Steve Summers, he's Malvoeaux. He's a talented guy, clearly. I've also heard you've been doing some producing together? Yeah we do this project called Two Dogs in a House together, at this point only when we have time together, which is rare, but yeah. When we were on the road we wrote a bunch of stuff in Stockholm, and we’re working, hopefully, towards an album by the end of summer.

What about Danny Wolfers [Legowelt]. Not to do any of your other artists a disservice, but signing him was something of a coup. How did that come about? I had a loose association with Danny for a bunch of years, through WT records. I had met Danny down the years now and again. A few years back he spent some time in New York, we became friends, I heard some tracks, and I was like "yo you want to do a record?" and that was that.

He writes music on the road right? He’s got such an unbelievable output.. I mean, all the time, on the road, everywhere. He’s a master of the craft, he can do it all. He’s a person who.. whether it’s hardware, software, if he puts his mind to it he can make whatever he wants.

Finally, what’s your plan this summer. You mentioned you worked your ass off last summer getting that Terekke EP out there. You taking a break this time round? Ahhh no. I'll be working all summer in New York up until basically September. The release schedule is really hardcore, there’ll be a lot of releases, maybe as many as ten. There's a couple of things that are backlogged, the Steve Moore and Hassan records are backlogged because of pressing issues, they’ll be out soon hopefully. Then everything else that’s on the release schedule: a bunch of white labels, a bunch of regular releases, probably some surprises as well… then there’ll be some west coast dates in august, a couple of l.i.e.s. nights in San Franciso and LA, but nothing overseas 'til mid September, then ill come to tour for maybe two months through Europe in the fall, which should be interesting. And probably in the fall things will finally slow down a little bit...

Listen to underground music on Pulse Radio.

Manuel Tur - Swimming With Elephants

http://pulseradio.net — Thu, 10 May 2012 21:47:07 +1000

With his new LP Swans Refecting Elephants just recently released on Jimpster's ever faithful Freerange label, Kim Wilson speaks to Manuel Tur about the process of producing the album.

So the album is finished, how are you feeling about it now it's out? To be honest, I hadn't listened to the album since submitting the final tracks to the label. When you are working on a project for so long and listen to every single detail a hundred times you really need some distance after finishing it.

How was the recordings process, was it planned as an album or did that happen once you had a selection of tracks? All tracks were definitely written with the intention to put together a new artist album. I didn't want the whole thing to sound like a loose compilation of tracks though, so the cohesiveness was a principal point in the recording process. I reckon there are always highs and lows when recording a full length album, sometimes the ideas spring to mind from nowhere, sometimes you doubt everything. One of the LP's tracks is entitled “High Needs Low“, I have written and recorded the whole track within two or three hours after returning from a party in Brussels with the same name. It was one of these rare moments when everything just goes, as if by magic.

How did you come up with the name for your new album? Swans Reflecting Elephants was originally only the working title, it's the name of a painting by catalan surrealist Salvador Dalí from the 1930s and I had come across the picture in my school days many times and have been fascinated by it ever since. The image shows four swans on a lake, with a couple of bald trees in the background. The reflection on the lake then mirrors both the swans and the trees, transforming their bodies into the shapes of elephants. This reflection of two completely different creatures such as the delicate swans and powerful elephants worked for me as a metaphor for the recording process, because I didn't quite know which direction to take when starting to work on the album. I was torn between the idea to write an album with a really abstract and atmospheric vibe, and the concept of a more accessible album with more simple and stripped-down structures and melodies than my first album. I then decided to try and incorporate both sides within the album, like Dalí masterfully brought together the swans and the elephants in his painting. The working title then ended up as the final name of the album because I couldn't think of any better title.

Why did you decide to release it on Freerange, rather than Mild Pitch? Freerange just has a lot more experience and coverage than our relatively young Mild Pitch label. It really takes a lot more to put out an album with singles and remixes these days than a normal 12“ single. I've been working with Freerange for many years now and I think we were all happy with how my first album worked out in 2009, so it was only logical to work together on a follow-up.

Do you have plans to take the album on tour as a live experience? No, I'm only going to tour the album with dj sets. I was thinking about playing some live shows but then again this needs a lot more preparation and the album isn't a full-on club album, so it would have been really difficult to translate it for a club environment.

How would you describe your current sound and how has it evolved since Caisso/ Italo Fake? I'm trying not to have one particular “current sound“ but rather develop my sound, try out different things and find out what “my sound“ really is over the years. I'm not having a master plan or anything like that.

How did you become a DJ, what inspirations did you have growing up? I reckon it technically made me a DJ when I got my first turntables and a small mixer as a school kid. I never intended to make this my job, though. As a kid, I've always wanted to make records, not play them out. DJing was just a hobby I had, playing some music I liked in my bedroom. I think the whole DJ thing as a profession just came naturally after releasing my first records.

On the album, you've worked with Blakkat and others, who else would you like to work with? I don't really have a wishlist there, working with other people can be a bit of a gamble. You never know if it's going to “click“ or not. As for Blakkat, he's been an inspiration to me for more than a decade now and I had worked with him on my first album already, so it was clear I wanted to work with him again on “Swans Reflecting Elephants“.

How do you decide upon your remixes? When asked to do a remix for other artists I usually look if the original song has any element or idea I would like toimprove on or use in a different way. It can be the vocal, a small part of the melody or just an interesting drum sound. Anything that inspires me to build a new track around it.

What music at you listening to at the moment? Right now I'm listening to the new Rocket Juice & The Moon album on Honest Jon's. It's the new project by Damon Albarn, Tony Allen and Flea. The postman delivered the vinyl only a few hours ago, actually.

What one tune do you suggest is listened to everyone before they die and why? Any possible tune they didn't know yet. The beauty of art and music is the discovery of new things.

What plans do you have for the future - summer festivals etc? At the moment I'm touring the new album with a couple of dj gigs and start to slowly re-structure my studio over the next couple of months. I regard my studio as an ever evolving unit that needs constant change, so I'm looking for new ways and new gear to record with. Also, at last, after 13 years of excessive vinyl consumption, I'm for the first time starting to sort out all the stuff I don't need anymore – that's a task that will definitely keep me busy for some time!

Listen to Manuel Tur on Pulse Radio

Ame's Visions

http://pulseradio.net — Thu, 10 May 2012 18:27:37 +1000

Come May 19th, German duo Ame are back in the capital to start Krush London's next party. Having recorded some classic sounds on the likes of Sonar Kollektiv and Innervisions over the last ten years, the pair are bringing their DJ and live skills to the party, which has such a limited capacity that only ticket holders will find out where it is. If you'd like to win guest list to the night, check here, and in the meantime have a gander at Pulse Radio's quick catch up with Frank Wiedemann, one half of Ame.

Pulse: How has your year been so far? Ame: Totally good. After some long sessions earlier this year to finish the Live-CD and -EP we're now ready and already working on new tracks and remixes in the studio.

  What have been the highlights? Well, we had some amazing parties so far - especially the 24h one at Berghain/Panoramabar in March was extraordinary!

You have the Live album coming soon, what made you decide to do that? We haven't released any of own music on CD for a longer time but we both liked the recordings from the live shows. So we decided to put together the best versions of the tracks and release this.

What draws you two to each other? Kristian used to run a record shop back in the days in Karlsruhe. That's of course where we met. And after a while we tried to do some tracks in my studio. That was 10 years ago.

Do you have specific roles in the DJ booth? Well, Kristian is the DJ and I'm the live act - pretty simple.

Or when in the studio, do you each do set things or is it more organic? In the studio Kristian's practically a "producer" in its original meaning. I compose and do the technical stuff while he's sitting next to me and keeps the overview of the whole track. For me a great way to work with someone as for example if I work for 1 hour on the sound of a kick drum Kristian is still able to decide if it sounds right or not.

What should people expect at Krush? The Live CD gives a pretty good idea of what to expect there. You just have to imagine the party around that [laughs].

What else have you got coming up? There are some remixes coming up the next months: for Radioslave, for Gui Boratto and for our friends from Lithuania - Mario Basanov & Vidis.  

Krush London with Ame, Clockwork, Nikos and Charlie A, May 19th, location tba

For tickets and info head here

Listen to Ame on Pulse Radio

Claro Intelecto - Second Blood

http://pulseradio.net — Wed, 09 May 2012 22:32:15 +1000

Like a Mancunian Michael Jackson, Claro Intelecto showed prodigious talent at a young age; he received his first synth before even hitting puberty and has since devoted his life to sonic pursuits. Claro recently ended a decade-long love affair with local label, Modern Love, and crossed the North Sea to Dutch distributors, Delsin, who’ll release his newest album, Reform Club, on May 7th. It was a decision that weighed heavily on his heart, but as Outkast (sort of) said: if nothing is forever, what makes Modern Love the exception? Pulse talks techno, adultery and fighting animals with Claro Intelecto.

Pulse: You got your first synth at the age of 10. How did that come about? Claro: It was around that age, or maybe 11? I can't remember but I was really young, yeah. We had a neighbour who taught piano, from whom I learned the basics and I remember this weird looking synth just sat there and I think my folks said to her if she was ever thinking of selling it, to let them know. When I got it I was just messing around with it like a toy, its only use was making ridiculous sci-fi sounds, like something from Dr-Who. It was just a bit of a novelty thing but something which made me delve a bit deeper as I got a little older. I think it was made by Merlin and I've never ever seen one since to be honest.

Since 2005, all your releases have been on Modern Love. Why the move to Delsin? Does it feel a bit like adultery after sticking to one label for so long? Adultery, no not at all. You have to remember I was working with Shlom from Modern Love as far back as 2002, in the build up to my first EP / Album (Peace of Mind, Neurofibro respectively) releases on AI as he was working on the distribution back then. So after such a long time, relationships are bound to change, there was a bit of tension with regards to certain things in the end but life goes on as they say.
In terms of working with Delsin, well this came after a lengthy time out from music all together. I thought they're a label that probably suited what I wanted to do next, though there was no guarantee they would like what I was writing of course. I had already met Marsel a few years back and although there was no intention back then to do a release together - it was just a knee's up before I played a gig in Amsterdam - I remembered he seemed to like the music of mine which I also considered to be my best.

You were considering releasing music on Delsin under a different alias; what were some other monikers you came up with? 'Second Blood' was actually going to be my new Alias. As contenders for the album came in steadily, it became more apparent that it was a Claro record - so we thought it made more sense for me to continue as Claro Intelecto and I'm really glad I did because it's probably turned out to be the most personal album I've had released.

Your latest album is more ambient and down tempo than some of your previous work – how much pressure is there, as a producer, to create dance floor oriented tunes to get more live bookings – the real bread and butter in music these days? Yes there definitely is, I suppose this has always hindered the amount of bookings I get in some ways, that promoters have never quite known what to expect, unless of course it's a festival where it doesn't really matter as much as say a club. But I always play club friendly sets, techno, house, dub, a bit of acid too, I always have to be honest. With this album in particular, I've not really been worried about that - it's the music that matters first and foremost. But I'm not stupid enough to play un-floor friendly tracks, I'm confident about what I will play live and I have a few tricks up my sleeve whereby I've effectively remixed a lot of my new tracks, so there are two versions (or more) of each, but it's done in a way that respects the originals.

A lot of producers these days are solely defined by their music and often don’t have anything else about them, not even personality let alone a cinematic live show. Do you think it’s important for a producer to have something more than just good tunes? From a composer / producer’s perspective and former art student, I think without a doubt you have to put your personality into your work otherwise you just become a puppet.

You say that you avoid following music trends, something a lot of producers get caught up in; do you feel you have to distance yourself from electronic music when you’re not in the club? I can't but help to avoid trends to be honest. The only reason I say that is because I haven't listened to any electronic music in the last couple of years, particularly since my son was born in 2009, so what's currently going on, I, hand on heart haven't got a clue. I'm using this album release as a way of re-educating myself as to what's out there.

What’s getting a lot of plays on your iPod right now, then? I don't have an iPod but the last couple of things I've listened to and really enjoyed were Arcade Fire - Suburbs, Cosmin TRG, me old chum Andy Stott & the new Actress, sounds top.

What would win in a fight between a gorilla and a bear?
All depends on the type of bear, we talking panda or grizzly?

Ahar! Touché.

You can catch Claro Intelecto live on the following dates:

12 May - Drift Festival, Nijmegen, NL
18 May - Circus, Bucharest, RO
19 May - Bohemian Grove, Islington Mill, Manchester, UK
25 May - Delsin, Panoramabar, Berlin, DE
23 May - Electric Deluxe, Melkweg, Amsterdam, N

Listen to Claro Intelecto on Pulse Radio

Colin Dale - Going back to his...

http://pulseradio.net — Wed, 09 May 2012 21:52:10 +1000

Having been with house music from the very start, there are few DJs as qualified as Colin Dale to give an education in early house music. This Thursday, he'll be doing just that, when he plays for Bushwacka! and Richie Fingers' monthly Roots party at Basing House (tickets and info), a party celebrating house music's origins primarily from 86 - 90 (Info here). Chris Bird spoke to the original Kiss presenter about pirate radio presenting, the summer of love and his vinyl collection.

You're going to be at The Roots on May 10th. Are you looking forward to digging through your classic records for the night? Yes definitely looking forward to it as I’ve been down there before and the place has a great vibe and a really knowledgeable crowd. It’s really great to see a night like this happening, there seems to be a big buzz about every night so far. I can’t wait to dig out some classics, only problem is finding the time to squeeze them all in on the night.

With a lot of the music coming out of the States, was it easy to get hold of? Well I worked various record shops for a total of about ten years from 1985 so I was always able to get hold of American imports. Also since I was into rare groove / disco before I got into House music I was well used to sourcing hard to get hold of tracks. Working at Kiss FM back in the day was also helpful in getting hold of tracks as I used to contact the labels direct, there was a time when I was getting US import promo’s from most of the good U.S labels.

Are you still an avid record Collector? I wouldn’t actually still call myself an avid record collector in comparison to what I was getting before but I do still collect them. A few years ago I had so many records that space to store them started to become an issue so I started to prune the collection. Also although I still do and will always have an affection for vinyl I was one of the early adopters of the digital realm.

How were you introduced to music and Djing? Were there any definitive moments? Music has always been a big love, at school I played violin and French horn (I was at the back of the list when it came to choosing instruments) and also played alto sax for a few years. Around the age of 17 I really got into radio doing a few local pirate shows and going to radio presentation school.

The big break for me was when Tim Westwood gave me my first gig playing soul and boogie at Gossips in Soho (Fabio, my brother Trevor and I used to be in a dance troop and used to dance there). Definitive moments are my first gig abroad, which was Mayday festival, which totally blew my mind. Other moments that stick in my mind are the long running “Abstrakt Dance” radio show on Kiss and also playing the summer of love festivals circa 1988 – 89.

Also there is the time I had an interview with Mad Mike and all 19 members of Underground Resistance in the studio. I felt truly honoured.

Can you explain how the growth of Acid House affected London and also you personally? The effect that Acid House had on London, in fact the whole world was huge. It’s still one of the biggest youth cultures to date and still continues to grow to this day. It manage to break down barriers as well, you had people of all cultures, colours and ages coming together on a mass scale and all dancing to the same beats. Of course Ecstasy had a big part as well.

How do you think the media and tabloid attention affected the scene? I remember seeing the headline’s but all they did was fuel the fire. Looking back I remember some terrible headlines in The Mirror / The Sun but it made the scene spread like wild fire. There was even a time that the Radio 1 tried to ban the playing of Acid records, a spokesman from Radio 1 was quoted as saying in the Daily Mirror “It’s all over the for acid house as far as Radio 1 is concerned”how things have changed eh? As a response to the headlines there were also some draconian laws such as the criminal justice bill and the Bright bill but it just drove the whole thing more underground.

You held a show on Kiss FM way back when it was still a pirate station and had an almost ‘who’s who’ dance music. How did you begin the show with Kiss? I knew Gordon Mac well as I used to go to night he used to throw a club night in south London and when he started Kiss he asked me if I was interested, as I had a good collection of records and had done a few bits of pirate radio before. I started back in 1985 playing rare groove, New York disco and the early electronic sounds that were coming out, even back then the show was called “Abstrakt Dance”.

Are you happy with how the scene has progressed in recent years? Definitely, for a start I’m still here and the scene shows no signs of letting up. It continues to mutate and grow which has to be a good thing.

Are you still promoting your own events? I’m still promoting events and currently running a night called “Incognito” which we do once a month @ Electric Social. We’re also still doing Wildlife events but they tend to be one off illegal warehouse parties; we’re looking to do a couple this year if we can find the right space. Also in negotiations at the moment in regards to doing a monthly around Brick Lane area, watch this space.

You have numerous releases and mix compilations under your belt. How are things in the studio? I spend a lot of time in the studio, in fact just sent the Roots guys the last track I’ve just finished. We’re kicking off the Abstrakt Dance record label late June – early July and also around the same time will be releasing my first sample / loop CD on Loopmaster’s subsidiary “Monstersounds”. Also doing a few remixes due in the coming months as well.

We know you still have the passion for discovering new music. Which artists and labels are working it for you at the minute? Far too many labels to list but new artist I’m really into are James What, Zod, Gregor Tresher, Burnski, San Soda, Shlomi Aber, Simon Baker, Area, Mark Fanciulli, Anja Schneider, Matador, Kiko, Seuil, Azari & III, Freak 7, L.A. Williams, Saytek, Miles Sagnia, Jules Dickens……. I could go on for days.

What do you do to relax away from music? To be honest the whole music thing really is a lifestyle so there’s not much time that I can relax and get away from it but when I do I love gadgets and can be a bit of a geek sometimes and build high spec computers from the ground up. Also I like films, eating out, travelling, the occasional stint on PS3, photography, current affairs and just hanging out with friends.

Listen to Colin Dale on Pulse Radio

Monika Kruse - Munich's Finest

http://pulseradio.net — Wed, 09 May 2012 18:27:14 +1000

Monika Kruse has been DJ'ing since 1991 in her home country of Germany and began producing a few years later. Moving from her home city of Munich to Berlin meant she has helped shape the form of the now musically renowned city, and aside from her labels, albums, sets and productions she is also well known for setting up her own charity. Monika was in London last Saturday for EGG"s 9th Birthday and spoke to Pulse's James Hutchins about her five favourite clubs to play, her feelings on the London scene and what's heading her way over the summer.

Born in Berlin but raised in Munich. What was it about the scene in Munich that bred your love for Techno and House music? I started DJing around the time when techno and house music was just surfacing. It was a super small scene, but very alive. There were several groups of people, including myself, who organized electronic music parties – most of them were illegal and in very exciting locations. I founded the “housetram”, a tram that went through the city. Inside we had a bar, turntables, stroboskop and smoke machine. Once the police stopped us because they thought our tram was burning – but we just had a heavy smoke attack. Munich is also the city were the ‘afterhour’ was founded. Because of some Christian law, it was only allowed to keep a club open until 5 am – so some people thought about opening it up again at 6am, and they called it afterhour.

You were playing at London’s EGG club last Saturday. What’s your view on the scene in the UK and how does it compare to that of Germany’s? Well, the scene in UK is very dynamic. I think last Saturday you also had Magda playing at fabric, Luciano and his Vagabundos somewhere else, and Tama Sumo (from Berghain) as well. So much going on, and everywhere was packed.

Have you got a London hotspot? Not really. There is so much to see and to do it is hard to have only one spot.

With many years under your belt now, what are your top five favourite venues to play around the world? Berghain / Panoramabar - Berlin, Womb / Tokyo, Timewarp Festival Germany, Studio 80 / Amsterdam, Fusion Festival / Germany

Your ‘Traces EP’ is about to drop on Terminal M! Tell us a bit more about what we can expect from the release? ‘Traces’ is a way for me to express my personal and musical influences over the years. It is a combination of different electronic styles, which have all had a big impact on me. When I began DJing, I started off with deep and vocal house, with one of my biggest heroes being Robert Owens. That is also why I wanted to collaborate with him on my album. I wrote to him and luckily he was into the idea, so I sent him a loop and he sang his lyrics over it. “One love” is definitely one of my favourite tracks on that album.
Besides that, there are of course some tech-house tracks for the dance floor on it – which is my style nowadays – as well as more downtempo stuff, with the last track having some broken beats. I put it altogether in a mix, because it should give you the impression that you are on a journey of different states of my mind, and these are my traces!

You’ve collaborated with Nick Maurer on the A side ‘With Hindsight’. How did that relationship come about? I heard his voice on another track and I really liked it. First I did a loop and sent the loop to Robert Owens but then I decided that the loop would fit better to another voice - that is why I chose Nick. He wrote the wonderful lyrics of “With Hindsight”.

You founded the charity organisation ‘No Historical Backspin’ in 2000. Tell us more about the project and the historical ethos behind it. No Historical Backspin is an organization against racism, homophobia and intolerance. Back in 2000 there were a lot of racist motivated crimes in Germany. Even against some DJs – DJ Rush got beaten up in front of a club in Berlin because he is black, and some of my gay friends also got into a fight because they were just walking hand in hand on the street. So I felt the need to do something and founded the organization “No Historical Backspin”. Under this name I organize parties all over Germany, with everybody playing for free and we donate the money to organizations that help victims of racist violence. Over the years, we’ve had over 100 of DJs taking part such as Paul van Dyk, Tobi Neumann, Heartthrob, Dominik Eulberg, Daniel Bell and many other great famous DJs, and we’ve collected and donated over 60 000 Euros.

Outside of House & Techno, What’s on your iPod? Old funk, old Hip Hop, soul, alternative music

With summer and the festival season just around the corner, what is in store for Monika Kruse? Lots of festivals and some Ibiza gigs are coming up. Too many to mention, but my highlights will be to play for Carl Cox at Space / Ibiza of course, as well as Zoo Project / Ibiza, Fusion festival / Germany, Mysteryland / Holland, Timewarp Italy & Holland, two gigs at Sonar ….and I am looking forward to play another three times at Panoramabar / Berlin.

EGG will host Heroes with Marc Makenitz, Jojo de Freq, and Ida Engberg on 12th May

Listen to Monika Kruse on Pulse Radio

Genius Of Time - Physics & Music

http://pulseradio.net — Tue, 08 May 2012 21:38:17 +1000

Since emerging in 2010, Swedish duo Alexander Berg and Nils Krogh, better known as Genius of Time have been turning heads with their unique and enchanting take on house music. Though it is hard to pigeon hole their sound, Genius of Time fit somewhere in-between classic and space-age house, and while Chicago influences are clearly evident then their tracks are forward thinking and always retain that traditionally cool and serene Scandinavian style.

Along with partner Fabian, the duo run the vinyl only Aniara Recordings, which serves as a platform to release their own material. Aniara Recordings is characterised by all round high quality, from the raw and original productions right through to the eye-catching artwork. As such previous releases are already fetching up to 40 euros on discogs. In early 2011, despite having only having two releases under their belt, Genius of Time caught the attention of Serge Verschuur, who released the excellent ‘Drifting Back’ EP on the Royal Oak imprint, sublabel of the mighty Clone Records. In spite of their rapid rise, Genius of Time remain two of most easy-going and likeable producers you are ever likely to encounter. Pulse Radio caught up with the duo over Skype for a chat ahead of their gig at FOUND on Friday 11th May, covering ‘discogs fiends’, scientific theories and how they felt when Snoop Dogg featured them in his recent ‘Euro Tekno Mixx’.

Scroll down to download Pulse.075

When researching you for this interview I noticed there was not a great deal of information about you, is this low profile intentional?
Nils: It’s probably because we’re not very good with the whole social media thing.

Alex: Yes, we don’t really make decisions because we think they might work, we just do things the way we want to do them. We don't really think about promoting ourselves, personally I don't like getting spam and mails and being bombarded online so we don’t want to do that to others. But of course there are good ways to promote yourself I guess, but we haven’t really been focusing that much on that part of the music business. But it’s not been a choice either to stay low profile it just happened.

Three people running a label seems like an odd number – what is the working relationship you guys have it must be difficult agreeing the whole time?
N: Fabian was the one who started it from the beginning. We wrote the first release on the label and now we are doing it together.

A: It’s true, from the beginning we weren’t really that involved in the label part. We made the first record and Fabian was our friend who had been talking about starting the label and he listened to our music and decided to release it. From then we became closer friends and everything just came together. In the beginning it was more his thing and then our roles started to come together a bit and now we make the decisions together.

N: But its not like we have a big plan on the label side either. We just do what we like.

A: Yes thinking back a bit I think we made some good decisions without knowing it and that’s because we buy a lot of vinyl records ourselves and we love to go out clubbing so we are pretty much the consumers that we want to sell our records to. So it’s quite easy just to feel ‘how would I want a vinyl record to feel or look like’.

There are a few things that stand out about Aniara Recordings apart from the music. It is a Vinyl only label, the artwork is really striking and interestingly there have been no remixes, every track has been an original production. Are these conscious decisions you guys are making?
N: Yes and I think it’s just a bit more interesting like that. When you see a record and it has a remix, people always look to see whom the remix is by and the remixer gets most of the credit anyways.

A: It hasn’t made sense for us yet to have any remixes because I think nowadays the whole concept of doing remixes is just a bit weird sometimes. I think there are interesting ways to do a remix, we could easily contact an artist we like about doing a remix but how can we be sure that they would really want to work with the material, it might not suit them perfectly and so on. It would feel more natural if someone approached us and said ‘Hey I’ve got a nice idea for remixing this song’. If it happened that way then it would be more interesting I think.

That’s interesting that you might be more open to a producer coming to you, rather than commissioning someone to do a remix for you.
A: Yes but saying that, to be honest I don’t know. We haven’t really wanted to have our tracks remixed. We want the label to be our platform for our songs. But maybe in the future, as you get to know more people, maybe it will feel right one day to have people remix our songs but up until now it hasn't been a priority.

What about the artwork on Aniara?
N: That is something Fabian should have the credit for. He has a way with pictures. I think his idea about pictures is similar to the way a lot of electronic music musicians treat sampling. You take it out of its context and put it in your own context. But it’s mainly Fabians thing.

With regards to the vinyl only aspect of the label, I see you are repressing the first three releases that came out on Aniara Recordings. Why?
A: It’s not like we ever meant them to be limited releases. We never said that. We just want to make them available to everyone. We know some people who wanted to buy the records but missed their chance and the records became quite expensive on discogs and in second hand shops. The reason it happened so late is because we didn't have money to do the repressing’s (laughs), we didn't have enough cash so we’ve had to save up some money first.

N: We’re trying to repress as people and shops ask for it.

A: So we’ve made a rerun of the first few. Personally I don't like having to spend a fortune on a record second hand. It's nicer to have it available in shops. I don't know if we’ll do more repressing, it’s new to us running a label so it’s hard for us to know how everything should be done.

I read somewhere that you financed the first release on your label through some kind of medical experiments, can you elaborate?
A: Well that was Fabian. He tried some phsyco–active drugs as a medical trial. He was in the hospital for around a week and they were giving him this medicine and he funded the first pressings on Aniara through that. It's a funny story.

So if you had to give a quick bit of advice to anyone trying to start a record label today?
A: I don't know because we haven’t overly thought about what we should do, its all come naturally. I think my advice would be to turn the question around and to think twice about if you are doing it for the sake of it. I mean sometimes vinyl isn’t the right medium and there’s nothing wrong with that. If it’s not right it’s not right and with some music it wouldn’t make sense. But if you are a consumer of vinyl yourself then you will know what you want to have. Also for artists trying to find a label sometimes its better to do it yourself. I don’t think I can give any good or advice or really I don't know if I think that people should listen to what I say. Just follow your heart and good things will happen (laughs).

Coming back to the dicogs idea, how do you feel about these ‘discogs fiends’ who buy limited vinyl simply to put it up on discogs for inflated prices? I see your early releases are on discogs for as much as 40 euros already…..
N: It’s obviously nicer if the records are available to everyone.

A: Yes we realised we should make represses when we first noticed that people were paying such big amounts of money. It made me feel bad that people were actually buying our records for so much money. At the same time you are flattered because people like the music so it feels both good and bad.

That's true. So with vinyl sales being at a 6 year high in 2012, what do you think is behind this recent resurgence of buying vinyl?
N: Well the feel of actually playing vinyl is what I love. Obviously the sound too but the feel. So if the record is a bit slow you just nudge it and you have direct control over it. As soon as you see the grooves, you have this immediate feeling of where to mix it in and where to mix it out. It’s very different to when you play a CD or anything digital.

A: Yes it’s the emotional value to a physical product.

N: And you have the selection process before a gig, where you can only bring so many records and so you have to select before you start playing and that’s a nice thing also.

A: I don't know if it will change in the future with the digital vs. physical thing but it seems to me that when everything is available digitally, all you need to know is the title of the song, you don't need to physically own it. I still think that many people like to actually get the physical records. You get more connected to the music . I’m just happy to be able to press vinyl because it feels good. [laughs]

So moving away from vinyl, what other interests do you guys have. I noticed some of your track names such as Gliese 581g seemed to have a science theme – is Science something that interests you guys?
A: Yes definitely. I read a lot of books on physics. It is quite hard to grasp but it’s still inspiring and mind bending to read theories of quantum mechanics. And sometimes it’s an inspiration to make music.

N: Its very easy for me to become nerdy with whatever, I mean I have a tendency to get really into something and then move on and be really be into something else for a while. That includes science but it could be about anything and that included collecting vinyl as well.

A: So that is definitely a source of inspiration. But as much as I love making music and it’s my biggest interest, then it is equally enjoyable to go out and dance and see other DJs. We’re not the type of DJs that would stand in the corner and analyse what is being played, we like to go out and dance and have fun.

So have these scientific theories directly inspired certain tracks you’ve made?
A: For me how inspiration works it that I don't just hear something or read something and go make a song about that. For example if I’m at the beach and I get inspired it doesn't mean I run off and make a song about the beach. It just means that in certain situations you get a boost of creativity and you feel inspired and what you do with it doesn't have to connect to what was the original source of inspiration. It’s about getting into a certain state of mind where you get creative and then you’re into what your doing and your making a song and you don't think about what made you start doing it anymore.

N: It’s hard to connect the dots directly to anything.

Moving onto your live show - why did you choose to create a live show – what do you think a live show can offer than playing records can’t?
N: Well it’s two completely different things and both are equally as fun and as important to do. For me it’s about enjoying playing live with music.

A: Nils is a really good musician and I’ve been in bands too but when you play live with club music its different, you don't want to put on too much of a concert, you are still in the club environment, so you have to keep some balance. So if it’s too visual then it is not really for the dancefloor it is for watching. But of course it has to be visually interesting.

N: It is a lot more about changing arrangements than playing I guess.

A: Yes that is the biggest benefit of playing live as opposed to playing records. Because we have set it up so we have full controls of our arrangements and our music. As every gig is different we can respond to how the crowd is responding to the music.

N: Maybe sometimes you see there are some bits of a song that don’t work so you can skip through them a bit faster and you adapt to the party. Which you do as a DJ too but you can’t go into the arrangements of the song.

A: We also have a lot of new music we play for our live shows. If you have ever seen us live you will always hear something new because that is how we try tracks out. We have a jam in the live situation and we later record them into the studio and edit them to make studio recordings.

N: Yes a lot of our songs came about this way, as a result of a jam session. And we usually work like that doing long takes of a lot of our stuff and edit it down to a couple of tracks. Of course some songs haven’t been created like that.

Your track featured in the Snoop Dogg ‘Tekno Euro Mixx’? Were you surprised when you first heard that?
N: Yes for sure. It’s really cool.

A: I think I was hanging out at Fabian’s and he said ‘You have to come see this, your song is in a mix by Snoop Dogg’ and so we listened to the mix and I was surprised at first and I think the mix was quite good. It was unexpected by him to dig out all this music.

Yes I think a lot of people were surprised he even knew about this music.
N: Yes the songs are not the most obvious songs to put in the mix, which is cool.

A: I mean everything about it is just perfect because he even calls it the ‘Euro Tekno Mix’ when it’s really not, it’s Snoop Dogg playing kind of soulful house and disco tunes. So if you take the mix out of context I’m not so sure about it but then again why would you? Music is always experienced in a specific context so it’s definitely a good one.

You guys are playing in London soon at the Royal Oak night at Hidden. The line up is great, you must be pretty excited about this. Do you enjoy playing in London?
N: I love playing in London it’s always really fun.

A: It’s so cool now because when we started to get more gigs outside Gothenburg it was mainly Berlin and I remember thinking it would be so cool to play in London. We didn’t really know how to make that happen, as we didn't have contacts there to get gigs. But now we’ve been twice and played at fabric already so this next one is definitely one we’re particularly excited about.

How was playing at fabric?
N: It was amazing.

A: We hadn’t been before as clubbers but it’s one of those that you know about even if you hadn’t been there. We played in Room 3, the smaller room, which was great and suited us as it had that intimate vibe. It is better for our music too. I don't really see us as playing huge events, we are comfortable is the smaller clubs.

Would you agree with that Nils, that your music is more suited to smaller intimate places?
N: I think it is definitely most suited to us as you get more contact with the audience in a smaller venue. I have no idea how it would work for us in a bigger place.

A: The more I’m thinking about it though maybe that is a horrible thing to say because I don’t want people thinking ‘ I don’t want to book them to our big festivals’ (laughs). It’s just we haven’t really played huge parties yet. While we are getting some recognition now but we are still not a super big name, so we’re in a good situation that with all our previous gigs, then all the promoters have understood what were going to do and the parties have been a really good match for us. I think with bigger names there is a risk you get booked because of your name and you’re not the best match for the party. But we haven’t been in that situation yet.

What have you guys got coming up then?
A: The next one on Aniara is in the pressing plants now and it’s the first time we’re releasing something that we didn't do ourselves. It's a new artist, which feels really cool. It wasn't really our plan initially to release other people’s music. When we release our own work you can do whatever but when you release other peoples music you have a lot more responsibility to do the best you can with the material because it is in your hands. But we felt at this point it could be a good thing both for the artist and for us, as we really like the music, so we decided to do it.

N: And we finished the next track we are going to put out as Genius of Time.

If I had to ask both of you to pick your favourite Swedish record in your collection what would it be?
A: I have a lot of treasured records in my collection and I love how I have a lot of Swedish house and techno, I like representing the local. There was some really cool music that came out of Sweden in the late 1990’s, mainly minimal house and techno. So I have a few gems from that period. This is one I’m really fond of, is from 1997 and it’s not a rareity or anything but I just think it's a brilliant deep house gem, simple and the vibe is just there from the first second.

N: It’s too hard to name one because some records you have an emotional attachment too and some records are the ones that work the best when your playing so it’s too hard to name one.

Finally, can you tell me a bit about the podcast you guys have done?
A: The last podcast we did was mid-tempo house so this time we decided to go for a slower house vibe.

N: There aren’t many of our own songs but there is a remix of The Tortoise in there. One thing was that we wanted to make a slower mix that was not comprised of Disco edits basically. So it’s slow but maybe not what you’d expect from a slow house mix today.

A: The interesting thing with tempo is that once you get into it, you forget it’s slow and it’s just dance music. And that’s something quite interesting, how you can work with these different tempos. It's a slow house ting with some fresh stuff and with only a hint of disco.

Genius of Time play as part of the Clone Records showcase alongside Gerd, Dexter and more at FOUND, Hidden, Tinworth Street, London on Friday May 11th

Download Pulse.075 - Genius Of Time here

Listen to Genius Of Time On Pulse Radio

The Vitalik Mole

http://pulseradio.net — Tue, 08 May 2012 20:28:37 +1000

Vitalik recordings recent vinyl only project, the Gold Series, was launched with the release of Jimmy Edgar’s electrifying remix of The Mole’s ‘Even Now just Us’. With artwork commissioned from Italian illustrator Flavio Carbonaro, and pressed on heavy vinyl, printed in gold, it serves as a genuine collector’s item and essential addition to any DJ bag. The B-side features the original mix, by Colin de la Plante AKA The Mole, which first surfaced on the 2011 We Love Vitalik compilation. Jenna Roberts recently caught up with the charismatic Cobblestone Jazz member to discuss vinyl, Canada, and in true Mole style everything from the Third Reich to fresh salmon.

Pulse: How important is Vinyl to you as an artist? The Mole: It’s very important. It is the source and destination of my work.

You went to a lot of trouble to see your first record physically getting cut. Do you think the digital revolution takes away a bit of the magic from releasing records? From Djing? Not really. I mean this digital revolution I think you’re referencing, is nothing compared to the CD revolution. That was the real challenge for vinyl production as an industry. It was only a year after the cd was introduced that neumann stopped manufacturing and servicing their vinyl related products.
So to answer your question more directly, no i don’t think computer djing takes away the magic, if anything it is making the records now more special, more rare, more, magical. And the internet, well that revolution. Yeah that sure took a lot of sales away, closed a lot of record stores. Which I find terribly sad. That was always my hangout. where do kids go now? I mean kids who love music. But again making records rarer, while you can’t buy a house with it, it does have a value, a certain magic.

Any plans to showcase your 5+ turntable performance? You’ve previously described it as being quite a psychedelic experience for you. Tell us more. It’s been a while I haven’t thought about it, to be honest. It’s quite an experimental project. and it would be interesting to see how I would do it now. To tell the truth I was wearing the strachy root machine shirt just the other day, that’s the name of the project. Yeah i made shirts, some of my only merch. Anyway someone asked about it and I didn’t even bother to explain. Maybe the days of the starchy root are done, maybe not. At the moment- no plans.

You are a key member of the Cobblestone Jazz studio line-up. Why aren’t you a constant member of the touring/Live line-up? Are there any Modern Deep Left Quartet gigs planned? We’re working on changing the line up, possibly. Thing is cobblestone is well established as a 3 piece on stage. Especially in clubs, where the majority of their gigs are. But we have been talking about expanding the stage band. In fact we were just talking about adding our long time friend and collaborator charlie ‘super smooth’ wade. He played congas with us for years in velvet, another improv band from victoria. But these things are still in the works, sure would be exciting for all of us though. Upcoming gigs for the quartet, there’s a sonar show. Look out for it - it looks like fun. And in september we’re returning to Tokyo’s ageha club. One of the nicest big sound systems i’ve ever heard. And possibly a return that same weekend to the filmore north in Sapporo. Easily one of my favourite clubs in the world, such good vibes and again, superb sound. superb.

You guys have been friends for years. When you were partying and jamming together in Canada, did you ever envisage the success that you have all achieved? Did you expect to be able to make a living out of music? Funny question. No way! I’m still stunned. still shocked. my uncle talks about the horseshoe I’ve got up my ass. And often friends back home ask, in all seriousness and with no malice at all, how long can it last? I really had no idea, and to tell the truth, i’m still doing it for the very same reasons i started. For the love. And i’m pretty sure, once the money dries up, once nobody cares for this or that, i’ll keep on doing it, for the love.

How was the transition from Montreal to Berlin? Kind of like opening scenes of 2001. With the commercial airline flying into space. Not the apes killing each other. I always talked about feeling like I’d moved to another planet. Weirder still is it is starting to feel normal.

Can Berlin last forever? I don’t think i’m qualified to answer this question. But if we look at history, I mean before the third reich, we see a berlin that isn’t so different from the one we have today. Debaucherous, sexually charged, partying all night long. Who knows? I’ll ask my kid’s kids when they grow up [laughs].

You still have quite a strong affiliation with Canadian labels and the past couple of years have seen another surge in fascination with electronic music across the Atlantic. Do you think you’ll move back there in the future? I hope so. But not for the music, though I do love the music and the musicians. They’ve just got such a different approach you know. Success isn’t the goal. At least in general. Not the kind of success people here chase. How many press shots have you seen of godspeed for example? No i wouldn’t go back for the music. I miss that sweet salty air. And the easy smiles of les filles du roi. The fresh salmon and the poutine. Anybody who knows what i’m talking about can also tell i’m splitting myself from coast to almost coast. So i guess i’m not done with this side of the atlantic just yet.

In your expert opinion, what are the vital ingredients for a good party? I used to say, drag queens and midgets. Nowadays - good music plus good people equals good vibes, don’t need a super club, or even good sound. Though both of those do help a lot. Alot! but really, i’ve had some great nights partying in a closet with some good friends. So actually, all i need are good people and it could be a good party for me.

What’s the craziest party you’ve ever been too? Soundwave festival in British Columbia.

What’s your opinion on the Ibiza club scene? I still can’t believe it really is like the magazines. It’s no wonder that so many people around the world look to it as a taste maker.

Have you been to Vitalik’s Sonic Workshop in Ibiza and experimented with their sonopod (a machine that stimulates peptides sonically in the brain enducing altered physical and mental states)? No. My goodness. Sounds dangerous. I might have to have a go.

Listen to The Mole on Pulse Radio

Meet Steve Stevens

http://pulseradio.net — Tue, 08 May 2012 14:16:21 +1000

Melbourne producers Jamie Stevens, of Infusion fame, and Steve Ward - Chameleon Recordings' head honcho - have teamed up to form a duo known as 'Steve Stevens'. Ahead of their headline performance at the AU Underground & Future Theories party at Sydney's One22 this Saturday, Dylan Griffin threw a few questions at the duo about their new partnership.

Pulse: What's the dynamic like with a veteran and a relative newcomer? Jamie: Well it's not actually correct that Steve is a newcomer. He's been making and releasing music since the late 90's under different names and only started using the name Steve Ward since '06. Because we both were exposed to electronic music from an early age, it's very much part of our blood so it's not a "strange or difficult" dynamic at all.

Have you shown each other a thing or two? Jamie: yes, but nothing that's suitable to be read by children.

How did you get together initially? Jamie: I was in Bulgaria and Steve was in Johannesburg and we happened to eat Peyote at the same time and ended up travelling to the Burning Man festival in our mind's eyes. We said hello and experienced the best sunset together. There was a moment of clarity where we turned to each other and said "Bro, you're alright, you are". When we both returned to Melbourne, we met up in person and even though we weren't in our animal form as we remembered, we still realised something special had happened and the only way to manifest that friendship would be through sound as Steve Stevens.

Tell us a bit about your individual styles and backgrounds and how they play into each other. Steve: I'm a big fan of Detroit techno then went through the hard techno scene from the late 90’s to early 00's. I retired for a while as I was bored with what I was making/ After a year of experimenting I started my Steve Ward alias and came back into the scene. My style fluctuates between house and techno with a heavy influence from the early Detroit scene. Always funky yet pumping and party.

Jamie: I was a lover of electronic music from when I was a kid. I connected to it instantly and started making music on synths in high school. In university, I started Infusion with two other guys and that was my focus for close to 20 years now! Infusion is still going but I've been enjoying other projects such as this Steve Stevens one. I think the way our backgrounds play into each other is a mutual love of great grooves, a love of playing to people and a drive to do something that stands out and is exciting.

There's a lot of people experimenting with live sound looping, tell us about the 3D Loops concept and how it all comes together on stage. Jamie: We run Ableton off two laptops and a couple of controllers as well as Maschine. We're certainly no fan of the "checking your email" styled live set-ups, though! We have a huge library of sounds and loops between the two of us and we group them into styles and keys. Some loops will be just hi hats, some more deep and heavy kicks and other simply chords and hits. I also have different 909 and 808 drum machine patterns that I can drop in and out. We'll layer these with both our tracks and other people's but in a very seamless way. We love the idea of people not knowing where one track starts and another ends yet still be really dynamic and fun!

Do you try to stay up on the latest gear and technology, what set up do you have at the moment? Steve: I'm too busy with the label (Chameleon Recordings) and my own music to keep on top of the technology, Jamie always knows whats up, so he fills me in on any technology worth knowing about.

Jamie: Yeah, I can't say I constantly try to keep up to date with absolutely everything. If something looks like it might help me then I'll investigate it. Even with software updates, I'll wait months to install them before deciding if I will or not as I'm a believer in "if it ain't broke…". Our live setup is just what I mentioned earlier but a lot of those sounds and loops were made on both Logic and Ableton and synths like the Virus series, SH101, DX 100 and various things we have in our studios.

Is it your goal to take people to another place with your tracks, do they translate the way you expect in a live setting? Jamie: Getting lost in a groove, building up to big moments, dropping to smooth break when needed, all those things are what we strive to create and the music we write is all about that. It's all about the hip shaking and big smiles and when you're improvising, you can create those moments more easily (for us anyway) when you can adapt it to the crowd that's in front of you!

Are you looking forward to trying the new stuff out at gigs, have you played any of it yet? Steve: I always love playing new music out at gigs! That’s the whole reason I make it.

Jamie: Same here. Playing live and trying out new material is the best! There's an excitement about smashing it out live that can't easily be beaten.

Tell us about the EP and what other projects you're working on. Jamie: It's a two track EP and they're rather big-sounding and has piqued the interest of some big DJs and labels already with the few we've handed it to and we're just finishing off the finer details of the 2nd track. We also have the sketches of about 10 other tunes that we're hoping to get out before the European summer next year!

Jamie Stevens and Steve Ward play at the AU Underground & Future Theories party at Sydney's One22 this Saturday. Details on the artwork below.

Listen to Jamie Stevens on Pulse Radio

Alex Arnout - Keeping It Fresh

http://pulseradio.net — Fri, 04 May 2012 23:58:48 +1000

Alex Arnout; label boss and A&R of Dogmatik Records, DJ, producer and prolific engineer talks to Ellie Hewitt about his latest release 'Sound Byte EP', label loyalty and the Birmingham scene.

Listen to Alex Arnout on Pulse Radio

Fedde - Le Grand Plan

http://pulseradio.net — Fri, 04 May 2012 18:47:33 +1000

Ahead of Mixmag, Ministry of Sound and brummie stalwarts Rock&Rolla heading down for some bank holiday frolics at Birmingham’s freshest venue Gibb St Warehouse this weekend, we caught up with event headliner Fedde le Grande to talk playing with Coldplay, being on the road and what he'd be doing if he wasn't a superstar DJ.

You went on tour with Coldplay. How was that? Immense! Very different to what I normally do of course, I’m not usually the warm up act and the crowd was not what I’m used to but I really enjoyed myself, was made to feel very welcome by the band, the crew and the crowd. it was definitely one of the high lights of my career so far. Hopefully I get to do more of the same in future.

We’ve heard you mention in the past that you looked to incorporate more visuals in your show, particularly with the Takeover concept. How crucial is it having this accompaniment with music in this modern climate? I think clubbers are expecting DJs to deliver, especially when it’s a night that’s put on specifically by them. Visuals are now a staple part of any good club night and there’s so much technology and options available to us through laptops that it’s really great to be able to push the boundaries and create a real 3D experience for everyone on the dance floor.

Is this something you’ve noticed as being even more prevalent in the US market? How was Miami and are you enjoying the so-called ‘EDM Explosion’ over there? Everyone knows Americans do it bigger and better! I think the States has been on the point of exploding for the last five years but the past 24 months have just been incredible to watch and be part of. The American promoters have definitely taken note of how the big European festivals like Tomorrowland and Mysteryland, the Sensation parties, push the envelope with production and make it much more of an interactive experience for people paying what can be a lot of money for tickets – they definitely make sure clubbers get their money’s worth on all levels.
I was only in Miami for one day this year, at Ultra on the Sunday, but even just being there for one day you could feel the difference in the air – it’s taken far more seriously as a genre and as a business now – the amount of press that were there covering the whole week, especially the bigger US press that never really took any notice before, was insane.

Slightly closer to where you’re originally from; excited about the Ibiza season? What plans have you got this summer? That’s all still to be revealed. But yes I’m looking forward to Ibiza although it is always the busiest time of year for me. Most DJs will have Ibiza parties in the week and then the festival circuit on the weekend, and with America opening up as a festival mega-spot, Eastern Europe really coming into play, Asia is getting in on the act as well, summer for me will be non-stop.

And even closer to home... are you still in touch with the Dutch scene and how often do you get to play back in Holland? I’m definitely still in touch with the Dutch scene – I’ve been able to work with some amazing up and coming Dutch producers and DJs like Nicky Romero who are making big waves now internationally. We have great parties across the whole of the Netherlands around the year, and our festivals are among the best in the world, I think ID&T definitely set the mark for what’s capable with production and events. I probably play in Holland at least three or four times a year and then add into that ADE which is a big time for Dutch music I’m probably looking at six times – it’s always nice to play for your home crowd.

You’re playing for Gibb St Warehouse this Sunday with Ministry of Sound and Mixmag. What’s your relationship like with both those dance music institutions, and Birmingham itself? I don’t actually get to play Birmingham very often because my residency is down in London, so it’s great for me to visit another UK city and experience the crowd there. Ministry of Sound is of course my UK home so I have a great relationship with them as they’re my UK family, and it’s fantastic to see them hooking up with Mixmag who for me are one of the best dance magazines anywhere in the world.

How hard is the lifestyle that comes with constant touring, and do you ever, even if only for a short moment, wish you were doing something a little easier? It can be tough, being on the road constantly, the different time zones, waking up in strange hotel rooms, your daytime actually being everyone else’s night time. But I wouldn’t change a thing, not even for a second. It’s hard work but the results are amazing and I’m living the dream, seeing amazing places, meeting great people, creating all the time, being involved in new ideas, watching my career grow, getting to work with people that I’ve been fans of for a long time, having people respect me as a producer and a DJ – it’s something that I constantly work at and always enjoy.

And finally, give us a quick run-down of everything else coming forward in your future. I can’t actually say too much as we’re still in negotiations at label level, but there will be some very big news coming from me later this year, so stay tuned!

Fedde Le Grand plays for Mixmag & Rock N Rolla at Gibb St Warehouse this Sunday, 6th May

For tickets and further info, head here

Listen to Fedde Le Grand on Pulse Radio

Sam Russo - Exclusive Download

http://pulseradio.net — Fri, 04 May 2012 17:33:40 +1000

Bournemouth raised Sam Russo talks to Ellie Hewitt about his latest release, ahead of playing in Air London's room at Watergate's 10th Anniversary tour this Sunday. He gives us an insight into the inspiration for the new tracks and his recent collaborations, as well as being A&R of Leftroom Records, the labels family vibes and his thoughts on bastardizing garage. Scroll down for the exclusive free download Sam's done for Pulse.

What was the inspiration for your latest release Violet Town/You Need on air? A whole host of things! Mainly having been a little lazy of late and needing to get some ideas out of my head! The tracks that feature were made months apart, and even in a different space due to a relocation so the inspiration would have been from different experiences.

You're playing at the Air London room at Watergate's 10th Anniversary tour.... is 'TBA' one of your favourite venues? I am and cannot wait. The line up is un-real, a perfect way to spend bank holiday! Haha well, I have partied there a few times and I have never had a bad night its definitely up there with my favourite warehouse spots. Playing with the other guys from the Air London roster is going to be great, the last time I played at Union street was with Leftroom so it's nice to be going back representing Air!!!

What's your role in Leftroom? Is there an ethos behind the label, and if so what is it? My role in Leftroom is A&R, I am not the only member of the team either. Myself , Matt and Christian all listen to demos and collectively separate the good from the bad! I would say the ethos is good music, no rules!!

Would you say Leftroom has a 'family' vibe? How do you all know each other? I would say it has a family vibe most definitely. The music brought everyone together and the label nurtures the talent, It gives us all a place to release our own sound. I met Matt from constantly sending him demos, some might say 'hassling' haha eventually we hooked up and started making music together. Being given the opportunity to play at the Leftroom parties alongside the other artists affiliated with Leftroom such as Gavin Herlihy, Laura Jones & Droog allowed me to meet the guys on a personal level. We all share a common interest and that's music and everything in between, so why not do it together!?

There is a history of collaborations on Leftroom between you and Huxley and Tolfrey, were you friends before you started producing together? What goes on inside the studio? Whose the bitch for basslines and who gets lairy about the snares? We all met through music. I was working with Huxley on some tracks a while back which has led on to a pretty consistent working relationship. Its good fun working with Huxley as we are both garage boys at heart and it just works. Inside the studio, theres lots of coffee making and deleting ideas haha aside that we try and get creative!! There is never any formula we follow (that applies for both Huxley & Matt) we just 'jam' with ideas and work Logic until we're happy with the sound. I always find it hard to explain the process involved in making certain tracks or E.Ps this is usually due to me forgetting how I made something by the end of the project. When collaborating with either Matt or Huxley it's the same, it just seems to come together and by the end of a session we have something to work on or a finished track. Our next Leftroom release 'Jamma's Basement' is up next, I'm mega excited for this to drop :D

How important would you say it is for labels to have ongoing relationships with artists? Very important, its nice to have a home. I have always wanted a place to release a constant flow of music, having a 'home' label not only allows me to develop my sound as a solo artist it also lets me interact with the other artists on Leftroom through either collaboration or inspiration! Having such a good relationship with Leftroom has seen me play at some amazing venues alongside the best in the business.

Who else would you like to work with in the coming months? The list is too long, there are so many upcoming and already 'famed' artists making fantastic music at the moment I wish i could work with all of them at some point. Every record I play makes me want to work with the particular artist or at least be a 'fly on the wall' in their studio to see how they produced certain elements.

Have there been any achievements in your career so far that felt like a milestone? Everything I have done so far I consider an achievement. Being given the opportunity to work with Craig Richards, Huxley, Matt Tolfrey and playing at Fabric, I mean thats a dream come true considering I have graced the dance floor for so many years!!

Having studied music and production at Bournemouth University, would you promote similar degrees to people who really want to produce? Do you feel like you've learnt more inside or outside the class room? I would definitely promote music degrees to those wanting to learn the music industry. Studying gave me time to not only learn the software involved in making music but also the structure of the industry as a whole. I was 1000% dedicated to music without the distraction of a day job. I would say i learnt more outside the classroom, being away from home and surrounding myself with likeminded neighbours/class mates allows you to focus on your goals and at the end of the degree you have a qualification its a win win situation if you ask me!!

Are you excited about the revival of the garage sound? Do you think producers should be wary of bastardizing the original sound or are fresh twists always a good thing? The garage revival is great, we have always got to be wary of bastardising a sound but then I suppose it's the way it goes. A sound that is aurally pleasing to one might not be for another, I used to listen to UK Garage whilst at secondary school so from around 1997, not long after the Garage sound evolved into Grime which to some could be considered a bastardisation. Lets hope the next evolution remembers it's roots!!!

Tell us about the download you're doing exclusively with Pulse? It's a bit of a roller and it's free haha… check it out peeps.

Sam will be playing in the Air London room of Watergate 10th Anniversary Tour Sunday 0.05.12 - Tickets & Info

Listen to Sam Russo on Pulse Radio

Guy Gerber's Mirrors & Games

http://pulseradio.net — Thu, 03 May 2012 03:55:29 +1000

It is a bright Thursday afternoon in Los Angeles and Guy Gerber is in his basement. Absorbed in making the final touches to his new Fabric CD before he jets off to Frankfurt later today, he doesn’t hear my phone calls. Eventually he picks up. His delicately accented voice is chirpy and a smidgen restless. Born and raised in Tel Aviv, Mr Gerber is arguably one of the greatest talents in the electronic music world today. An intently prolific producer, he is renowned for his melodic, emotive and timeless creations, and his seemingly effortless ability to evolve the techno genre. Nonconformist by nature, Gerber is someone who maintains his artistic integrity at all costs, earning him longevity and admiration from audiences worldwide. Over the last couple of months his heart and mind have been spinning into overdrive. Life threw a couple of explosive situations into his personal life, let’s just say. As always, he has successfully channeled his emotional energy into his music production, exemplified mesmerizingly in his EP “Mirror Game” recently released on Visionquest. He has also produced his Fabric Live CD which is coming out in June, “Steady” an EP for his outstanding label, Supplement Facts, and a new album due to be released later this year.

What were your inspirations for The Mirror Game? First, whatever I do I try to stay as different as I can from other things. Especially when today music sounds very similar. My influences are more indie music. I don’t listen to that much techno at home. Basically I played bass guitar there with high notes, which is for me more like The Cure, like Joy Division, but the idea was to make it work as a club track, but also as a song. I tried to keep the rhythm as warm as I could. I don’t use midi so much; I play everything with my hands, and I try to not use the computer so much. So it’s a little bit more off beat..

How would you say your music and your approach have evolved over the last few years? While most people are trying to produce inside the computer and using more soft synths - which sounds pretty good, I don’t have anything against it - but just for me, I enjoy buying more equipment. And I use more analogue stuff, eg analogue compressors and some equalizers. I’ve been doing this for a couple of years.. It keeps me excited since I’ve been doing this for so many years.

So can you describe how the magic happens in your studio..? My studio is like a toy room. Everything is connected, and I just jam with it. It’’s like a one-person band. I always start with recording - I don’t think, I’m already there. I’m always like this, with everything actually.
[He pauses to reflect for a moment] Maybe I should be more thoughtful regarding some things.

You’ve just finished making your Fabric CD. Can you tell me a bit about it? I decided to make a 70 minute composition that’s almost like a 70 minute track, instead of just connecting tracks. It’s something I’ve been wanting to do for a long time. And since I’ve also been working with P Diddy and I was also doing some Indie stuff, I was getting a little bit bored of just making normal tracks. So [with my approach] I didn’t need to make an intro and and outro [...] I could start putting in other melodies. It created..like a journey inside my soul. A collection of moments... This was all made in 3 ½ weeks. So it’s like 70 minutes inside my mind and heart.

And was anything specifically going on in your heart..an external story? My life is known to be very dramatic. I’ve had a lot of dramas with my heart in the past decade. Girls come and go; the music always stays. Me, I [get] so down, but I’m actually also kinda enjoying it. I push myself there, and then I just put it all out. Afterwards, at some point, I’m relieved. I try to squeeze everything out, instead of keeping it in. A lot of people try to hide their emotions. My mother always said ‘Only strong people are not afraid to show their weaknesses.’ Me, I’m just like that. I’m very emotional. That’s the way I am.

It’s funny..I’m shy..I usually don’t read my interviews, and I don’t watch videos with me. I don’t like to watch myself or read myself.

How did you stay faithful to your artistic values and true to your roots when working with a commercial artist such as P Diddy? I think it was another proof for me that whatever happens, I always stay myself. And I just took it as a challenge to express myself musically within a different medium, but not to let the medium control me. Maybe it was a good decision, maybe it was the wrong decision...because it was difficult and it took me ages to finish it. I wanted to do something very credible, but it wasn’t easy to get there.

Are you excited about the P Diddy album? I’m very excited. A lot of people, especially here in the States, have some fixation about electronic music, and because of his name, it’s an opportunity for people to listen to music that they would not ordinarily listen to. [Electronic music] is booming here, but it’s mainly commercial - and horrible music. [P Diddy] had been listening to EDM for ten years, and going to dc10 and more underground places. Also I think artistically, I reached a few peaks there - at least for me. I’m always trying to push it forward, and challenge myself, and not repeat myself. And I think I managed to do that in that project.

And what’s the concept behind the project’s name, 11:11 ? It’s two words, like a date, when 2 words collide and a gate to another dimension is opened.

I’ve noticed you have a passion for visual art, taking time and careful consideration with Supplement Facts cover designs.. Yes, I like when it’s intimate. And since with electronic music there are no lyrics the name of the track and the visuals are very essential to understanding the world of the track.
Names are very important for me. Now I have to come up with 17 new names by tomorrow for each of the segments of my [FabricLive] composition since the journey of the CD moves from hope to despair to sexuality...etc. And I don’t feel that my brain is...

..up to it? No.. Right now I’m on the edge... [he laughs]. Because I’ve been working so hard to finish this and.. yeah..I’ve had some personal stuff to deal with.

What do you do to relax your mind? To relax my mind? I started reading again, which is great. I’m reading this hilarious book called The Money Shot, by Christa Faust. It’s kinda like sophisticated Pulp, it’s very cool.

What are your memories of growing up in Israel? For me this is the most complex place on the whole planet. So small, yet affecting almost all the countries in the Western world. Religion, blood-shed for almost thousand years; controversy- almost everything is controversial over there. But at the same time people are really straightforward, and very true. There is no place for superficiality there. Friendship is the most important thing. And these are the kind of values my parents gave me. I was playing soccer since I was 8 years old until I was 18. I was on Israel’s national team. I was almost like a professional soccer player. I was 100% dedicated to it. 7 days a week. But I decided this was not for me. Then I started playing guitar when I was around 17, and then I became too conscious. I started to read philosophical books. I became romantic. Everyone around me took years to get over it because they were sure I would be a soccer player.

How did your passion and talent for music develop? How did you get into electronic music, stuff from Joy Division and My Bloody Valentine? Yeah, I started out listening to The Smiths, Joy Division - especially Johnny Marr from The Smiths. And I was writing, mainly lyrics. And I saw myself as a writer. But I realized that my power was in the melody, because it paints a very vivid picture for what I want to express. My art is about making people ask questions, hopefully about themselves, so I like to keep it open. I didn’t grow up part of the scene. So when I was listening to more alternative music I couldn’t share it with a lot of people. I was exploring on my own..It wasn’t an easy task. I had no one sharing with me, teaching me. But this made me who I am.

I noticed you’re playing B2B with Seth Troxler at DEMF this year... First, he’s a very close friend to me. And when we play, there is always magic. There are so many moments when we just look at each other and we’re like, ‘Wo, what the fuck is going on?!’ - Many moments when I don’t even know if it’s me, or him...We blend into each other so well. It’s not like we practise.. we just play, and you know, it’s something special what we have.

Can you tell me about the format you use in your performances? I’m going to change it very soon. I might be moving to Traktor with their new system because they have a really cool new feature. But I have a lot of stems, most of them are new that I work on and I just jam with them. And I have a controller and a synthesizer. Sometimes I play with it, sometimes not. But it’s there. It’s not always easy because I can’t really play hits, or my own hits partly because I’m bored of them. So it’s a very challenging process.

What do you see yourself playing or producing in 3 - 5 years? Hopefully only songs and not so many tracks. I’m still going to make tracks because I love dance music, I love going to clubs and I like the parties. But I would be happy if I was mainly doing albums that have songs, lyrics and singers and mainly stuff like that. And hopefully doing some soundtracks.

What’s your favourite club to go to when you’re not DJ-ing? Generally when I’m not DJ-ing I prefer not to go to clubs. I started [laughs] going to VIP clubs where there’s horrible music. Shitty music which you can laugh at, rather than cool places that are really hype and where I know all the people.
And there are many more girls at these other places ;) I think it can be more fun, because it’s ridiculous.

Would you say you’re a bit of a workaholic? Do you ever go away on holiday to a mountain/beach/nature..? I’m actually very lazy. I don’t finish things on time. I love the beach, but I’m not a big fan of actual nature, no. I’m a very urban person. I need some things going on around me. Now I’m actually just starting to really enjoy LA after two months stuck in the f***king basement. For a few months I’m not going to do anything. I’m just going to have fun. I finished this album, I finished this other album, I finished the release. I’m just going to be extremely free. Chill out, make some noise, create some damage, make some problems...yeah!

Now you’ve seen substantial success..how much are you driven by - or addicted to - the fame? the money? Fame takes away my privacy, and generally I love privacy. Money just makes your appetite bigger, unfortunately. But I want to reach a point where I can support my whole family so my children can have at least what I had. So yes, I need to work for that.

If you were not an artist..what would you be?
I think I would be a very good conceptual artist. One who talks about art but is not really doing anything. Just creating things that people will want to talk about.
At school, I was challenging the teacher all the time..You know ‘what’s the purpose of art? etc We had an assignment to do part of the human body. I was like “ I’m not doing this. I suck at this. I’m not a good illustrator.’ And the teacher insisted. So I took a nylon washing-up glove, put water in it, put a stick in it, and put it in the freezer. I made a hand-popsicle. When I presented it in class I said my art is against museums (which charge so much etc), that it’s ephemeral and that it’s going to melt any second. And it was already melting and it looked really bad. And [the teacher] couldn’t say anything. Because it was art, and it only took me one minute to make it.

[ Guy makes a Bloody Mary and keeps talking..]

Do you have any regrets? I have A LOT of regrets. But it’s better to regret something you have done than what you haven’t done. Unfortunately, it seems like if I look at my life, I didn’t learn enough. I’m still working on it. One thing for sure, do NOT go with young women. I’m only attracted to young women, I don’t know why. And I’m not the most normal person in the world and I drive them mad a little bit.

My inspiration is like my battle against women. They love me so much they want to kill me...

Guy Gerber will be appearing at SW4 in London this August click here for more info.

Listen to Guy Gerber on Pulse Radio.

12 Questions With Shlomi Aber

http://pulseradio.net — Wed, 02 May 2012 00:19:33 +1000

Fresh off a gig at NYC’s legendary Sullivan Room, Israeli tech-house king Shlomi Aber sits down with Pulse Radio for a brief interview. His label “Be As One” has recently featured genre-smashing records with collaborations from the likes of DJ Sneak, and his own productions have garnered praise from critics and fans alike. Check out Mr. Aber’s take on European audiences, “commercial” dance music, and working with some of rock music’s greatest icons.

You headlined at Sullivan Room on Saturday the 28th of April, having just finished a few gigs in Belgium and Austria. What excites you about coming back to NYC and playing this venue? NY is always a fun place to play in, especially when it’s for such a great crew as at the Sullivan room. Cosmopolitan cities always go hand-in-hand with some great experiences and adventures.

Do you find any differences in the atmosphere or crowd when you play gigs in the U.S., versus Europe, the Middle East, or anywhere else? Yes, there is a slight difference between Europe and the rest of the world. The crowd in Europe is more open minded when it comes to electronic music -
it usually takes time till it is spread out to the rest of the world.

Festival season is upon us! Ibiza will be heating up soon in addition to a slew of big events across the rest of Europe and the US. Any dates you’re particularly looking forward to? Summer time is ahead indeed. Some great festivals and Ibiza shows, as you mentioned, are always things to look forward to. Personally, I’m looking forward to coming back to the Tomorrowland festival and the Ibiza closing parties.

You grew up in Israel, a country with a distinct electronic music tradition. What was the techno/house scene like when you were growing up, and how did that influence you as a musician? We actually had a very good and respected scene here in the late 90's. It definitely influenced me both personally and musically; I used to go and check the international DJs coming over every weekend. It all went down later on but it is coming back again big time these days in Israel.

You named your 2010 album “Chicago Days/Detroit Nights.” – tell us what makes these cities so special to you. Both the Chicago house and Detroit techno movements have been the biggest influences for me. I’ve been into electronic music for 17 years now, since the age of 13. Just imagine yourself as a 13 year-old kid, listening to Mad Mike instead of Michael Jackson.

Speaking of Chicago, you’ve collaborated with DJ Sneak a few times, most recently on the “After Touch” EP on your own label, Be As One. What was it like working with him? Sneak is the man…great guy and a true music lover. Big respect to work with this house legend. Another new collaboration will come soon with the G.

A quick aside - Sneak has gotten a lot of attention recently for speaking out about “real house music.” Do you have any comment on the growing rift between so-called “commercial” and “underground” dance music? There is no good or bad when talking about music, no black or white; it’s all greys. Putting music inside borders just does not do justice to the artistic side of things. At the same time, Sneak is coming from a different musical background, where the funk and grooves come from the soul and not from the software.

What are your studio projects for the rest of the year? Any more collaborations to look forward to? Coming up in June is my new "Rough Steps EP " on Loco Dice's Desolat label. Then a Be As One remix alongside Luciano for the great "Scene " by Gel Abril and Andrea Oliva. Also, another EP will follow up on Ovum later in the summer.

What are your plans with your label, Be As One? We have a lot of exciting music coming up. I think it’s one of the best times for the label, at least musically. I’m looking forward to releasing the next stuff- I have been playing them for a long time and they have been massive for me. At the same time we are doing many label showcases this year, from clubs to festivals, so we are expanding our agency.

Like many of the top artists today, you are an active producer, DJ, and you run your own label. Is this a necessity in today’s economic environment, or do you feel like each activity complements the others and is natural for you? It’s definitely not necessary, it’s all a natural export from the soul. The only reason I’m running the label is to put some good and quality music out there, and I will keep doing that as long as I’m part of this business.

You have a stellar career behind you already. Where do you see yourself in 5 years? I’m lucky enough to have fulfilled most of my dreams, and I keep living them day-by-day. I don’t know where I will be in 5 years, but I hope to keep doing what I love and what I always have been doing: electronic music.

If you could write a song with any one person, living or dead, who would you choose? Good question, there are so many. I would love to produce for Thom Yorke- I think his voice can work naturally on electronic beats. If we go acoustic, I would go with Eddie Vedder.

Listen to Shlomi Aber on Pulse Radio.

Mikal's Chanting Top Five

http://pulseradio.net — Tue, 01 May 2012 23:09:36 +1000

Having featured on the 'Genesis EP' and with the drop of his debut single on Goldie's Metalheadz label, Mikal is steadily gaining a reputation as one of the hottest Drum & Bass producers around. Ahead of his forthcoming release 'The Chant/Headbanger' on Mako's Utopia Music, Mikal gives us his Top Five Drum & Bass tunes of the moment, enlightens us on his studio techniques and tells us why the transition to Dubstep was an inevitable move.

Mikal, a name often on the lips of Drum & Bass heads worldwide. How did you get into the scene and what made you fall in love with it? I heard drum and bass or jungle, as it was known at the time, when I moved to London from Sweden as a kid. I used to be constantly tuned into the pirate stations at every chance I could get. As a massive reggae and dub fan, listening to the jungle sound; I loved the way that producers had taken samples and edits from music I loved and created something new. I was fascinated with how the music developed in such a short period and how much it seemed to influence the culture at the time. When Fabric opened I went every weekend and so I gradually started to meet other people in the scene

For those that don’t know, how would you describe a Mikal DJ set? I mostly play drum and bass with heavy influences of jungle, reggae, hip hop and dub. I play techy, quite deep stuff as well. You'll hear plenty of tunes from Metalheadz as I'm part of their camp and currently writing an album for them. It depends a lot on the crowd and the location and even sometimes my mood at the time, I like bangers, hard hitting drum and bass that works well on the dancefloor. I mostly like to see the tunes I drop make people screw their faces and dance like lunatics.

Can you give us your top 5 tunes of the moment?

1. Mikal - The Chant:

2. SpectraSoul feat. Terri Walker - Light In The Dark:

3. BTC - Fields

4. Mikal - Headbanger:

5. Emperor - Network

You’re in the studio, staring at a blank screen. Where do you start? Do you have a set production regime? No set production regime, I hate routine it crushes creativity but then if you follow this path you must be a prolific producer. I work, then I come straight home and work on tunes in the time when others are out at the pub. I sacrifice spare time because I love what I do because I want to, not because I have to, I worry that if I look at it from the angle of, 'I must create a banger in these next 3 hours,' I will stress myself out and nothing will happen. Bangers are like buses, you may not have one for a couple of days, then three come along at once! People do say that I write tunes back to front, whatever that means!? Not always. I reckon making a start is always the best place to start.

And what about with the new Utopia A side ‘The Chant’? This one I started with the pads and the vocal, then wrote the beats around it and put the bass and effects in afterwards. Once I got past the intro parts the tune wrote itself. I like those days!

The AA on the flip, ‘Headbanger’ has been circulating for a while now. How glad are you that’s its found a home now at Utopia? Pleased, as I have been inundated with questions of a release date. So I am glad that it's finally out there and being well received. Mako the label owner of Utopia Music has become a good friend and I'm delighted that this release has been so big, he really deserves all the credit on this.

You’ve also made the transition to 140bpm productions. What made you decide to venture into Dubstep production? Was this an inevitable move? I wanted to make music and who knows where I or this scene will be in ten years time. I just want to keep making music in whatever form that is. When I set out to become a music producer I wanted to make music that inspired a reaction, delighted or motivated someone else. I want to continue to get a reaction, hopefully a good one, one that helps pay the electric to keep the whole process going!

If you could pick any three DJs of any genre to play at your birthday party who would they be and why? I love this question! Without a doubt Rodigan would be guest of honour, does the Coxsone Soundsystem count as one person? Aba Shanti and Grand Master Flash. Who else!? I could do a mini festival line up!

Which artists have inspired you on your way up? Photek, Adam F, LtJ Bukem, Goldie, Remarc, King Tubby, Scientist, 4Hero and the list could go on!

You’ve released on Horizons, Goldie’s Metalheadz and DJ Friction’s SGN:Ltd. Can you fill us in on any release plans post Utopia008? I'm working on something for Break and a couple of singles and/or an EP project for Metalheadz before the album.

Mikal - The Chant/Headbanger is out 7th May on Utopia Music

Listen to Mikal on Pulse Radio

Fatima -Very Good Eglo

http://pulseradio.net — Tue, 01 May 2012 22:55:20 +1000

We, at Pulse, previously dubbed Fatima one of the UK’s most underrated vocal talents, and to some extent this still rings true. However, with her list of recent collaborators including Guilty Simpson and DâM-FunK, it’s clear that she’s beginning to gain some well-deserved recognition across the globe. Having been a fundamental part of the tight-knit Eglo Records family from the outset, the Stockholm native first made waves in London circles when her distinctive vocals surfaced on tunes such as ‘Innervisions’, ‘Mind’ and ‘Soul Glo’. This summer will see Fatima release a new three-track record with label-mate FunkinEven; the follow-up to last year’s ‘Yellow Sound’ EP. Ray Murphy caught up with the Swedish soulstress just after Eglo’s third birthday to discuss Sweden's music scene, Redbull Music Academy and DâM-FunK.

How did you get started as a musician in Sweden and what made you decide to leave for London? I started singing in the school choirs in Stockholm and before that I just used to write songs in my own home, like most kids. That kind of led to me starting music school in my teens, then joining bands and doing backing vocals etc. I went to London [in early 2000s] with a friend, just for one weekend . I liked the vibe in London so much and always thought to myself that I'd like to come back. One of my best friends decided [in 2006] that she wanted to move to the UK to study, so I thought I might as well just move too because I just felt a bit bored. I love Stockholm, but it's just quite small. I felt like I wanted to experience London a bit more in-depth, as I needed some new inspiration.

Is Sweden a good place to build a music career, generally, and would it have been a decent setting for you to have nurtured your talent, if you had decided to stay? There's definitely a lot of music happening all over Sweden and there's a lot of bands that 'make it', worldwide. Obviously, a lot of the music is in English, but it connects with and is open to, American audiences. It's not impossible [to launch a music career], but it does depend on what kind of music you're into i.e if it's represented and what clubs you like going to etc. I felt that as soon as I experienced other spots like London, I realised I needed new music, faces and surroundings. There are not as many different opportunities in Stockholm as there are in London, just because it's such a big place.

What local music did you grow up with? There's an old Swedish Jazz singer called Monica Zetterlund who sang so beautifully - I love her! There was also a singer called Kaah, who I ended up doing backing vocals for. And then Neneh Cherry - she's the pride of Sweden! You gotta love Neneh Cherry, come on man! But I didn't just grow up with Swedish music; I grew up on a lot of [US] hip-hop. I used to go to battle nights with local MCs, like Petter. It was a little mix of everything: Busta Rhymes, Mobb Deep, The Fugees etc. When I was young, like 11 or 12, 'Fu-Gee-La' and all that stuff was going around. But, I never had an older brother or big sister to introduce me to the hip-hop I discovered later.

When you arrived in England, who were the main people who helped get your career off the ground? I used to see Alexander Nut around town, as we went to similar nights. But then I met him in a Soho club, and he dropped me a promo mix CD he made called 'We love radio'. I really liked the selection, so I contacted him. He invited me to his show on Rinse FM where I did a little freestyle and sang my own songs.Then, I was looking for a place to stay because I had to move house. He and his flatmate were looking for someone to live with, so I ended up moving in with them. Eventually, when the time came for Alex and Floating Points to start Eglo Records, they were asking me if I wanted to be part of their label. FunkinEven and Plastic People [were also important] too.

How did your show at Eglo's 3rd birthday in Fabric go? I performed with the Eglo live band - it was me, alongside Olivier Daysoul, and a setting of bass, drums and keys. A pretty simple setting, but it was cool and it was our first show with those players. We had Dj Andrés from Detroit playing, FunkinEven, Arp 101, plus Alexander Nut and Floating Points who both did their live thing. Floating Points brought down a load of his equipment from his studio too – his Rhodes, live synths, crazy drum machines etc... it was wires all over the place! He's proper deep into his neuroscience PHD [at the moment], so when he's not in the music lab he's in the real lab!

You and Floating Points seem to have worked on a number of projects together. Why do you think you are such a good pair, musically? I guess we just connect on a musical level which I can't really describe, because it's hard to put a finger on it. But, when we find the right sounds, we compliment each other well, I suppose. I enjoy his compositions and he's pretty versatile. Some of his sounds might not be my style and the same goes for some of my ideas. When we manage to meet in the middle – which can just be him finding the right sound on his synth – it can inspire an idea for a melody for me. So I think we just share the same love for it.

Keeping the idea of compromise in mind, what was the process behind creating 'Innervision'? Was it your idea to make a drumless track, so that it would sit better with your vocals? We had been trying to come up with the right sound, then we found one that was beautiful. I thought that it didn't need any drums on it or anything else, because it just made sense the way it was; it didn't need to be overproduced. The vibe of the sound was to connect with your “inner thoughts”, and it's also a bit melancholic. I didn't really analyse it at the time, but for some reason I thought that it didn't need anything else. We both thought the tune carried itself without drums, even though it's very simplistic. Sometimes, if you find the right sample or the right key, the song can write itself. But it doesn't always happen just like that.

When looking at the list of other artists you've collaborated with – ranging from from Ras G to Hudson Mohawke – I think it's fair to say that you're extremely versatile in your own right. Does the individual style of each producer you work with, have a significant impact on your songwriting? You get a different vibe from different tunes, and if a producer comes with something completely contrasting, then yeah, that might inspire you. I worked with DâM-FunK who produced a tune on my first EP - he's super dope! I love his style and his sound. He's definitely one of the coolest cats I've ever met and he's a true gentleman as well as an OG. I stayed with DâM and Shafiq Husayn in LA last summer. Shafiq is an inspiration to me. He's a real deep thinker and it's really inspiring to be around people like that, who open your mind to a lot of things. I'm going back to LA in June to work on some other things, so we've got some stuff that's not yet for the world to hear! There's a guy called Knxwledge whose music I also love. He's a dope beat-maker who makes a lot of hip-hop and he's got a really good ear for samples. I've recorded some little ideas, so hopefully I can work with him again.

Some people see a mutual appreciation and a real connection between the music that's coming out the UK at the moment, and the output from LA. Having spent a lot of time on the West Coast, do you agree? I guess it's just because they [all] make some next level instrumental sh*t that no-one can put a name on. It's just a lot of inspirational people – people like Samiyam who's from Michigan, via Detroit. There's a lot of dope people on Brainfeeder too and maybe they've inspired a people in the UK [and vice versa]. I think it's just inspiration across the waters. It's amazing to see someone like Flying Lotus grow over the years. I met him on his first visit to London, when he did an in-store [dj set] at a record shop in Soho. He's taking it to the next level, because he's not just sticking to making beats – he's doing a lot of live stuff as well. Thundercat is dope too.

Are there any artists that you'd like to work with in the future? I'd like to work with Madlib, Missy Elliot, Prince or George Clinton!! I just want to work with someone who makes something soulful or something you can really feel. For example, I met a producer in the Jazz Cafe a few months ago called Georgia Anne Muldrow – she makes sick beats! I just love funky, raw, dirty sounds. I'll jump on anything that I can feel in my heart.

Can you tell us about your time at Red Bull Music Academy, back in (2008)? It was really good: Barcelona is one of my favourite cities. You get two weeks in a completely different country, get flown there for free and have access to studios as well as 29 other participants. There's no pressure, just freedom to work on collaborations and mess about. Then you go to lectures when you hear that certain people are being flown in. I saw Bun B form UGK who was really interesting, and Sly and Robbie. It was a cool meeting spot to get inspired. You might get introduced to, say, a singer from Mexico, or a beat-maker from Japan. It was a really nice time with a lot of nice people, that's where I met Teebs, who's now one of my good friends!

Are you working on an album at the moment? Yes, I've just started it. I can't say too much because I don't want anyone to get disappointed if anything falls through. But I've got some dope people who want to get involved. Floating Points and I have started to work on some stuff from, let's say, a sunny part of the globe... I want to finish it as soon as possible, but I also don't want to stress it. I know from that past that there's no point [in doing that]. Basically, you want to get it out there when you feel like you've found the right sounds. My album is precious, so I don't just want to throw anything together for the sake of it – I want to be really happy with it and bring out the best [record] for everyone to hear. At least the ball has started to roll, as we're now working on some stuff in the studio.
FunkinEven and I have an EP that just got mastered a few months ago. It has three tunes on it and should be out in the beginning of the summer on Eglo, so that's the next thing.

Will you be touring during the rest of the year? Yes, we'll be going to Croatia for Dimensions Festival, Soundwave and Garden Festival (where we'll have the live band). We're also at Gilles Peterson's Worldwide Festival (France). I played there the other year and really liked the vibe. Where it's situated, by the [Theatre De La Mer] amphitheatre and the pier, it's just visually stunning!

FATIMA TOUR DATES:
18/5/12 – EGLO AT TWISTED PEPPER, DUBLIN
5/7/12 – EGLO @ WORLDWIDE FESTIVAL, FRANCE
8/7/12 – GARDEN FESTIVAL, CROATIA
20/7/12 – EGLO AT SOUNDWAVE, CROATIA
6/9/12 – EGLO STAGE AT DIMENSIONS FESTIVAL, CROATIA
12 – 14/9/12 – EGLO GERMANY TOUR

Listen to Fatima on Pulse Radio

Mr C - Superfreq like me

http://pulseradio.net — Tue, 01 May 2012 19:59:58 +1000

Mr. C’s career in dance music spans over 25 years,and shows no signs of letting up. As an MC, he made a name for himself rapping over house music and techno at some of the early UK raves, as far back as 1985 when electronic music was hitting the country for the very first time. He released his first record in 1987, and as part of the Shamen he enjoyed numerous spells in the UK Top 20. He also hosted some of the capital’s most memorable clubnights, from Subterraen to Superfreq, the brand he has exported worldwide, at his club The End. Amidst all this he has remained one of the world’s top DJs, and still tours ceaselessly, feeding an endless appetite for new experience and new music.

(Scroll down for tracklisting and download)

You recorded your first house track in 1987, at a time when house was first breaking in the UK. What keeps you coming back for more when so many people have dropped off along the way? Well the people who have dropped off got old. I'm still a kid in a grown-up's body, that would be part of it I would think. I made my first track in early 1987 before it kicked in. That track was released in August 1987, it was called 'Page 67', on Baad Records. It was Eddie Richards' label. That was my first release. It was that release which made me decide that being a vocalist wasn't enough and that I needed to start DJing.

So you started out as an MC? I started out as an MC when I was 16, way back in 1982. I was doing street rap really. I started rapping in breakers' clubs, which were clubs for people who used CB (Citizen's Band) Radio to communicate and meet up. They were the best places to go out for young people at the time. Everybody had a CB radio, it was a huge trend. That was my start as a rapper. By the time I was about 18 or 19 I started to become well known in the nightclubs. I worked with LWR Radio, with the Soul Syndicate, with a DJ called Ron Tom, one of the original funky dreads alongside people like Soul II Soul. I also used to rap with Jasper The Vinyl Junkie, he used to play house. By the time I was 20 I was mc'ing for Dave Durrell at Raw, for The House Crew, for Colin Faver and for Eddie Richards at the Camden Palace, and it was working with Eddie Richards which lead me to make my first house track. I also worked with some of the Kiss DJs while the station was still illegal. So I got very well known as a rapper, but that wasn't quite enough for me. I needed to get in the studio and behind the decks.

It seemed around '93 a lot of the MCs dropped out of house and techno and went over to the burgeoning house and garage scenes. Were you relieved by that? I was relieved, yes. A lot of the people who would get on the mic were shit. They'd just get on the mic and go "big up the massive in the back" and so on. It was just a bit of a noise, but it worked better on the jungle and the hardcore scene. For deep house though it didn't. There weren't many mcs who nailed it on the deep house thing. MC E-Mix was one who did, he was special. He used to work with Confusion, Kid Bachelor and he was the MC at Clink St. in London Bridge around 1988, and in Lea Bridge Road in '89. He and I together were the two main house rappers who stuck with the house groove. For me, from about '89 onwards, the DJing was the main thing, although the rap always featured and it still does today. There are some places I go where they absolutely insist that I use the microphone. Probably about 10% of my sets involve me on the mic.

Has your way of writing lyrics always been just what has come to you, quite freestyle, or have you had periods of writing lyrics in a more hip hop style, penning the verses and so on? I was one of these MCs who used to rap on disco, old skool and electro but hip hop started to slow down after tracks like I Know You Got Soul by Eric B and Rakim. It wasn't really me. Hip hop started losing it's fun element. It started to become a bit more gangster. So my lyrical content, which was inspired by the old school stuff like Kurtis Blow, Grandmaster Flash, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, changed to be more inspired by house music, about jacking your body. Had I had done a rap song around 1985 or 1986 when that change occurred it would have been the first hip house record. As it was I had the opportunity to do something more spiritual, a spoken word thing, and I was pipped to the post by M Doc, who did a song called It's Percussion. Once I started getting into DJing that took precedence but the rap was always there.

You had Terrence McKenna with you on stage doing a spoken word along with the music at some of your early Shamen gigs, was he an MC of sorts? Terrence McKenna is a fascinating man, he's a psychadelic guru. He wrote a couple of fascinating books, one called The Archaic Revival and one called Food Of The Gods. He's talking about psychadelics in general but especially DMT. His view on what was going on in the world of psychadelia and human evolution and also his time space zero concept were fascinating to us. A lot of what he was talking about was based on shamanism and archaic revival of shamanic attitudes. Colin Angus managed to get in contact with Terrence and we brought him into our studio in Camden Town and did an interview with him. We asked him nine specific questions, all of which he answered with his amazing tone and flow, and we edited those answers down to make up the track Re-Evolution, which was the 5th single off Boss Drum. Back in the day there were certain rules with the pop charts. If you got into the top 20 the whole of your song would have to be played in its entirety on the chart rundown on Radio 1. We knew that if we sold 30,000 copies in a week, then we would indeed go into the pop charts. That's exactly what happened, we did Re-Evolution as a limited edition of 30,000 EPs and we did a whole campaign around it. The EP came with a poster and they sold out within a week. We charted at number 19 and it was fantastic having the whole 8 minutes of the song being played on the chart rundown with Terrence McKenna talking about psychadelics and DMT. Terrence did a few shows with us, and came to join us on tour when he was in Europe.

So do you think that spoken word is an important part of the effect that music and sound can have on people? I think that there has always been a spiritual and psychadelic element to house and techno music, and I think that would lead people who are into dance music to take something from the snippets of people like Terrence McKenna talking. As far as I'm aware The Shamen were the only band to have him in the studio, rather than just sampling him. Music is itself quite trancendental, percussive rhythms at certain speeds change our brainwaves from their normal beta-state into the alpha- and theta- states which release seratonin neurons and throw us into an altered state of consciousness. Using words in the presence of percussive, electronic dance music, especially words of a psychadelic nature. can be a very profound way of getting a message into the psyche of the youth. That was what we played on with the Shamen, really. All of our songs were about society, evolution, altered states of consciousness and we found that dance music was the perfect platform for that.

We're talking about the effect of certain sounds on the human brain. Does the 4/4 kick drum beat have a certain effect, do you think? I'd disagree that it's the kick drum which has that effect. Often electro rhythms can work as well as a 4/4 rhythm, It's more about the percussive elements in between which do the job. The speeds of rhythm which alter your brainwaves would be between 200 and 300 beats per minute. That's pretty fast. If you halve that so that you have 100 to 150 beats per minute that is what the kick is doing. So it's the faster elements, that occur between the kick drum hits, which are putting you under. That's the important part. One of the reasons why humans have always banged drums is the need to reach altered states of consciousness, and as a mating ritual, so it's something that has always been there for thousands and thousands of years. Because of that I don't see it going away any time soon.

You were a part of the tech house scene in the UK, which at the time was something quite specific. Would you say that what a lot of that music was about was what happened between the kick drums? Not really, no. Tech house was always about music being a hybrid of house and techno. Back in the early 90's, around '91 or '92, I had a lot of techno clubs telling my agent that they wouldn't book me because I was a house DJ, and vice versa the house clubs would say they thought I was a techno DJ. I was stuck in a middle ground. Yes, I played house and it was as deep as you like, and yes I played techno and it would be as balls to the wall as any techno DJ would go, and I also played everything in between. Tech house was meant to be a mixture of those two things which was innovative, electronic, and forward thinking. It did get lost along the way though. Back in the day I made a bunch of phonecalls around to all the tech house DJs and said look "Detroit has Detroit Techno, New York has Garage, Chicago has House, and we need something to represent London." I said to all these DJs who were playing a similar style to me, "why don't we call all of our remixes for the next few months the 'tech house remix' and see if the press bite." And they did. That's why I've been blamed for coming up with the tech house idea but it was a phrase we used to describe stuff which was innovative, not really house, not really techno, quite psychadelic. However, it was never meant to be about 'tribalness'. A lot of the producers got stuck in the 130bpm conga, bongo loop, which was not meant to be what tech house was about. It was meant to be open minded, without any walls, and all of a sudden there were walls to it. That pissed me off. I'd say that what I'm doing now is pure tech house, more than what it was back in the 90's.

So as a term you think it still exists and it's still relevant? Most of what you're hearing from the best DJs in the world is tech house. It's tech-y, it's electronic, it's trippy. If you ask people like Damian Lazarus, Seth Troxler, Jamie Jones and those guys what they're playing, they're all playing tech house. I'm not sure what else you'd call it.

I suppose my question is whether you reckon that tech house people are making today still has that futuristic ethos you described? Absolutely. Are you kidding me? There are new producers making new sounds who are coming through, there are new labels coming through. I go to the record shop once a month, into Phonica, and I'll spend £200 or £300 on records. That's me being fussy! Half of what I'm turning down I like. The hardware is becoming more sophisticated, the software is becoming more sophisticated, and as humans we are evolving, progressing in time. When I was 21 I put out my first house record and people of my age now were the old fogies! They were my Mum and Dad's generation, they had no clue. It's the same today, the new kids who are coming through today are way ahead of us old-timers. I'm one of the fortunate ones, who was ahead of the curve with my thinking and music, I was at the front of the curve. But when I was preaching about positive thinking and electronic music in the mid to late 80's people all thought I was mad. Now all the kids live life like this, and that's coming into the music, which is why there's so much good music coming through. Granted there are still a whole load of young producers coming through who are copying their idols, and even though it's good it's not very creative. Those are the tracks I'm turning down. The people I'm interested in are the people who are making music to be creative and to be different.

Given the choice, then, between going out to watch a younger DJ with fresh views and attitudes taking a new approach to the sound and going to hear someone older, a wax collector let's say, with a record collection to die for, which would you choose? It depends what the DJ lineup is. There are a lot of us 'old fogies' who are really bang on it. If you look at people in their 40's like myself, Damian Lazarus, Eddie Richards, Richie Hawtin, these are still people at the forefront of what's going on. On the other hand there are guys like Seth Troxler who are cool as hell at the moment. To be honest I'd rather listen to Seth Troxler at the moment than Richie Hawtin but that's because his musical style is more relevant to what I like. If you were to generalize, I'd rather listen to the youngsters than the older ones but saying that, the really good older DJs are the best in the world. What you can say for sure is that the younger DJs coming through at the moment are giving us older guys a really good kick up the butt and not letting us rest of our laurels.

Is it a struggle to stay relevant then? It's not a struggle at all. I have a very low boredom threshold and it's always been part of what I'm into and what I do to always come with new sounds. I'm known as being upfront and innovative as a DJ and that's what I do. If you take the top 100 DJs in the world I doubt that any of them are as forward thinking as I am when it comes to picking records. For a DJ to get into that echelon they usually have to in some way conform. I don't do that. My box is in constant evolution, I'm always looking for sounds which are exciting and fresh, which is why as a DJ my sound is way ahead of most others. It's been a problem for me over the 25 years I have been doing this because people don't always get it, and then a couple of years later the other DJs are playing like that, by which time I'm over it.

You're currently based in LA, after making the move from the UK, alongside other international DJs like Damian Lazarus and Jesse Rose who have moved out there. That's right, Damian moved out here before I did actually, he's been here three and a half years. We were going to move out here around the same time, but I had to finish off my business, which was London club The End and tie up other loose ends. I've been here for two and a half years now. It's an amazing city and lots of people are moving out here from Europe.

In general the US feels like quite a big question for dance music, even though house and techno come from the States. Are cities like New York and Chicago still big forces in dance music today though? Yeah for sure. New York more so than Chicago. The three big cities for dance music are LA, San Francisco and New York. Right behind that you have Chicago and Miami, and then Washington, Boston, San Diego, Denver, Dallas. All those places have decent underground scenes going on. In Chicago you've got Spy Bar, Smart Bar, and then also a whole lot of underground venues. Places like San Diego have built up an amazing scene based on only a few organizations putting on good parties. When you've only got a handful of clubs in each city though you can only book so many people a year. It's not as big as it is in Europe, yet, and I think that it's harder for up and coming American DJs to get gigs, but a lot of these up and coming guys need to be more proactive. They need to make their own parties, stop moaning and start building their own scenes. They need to start booking people from those big towns and getting them to book them back. How about some of that. The world over there are wannabe DJs who think the world owes them a living. Those people need to get off their ass and do something about it. When I became a DJ in 1987 I started my own night, Fantasy, at the HQ in Camden Lock. We went round to all the clubs, became a part of the scene, spoke to all of the promoters. Be a part of the scene, be creative. It's no good putting out a couple of tunes and hoping that you're going to get booked unless you're hot. Literally, hot, as in shaggable.

Is that one of the problems with information culture, that people don't get involved in a real-life sense because they spend their time on the Internet? Is that changing it for the worse? I think it's fantastic having the internet as a tool to market and push yourself. I know all about that. More than having that presence on the Internet though you need to be doing parties. I'm doing Superfreq every month in London, every month in LA, every month in Calais, France, although I don't always go and DJ at them, quarterly in Moscow, working in Ibiza, doing quarterly events in DC, Chicago, stepping it up there, quarterly events in Miami, San Francisco, down in Ecuador, in Mexico. I'm putting on my brand, I'm getting it out there, and that's what you've got to do. You've got to get in amongst it, for REAL. You need to become part of the community. The last time I DJed in Berlin I played in Weekend, but I made sure I went to Kater Holzig, Panorama Bar, you get involved, meet people, make new friends. To really get on as a DJ and a producer, you need to be a fucking good DJ, you need to be a good producer, make good tunes, then you need to be good at the social networking thing, and finally, we're entertainers so get a grip on how you look. Nobody wants to see a road sweeper up there behind the decks. Jeans and Tshirt are not enough if you're going to be an entertainer. When I see people like Damian Lazarus, Seth Troxler, making an effort on all fronts including their look, I think yes, that is it. You need to be the whole package, and if you're not the whole package you need to give it up and go and get a day job.

Finally, what do you have going on in terms of productions at the moment? My new EP, Something Strange, with [a].pendics shuffle, which is on Adjunct Audio, is out now. There's an Affie Yusuf remix and a Mike Shannon remix on there. I've also got a remix which I have coming out in the middle of June for Mikael Stavostrand. He and my Superfreq LA partner David Scuba have done a track together which I've also remixed which is coming out on an LA label called Riff Raff in June. At the beginning of July Something Strange pt. 2 comes out, which also has a Mikael Stavostrand remix on it. I've also done a remix with Omid 16b of a track off Francis Harris' new album, which is called Leyland. The track's called Picture Us. That's coming up in the early summer. I've started a new project with Affie Yusuf which is amazing, called IndigoKidz. We've made four tracks together, and they're all sounding amazing. We already have interest from a couple of the big independent labels. I'm also finishing work on my solo album called Smell The Coffee. It's a bit like a modern Shamen album, in that it's social, political, psychadelic and spiritual. I'm adding the bells and whistles to it now. That should be finished in the next couple of months.

And in terms of Superfreq, what gigs do you have coming up which you're looking forward to? We had Superfreq last week at a club called Los Lobos in LA. The next one after that would be London, on June 2nd, the lineup for which is Alexi Delano, Adultnapper, who join myself and Luke VB. We've also got Superfreq LA on June 8th with Magda as our guest. She'll be joining Xochic, who's my resident here, and also David Scuba and myself. I've also got Superfreq events coming up in Costa Rica, Ecuador, Moscow, St. Petersburg, Calais and Southampton. We have a lot of stuff coming up.

Download Pulse.074 - Mr.C here
1. Planet Love remix by unknown on White Label FF012
2. Better Talk (James What remix) by David K & Varoslav on Rue De Plaisance
3. Sex Appeal by Maceo Plex on Crosstownrebels
4. HTAD (Jozif remix) by SECT on No.19
5. Giovanni’s Keys (Matthew Styles mix) by Tazz on Tsuba
6. White House by Argenis Brito on Cosmo
7. Move On Me by Philip Bader ft Spoony Talker on Highgrade
8. Too Close by Tim Paris ft Sex Judas on Items & Things
9. What I Do (Konrad Black remix) by Subb-An on Culprit
10. Money Dish (Mr.C remix) by Mikael Stavöstrand & Divid Scuba on Riff Raff
11. The Thrill of Acid by Levon Vincent ft Jessica Elle on Superfreq
12. Odyssey by Heartthrob on Hot Creations
13. Hey Blop (Sebestian Leger’s dub) by Gabriel Ananda on Mistakes Music
14. Sourire du Sphinx by Alex Celler on Leftroom
15. Take You Back by Subb-An on Spectral Sound

Listen to Mr.C on Pulse Radio

Russ Yallop Talks Shop

http://pulseradio.net — Tue, 01 May 2012 00:41:21 +1000

To correlate with the massive release of “Our Time in Liberty” by Jamie Jones featuring Art Department with the stellar Russ Yallop remix, we thought it was high time we drilled the Hot Creations and Crosstown Rebels DJ/Producer about all things production. We tried to learn more about how he got his start, how he achieves his signature sound and get some advice for people just starting out in the business. Read on to pick Russ’ brain with us as he discusses his studio, how he’s made some of his biggest hits and what’s on the horizon looking forward.

Many people who’ve followed your ascent as a DJ/Producer are aware that you started hanging out with many of your contemporaries (Jamie, Richy, Lee etc) in Ibiza as far back as 2004. At what point did you start consciously making an effort to learn more about music to potentially make it a career? Actually it was 2004 that I decided to pursue it full time. I’d been making music for a couple of years prior, but it was after that ‘04 Ibiza season that I decided to drop everything else and spend everyday making music. Funnily enough we were all friends but the decision was very much independent from Jamie and the guys. This was pre-Amazon after all, I knew Jamie DJed but had never heard any of his music, the only DJ who was part our crew that had any sort of career was Clive Henry.

Who are some of the people who helped teach you about production in the days when you were first starting out? No one! Seriously. As I was saying above although me and Jamie were friends until about 2009 I could probably count on one hand the amount of conversations we had about music production. We’d talk music sure, but talking tech at the kind of parties we used to have was not really possible! For the first few years I just read loads and learnt the hard way ie trial and error. Looking back I could have shaved a few years off the process if I had a mentor, though all the tweaking and fiddling gave me a very good base knowledge how things work.

What DAW do you prefer to use when making records? I now use Logic as it suits my style which I’d say is quite layered with a lot of depth and attention to fine detail. Some of my releases were made using Ableton, some I started in Ableton then transferred to Logic. Although you can achieve any result with any DAW, I find Ableton good for getting something up and running quickly, and Logic good for when things get a bit complex.

Tell us a bit about your studio when you first started out. What do you think are the bare essentials to making your first record have the potential to get signed to a label like Crosstown Rebels or Hot Creations? My studio started as just the bare essentials ie a computer, soundcard, monitors, keyboard, mic & headphones. That’s enough to make a good mix-down which a mastering engineer can then turn into something that sounds like a released track. Technically speaking that’s all that’s required. It’s of course the ability to deliver a good mix-down when first starting out which is your first real challenge. The music is actually the easy part as it comes from the heart, it’s intuitive, when you got a groove on it writes itself. The first bare essential requirement is to actually to be able to arrange your composition so that it translates itself in the best possible way, as a ropey mix will turn killer to filler. Musically speaking to release on a label like HC or Crosstown there’s no trickery involved, no politics, no secret. It’s just as simple as creating a track they really dig and you’re away. You just have to look at their releases to realise that about half are from unknown artists who’ve managed to create some magic. It’s just about the music at the end of the day, which is how it should be, but the competition is intense and you really have to absolutely nail it to stand a chance.

What three pieces of kit would allow you to do even more than you already are? Does that stuff exist or have you gotten a workflow worked out where you can get all the sounds you need? If such kit existed I would have bought it years ago. It’s all about work flow, different producers will use different kit depending on how they work ie their workflow. But workflow is something which gradually develops depending on who you are, therefore introducing a new piece of kit should slow you down at first as you learn how to get the best out of it. I would only disrupt my workflow by introducing a new piece of kit if I was struggling to get the results I was after. As for getting the sounds I need until there exists a synthesizer that can extract the sound you have in mind from your brain you are at the mercy of your knowledge of the synths you have and the sounds that they generate, combined with your ability to manipulate them. Since most synths can generate the majority of sounds you need, eg. a deep bass or a stringy pad, it then just boils down to the colour of the sound that that synth creates. In that sense it can help to have a selection, though this is where minutes turn into hours. I can be painfully particular sometimes, for my Louie Fresco – So Good remix I remember constructing the same kind of sound (a deep ‘woah’ bass) on every synth I had and then chose which I liked best. I think that’s why I’m best working alone!

To those of us who haven’t visited, could you describe your studio? Ok it’s a Mac Pro running Logic 9. I use a Mac pro as it enables me to use 3 screens. I was using an iMac though it only enables use of one external monitor and I was constantly opening and closing the mixer and spectrum analyser. Now I have them permanently open and it’s a real luxury. I use Dynaudio Bm5a monitors and a Focusrite Saffire soundcard along with a midi keyboard. Everything else is software, of which I have quite a lot of. I’ve had hardware in the past though I sold it as I rarely used it, though now I have a few more pennies I’m thinking of re-building that area of my studio.

When making a record that builds upon a sample or loop from a pre-existing piece of music, how do you strike a balance between importing new original sounds of your own design and using pieces of the sample? The balance solely depends on the sample really, but I’ll try and give some tips. Often you’ll need to introduce more drums, especially a kick if it’s a disco sample as most of the kicks used for disco lack the bite required in modern dance tunes. Take care in layering kicks though, nudge them along millisecond by millisecond until you are happy with how they coalesce. If it’s a full sounding sample there’s a good chance it won’t need anything, but if you think there are parts that need filling then a good technique can be to sample other parts from the same track and use them with maybe a bit of processing as they will often sound in tune and fit in with the overall soundscape. If you are certain it needs new sounds then you can sculpt the sample to make way for the new material, either using a side-chained compressor or an EQ, creating space for the new sound. Also something that can prove invaluable when sampling is a transient designer such as Logic’s Enveloper. By setting the tail gain to a negative value this removes some of the tail of your transients therefore removing any unwanted reverb, turning a sloppy distant sounding hook nice and dry and in your face.

Who gets the call when you’re stumped with a hardware or software problem? Back when I was learning Logic it used to be Gavin Herlihy, but nowadays it’s normally a case of googling as the chances are someone else will have had the same problem and it can be a lot quicker than trying to explain it on the phone for them to turn around and say ‘dunno what you’re on about mate’.

What’s your current DJ set up consist of? Are you on traktor? Using usbs and rekordbox or still burning cds? I use Traktor with control cds. I moved to Traktor from CDs and am happy with it as I use the loop and move functions all the time, though Recordbox seems like the future as setting up a laptop is incredibly tedious.

What headphones do you use when you’re DJing? It really doesn’t matter for me as I wear earplugs to DJ so sound quality is totally irrelevant I just need them to pick out the tempo. I just bought some Sennheisers though they are not in my possession at the moment as we all use them and no one knows who’s is who’s! I think I’m gonna buy some wack cheapos next time so no one ever wants to borrow them.

What’s the best advice you’ve been given, music related or otherwise? Hmm, a good DJ friend once told me to never go on any music forums or take any notice of any internet hate and its served me very well. The internet can have a strange effect on people’s opinions, it seems to cause well balanced people to voice unbalanced opinions, as well as providing a natural filter for balanced opinion since if your opinion is neither one way or the other then there doesn’t seem to be much point in commenting. My outlook is to only follow what you know to be true and only take feedback from people who’s opinion you respect and who know what they are talking about. And never underestimate how wrong some people can get things.

How were you selected as the only one to remix Jamie Jones Feat. Art Department, were you keen to do it beforehand or did it come as a complete surprise? It came as a complete surprise as Damian just phoned me out the blue and asked me, which my answer was obviously YES PLEASE. As for how it came about I knew Damian had been supporting my Louie Fresco remix quite a bit, also I remember a few months earlier playing the original and saying to Jamie ‘I’d love to remix this’, but as for actually who’s idea it was to ask me I’m not sure.

Describe the remix for us and how it came to be what it is.
If it was a guy at a party it’d be wearing the loudest shirt in the room, talking the loudest. As for how it came to be it was actually a ‘Plan B’ as I spent about a week on a completely different idea which wasn’t working out. Sometimes you have to make ruthless, bold decisions and I just decided to scrap what I’d done and start again from scratch. Any other project I would have moved on but I wasn’t going to waste the opportunity. Looking back it was definitely the hardest project I’ve ever managed to finish.

When you turn in a remix of two A-list artists such as Jamie Jones and Art Department to a label run by another A-list artist like Damian Lazarus, who are you the most worried about liking it? I suppose I was most concerned about Damian as it was coming out on Crosstown therefore if he didn’t like it then it would have been a straight no go, but if he did like it and Jamie didn’t I don’t think J would be cruel enough to block it still born! As for Kenny I used some audio that had originally been discarded so it was funny to see his reaction to hearing his voice singing material which I’m sure he forgot even. Thankfully it got a three-way nod.

An interesting situation that is not often spoken about is the way that getting chosen to provide a remix provides an artist with carte blanche to submit their best work. Whereas when DJing a newer, or lesser-known artist is careful not to eclipse the headliner, in the case of a remix you’ve got the potential to steal the show. As someone who’s made a name for himself with both original works and remixes, what are your thoughts on this key difference to DJing. Have you ever begun a remix, and reigned yourself in to not outshine the original? Hmm…. Ok so broadly speaking the reason a warm up DJ ‘warms up’ is not so much not to eclipse the headliner but more because that’s what that stage of the night requires. That is people are there to see the headliner, and therefore saving the peak of the night to the main event makes sense. When it comes to making music you really should be always working with a blank canvas with no kind of reverence at all, but of course the reality is it’s hard to ignore the premise you’re working from. In this case it was actually the reverse to the DJ example, as in I felt I had to go all out and pull out all the stops. Making something subtle and stripped down, trying to ‘out-cool’ Jamie Jones if you like, I almost felt would be disrespectful. I knew I just had seize the opportunity and put my all into it, in a statement it would be something like ‘right lads you’ve given me this opportunity which I’m grateful for therefore I’m gonna put my best effort in and create something as loud and ambitious as I can’.

How did you get together with The Wildkats to make System Crank? Who’s studio were you primarily working out of? All the collaborations I’ve done have been separate work in separate studios. They played me a rough version of the track and I was like ‘dudes I know exactly what this track needs, mind if I take over’.

As it becomes easier and easier to launch a digital label these days, the market is becoming increasingly saturated with both garbage and some notable upstarts that have found a way to define their own sound and start to make names for themselves. What smaller labels, have been impressing you of late? Due to the nature of how I receive music ie usually straight from the artist, I don’t really think in terms of labels these days I just think of artists. So when thinking about it I’m drawing a blank. Plus I’m very very fussy about what I play and therefore a lot of the time will have only played one or two tracks from a label, so when it comes to endorsing a label it doesn’t really feel right as 90%of the stuff they put out I won’t be into. That’s certainly the case with small ones anyway.

What producers are making solid records that you’re supporting that we may not have heard of? OK I’ll pick a big gun and a freshman. The next big guns to watch out for are Infinity Ink. Comprised of two hardened pros in the shape of Luca C and Ali Love, two great guys making some seriously huge records. As for a freshman I have to give props to HNQO, hailing from Brazil this guy has given me some cheeky bombs that I’ve been hammering the last few months.

Who really impressed you in Miami this year? What was your favourite party to play? Jamie vs Cajmere at the Hot Natured party @Shine was really special, ask anyone who was there I’m sure they’d agree. They played some mental stuff, was quality. As for my favourite set it’s tough as Get Lost is such a phenomenal party, but I also played the first set at the Hot Natured party which just had such an electric vibe as people had just got in the club and were so excited, unlike the poor troopers at Get Lost which had been open for 12 hours already. So boringly and predictably I’m gonna sit on the fence between those two.

We read in an earlier interview you played a Circo Loco party in Dubai with Clive Henry. Dubai doesn’t seem like the most welcoming place for the Circo Loco vibe. How would you describe the party in 3 sentences or less? Ha ha a few hundred veteran Circo Locoers at the front going mental, a few hundred virgin Circo Locoers round the sides looking very confused!

Aside from your “Our Time in Liberty” remix, what is forthcoming from Russ Yallop on the production tip in 2012? From now on I’m concentrating on solo material. The last year all I did were collaborations and remixes so it’s high time I worked on some original productions and am really excited about the prospect!

Listen to Russ Yallop on Pulse Radio.

Chris Wood & Meat - Freebase and Easy

http://pulseradio.net — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 23:12:29 +1000

Both Chris and Carsten have come up through Frankfurt’s thriving music scene, Chris with his long time residency at the infamous Monza club and Carsten having started the city’s premier record shop Freebase, still going strong 18 years later. Trained as a studio engineer, Chris cut his teeth at labels like Kindisch and soon joined forces with Meat, who’s held residencies at Cocoon and Robert Johnson. This mix takes their beloved Freebase record shop as its inspiration, showcasing their own material such as their latest single on Tiefschwarz’s Souvenir Music (out now) as well as some of their close affiliates.

1. L.D. Nero - Strawberry Crunch Dub
LD Nero, better known as Alex Cortex, used to be a guest in our store for many years and after an extended production break, he’s back under a new alias LD Nero, which is in our opinion, amazing minimal funky stuff. His Bad Cop Bad Cop stuff with Lopazz is also wicked!

2. Pal Joey - Partytime

Paaartytime…an all time favourite of ours! In my opinion, essential in every good DJs box.

3. Unknown - Feel Tha Soul
Unknownunknownunknownunknown......just feel the soul!

4. Ruede Hagelstein – Private (Chris Wood & Meat Ladyboy Remix)

A Remix we did for Ruede....no more words ...it's up to you

5. Dorian Paic - Excited (Maayan remix)
Ex-Freebase employee and close mate’s first solo EP! Great old school-ish sounds and a weird remix bomb by a very well known Maayan. She is one of the top producers at the moment, and also a great DJ like Dorian of course too!

6. HOUSEWAX002 - Social Memory Complex

Housewax, Chiwax, Dubwax ....waxwaxwaxwax. Probably a bit to much Wax from another secret friend of ours who runs the Label Imperium! But all of these new wax releases have their spirit!

7. Phrasis Veteris - Veles

Three killer tracks from these Romanian guys on this superb EP. It also comes courtesy of our very own little Freebase Distribution.

8. Chris Wood & Meat - JR Juniors - Souvenir

What can we say except, plug, plug?

9. Deep Space Orchestra - Ghetto Science Institute - Use Of Weapons
New school house from the UK. Love most of their stuff and also stuff on other labels such as Foto Rec, Delusion Of Grandeur, PPF, Instruments of Rapture, etc.

10. Mihai Popoviciu - unknown
Another Romanian artist who follows us the last couple of years.

Listen to Meat & Chris Wood on Pulse Radio

Kerri Chandler - King of Deep House

http://pulseradio.net — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 19:31:23 +1000

Rewind 30 years and Kerri Chandler released his first house record on Atlantic Records, so beginning an epic journey through dance music history. Having grown up in a family of musicians (his father was a DJ), it seemed like a natural path and Kerri has established himself not only as a prolific DJ and producer but a true originator of the deep house sound. Voted as Best Deep House DJ at last year's DJ Awards, Kerri's schedule is as packed as ever, but we caught up with him on the fly in Moscow to see what's heading his way over the summer.

Pulse: Kerri, great to finally catch up with you! Where in the world are you now? Kerri Chandler: Moscow for a gig at Vanilla Ninja

How do you feel that your sound has changed since your first release back in 1991? I always keep my sound style , it's really the changes in the equipment that I use that adds an element of change.

Have you got a strict routine that you follow in the studio or is it a' go with the flow' production line? I go with whatever my mood is at the time. Of course there are projects with deadlines that have to be met but the music is a product of my state of mind at the time.

Speaking of the studio, let's get down to the tech. Is there a specific piece of equipment that you just can't do without? No, not really. Again, it's all about the mood I'm in at the time that I'm working.

For those who have never caught one of your 'live' sets, what can we expect from Kerri Chandler Live? It's always something different. What to expect would depend on the crowd. There can be keyboards, live percussionists, vocalists, laser synths, holograms, reel-to-reel : it all depends on the venue and availability.

As a well respected legend in the game is there anything that you are yet to tick off your list? A type of unity really. It's like having a conversation between myself and the crowd thru the music.

You're playing at Croatia's Hideout festival over the summer. What are your thoughts on the current festival scene in Europe? I gauge it year to year. I'm always happy to see new faces along with the old.

Congratulations on being crowned best Deep House DJ at the DJ awards in Ibiza last year! What has been the highlight of your musical career so far? Everything about it has been a highlight to me. Im just grateful to be able to do what I love.

What is next for Kerri Chandler and what have you got tucked up your sleeve for the rest of 2012? Touring, touring and more touring!

Kerri Chandler plays at Croatia's Hideout Festival, 29th June - 1st July 2012

Listen to Kerri Chandler on Pulse Radio

Unwanted - Washerman & Milton Jackson

http://pulseradio.net — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 19:20:25 +1000

Switzerland's Washerman has had something of a prolific past in dance music. Growing up near Zurich, he's released on a huge number of labels and played parties all over the world. Next Saturday 5th May, the DJ and producer is in London for Unwanted's Warehouse party with Milton Jackson. We grabbed an exclusive mix and chat with him and if you'd like to be there on 5th May, just tell us Washerman's real name.

Pulse: When did music become a real interest for you, in particular when did electronic music first grab you? What was happening in the scene around that time? Gianni: this was back in 1989 when I was 14 years old, I had luck to hang around with older DJ's in a small club in the region of Zurich where I grew up. I was born into a poor Italian emigrants family and the funny thing was that all the DJ's in that club where Italian, so this was just right about my place to hang out! I was so fascinated by watching the older DJ's scratch and mix this great electronic music (at that time it was acid house, underground disco and dance music in general) that I knew this was what I wanted to do. Soon they let me mix with them in the DJ-booth and gave me their records to mix. Since then I’ve never stopped buying records and mixing them, that's how I got into electronic dance music. The scene back then was great for such a small country like Switzerland, Zurich was the main spot for underground warehouse parties in Switzerland with internationally booked DJ's but also the French speaking part of Switzerland had a really great house scene.

You’re a vinyl collector, it’s been a tough time for wax over the last 5 years, how has this affected your collection? Gianni: It doesn't affect my record collection at all, I’ll never will sell my most beloved records. Since my DJ-sets are mainly packed with older records I wasn't forced to buy new music digitally and the house style that I play was/is still coming out on vinyl.

Have you noticed a recent resurgence of vinyl? With wax only labels like your own Traxx Underground and Wilson Records do you think we’ll see a welcome return of our beloved vinyl? Gianni: I would love to see that although I don't think vinyl will have a big return ever in dance music. Nowadays it has become a niche thing for vinyl lovers only and purists, you rarely see bigger DJ names playing with vinyl. To me, a real dance music record is only a real record when it is released on vinyl and distributed by a distribution company, but this is just my personal opinion. The good thing is that there is still a scene, you know, kind of an underground house scene, where vinyl is still the first choice, and this makes me really happy! It’s great to see younger DJ's & producers releasing and playing music on vinyl and keeping that whole vinyl thing alive. I never would have thought this would happen again, but it's just happening right now, even if it's only on a small underground scene. I think that some of the best new house music is coming out on vinyl nowadays.

We are huge lovers of vinyl too at Unwanted! Explain a bit about the Swiss music scene. Gianni: Concerning house music the Swiss clubbing-scene had its biggest days back in the 90’s, there were a lot of underground warehouse parties and raves with international house DJ's in Zurich back in the day, nowadays I really miss that groove. There’s way too much commercial parties around and no more spots for underground warehouse parties and few promoters booking good DJ's. Maybe because Zurich is just a small city, I don't know... there's actually only 1 club in town called Zukunft, doing parties with deep music and booking great DJ's. Concerning artists I think Zurich, Bern and also the French speaking part of Switzerland has good labels, musicians, DJ's and producers in electronic music, making good quality dance music and who are also internationally well known. But for my taste I really miss more music lovers here, to me younger DJ's here are too focused on being cool and well known instead of playing good music. Fortunately this isn't a problem to me nowadays with the internet, fb, soundcloud etc. you have the possibility to connect with the same deep thinking & music-minded people worldwide.

What’s been the biggest influence on your frankly, amazing and very different house sound? Gianni: I listen to a lot of different music, I love older jazz, soul & funk records. I was listening to every kind of electronic made music. I love underground disco from the 70’s & 80’s, I played a lot of dance, disco, house, techno, nu-jazz and hip hop when growing up. At the age of 14 I was hanging out in clubs and also was an active clubber back then. I went through different dance music styles as a DJ as well. I think these are all influences to my productions. But nothing is so deeply anchored in my heart as house music, especially from the 90’s. I have to say that Kerri Chandler is my favourite house producer and influence but also all the great house, Chicago house and early techno-makers from Detroit & USA of the 90’s like MAW, Glenn Underground, Boo Williams, Roy Davis Jr., Chez Damier, Moodymann, Frankie Knuckles, Marshall Jefferson, Jesse Saunders, Juan Atkins, Derrick May, Kevin Saunderson, Francois Kevorkian, Larry Heard and so much many others I cannot mention them all here. Also deep house productions from France where big influences to my productions.

You’ve played Sonar Festival, which must have been amazing, but what’s been your favourite place or club to perform in? Gianni: I really don't like playing music-halls. I love to play smaller clubs with 200-300 people or less, because I like to feel the crowd, I like to be with the crowd and feel them all. That's what I prefer to perform in. Dark and dirty warehouse rooms and underground parties with great & pumpy sound systems are my favs. I also really like to play at my buddies club Zukunft in Zurich, such a great place to play.

That’s music to our ears! You’re one half of Azuni, and had success across a vast amount of labels, what’s been the key to this success? Gianni: I really can't tell you exactly as for my point of view I was never really successful. I always wanted to do deep music which comes directly from my heart. I think people can hear that in my productions, it's all honest. I just want to be honest with myself doing music and I always do what I feel from the heart, without looking to hype and stuff. It sounds a bit naive but it's like that. With Azuni I wanted to bring back real house vibes to the younger generation in a time where deep house was not "in" at all, at least not here in Switzerland. It was more minimal and the tech house kind of stuff that time, a lot of dance music was sounding to cold to me. I couldn't feel the love in the records, maybe that was the key, bringing back fresh, deep & honest music at the right time.

Finally, talk us through the Washerman Project, what are your long term goals and what’s on the horizon for you and your label Traxx Underground? Gianni: I worked with a lot of people before Washerman, I did live-acts and small concerts with jazz musicians mixed with electronic music, I had a few different projects always together with friends of mine like the Azuni project. With Washerman I just want to do my very own solo project now, I don't like having long term goals. I'm working on a few remixes right now, after that I really want to make another EP and maybe an album as Washerman. I'm really happy also having started Traxx Underground with my partner Samann. For our first release and introduction of the Label we've signed a House producer from France called Kool Vibe who is one of my favourite house producers around, a true veteran house-head. I think he is just a great signing for us and in my opinion his vibe shows people perfectly the direction we want to go style-wise. Numbers 2 and 3 are signings from younger newcomers & upcoming artists, which I think are doing a great job, they’re both from the UK. We are also in contact with producers which had their great successes back in the 90’s and really want to reactivate their music with new remixes etc. We’re working hard to keep the real vibe alive and bringing some of finest underground house to the younger club generation and DJ's (on vinyl of course)!

Washerman plays at Unwanted on Saturday 5th May. For tickets and info, head here.

Listen to Unwanted on Pulse Radio

Audiofly - Unleashed

http://pulseradio.net — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 00:47:37 +1000

Not one, but two record labels, a hectic touring schedule, productions and remixes and running a party that puts on events in cities all over the world. The fact that Audiofly find any time to answer questions is an achievement in itself. Returning to London for the upcoming Unleash party at The Oval with Jozif and Danny Daze this Friday, James Huxley spoke to Anthony Middleton about what's keeping their iCal full in the coming the months, and the 'difficulties' of running a party that calls some of the worlds best venues home.

How do you feel when you come back to play London and what do you think makes the electronic music scene here different from other capitals such as Berlin for example? Coming back to London is always refreshing. The scene is always so deep and well, 'London'; there's no sound like it. Of course there's also a not-so-deep, not-so-underground scene, as with everywhere, but the London Underground scene, particluarly, continues to thrive in a world where commerciality seems to be taking over. Also, there's a real sense of community within the London clubbing industry, an identity perhaps and it's a very educated crowd with a real sense of the history of the scene. It's always a pleasure coming home, we only moved away because of the weather! [Laughs]

How different are your sets when you play together and separately? Do you have strong individual preferences towards a certain sound or are you completely aligned in your tastes? The great thing about Audiofly is that you get three acts in one [Laughs] I bring the rhythm and trippy beats, the funk, and Luca brings the sonic and melodic 'hands up' moments. When we play together we obviously fuse these two concepts and when we play apart those same things are clear in our sets. But obviously we meet somewhere in the middle and there you also find the common ground in our solo sets. We'll include certain tracks or music from the studio that we just made and music from our two labels, Supernature and Maison D'Etre, yet somehow it's still definitivley our sound. [Laughs]

So what can we look forwards to on said labels? Well, up next on Supernature is an amazing track by Betoko called 'Before I Lose Control'. It has this really classy vocal with solid lyrics on a very emotive backing track, really beautiful actually. Then after that, a collaboration between ourselves and Close Sense (aka Anthony Collins) a proper dancefloor affair. Next on Maison D'etre is a limited release vinyl by Yaya & Jun Akimoto, (it's one of those tracks that begged to be on vinyl) a real sonic journey with a spot in the middle where you lose yourself, proper. Then later on in the year on Maison D'etre you can expect releases from Uner, Sante and something new from Fabio Giannelli. Also we're working on a really special side project, a Flying Circus Compilation. We saved up some really special tracks and will be releasing them all as one giant release which will come mixed and unmixed. Its a project which really goes through the moods; from "deep as sin" to techno and the complete package will come beautifully manicured with a top class accompanying visual project.

It's been a pretty spectacular year for the Flying Circus parties. Can you tell us a little bit about how it's going from an insider's point of view? t's going really well, something we didnt really imagine when we started doing the events. [Laughs] It was all so random. So now, the journey of the Circus is picking up speed and around the world, more and more promoters invite us to bring the show, it's really positive! People seem to really feel a difference in our shows!
The group of artists who perform in rotation are all good friends of ours and this always comes across in the overall energy of the shows (always a good vibe), as well as the fact that the organisational side of it is now finally and fully under control which has made our lives a lot less stressful. Obviously there's difficult shows, especially events like WMC or ADE, where everyone's mum is putting on an event where artistic resources can be a little more limited. But we have our core artists, the people we have grown/are growing up within our little world/scene who continue to support our little cause. So far, so good.

Do you find you are on a course to keep on improving; is it a struggle? We're continually looking for better show concepts, artistically speaking; looking for a good musical fit, trying to book people you always dreamed of working with, searching for that magical venue on a beach somewhere to do a future show. I mean it's not that stressful trying to make improvements. [Laughs] I mean, SO far, it's been a really enjoyable ride!

Ok so before we go, some quick fire questions, first up, what's your biggest musical Influence before the age of ten. Rhtyhm and Blues, Thin Lizzy, Irish Folk Music (My dad is responsible for all this!!) and some colourful filipino bedtime songs from my mum.[Laughs]

Artists you would most like to pair up with for a production? Hmmmm, I'd love to sit and record Mark King (Level 42) one of the most amazing bass players, we'd never need to record another bassline again. And Chaka Khan or Mary J Blige before she got all famous.

Three things that make a good party: Good toilets, good sound system and a BIG bottle of Mezcal.

Your favorite thing about London? My mates and Borough Market (Hey not fair, really, too many things to like about London, that was just my heart and my stomach talking!)

And finally your least favorite thing about London? The Weather! (mostly)

Audiofly play Unleash this Friday at with Danny Daze & Jozif - Tickets & Info

Listen to Audiofly on Pulse Radio

Mario Basanov's World

http://pulseradio.net — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 18:54:04 +1000

You might know him as one half of Mario & Vidis, but Mario Basanov is making firm strides on his own work too. The Lithuanian producer and DJ, who's a celebrated star in his home country, released an album with Vidis in February this year and has previously had music out on the likes of NeedWant, Future Classic and Under The Shade. 2012 will see him release his own solo album and tour both alone and with Vidis through Europe and Brazil, and he plays London's Needwant party this Friday 27th April. Before he sets off, we pinned him down at this turning point in his musical career.

You changed your name to Mario Basanov. Has this become a name you now answer to or is it only a working title for your music?   Yes, sometimes I answer to Mario, because over time I’ve got used to this artist name. But I prefer then in casual life people called me Marijus or just Mario. The two often merge together.

What was it like growing up in Lithuania?   It was much like growing up in any country I guess. I don’t know that to say, it was absolutely routine life. Except that I was growing up within a family of musicians. I was always listening to only good quality music, and also was playing a bassoon.

Reading up on your home town the words strange and interesting come up? Would you agree with that? How is it strange?   Yes, I agree. It’s difficult to say about Vilnius, it’s more of a feeling. Everyone should visit, it's a great city, but much smaller than somewhere like London.

What is the party or music culture like there?   The parties and music culture is very varied. From Techno, House, Trance to Dubstep. I think it’s much like everywhere else with lots of different scenes. But it was House music in Lithuania that was most popular in our days.

Any plans on moving to a 'music' capital? London, Berlin or Ibiza? I want to live here in Lithuania, but I’m always glad to have gigs in capital cities and great places such as London, Berlin and Rome. I'm playing most weekends and I’m excited about traveling to all these places: this week is London, later Ibiza, Brazil and more for this year already. But in fact I want to live in Vilnius, it’s my home and family here. I feel good here.

What's your studio set up like? My studio is not big, but it’s enough for me to feel good here. I’m proud of it, because I built it almost by my self. (except equipment which I have). For the past 15 years I use Cubase, sometimes I work with Ableton live, but that's more for preparing for live performances. Also I have Speakers Quested s7, analog synthesizers: minimoog-voyager, prophet 08, Vermona –M.A.R.S., Korg- Polysix, Polyvox, compressor Avalon 747sp, but it’s not enough for me. I want more synthesizers, all these new sounds ripen my new tracks.

What sort of music do you look for to mix with your own when making a mix or doing a remix? It depends for a mix. But in general I always looking for good feel and a real groove in the music. If I feel it, I can do a remix, or I use track in my mixes.

Who are you most influenced by with your production? Silence.

The first I heard of you was with your work with Vidis. Will you continue working together or is there now more focus on your solo work? I’m both working with Vidis and by my own. Sometimes it happens that I spend more time with Vidis, sometimes on my own. I can’t say that I’m more focused on my solo work, maybe right now, but not all the time.

There's a very melancholic and moody feel to much of yours and Vidis' album Changed. Was that the intended sound for the album, or did it just end up that way? Everything turned out spontaneously. It’s like making a vine. You never know if it will be sweet, medium sweet or dry, but sometimes it can be deep.

Baltic singer Jazzu features in quite a few of your productions. Where did you find her? Actually Vidis found Jazzu, and I don’t know exactly where he found her. He just came to the studio, and told me, that he knows somebody who can sing on our style of music. The rest is history.

What have you got coming up this year that you're excited about? I’m very excited about my solo album. I’m working this a lot right now. It’s making me kind of crazy but in a good way.

Mario Basanov plays alongside Robert Owens and Nicholas (Live) at Needwant Warehouse Party this Friday 27th April.

Listen to Mario Basanov on Pulse Radio

James Zabiela - Born Electric

http://pulseradio.net — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 13:09:57 +1000

Australian favourite James Zabiela is returning down-under this May, bringing with him label mates George Fitzgerald and Alex Niggemann. Ahead of the tour, Pulse's Henry Johnstone got on the blower with the always affable DJ and chewed the fat on warming up, mix CDs, his new label and his latest production, which he lets slip is set to appear as a remix on Sasha's upcoming Involver 3.

Pulse: So you just returned home from Snowbombing right? How was it? James Zabiela: Exhausting, but a lot of fun. I do it ever year, it’s kind of my holiday. Though I’m not sure it’s really a holiday when you come back more knackered than when you left.

What else aside from its amazing location makes it such a talked about festival? I just think the line up is absolutely brilliant. You can literally go to a gig every night. You can go to five gigs every night and see loads of really cool stuff. The guys that program the lineup really know what they’re doing – there’s something for everyone musically. There were loads of things that I wanted to check out, but I didn’t even end up seeing half the things I wanted to. Even if you were going there not to snowboard but just to rave, it would still be totally worth the money. And actually I know a lot of people do that.

Did you get to watch any of the other acts? Who blew you away? Well I did a party there with George Fitzgerald, who’s coming with me to Australia, and it’s the first time I’ve actually seen him play and he was brilliant, absolutely brilliant. He totally filled the dancefloor from nothing to a packed room – he built the room up perfectly. It’s sort of a lost art I think, the opening set, but he really nailed it. The peak time part of his set he played perfectly too. So he was probably the best DJ I saw there, and not only just there, but the best that I’ve seen in a while.

That’s cool that he was able to do such a great warm up. I think you’re right in that it’s something that’s a bit of a lost art these days. I remember when Danny Howells last toured here he had a bit of a problem with a DJ that opened for him. Yeah I read that actually.

I think it’s something that kind of needs to be addressed. DJs should know how to warm up. I came from the school of Sasha and John [Digweed] where I played before those guys and you sort of knew and understood how they played their sets. You knew not to go above say 123bpm or play anything with a heavy 909 kick in it. It’s weird, I think it’s changed a lot in the dance music scene. It’s kind of gone back to the rave culture in a way; you’ve got a 90 minute set, you play all your biggest tracks, kick the doors down and then leave. It’s this sort of festival mentality. But in a club that’s open for eight hours or longer, people want to go there and enjoy the whole night. And it’s hard to do that when someone’s banging the shit out of it before midnight.

I’ve always thought that a lot of your downtempo mixes – like some of the FOUR series or the more chilled ‘disc ones’ from a few of your commercial mix CDs – that that would be something cool to tour. That’s definitely something I might look into at some point. Perhaps if I were playing a whole night somewhere I could do something like that, where I could play like that the first half of the night and then transcend into more dancefloor stuff. But it’s kind of difficult to find the right venue or place to really do that kind of thing. For those types of mixes I’d almost feel like I’d have to give out chairs to people!

So what’s happening on the production front for you at the moment? I think the last thing we heard from you was Blame? Yeah, that was ages ago. I haven’t released a track in well over a year. I’ve got this new track that I’ve finished – which actually going back to what we were just saying – isn’t a dance record, it hasn’t even got a kick drum, unless you count the sound of me tapping my fingers on a cardboard box. It’s electronic, by all means, but very organic. No one’s really heard it yet. Sasha’s done a remix of it and some people have heard that because he’s been playing it out a bit – though it’s not anything like the original. So I guess it’ll be appearing on my soundcloud soon, because it’s going to be the first release on my new label.

What’s the new label going to be called? It’s going to be called ‘Born Electric’.

Nice. And you mentioned Sasha’s done a remix of your new track? Yeah Sasha’s done a remix and he’s using it on his next Involver album. There’ll be a few more remixes to come as well to accompany the release, which I’m pretty excited about.

I saw something last year about a collaboration you did with Al Doyle from Hot Chip. What happened with that? Yeah that’s right. I’ve still got all that stuff sitting on my hard drive. My plan is, when I’ve got a chance, to get back into the studio and finish it all and use it for the label. We started about five tracks and I just have to shape and arrange them into something danceable. They’re all techno-ey type tracks. I’m also working on a few other things, which I can’t really talk about at the moment, but the plan is to get at least two of those tracks finished and released.

You’re well into your UK bass sounds like Ramadanman, and as you mentioned earlier you’re bringing George Fitzgerald on tour with you to Australia. Is that kind of sound something you feel you’re moving further towards, or is it just one piece of the all encompassing Zabiela sound? Just the one piece I think. With anything like that I get kind of bored and need the contrast of sounds when I’m DJing. After an hour of playing one particular genre I need to switch it up a bit. I don’t know why that is, it’s just how I’ve always been. The thing that I like about that bass scene is that a lot of them now are all playing a mixture of techno and breaks and dubstep and house as well. Midland is a good example of that, who I believe is down in Australia at the moment. He plays a lot of house but a lot of it is bass influenced – Bashmore sounding stuff with a heavy low end.

You said a few years back that the last Masters Series you did was the Mix CD you’re most proud of, compared to other past ones that you almost can’t bear listening to. Do you still feel this way about that last Masters Series, or are you looking to better yourself even further with the next one? Will there be another one? I do still feel that way about that Masters Series because I approached it much differently. When I listen to it now, because of all the field recordings and the tracks that are on there, it just reminds me of where I was and what I was doing and what was happening when I was making it – it’s like a diary or a scrapbook. It provokes my memories, so when I listen back to it I’m really quite fond of it.

I’m probably not going to make another one though. The whole mix compilation thing doesn’t really excite me much anymore, and not many people buy the things! That’s the other issue. And they cost a lot of money to put together – there’s much more value in doing something like a podcast or an Essential Mix. I did a free Mixmag cover CD and because it’s in all the newsagencies and on all the street corners, the exposure that I got from that was enormous, probably way more than I achieved with any of my commercial mixes! It’s kind of made me realise what’s the point? And with the commercial mixes you’re really restricted with what you can use as well. With my Essential Mix I raped the Moon film of samples – I was completely free to sample the hell out of things and do as I please. That’s where the best mixes come from.

Well the door is always open for you to record a Pulse podcast! I’m working on quite a big one at the moment, which I’m a little nervous about. It will probably be done in the next two months or so.

Speaking of films, I’ve always thought with the way you construct your downtempo mixes that you’d be well suited to produce soundtracks. Maybe something for later life? Definitely, but something for later down the track. I enjoy DJing and traveling too much to have the patience to sit down in a studio and do something like a film soundtrack. God it must be so time consuming making one. It’s almost too much like real work to me! [laughs]

I can’t let you go without asking you a Doctor Who question, it wouldn’t seem right. Which of the Doctor’s assistants did you find the most effable? Sorry, could you repeat the question?

Ahh, which of his assistants did you find the most effable? That’s just a pleasant word for f***able! Leela? Sarah-Jane? Maybe Ace? Oh right! [laughs] I used to like Peri. She was the American one.

Colin Baker’s assistant? Yeah. She was the end of Peter Davison and the start of Colin Baker. You need to watch their regeneration scene where she’s bent over the Doctor with a low cut top on. It’s funny there’s an interview with Peter Davison where he says, ‘No one was watching the regeneration, everyone was just looking down her top!’ Very funny.

Thanks James. No worries. I'm going to eat my sandwich now before the next interview!

Listen to James Zabiela on Pulse Radio