Live PA as .xtrak at Interface 8 (Los Angeles), August 7th, 2004
|
Tell me how two differents scenes like hip hop and post-punk bands like Cabaret
Voltaire could inspire you.
To me they are not so different. I think that the rock, funk, jazz, and soul of the 60's + 70's spawned a lot of new categories of music -- in the reactions of and inspirations from these genres, mixed with the access of synthesizers, drum machines, and samplers -- there is bound to be some overlap between the two. Meat Beat Manifesto, MC 900 Ft Jesus, and Consolidated in 1989, rode the fence and made "grey" music... industrial + hip hop fans admire it at the same time. The foundation for building techno was similar -- you had the black sound of Parliament Funkadelic colliding with the white synthetic sounds of Kraftwerk. I think my upbringing [half in the country, half in the city; with friends of many ethnicities] left an impression on me -- and my gravitation towards a variety of genres. Then black music and white music were very important for you? They both are extremely influential on me; I respect John Coltrane as much as I do Joy Division. When I was growing up, Beat Street + Breakin' had more of an affect on me than Bon Jovi [what 90% of my friends were listening to].. after discovering the ties of producers such as Malcolm McLaren + Arthur Baker having their hands in punk, new wave, and hiphop, it served as a catalyst to investigate everything. So I ended up by listening to jazz from Ornette Coleman, Don Cherry, and the Art Ensemble of Chicago; hip hop from Grandmaster Flash, Melle Mel, Whodini, Public Enemy, Tribe Called Quest, indie rock from Sonic Youth, Big Black, My Bloody Valentine, and the industrial music of Einsturzende Neubauten, Coil, and Skinny Puppy. But not just musicians, but many visual artists, designers, filmmakers, architects, and photographers influence and shape my music as well. Concepts from these other disciplines are sometimes stronger than the "textures" we hear from other musicians. A photo is worth a thousand words; but perhaps it is also worth 10,000 notes? That might be an underestimate. What about the Midwest scene in terms of clubbing? Geoff White told me that is just ÒemptyÓ. I grew up just outside of Cleveland, Ohio. I started getting into clubs in high school, and went to a place called the Lift -- which was trying to emulate the club phenomena that was going on in London, NYC, Chicago, etc. I saw Dan Curtin perform live with a Moog Source keyboard; tweaking the sounds, and having melodic techno beats underneath -- It was enough to get me interested in being part of it.. so within a year or so, our band [body release, featuring Titonton Duvante, Charles Noel aka Archetype, and Mike Szewczyk aka txt] had one of our first performances there. This "milestone," great at the time, was an affirmation of my decision. The early 90's was a great time to be living in the Midwest -- it was young + ripe for music, parties, performers, and DJs. People would drive for hours and hundreds of miles just to hear 6 DJs play in an unheated parking garage in the middle of February. Detroit, Chicago, Columbus, Cincinnati, and Dayton, Ohio all had great events and promoters could actually bring people like the Aphex Twin, System 7, or Laurent Garnier on a regular basis. One event in Detroit, in January 1993 featured Altern 8, Inner City, and Carl Craig as BFC live; Jeff Mills, Eddie Flashin' Fowlkes, Robert Hood and Mike Banks of UR DJing.. it was techno heaven! Unfortunately, parties came to an end -- promoters got busted too many times to keep going [myself included], got tired, moved away, and then it turned into club culture again [like the late 80's / early 90's]. So they had to stay open, which meant they couldn't afford to take chances, and that turned into the end of open-minded clubgoers. Trance, prog house, and top 40 hip-hop are about the only thing these people will listen to any more. and this is why clubbing, as we knew it, was dead. Our collectives, ele_mental [1993-present] and Firexit [1997-2001] were experiments in connecting different scenes in an event setting; ele_mental fused the live act, visual artist, and DJ in one evening. Firexit brought together indie rock, film, theatre, art, and even food into one night of experiences; I have yet to see anything quite like it [NYC, Berlin, SF, or otherwise]. I might hate on the Midwest for much of its apparent lack of taste or knowledge, but these quirks of ele_mental + Firexit are irreplaceable in my shaping as an artist and I'd never trade that in. I know is not very polite to compaire two differents works, but your stuff with Natacha Labelle reminds me of "Bodily functions" by Matthew Herbert. Any comment? Is it a kind of bedroom electronic music. Jazzy? Dubby? I like it, anyway. You use vocals as personal challenge? Are you sick of minimalism stuff? -is it enough with german producers? I don't mind the comparison, but I do think it is a little "easy." Meaning, that there are probably some other comparisons that you could draw. I really only listen to one 12" from Herbert -- the 12" Phono EP with the live version of "Back, Back, Back"... on it. I did buy Bodily Functions, and I appreciate the conceptual approach, but sometimes the emotion can get a little lost in over-conceptualizing the technique. The bottom line for me is just conveying emotion. Whether you compare it to Herbert, Monolake, Moodymann, Tricky [as others have], it doesn't matter so much to me -- I respect all of them for what they do, but I think what I do is "connecting the space between + within" [the tagline for my studio work as + SCALE.] The songs for overlap + love/like were penned by both me + Natacha Labelle, my vocalist from Montreal. I write lyrics, poetry, and fragments of thoughts in my journals, all the time.. mainly while traveling via subway, train, plane. And the music is the setting; the framing for these thoughts of mine + Natacha. She + I both reflect on our own experiences of love + lust and try to make music that is conducive to doing just that. And as a result, it ends up being sleek, seductive, slinky.. like that of a lover or someone who moves you. Parts of overlap + love/like are my way of dealing with the bitter ending of a relationship or the passionate, singular moment that you want to last forever. "Skin" is a good example of this [on the "overlap" EP, Planet E, 2002]. I wrote the song immediately as I got back on the plane to come back to Detroit from a week in San Francisco. I was so overwhelmed that I wanted to suggest the feeling of two people completely lost in discovering each other. As for minimalism / german producers; well, I still respect a lot of them. But minimalism, as a concept, should be only a reduction of excess -- it should not strip away the foundation in the process. My .xtrak material was my idea of "minimizing to maximize." I wanted to leave a thick enough skeleton of a track... enough to latch onto, but no "flubber." I still try to do this in my music today, but adding vocals, drums, etc. were a way to experiment with more traditional instrumentation with my own fucked up musical idiot approach. I fumble through writing songs, because I have no musical knowledge. I don't know an A flat from a G sharp. I just rely on what I think sounds good, harmonic, melodic.. but at the end of the day, what sounds deep, emotional, and interesting is what matters most. Tell me anything about your remixes for Beta Bodega Coalition -hip hop?- I did a remix of Ultra Red's "yo vivo aqui." They were recordings of a performance that they did in LA as part of a protest... it was at tech-house tempo.. before they switched gears and got going mostly hip-hop... Is your "versus" again with Geoff White yet released?. Did Geoff ask you to ask me this? because I have been extremely slow getting my act together on this project -- as you could imagine -- it's not done, but something I am trying to finish before the end of the year... :) Not many new producers have released for 7th City and Planet E. Tell me anything about your connections with both respected labels. After going to a rave in Cincinnati in late 1992, I ran into some people from Detroit who seemed to know just about everyone. They were part of these crews called Voom + Poor Boy. At the center of the crew was Jon Santos [designer now at Brand New School], Brian Gillespie [Throw / Twilight 76 label head] , and Paris Mack [Detroit Grand Pubahs]; who were integral in launching the label Throw, releasing the 12" "sandwiches" and the formation of The Detroit Grand Pubahs featuring Paris da Black Fu. With Brian's help, I was introduced to Carl Craig + Dan Bell at the same party [a Richie Hawtin +8 party in Detroit] and I gave them both demos of different material. Carl liked the melodic, textural techno of what I was doing as "enhanced"; whereas Dan Bell was interested in the stripped-down funk of was I was doing as .xtrak. Within 6 months, my first international releases were in the works for Planet E, Peacefrog, and Seventh CIty; 1994 was a great year for me starting my career as producer. And the public responded with strong sales of the .xtrak 12"'s on Peacefrog. You travel often to Barcelona. Whats your relation with that city? I fell in love with Barcelona in 2001, when I first played Moog. I hung out with Lars [funk d'void] and Dave [Tarrida], Eric [Hipp-E], and Heidi Mortenson; had some wild times and just got recharged while I was there -- visually, musically, and emotionally [I ended up falling in love with a woman in 2002 there]. For me, the blending of cultures + architecture, the sea, the streets, and a very healthy art + music scene left a great impression on me. And every time I come back, it just starts all over again. I admire you for your relations with all the strongest scenes around the world: Detroit, Germany, NYC, England (Peacefrog). What do you like most of each scene? there are some similarities in all of these scenes -- and Chicago + Cleveland as well! ;) They are all urban, industrialized cities / countries which have perhaps not the most beautiful weather in the world -- harsh winters, grey skies, more than your fair share of rain, etc. It affects me in what I write, what I see, what I hear, and what I dream. I've spent a considerable amount of time in Detroit [I am usually mistaken for being from there, because of my sound], and it has this bleak, desolate, yet somehow optimistic quality; and after witnessing it firsthand, I see what most of the early Detroit producers where trying to encapsulate in their music as well. I appreciate those elements in all of these areas -- and after living in NYC for the last year + a half, I affect it, and it affects me as well. And I think that as a creative, you must have this symbiotic relationship with your environment -- taking it in, and giving back to it. interview from trax magazine (Sept 2004) |