This interview is part of of our special R&S feature which includes 2 label samplers for £1 each (including the likes of Aphex Twin, Model 500, Joey Beltram, Pariah and James Blake to name a few), and interviews and Top 5 charts as well as a sale on all R&S back-catalogue.

BLEEP: How did you get involved with R&S Records?
Andy Whittaker: Both Dan and I were approached by R&S to do A&R and label management respectively. We’ve both worked in music for a long time as buyers for record shops and at other labels. We know the history of the label very well, but also have
a strong idea of what the label should be doing in these modern times.

B: How does it feel to become part of a label with such a illustious legacy in electronic music? Do you feel that there is a lot of pressure on you to carry on “flying the flag” for the label?
AW: There is always people’s opinion of what they deem to be R&S sounding records, that may not always be in line with our view, but I wouldn’t say we feel any pressure. We just carry on having fun, releasing amazing music that excites us, just like Renaat has always done.

B: What is next for R&S Records?
AW: Firstly some great singles coming soon by Model 500, James Blake, Untold, Space Dimension Controller and The Chain
Then Pariah, Space Dimension Controller, Pepe Bradock and The Chain are working on albums. The In Order To Dance compilation series will be resurrected and we’ve just received superb remixes of Model 500 from Bullion and Space Dimension Controller. We are also starting to move into parties and events with our debut show at XoYo in London in Novemeber.

This interview is part of of our special R&S feature which includes 2 label samplers for £1 each (including the likes of Aphex Twin, Model 500, Joey Beltram, Pariah and James Blake to name a few), and interviews and Top 5 charts as well as a sale on all R&S back-catalogue.

BLEEP: Why did you choose that name Model 500?
Juan Atkins: I chose that as a kind of repudiation of ethnic designation. I wanted to get away from people trying to put a tag on who I am and where I’m from. It’s simply a model number.

B: Recently, you have decided to take Model 500 on the road as a live act. Can you tell us why you have only just decided to do that in the past couple of years when Model 500 has existed since the mid-80s?
JA: I thought that with technology changing and people downloading music, to me, the only way for an artist to exist nowadays is to be able to perform live. That’s where most of the income is going to come from for artists and a lot of new artists. I think that selling records is more of a promotional tool nowadays.

B: The first Model 500 record came out in 1985, but your first album, ‘Deep Space’ didn’t happen until ten years later. Can you tell us why this took so long?
JA: The mid-80s was a ’singles’ market at the time. Everyone was so into just releasing single after single. I wanted to do a proper album project at the time, but nobody was prepared to give me the budget to do it.

B: Has the way that you make music differed at all over the years?
JA: I like to try new things that adds to the creative process; this has always stimulated my creativity. With all the software and plug-ins that are available, I’m having a great time doing stuff on a laptop!

B: Why do you think that techno started in Detroit?
JA: Well, to make this a simple answer, I guess it’s because I’m from Detroit! The bleakness of the city was inspiring, as was the transforming industrial history of the city. The music that we made transformed right along with it.

B: If you could pick any musicians, alive or dead, to ’session’ on a Model 500 record, who would they be?
JA: I would love to work with any of the members of Kraftwerk; that has been talked about before. Bernie Worrell [Parliament]; George [Clinton], of course, but he’s more on the lyrical / song tip.

This week sees the legendary NEU! have their classic albums re-released, including never before released material. You can see all of the catalogue here. To mark this occasion, we decided to talk to NEU! co-founder, Michael Rother.

Bleep: The late 60’s was a turbulent time politically in Germany, but exciting musically, as this era marked the genesis of elektronische musik or krautrock. Can you give us an insight into this period?

Michael Rother: I think the best that I could do is tell you about my own situation. I was born in 1950 and when Paris 1968 [student riots] came around, I was 17 or 18. There were political upheavals and the students demonstrating at the universities. Me and some older friends had problems at school – I was a good pupil – but the conservative teachers were surprised by this this previously ‘nice guy Michael’ suddenly coming up with strange ideas in his mind and my relationship with them at school slowly worsened. We did have one or two ‘progressive thinking’ teachers, but they were a minority. I finished school in 1969 and I knew that, then, I could no longer cope with this very conservative situation at school.

Seeing all the changes around the time, like the Vietnam War, even the changes within the media of film and art; this compelled me to develop my own personality further. My friends and I thought that these changes were like some kind of ‘virus’ that was in the air, and looking back, this was the reason why it felt so natural to develop who I was and detach myself from the background that I grew up in; especially growing up within the clichés of American and British rock music at the time.

B: Was there a mutual decision amongst your peers to react against these clichés?

I think that there’s a misunderstanding here, and I think that this might be a bit of a myth! I hope I’m not going to be disappointing people, but I felt quite alone with the idea of “not continuing with this old style of music” and by the time that 1970 arrived, I wanted to do something new. It’s not like we were all connected then like we are today as people. Back then, I wasn’t aware of what people were doing in musically in Munich, Berlin or other cities. At the time, I didn’t even know that Kraftwerk were in the same city! I went into the studio for the first time without even hearing their music, or even knowing them, and after chance meeting in the studio with Ralf Hütter [Kraftwerk], which led me to start jamming with them, I realised that my thoughts were not unique. We thought about leaving those blues-rock structures behind and having this idea of a more European-based music. From then on, I drew inspiration from and exchanged ideas with the musicians that I worked closely with; firstly in Kraftwerk with Florian Schneider; then Klaus Dinger in Neu! and then with Moebius and Roedelius in Harmonia.

B: Before Neu!, you were involved with Florian and Ralf of Kraftwerk. How did this came about and can you tell us more about the work that you did with them?

I didn’t know Kraftwerk. At the time I was doing service in a hospital as a ‘conscientious objector’. I refused the military draft. The alternative after a court ruling was quite tough at the time – these days you can refuse via sending in a post card, or something like that! Anyway, at that time, I didn’t know the music of Kraftwerk, and, as mentioned earlier, my initial meeting with Ralf and Florian was purely chance after a friend invited me to the same studio. I picked up a bass and started jamming with Ralf Hütter, and from that moment, things started to develop. The melodies and the music that we created were really quite interesting. Everyone in the studio had the same idea; Florian and Klaus were sat on a sofa listening and then at the end of the session, we exchanged numbers and they called me a few weeks later when Ralf decided to go back to university, leaving Kraftwerk for a few months. So I actually met those guys after jamming with Ralf but started performing live with Florian and Klaus as Kraftwerk. A very exciting time!

B: Can you tell us how Neu! started?

Contradictory to myth, Klaus and I were not friends – as strange as it might sound – but I thought Klaus was a fascinating drummer and I had never known anyone with that power, energy and radical approach to drumming. I guess that he was attracted by my style of guitar playing; approach to music and where I was heading. We had this immediate similarity of where we both wanted to go creatively, and when we stopped collaborating with Kraftwerk, in the summer of 1971, we decided to go our own way together. As much as we were very productive together, Klaus was a very difficult guy to work with from the beginning. He wasn’t very pleasant and the way that he drums tells you the story of Klaus! Once when we played with Kraftwerk, he cut his hand badly on one of the broken cymbals that he preferred (he liked the sound) and blood was literally squirting all over the stage! He didn’t stop for a moment and I could see jaws dropping! This approach to drumming was how he would treat his own body and this would get worse in later years. But as an artist, this behaviour would be the extension of his creativity. This was the core that we needed in the studio. I had no idea what to expect in Autumn 1971 when we booked the studio with Conny Plank and took all of the little amount of money that we had to pay for production costs. It was a very stressful time. After recoding for four nights (the studio was a little cheaper at night) and mixing for a few more days as was at home with Hallogallo and other tracks. This was a great moment that I remember so clearly.

B: Neu! has a very unique sound, synonymous with the motorik rhythm structure of tracks such as Hallogallo and Negativland. This highly original sound has influenced the likes of Stereolab, Sonic Youth and countless others. What influenced you at the time?

This is another opportunity to contradict the a myth! A lot of people try to understand and analyse Neu! as the beat created by the drums. There’s no understanding of the music of Neu! if you only look at the drums. Try to imagine ten minutes of simple drumming – nobody would want to listen to that. The magic is the relationship between the drums and the harmonic and melodic instruments. If the drums are taken away from the guitar / piano parts that I played and vice-versa, you are left with something totally different. Neu! is about the relationship between the two. The time that I spent in Pakistan, I listened to a lot of music and I was fascinated by how hypnotic it was, and also the idea of music that went on forever fascinated me. Klaus and I never discussed theories. We were never talking about music, we were making music. The harmonic structures that I put together, I guess, were based around European folk and classical music, but without the song structures of that kind of music or the approach to classical music. It’s basically the ideas of which notes go together and which don’t. Combining these ideas with the hypnotic music that I listened to in Pakistan somehow lead to Hallogallo and what followed. I’m always surprised when people talk about the drums and think that this is the essence of Neu!. It doesn’t make sense if you just listen to the drums and think that’s Neu! If bands are inspired by us are only picking up on the drums, then, in my opinion, are quite far away from understanding what really made Neu! You can hear this effect if you listen to Oasis’ The Shock Of The Lightning – it works if you combine their ‘Beatles-style’ with Hallogallo.

For Part 2 of our interview, go here.

This interview is part of our Permanent Vacation Special Feature which includes an exclusive label sampler for £1 (only available for 2 weeks), interviews, DJ charts and back catalogue sale.

BLEEP: Tell us briefly how you started Permanent Vacation?
PV: The first time Tom and I were in contact was when Tom was working at Compost Records and i was compiling a compilation for them, which Tom was taking care of. After that Tom became a regular customer at my recordshop , i used to run back then. Soon we realized we have the complete same taste in music and since we both had individually the idea of running a label it felt natural to do it together. So, a classic love story!

B: How important do you feel being based in Munich has affected the running of your label – both in positive and negative aspects?
PV: Hhmmm… hard to say. Munich is our hometown and therefore it’s of course special to us. It is always hard to tell if we would be doing things differently if we would have grown up in another city. Munich is a city with a long Disco tradition , with Donna Summer and Giorgio Moroder , Freddy Mercury and the Rolling stones used to party here , so it definitely had an impact on us either conscious or subconscious.

B: What has been one of your proudest moments since running the label?
PV: Well, as we heard the Antena “Camino del sol” Joakim remix first time on a big club soundsystem and the place went nuts. This was pretty special for us… or getting an email from Maurice Fulton after just two releases asking if we want to release the Kathy Diamond album was almost surreal. Just when you see that your work was not for nothing gives you a satisfying feeling.

B: List us your 5 favourite /classic/ disco tracks?
PV:

Punkin Machine – I Need You Tonight

Supermax – Ain’t Gonna Feel

Hot Chocolate – Don’t Turn It Off

Tamika Jones – Can’t Live Without Your Love

Charanga 76 – No Nos Pararan
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQl_d6zWUC0

B: What do you have planned for Permanent Vacation in the future?
PV: Loooots of awesome music!

We got some great tunes and remixes coming up from Tevo Howard, Black Van , Bostro Peopeo , 40 Thieves , James Curd , DJ Sneak , Barck & Prommer , Dmx Krew , Tbd, Woolfy vs. Projections , Pollyester , Tensnake John Talabot, and many others. We also working on new material for our own project and I really want to make Permanent Vacation beach wear. Speedos and Bikinis and stuff .would be fun

This interview is part of our Permanent Vacation Special Feature which includes an exclusive label sampler for £1 (only available for 2 weeks), interviews, DJ charts and back catalogue sale.

Bleep: Coma Cat has been one of the most played tracks in 2010. When you wrote it did you immediately know that this was going to be a big tune? Has it helped you to reach a new audience?

Tensnake: No not at all. I had quite a good feeling when I produced it as the track is pretty catchy, but I was totally suprised by the success. I guess Coma Cat has some kind of crossover potential as I heard many different style DJs dropping it.

B: What is your studio set-up?

TS: I have a pretty basic studio setup, using mainly VSTs/ UAD plug-ins and a couple of analogue synths. I just bought new speakers as the ones I had before were pretty bad. I always had to go into the kitchen to check the bass or doublecheck with headphones. I didnt hear much bass below 70hz, so I spent more time on the higher frequencies I was able to hear.

B: You have become a sought after remixer with a very distinctive style. Can you describe the process you go through when remixing a track?

I don’t have a master plan when I start working on a remix. I am listening to the original song/ track quite a lot and hope there will be some inspiration soon. It can be a vocal, drum or guitarloop or just a mood while I am listening. Sometimes it is a real fight, you wake up the next day and think to yourself “why the hell did you do this?”. So yes, remixing can be a lot of fun, but also a big pain.

B: What releases are coming up for Tensnake?

I am working on a couple of things at the moment: The next thing out there will be a remix I did for Permanent Vacation: Azari & III “Reckless With Your Love”. I am also working on a live album which should represent the sets I am playing in clubs & on festivals and will come out later this year. I see it also as a possible summary of the work & releases I did so far.

There will also be a double mix CD I’ll do for Defected, full of old and new tracks & edits I love. I think it will come out in September or November.

This features as part of our special Juke House Feature including 3 limited period digital samplers for £1 each; writing on the genre from Planet Mu’s Mike Paradinas and Ghettophiles’ Chrissy Murderbot; “Best of Juke” charts from some of Chicago’s leading DJs; and brand new digital catalogue previously unavailable digitally.

“Like virtually everything in dance music, the juke phenomenon starts with Chicago House, a sound that absolutely dominated urban Chicago in the 1980s and 1990s. As Detroit was borrowing from house to create techno (and London, Sheffield, and Brussels were borrowing from house and techno to make rave, bleep, new beat, et cetera), Chicago kept doing its own thing, producing an incredibly rich dance music culture that (for the most part) stayed under the radar of UK tastemakers.

Ghetto House (or Booty House) was a huge component of this: by the mid-90s, Chicago DJs like Deeon, Slugo, Milton, Paul Johnson, Jammin’ Gerald and DJ Funk were speeding tunes up, stripping them down, and building on Chicago’s already-long tradition of mindlessly filthy lyrics aimed at the dancefloor. As a new generation of Chicago producers came up in the late 1990s, the tracks got even faster (150-160bpm), the rhythms got more intricate (and tom-tom oriented), and more hip hop influence found its way in—this sped-up, modern Ghetto House variant is what we in Chicago call Juke.

Over the past decade Juke has developed two pretty distinct halves: the more straightforward four-on-the-floor party bangers by people like Gant-Man, Nephets, and Waxmaster; and the more rhythmically varied, sideways-sounding “footwork tracks” from DJs like Spinn, Rashad, and Nate. Though Chicago’s unique footwork dance styles have existed for as long as I remember, the last five years have seen a sort of feedback loop develop—the music gets faster and more off-kilter, which inspires the dancers to get more intricate and experimental, which encourages the producers to make the tracks weirder still.

This all brings us to about 2008—the first time I noticed juke making an impact in the UK. I was playing juke at a Ruffnek Diskotek night in Bristol, and Headhunter (who I’d always enjoyed but assumed to be one of those strict dubstep-only types) starts gushing about juke! Turns out he’d planned to play a bunch of footwork trax that night, and been working on this side project called Addison Groove. When I got back to the states he sent me “Footcrab” and I realized that this music might finally have a chance in Britain. Maybe it’s the chance overlap with dubstep’s semi-halftime rhythmic experimentation and massive bass weight; perhaps it’s related to the UK underground’s long-overdue rediscovery of house music (via UK Funky / Tropical / Karnival / whatever you want to call it). Whatever the reason, Chicago dance music finally seems to make sense in the British context in a way that it hasn’t since the 1980s. And now Planet Mu is stepping in, snatching up footwork producers like DJ Nate, DJ Roc, and DJ Rashad, much like they snapped up tracks from Pinch, Vex’d, and MRK1 as dubstep started to break five years ago. Add to that the support from London’s Night Slugs crew, Numbers in Glasgow, and a small-but-rapidly-expanding juke scene on the continent, and things are looking very promising for us Chicago kids….”

Chrissy Murderbot

Editor’s Note: We changed the title of this post from “Chrissy Murderbot Introduces Juke House” to “Chrissy Murderbot Introduces Juke”…

We was unaware that “Juke House” means a brothel house in some parts of the world!

This features as part of our special Juke House Feature including 3 limited period digital samplers for £1 each; writing on the genre from Planet Mu’s Mike Paradinas and Ghettophiles’ Chrissy Murderbot; “Best of Juke” charts from some of Chicago’s leading DJs; and brand new digital catalogue previously unavailable digitally.

“I’d been aware of Chicago ghetto house and the Dance Mania label’s releases since the early 1990s, and indeed owned many records of that era from artists such as DJ Funk, DJ Deeon and Parris Mitchell but i’d lost touch at the end of that decade as the records stopped getting imported into the UK, and indeed stopped getting pressed altogether. I’d also heard of Chicago Juke (as ghetto house came to be known) but the little I had heard sounded very similar to Ghettotech (and even B-More club), with a steady 4/4 kick and bouncy party feel, which personally didn’t excite my musical bits.

Then in late 2008 and early ‘09, thanks to the recommendation of a friend, via Youtube, Jamglue and Imeem (the latter two now sadly defunct) I started hearing something which, to me, sounded very different; still called Juke, but somehow the party atmosphere had gone and along with it, the 4/4 kick. This was a music infused with dread, dreamlike layered and repetitive vocals, a pulsing sub-bass.. sounds and samples taken from pop, hip-hop and r&b were pitched up and down and repeated reminding me of hardcore and early jungle’s first, more primitive, experiments with sampling in the early 90s. Obviously Chicago’s producers had never heard, or at least never been influenced by UK Jungle but the parallels seem to be there to me, in the use of sub-bass and helium vocals, repetition and chopped up samples and the increasing tempo (160bpm) meaning the switch to half-speed rhythms started happening. This seemed to me to be analogous to when, around ‘93 the sped up rush of hardcore’s 150-160bpm breakbeats mutated into jungle and as the tempo kept increasing, the dread basslines started to emphasise the slower 80/90bpm interpretation of the track; or when between 2004 and 2005 2-step garage and early (horsepower) dubstep’s skippiness mutated gradually into the ‘half-step’ of Digital Mystikz and Loefah.

This newer (newer to me) sound was being described as Footworking music or ‘Foot Wurk’ and was accompanied by rapid-fire below-waist dance moves. Watching the videos and hearing the dance & music in combination made far more sense.

Before reading any further may I suggest you listen to a mix of my own ‘footwork favourites’ that I did a couple of months or so back to see whether you like the genre, it contains many tracks I’ve licensed for the upcoming Footwork compilation on Planet Mu:

Footwork dancing has a long history in Chicago being around since at least the mid 80s, one of the first and most famous Footwork groups was House-O-Matics, and weekly footwork events happen on Sundays at Walacam’s “Warzone” party and “Battlegroundz” both on Chicago’s westside. But I’m personally more interested in the evolution of the music, so forgive me if i ignore the dancers, the YPS, Heat Squad, Terra Squad etc… and concentrate on the music. It’s more my area, and I’m well aware that the footwork dance drove the evolution of the music and vice versa.

The pioneer of Footwork (for brevity’s sake when I say ‘footwork’ from now on I am referring to the particular style of juke music, rather than the dance) was RP Boo (aka Arpebu, Record Player Boo). He was one of the first to produce tracks in the ‘half-speed’ footwork style with the signature Juke tom, and clave sounds in offbeat syncopated patterns, often in triplets. DJ Clent was also an early innovator in beat patterns, but RP’s trax have an otherworldly quality which I love. Here is a link to an interview with RP by Dave Quam from his excellent blog It’s After The End Of The World

RP Boo – Total Darkness

The repetitive looped vocals of which ‘Total Darkness’ is almost entirely made give the track a dream-like hypnotic intensity.

RP Boo – Eraser

Taking a sample of Wings and making it one of the darkest tracks i’ve heard.

RP Boo – Steam Midity

These tracks are all from about 2007.

The DJs Rashad (Harden) and Spinn (Morris Harper) From GetoTeknitianz are pretty much the undisputed kings of Footwork Djing. Here is a video of Rashad DJing at a footwork event (Battlegroundz I Think?). Rashads trax are full of tight funk and very on-point and danceable rhythms. A couple of tracks below:

DJ Rashad – Drop Juke Out

Very hip hop feel in the half speed syncopations here… again the hypnotic repetitive vox give the track a great feel, one of my favourites from the Juke Trax label, which I believe will soon be available on Bleep.

DJ Rashad – Itz Not Rite

Here Rashad cuts up the track making one of the most abstract footwork rhythms yet out of the space between the samples, masterpiece. This is the lead track on Rashad’s forthcoming Planet Mu EP.

Another popular DJ is DJ Roc (Clarence Johnson), whose ‘Bosses of the circle’ crew were on of the first (so he tells me) to start selling cd mixtapes of Footwork and Juke mixes. His style is somewhere between the straight Juke and Footwork styles. I cannot find much DJ Roc on youtube, but there are quite a few of his older more juke style tracks on DJ Slugo’s Subterranean Playhouse label and he has a release forthcoming in a couple of months on planet mu.

DJ Roc – Let Me Go mixed into P.A.N.I.C.

There is also a style which has been referred to as “Bedroom Juke”. Lots of tracks posted on youtube by self-styled “DJs” such as DJ Nate meaning producer in this case as I’m pretty sure Nate can’t DJ, but these guys (and some girls such as DJ Ga Ga aka Jerrilynn Patton) wanted to get involved with the scene but had varying levels of success in acheiving popularity and many have gone on to pursue careers in hiphop rapping and production. These ‘Bedroom juke’ or ‘Youtube Juke’ tracks have tended to be a little more abstract and plentiful with tom fills and off kilter rhythms. These were very popular among the younger generation in high school, and mixtapes were passed around class.

DJ Nate – give dat man room

DJ Nate – time

Another guy who made footwork and is now producing hip hop under the name ‘DJ Spacey” is DJ Trouble (aka Prentice Livingston) whose trax have a lot of style and emotion:

DJ Trouble – fuck em up

DJ Trouble – Bangs & Works

DJ Tha Pope is “Chicago’s youngest celebrity” and presents on channel 19. I can’t find his best tracks on youtube, but here are a couple of good ones:

Tha Pope – one blood

Tha Pope – Everybody Bob

and finally…
DJ Elmoe – whea yo ghost at

You’ll hear a lot more of the goodness when Planet Mu release their Foot Wurk compilation “Bangs & Wurks” early next year. In the meantime we’ve got releases from DJ Nate, DJ Roc and DJ Rashad before the end of the year.”

Mike Paradinas

Editor’s Note: We changed the title of this post from “Mike Paradinas Introduces Juke House” to “Mike Paradinas Introduces Juke”…

We was unaware that “Juke House” means a brothel house in some parts of the world!

On the release of their new album, we decided to catch up with On – the group consisting of Sylvain Chauveau and Steven Hess…

NR: I love the concept behind On, to form a group that consists of improvising, experimental musicians and a producer or mixer who takes the material and shapes it into the final record. Yet the two are inseparable both as an entity under the On moniker, and musically, they integrate so well. How did you meet each other and how did On come about?

Steven: I first heard Sylvain’s music back in 2002 though a mutual friend of ours here in Chicago, and after the first listen I was blown away with what I heard and a few days later I decided that I had to get in touch with him to introduce myself and discuss the possibility of some sort of collaboration in the future. At that point I had no idea what sort of collaboration we would do, I just new I had to reach out and make a connection with this guy
Sylvain: After a few email exchanges that went very well, much to my surprise, Sylvain suggested that he come to Chicago so we could have the opportunity to record together. Which, as you know by now, we did. That material became the 1st On record “Your Naked Ghost Comes Back At Night”, and the remaining material was used for “Second Souffle”. Then we lived happily ever after.

NR: As “third member” of On for this album did you give Christian Fennesz free reign over the final sound?

Steven: Yes, of course. As with the other artist we have asked to mix the On records – and those we’d like to ask to mix future records/tracks – they have total control and are free to do what they choose with the material (with-in reason).
Sylvain: Steve and I chosen carefully each person we wanted to ask to be the mixer or producer. What we look for is a musician whose work we really like, mostly in the range of electronic music, and who is open enough to take our improvised material and make a record out of it. So the mixer is free to reshape completely the tracks, to add or remove some sounds, or to leave it as it is and just mix the intruments altogether.

NR: Since the music is generated through improvisation, and then handed over to a third party to evolve into something different again, I imagine this to be a process in which the final result is unpredictable. The music is unmistakeably by On and yet it somehow seems to have evolved out of itself. Did you have a starting point?

Sylvain: Yes, the result is a bit unpredictable and that’s something we appreciate. I’ve noticed this: when you spend a long time making music for a record, you make it evolve until you reach a point of satisfaction and then you end up the mix. It’s done, and usually when you listen to it a long time after you start to think this is not that good, that you would change this or that if you had to do it today. But with On, it’s the opposite. We receive the result and it contains the touch of someone else. It takes a little while to get used to it, to understand what the mixer has created, and the more time goes the more I get into it. Those albums have a better evolution with me than the ones where I control everything.

NR: The album is called Something That Has Form and Something That Does Not and I hear this as an idea in the music, for example a loop that ‘has form’ underpins a wash of much freer, undulating sound and noise. How did the title come about?

Steven: Great observation, and very true. But… the title of the record came much later and really just kind of fell into my lap. I was wanting to use Form, or some synonym of, in the title somehow, and thinking some of this material really did have form, but then again… some of it is very open and doesn’t – even after Fennesz reworked it. So while sitting on my porch drinking coffee and having a cigarette one morning the phrase Something That Has Form and Something That Does Not came into my head. Voilà! Boring story really, I wish it was something more detailed or dramatic. Sorry folks!
Sylvain: I like the story. I didn’t know you had the idea on your porch with your coffee and cigarette, man. I think the titles are very important in music. Especially in instrumental music. That’s a way to tell a story. Or to let listeners imagine the story. Like we did with a title such as “Your naked ghost comes back at night and flies around my bed” (the first track of our first album), for example. One can immediately know what it’s about and picture a story.

NR: Tracks such as The Sound of White recall to me textures composed by Morton Feldman- a bed of sound that nonetheless is constantly changing, focusing the listener in to tiny events. It is large-scale, expansive music, yet the magic is in the detail. Do you agree? and musically, who are your influences?

Sylvain: I didn’t think you could hear some feldmanesque mood on this album, that’s funny. But on the other hand, talking about influences, the music we enjoy as listeners has definitely an influence on what we play – the opposite is also true: the music we play influences ous tastes as listeners. Feldman, yes, one of the most important composers of the 20th Century, to my opinion. Maybe my favourite one, since ten years now. But from our side, On is a lot about improvisation, immediacy, playing without thinking. The body, the heart, they know what you want to hear. Just let them go. I always have the temptation to make theories about everything I do. So it’s good to let go. Just play.

NR: With track titles such as Blank Space, The Sound of White, and [from Your Naked Ghost Comes Back At Night] The Lonesome Poetry of Mark Rothko clearly visual art, the idea of physical space and colour (or the lack of) has been an inspiration. How do you see the relationship between art and music?

Steven: Visual art has a huge influence on me as a musician, so yes, I think it has, and always has had, and influence on the music/sounds created by Sylvain and myself. I recall talking about specific artists/film makers/authors in the early email exchanges even before we even started recording together. We quickly realized that we have a lot of common interests and influences and I think this helped us mold the basic beginnings of the project. Now ‘how’ we are individually influenced by visual art is a completely different story, and actually something I’d prefer not to try to explain in one sitting… or at all. I think a majority of the time when someone tries to explain how they get their influences, it usually comes off sounding very cliché, or for a lack of a better word “idealistic”. You never know how or when you’ll be influenced, but when it happens you definitely know and it sticks with you until you can translate it to your own medium. Done.
Sylvain: The titles you mention are clearly linked to minimal art and to abstract expressionism. It’s true that Steve and I have this interest in common. We both have been able in the past to be blown away by a white monochrome painting. The first (and only?) press photo we did together was before an Ellsworth Kelly painting at the Art institute of Chicago. But saying how one can translate this in music, I don’t know either.

NR: It seems to me we live in an age of ever blurring boundaries, to talk about genre is barely relevant and cross-pollination between the arts seems ever more prevalent. Does taking something visual as a stimulus change the way you think about making music?

Sylvain: Certainly. And as we said, visual arts (mostly abstract painting) still is a important stimulus for people like Steve and I. but there are others too, and you can find them pretty much everywhere. Cinema offers visual and audio stimuli, and it can be very deep. Poetry or novels can work a lot too. Or photos – I remember trying to compose string pieces directly inspired by what I was feeling in front of Michael Kenna black and white shots several years ago. But I also believe that arts are not equivalent. You can’t make the same thing with music as with painting. Cage’s 4′33″ in 1952 is not the exact equivalent to Rauschenberg’s white monochomes in 1951. Debussy’s impressionistic music was not the exact equivalent to Claude Monet’s paintings.

NR: Do you have any plans to perform the record live?

Steven: Yes, I would like the opportunity to perform these songs live, or at least some sort of interpretation of these songs. Ideally I’d like to try to get Christian involved as well, if schedules allow that. I’d be thrilled to perform with Sylvain this year or the following. It’s been quite a while since we have performed (or toured) together and I think it’s about time we did that again.

Interview by Nicole Robson.

For the good of bass music, some of the best news we have heard in a while is that Rinse FM (the East London pirate radio station) has now been awarded an official FM license.

We decided to get a few words from the DJ, Producer, and Rinse Founder – Geeneus….

BLEEP: Tell us how Rinse started?
GEENEUS: Me, Slimzee, Target, Wiley and A Plus and some others set it up in a friends kitchen after we got kicked off another station. We put the transmittor under the mixer and pointed an aerial towards Hackney. We would switch the station on Friday nights and then switch it off on Sunday nights.

B: How did you get your FM license?
G: It was a very long campaign that took nearly 3 years and involved us consistently proving that we deserved an FM license. Although it was a lot of hard work we were committed to the cause as we believe strongly in what we are doing.

B: What’s the upcoming plans for Rinse now that this has happened?
G: Our plans are to carry on broadcasting in the same pirate style that our listeners know and love.

The 12k label has been a vanguard of abstract and minimal-electronics that shift between the musical realms of gentle, pastoral ambience, dissonant noise collage and micro-techno. We are very happy to have this exclusive digital sampler curated by label-head Taylor Deupree. We also wanted the opportunity to speak to the man himself…

Bleep: Tell us about your formative musical years in the late 80’s, apparent sonic-worlds that are seemingly far removed from your output these days?

Taylor Deupree: The 80s were huge for me, and still are. bands like New Order, Cabaret Voltaire, Early OMD… electronic and then industrial music of all kinds. Music completely ruled my life since I was about 14 and there was so much exciting music and developments at that time. Factory Records and 4AD Records were big influences on my understanding of the presentation of music and, ultimately, on 12k.

B: We read that you are heavily involved with graphic design. Does this spread towards the aesthetic of 12k and which graphic artists/designers to you admire past, present, future?

TD: I’ve been working as a freelance designer in New York for the better part of 20 years and have done all of the design for 12k. With 12k, and my design in general, I’m very much into anti-design, as I call it. Design that is so simple that it doesn’t draw attention to itself. Trying for the most minimal of flourishes or accents. Pure and simple. The designers I discovered in the 80s are still my design heroes. I don’t know much about designers or the professional world of designers, I don’t pay attention. Peter Saville, Neville Brody are pretty much the only names that meant anything to me. Edward Tufte, though not strictly a designer, is a big influence as well.

TAYLOR DEUPREE PHOTOGRAPHY | (untitled, NYC) from the Holga Architecture Series

B: You are one of the most prolific, constantly changing artists on the experimental landscape, how do you mange to cram it (collaborations, solo-work, label duties) all in?

Passion, really. I mean, I love doing what I do. I live it and breathe it, I’m completely dedicated and I’m a workaholic. Somehow I manage to write and release the music, run 12k, have a family and house. As the saying goes… if you love what you do, you’ll never work a day in your life…. and that pretty much is what I live by. I don’t know how I manage it all, but I do, and I do it all with equal passion.

B: Do you see your music as part of the minimalist canon in music, what’s your personal relationship with this form?

Minimalism sort of guides my whole lifestyle. I’m always conscious of it on the day-to-day… whether it’s with music, or my house, or cooking,.. anything. I have no problem being categorized as a minimalist musician although I think what’s considered minimal now doesn’t necessarily relate to the classic Reich/Glass minimalism. To me minimalism is about shaving away the excess and the drama and the decoration. I think music that is densely layered can still be minimalist, it’s not just about space or silence.

B: Your latest record, Shoals, features a selection of Javanese and Balinese gamelan instruments -albeit heavily processed- how did this come about?

I was asked to do an artist residency program at the University of York by Mark Fell and the Music Research Head Tony Myatt. I love these opportunities to go places and really concentrate on working, free from everyday distractions so I quickly accepted. The idea, however, was for me to find something to do there that I couldn’t do at home. I needed to make the experience unique.

Because I’ve been working acoustic instruments so much lately, the discovery of the University’s Gamelan collection was the perfect basis for the project for me. It’s quite an impressive collection and nothing I have access to here at home. The idea then was to develop a simple software simple (I used Kyma in this case) to record and manipulate the instruments. After some experimentation I settled on long, very repetitive looping structures and spent a week creating these long passages. I recorded many hours of material and then took it home and edited down into what became Shoals. That part was very difficult as I had a lot of material to go through. I could probably make another album with the remaining material. I probably will some day.

B: How do you divide composition between computer technologies, ‘real’ instruments and field recordings?

My practices are always changing and wandering… but lately I tend to do most of the *recording* in the analog domain. Acoustic instruments, hardware looping pedals, tape, pre-amps, all that fun stuff. My music is really about beds of sound that I like to humourously describe as “going nowhere”… a vertical approach to sound is more interesting to me than a horizontal or linear one. I want to try to take time out of the equation and concentrate on the moment. You can avoid time with music, but I try. When I’ve created sounds or loops these get put into the comptuer for editing, layering and mixing.

B: Does Brooklyn, New York City inspire your approach to making music?

I lived in Brooklyn for over 15 years and I think it definitely made me want to write quiet music… as a way to escape the over-stimulation of the city. Now that I’ve lived in the country for 5 years I find I’m equally as inspired to write quiet music but it’s taken a much more acoustic and organic turn. As has my photography as well. New York City has a strange electronic music scene. I’ve never really felt part of it, or accepted there. There are a lot of micro-scenes and not a lot of inter-scene support it seems. I think New York has so much going on and people from so many places that it no longer functions as a contained ecosystem.

B: How do you see the current state of electronic music on a worldwide macro-level?

I try not to think about these things really. The music is always changing, new genres splintering off, more and more people making music. ITunes and Beatport have changed things so much, illegal file-sharing, net labels, MP3s…it’s the Wild West.