[Innervisions]

Osunlade’s Pyrography, his seventh and supposedly last full-length, is yet another worthwhile house album that has gone seemingly ignored this year. Perhaps this remix single commissioned by the Innervisions imprint will help to change that. “Envision,” featuring a circular and hypnotic vocal hook, was one of the briefest and poppiest moments on the album, and here Innervisions label heads tease the syncopated stomper out lengthwise into something more strictly dance floor.

Admittedly, the differences between Âme and Dixon’s reworks are slight, both taking the usual approach of bright chords and clean lines to remove the lighthearted, rollicking feel of the original. The difference is in their buildup: the duo use a lightly swung drum pattern and ticking chords to build momentum until those instantly recognizable whining synths crash through the gates, and then the track winds down the way it started. It’s effective and immaculately produced, but for better or for worse not exactly breaking the mold. Contrarily, Âme’s “acoustic” remix is more interesting, laying naked the surprisingly complex percussive interplay, but it merely fizzles out after reaching its climax. Quite a conundrum. Dixon’s remix buries its foundations deep into the ground with a roving bass line and drums even more simplified than Ame’s. When those synths come it feels less rapturous, though it’s hard not to get swept up in the “second” climax that finally hits around six minutes in, and the track slowly fades out basking in its own afterglow. None of these remixes are either essential or outstandingly exciting, but they both do a fine job of stretching out what was a short burst of propulsive rhythm and catchy melodies into well-executed, irresistibly sleek tools.

Legend has it that Robert Johnson made a deal with the Devil to obtain his mastery of the guitar. Judging by the uniformly excellent output of the label that bears his name, one might suspect that Atanasios Christos Macias and Oliver Hafenbauer, the brains behind Live At Robert Johnson, made a similarly Faustian bargain. A more rational explanation points to their years of experience in the Frankfurt dance music scene. In addition to decades spent DJing and running record shops, Christos (known casually as Ata) was a founder of the esteemed Ongaku Music, Klang Elektronik and Playhouse imprints. Together with Hafenbauer, he’s also operated the no-frills-all-thrills club for which the label is named. Their combined experience and recruitment of Roman Flügel, Arto Mwambe, Massimiliano Pagliara, and B.H.F.V has made LARJ yet another scene-defining label: a unique corner of house music which never shies away from melodies or songwriting and has proven that mix CDs can still be greatly desired products. LWE reached out to Hafenbauer to pick his brain about the label’s aims, its plans for the future, and the importance of record art. Label staple Roman Flügel was also kind enough to provide Talking Shopcast 11, a thrilling hour of bleep-filled techno and electro that reveals the continued relevance of Network and Warp Records.

Please tell me your your job title and what you do on a day-to-day basis for Live At Robert Johnson.

Oliver Hafenbauer: I am A&R and responsible for the artist and label management at LARJ. My day usually begins with a cup of coffee and a little chat with one of the guys in our office before I start answering emails. Besides my activity for the label, I’m taking care of the musical curation and the booking management for the club Robert Johnson. I guess the main part of my work is arranging and organizing things. In addition to that there are a lot of creative processes and all sorts of projects around the office to be taken care of. We share the building with Tobias Rehberger’s office and factory. Ata and Tobias are close friends for many years now and Tobias was also responsible for the naming Robert Johnson. Our office space is quite big and includes a professional kitchen where Ata runs his cooking club, “Club Michel” once a week. About a year ago Ata and Tobias had the idea to ask a cook, the wonderful Frau Ochs, to spoil the whole team every day with her incredible home-style cooking. Everyday at one-a-clock we all gather around one large table in our office and enjoy lunch together before everyone goes back to work.

How much input does each of LARJ’s staff have on what the label releases? How much input does each artist have in what their releases consist of and look like?

The label LARJ is basically only Ata and me. Either Ata or I decide what will be released next. Together with the producers we compile the tracklisting for the album or the maxi singles. Most of the times the artist himself has a vision or an order of tracks in mind which makes sense already. To check the quality of the sound we drive over to Robert Johnson and listen to the tracks on the Martin Audio sound system. Our art department, Doeller & Satter are responsible for most of the LARJ Artwork. In case of Roman Flügel’s last EP, Desperate Housemen we decided to get our friend and designer Saskia Randt involved who already created the cover for the first CDs compilation series. For LARJ, the artwork is just as important as the music.

The label has a unique aesthetic that’s half sleek and simple, and half messy and unstructured, with cut-outs and the like. How does the design of LARJ represent the label? Does the label come to designers with ideas or do the designers have freedom to create as they please?

Since we share the office space with our art department we have a very close collaboration with each other. After we’ve roughly discussed an upcoming cover design, Michael Satter and Sandra Doeller have the freedom to decide which art work will finally be released.

LARJ was first launched back in 2003 for a couple promo mix CDs, but it wasn’t until 2008 and 2009 that it became a full time label. What was the logic behind taking it full time?

The first 12 cardboard CD sleeves in 2003 were flyers with the particular Robert Johnson line-up of the month. They were only available in a couple of shops in Frankfurt or were given to friends. At the club’s entrance you could get an audio CD with a mix recorded live in the club. The mixes were anonymous, but with a little knowledge you could guess the particular DJ. The idea to launch the label started with the first “official” compilation series in 2009. The basic idea was to make it possible to take home that Robert Johnson feeling in a materialized way. Therefore we had to establish a “proper” label with Robert Johnson artists, EP’s and albums.

Before starting LARJ, Ata had help found Ongaku, Klang Elektronik and Playhouse. LARJ seemed to start as Playhouse was winding down. Why has Playhouse mostly stopped putting out records?

The start of LARJ had nothing to do with Playhouse, it was just about time for us to launch the label.

The label has largely focused on residents of Robert Johnson, but not exclusively. What does it take to have a release on LARJ? Will the label feature more non-resident releases in the future?

First of all the artist should produce music we would like to release. Often there is a huge lack of melodies in the promo material people send me, but a very important component of our releases are melodies.

What is one of your favorite releases on LARJ? Why?

I really enjoy all of our releases, of course. We launch all sorts of dance music from new wave to deep-house, but my personal favorite is Roman Flügel’s “Brian Le Bon.” It totally represents my idea of contemporary dance music. The sound is somewhere between the bleep of Warp Records and classic house music. I also love Massimiliano Pagliara’s interpretation of PiL’s “Order Of Death” called “In Order Of More Depth” for it’s darkness and new waveness.

What are a few other labels, past and present, you respect/revere the most? Why?

I love the work from Smallville, Dial and Laid. They found a great Hamburg scene/sound. Gerd Janson is doing a real good job with his label, Running Back. Uncanny Vally from Dresden stand for a very honest way of house music, on top I like that we are all friends with each other. I love Future Times in the U.S. for the same reason. I also admire the way Warp Records is going for all these years now. Shed’s Wax label and Frank Timm’s work for Soundstream is conceptually working really nice, the high quality of sound and the plain design. I also really like the guys of Sex Tags Mania and their irony regarding the house and techno business and certainly their great artwork.

Is there anyone LARJ wants to release who it has not yet released?

Yes, of course. There are coming two remix EPs from Massimiliano Pagliara’s Focus For Infinity album with remixes from Tuff City Kids, Nicholas, B.H.F.V and a couple of others. Also I’m pushing forward a solo release from CB Funk (Christain Beisswenger). Chris is one half of Arto Mwambe and B.H.F.V.

LARJ has risen quickly to the top of the pile in tandem with the club. Is there a lot of pressure to maintain the label’s top rated reputation? How does it impact your label decisions?

We don’t feel any pressure at the moment. For us it’s all about high quality dance music. I want our releases to be slightly futuristic. I know the word futuristic allows a lot of different interpretations, but it is the way I feel when thinking of LARJ.

Ata said in a recent interview that the label plans to stop doing mix CDs after one more by Dixon. How will that impact the rest of the label’s output, if at all? He also said their would be compilations instead. Would you mind shedding light on what these compilations would be of?

Most of the tracks Ata and I like speak for themselves. I think Ata’s Live At Robert Johnson Vol. 7 compilation showed this already, he decided to string together most of the tracks unmixed. Reminds one of the good old mixtapes or the classic way of compilation. We like this idea a lot and soon there will be new stuff following. In the future we will put our focus on several mini compilations with various artists.

What are the label’s plans for the rest of 2011?
Finish our plannings for the atumn winter tour 2011, completing the concept for the mini compilations, Dixon’s fantastic Live At Robert Johnson Vol.8 compilation CD, several maxi singles and EPs of artists like Roman Flügel, Lauer, B.H.F.V and hopefully soon a solo release from Christian Beisswenger.

Talking Shopcast 11: Roman Flügel (60:01)

Tracklist:

01. Botany 5, “Lovebomb” (LFO Mix 1) [Virgin]
02. Xon, “Midnight Express” [Network Records]
03. Nightmares On Wax, “Biofeedback” [Warp Records]
04. New Age Technology, “New Age Technology” [Ozone Recordings]
05. Rhythmatic, “Take Me Back” [0742 Records]
06. Bizarre Inc., “Technological” (Detroit Mix) [Blue Chip]
07. Tricky Disco, “House Fly” (Radical Rockers Remix) [Warp Records]
08. Energize, “Report To The Dancefloor” (Electro Mix) [Network Records]
09. Original Clique, “Come To Papa” [Chill]
10. Lost, “The Gonzo” [Perfecto]
11. 4 Hero, “Scorcher” (Dance Mix) [Reinforced Records]
12. The Scientist, “My First Memory (The First Memory)” [Kickin Records]
13. Turntable Overload, “T.T.O.” (O.T.T.) [Made On Earth]
14. Boneshakers, “One Step Ahead” (B.I.D. Mix) [Debut]
15. Altern8, “Objective” [Network Records]
16. NRG Posse, “Themes” (Mix 1) [D-Zone Records]
17. Acid Jesus, “Mulunga” [Klang Elektronik]

Welcome to the fifteenth edition of our series of interviews affectionately titled Talking Shop. The majority of media and fan attention gets showered on the artists who create the music we love to listen to/DJ with/dance to, and for good reasons. But without the hard work, keen ears and business savvy of label staff, we’d be stuck only streaming tracks on Myspace. We’re happy to report that the subject of our latest interview is the spectacular Innervisions label. Born under the auspices of Sonar Kollektiv, Innervisions ventured off on its own with founder Steffen Berkhahn aka Dixon (and later Frank and Kristian of Âme as well) at the helm. Although there is no one Innervisions sound, it’s fair to say the label releases deep and innovative house music from a stable of in-house artists including Âme, Henrik Schwarz, Marcus Worgull and Tokyo Black Star. Forward-thinking 12″s from Laurent Garnier, Château Flight, Stefan Goldmann, and Culoe De Song are further signs of the label’s stringent quality control; compilations like Muting the Noise and the Innervisions-curated The Grandfather Paradox (for BBE) underline how their vision extends beyond the dance floor. And with the recent launch of the Innervisions web shop they’ve begun sharing their taste-making insights with fans directly. Dixon was kind enough to let LWE pick his brain about filters, how to best present a record and the label’s unusual birth before playing live at DEMF as part of A Critical Mass.

So let’s just start at the beginning of Innervisions, when you guys were initially a part of Sonar Kollektiv, and then you guys split away. So, I was hoping you could tell me a little bit about that period of time and what happened.

Dixon: Ah, that’s top secret (both laugh). Basically, Sonar Kollektiv was a great label guided by Jazzanova; but in my opinion, the problem was it was guided by Jazzanova, in the terms that they love everything and nothing, so they didn’t really stand for anything other than good music. I experienced it very often that there was good music released the people that they were trying to target didn’t check out. So there was this, whatever, house track and the house people didn’t realize there could be something good house-wise on Sonar Kollektiv. And I said “OK, even though I want to focus much more on a certain genre, that I basically stand for, which is house, in whatever direction. So I started the sub-label, and after doing this for a couple of months… actually, after two or three releases I realized ‘Hey, wait a minute. You’re signing the artists, you’re making the contracts, you’re deciding how much you press, you’re sitting there through the mastering, you decide who’s doing the mastering, actually you’re doing everything and then investing money.’ It felt like, I don’t know, it’s not science to do a record label these days anymore, so why not do it myself? Then I was hooking up with Frank and Kristian because they are very much like my taste, and we started on our own.

Now what’s the breakdown between you and them as far as who does what on the label? Are you mostly just A&R?

Yes, we have one other person, Matthias, he’s doing the day-to-day business. Since I started the label without [Frank and Kristian], I was involved in everything so I was doing this for quite some time. They are the artists and gave opinions, and then at a certain point it switched to that they were more and more involved and I finally had less work. So nowadays days Kristian is very much involved in A&R and design and Frank is very critical. He’s doing whatever he’s asked to do, let’s say that. Maybe I’m still a little bit opinion leader but it comes down to not just me doing everything now, but instead I try to split it up.

What kind of considerations do you have in mind when you are deciding whether or not to sign a track?

We have in-house artists, and we have in mind that we have four EPs from them a year. So we basically calculate on an Âme release per year or one release by Âme, Henrik, and me. Now Henrik is also really an in-house artist. Before he was releasing on his own label, Sunday Music, but he doesn’t really want to focus on the business side of things that much anymore, so he more and more releases with us. Marcus Worgull is the fourth in-house artist, so we basically calculate on them having one release per year. We don’t want to release that much music, which means not more than five or six records. And then it’s very much based on what comes around. So knowing that, we have one or two spots per year for something that is not done by us. It just gives us the feeling somehow that we sign whatever feels…strange, actually. Maybe that’s the right word — something that is not ordinary, not normal, and maybe makes people think.

Because I think especially in times where there are no filters anymore, everybody’s able to release music whatever way. We really want to just concentrate and focus on certain things that stand out in our opinion, sometimes in a musical way, sometimes in a production way, sometimes artistically, it doesn’t really matter. It has to have something that is not the sound of the moment, and sometimes it’s even surprising is. For instance we released this record from this young kid from South Africa, Culoe [de Song]. The sound it was actually… I was a little bit over it, with all this percussions, whatsoever, you know, but then this came, and there was a certain feeling in this record that I said out loud, ‘Hey, this is how Louis Vega should still produce to be relevant in the dance community.’ He either lost his interest in this or simply lost the Midas touch he once had. Too bad, but hey there is always fresh blood coming. So I thought, ‘This is the right moment for this because there’s nothing else like this around. If we don’t push it, no one else is doing it.’ And this is also maybe like the little bit of praise, like we want to push certain things that have the feeling… no one else would do this right now. It’s good and we need someone to push that certain specific sound.

Do you get a lot of demos?

Yes and no. I think it was much worse last year, two years ago or something; and the funny thing is, there are always demos saying ‘We have something that fits into Innervisions, that really has the Innervisions sound,’ where we don’t think we have any Innervisions sound. For us it’s really like house and house is… We always basically say that, you know, back in the day Lil’ Louis was producing this screaming vocal cheesy record one week, and in the next week he was producing an acid track. This is how we look at our label too, you know. It’s not about following up “Rej” or following up the success of the Laurent Garnier track or whatsoever. It’s about releasing something that we believe in and then, next step.

Along the same lines, the Secret Weapons compilations, which are one of my favorite parts of Innervisions… tell me a little bit about how those things come together, and how long you spend looking before you decide ‘OK, now it’s time for another Secret Weapons.’

There’s a specific time where we always do it, which is always the end of January. That’s because the initial idea of Secret Weapons was to release something from last year that were overlooked, that we played a lot and was released on a small label that no one knows or on a compilation, like this Kalabrese record we released on Secret Weapons 3, that was available on a world music compilation. I don’t know exactly the term, something like this, and people just couldn’t find it. We were playing it constantly and people were asking for it and we were like ‘Let’s license four tracks that need an audience, because they were somehow forgotten in the last year.’ This was the initial idea, so we started like this, we did this. And then over the last two years, maybe also with our success there are all these videos from live shows and mp3s of our mixes on the Internet, and all these questions like ‘Dixon played this record, what exactly is it?’ and it goes all over the forums because one person wants to know it and therefore he’s posting on ten different forums and hopefully he gets an answer in one or two. With that, the so-called “secret weapons” aren’t a secret anymore. We thought that’s good because it means the instinct to support something that is overlooked has appeared, because in our opinion they are really great records, and we’ve got an audience, so that’s cool. But we wanted to go on with this, so we decided to now include one or two classics that are hard-to-find tracks we took out of the box again last year and then release it. So now it’s still every January/February, still a sum-up of what we played the year before, maybe a classic, maybe a record that came out last year.

You were talking before about how you like to get a sound out and then move on. You aren’t holding on to one thing as “the Innervisions sound.” 2004, you guys were already on the deep house tip. 2009, deep house is pretty big again. I was wondering if there is a future beyond deep house, or is there an openness to go in different directions as far as individual singles go?

Especially Ame, Henrik and me, we are working in different concepts of album formats now, and in that context we are not thinking about house. It’s about advanced music fundamentals, and then including, I don’t know, maybe Paul Weller or working with Can or working with whatever — something that is interesting for us to take a step to the right or to the left. When it comes to the label we are still thinking about the dance floor. Therefore, we’re thinking on house. I think there’s enough space in house to just do something that is fresh. If you maybe listen to all the Ame records at the moment they are really powerful, really dirty really, maybe aggressive, which is the complete opposite to all this nice, Ableton-sounding, very clean stuff. Maybe they’re great records, but since other people are doing this — and that’s fine — but it’s like ‘Why should we do this too?’ It’s always a surge of going in a certain direction that surprises people but still is house, and this may be a little bit forward-thinking.

On that note, you guys don’t make the compilations that most people make. No one else makes a Muting The Noise or The Grandfather Paradox. Do you guys think in concepts when you do your mixes? Is this generally what informs the compilations you do?

It’s 100% concept. This one weekend we realized, ‘What exactly is it we are releasing with vinyl?’ I just said that we are thinking on house, we think of the dance floor, which means we are thinking on us as DJs. This is what we love, this is what we’ve been supporting for the last 15 or whatsoever years, and this is what we still want to push, you know. So we still actually want to use it, we want to play it out. So now we are coming to the CD or album format and we basically wanted to do the same, we wanted to use it. I don’t want to release an album, a CD I would never listen to, so a compilation of the best tracks of Innervisions, I would never listen to it. I personally would just not use it, so therefore the concept is to produce something that we would use, we actually would listen to. Even a label compilation wouldn’t make sense, because even though there are people out there buying CDs and haven’t heard of us or are not shopping as DJs, they would maybe buy it. But it would be a move just for the money. The mood is always set by us, so doing this ambient compilation, Muting The Noise, this is what we are listening to. Basically, it really comes down to this: producing albums that you actually want to listen to and we aren’t listening to house when we’re not in the studio, not at a party, when we are not at the weekend. When we are eating, when we are driving cars, when we are having discussions, when we are just listening to music, it’s just something else.

What’s your favorite release on Innervisions so far?

Umm… I think Château Flight.

Château Flight, really? Interesting. It seems, and this is something I notice with a lot of label heads I interview, they often pick the records that are not as popular as far as things go. Do you notice that? Or are you people more attached to records that are not the big tracks? I mean, no one picks their biggest single to date or anything.

I mean, it’s like, maybe it’s two things. The first thing is that if it’s big, you played it a lot, you support it a lot, and you heard it a lot. Therefore, maybe it takes time to, you know, relax from it. Even if you are living in these super-fast times that tracks that are over two years old are forgotten already, still, I don’t want to just to “Rej” anymore. It’s cool, it’s a great, great track, it was a very important track for us, but when I look for my favorite, the Château Flight is three tracks and all the three tracks I’m still playing; and even if I don’t play them for four months I hear them somewhere and I’m like ‘Fucking hell!’ (laughs) In every way, the quality of the music, the quality of the production, and also the success of the record, because it was successful — it was really selling good — the cover, I love the cover of this record, so it’s like everything is just… I love it.

How much control to the artists have over the total presentation of the record when it is all said and done?

It’s us… no control for the artist. Mostly we offer them and then tell them at the same time what we want to do. (laughs) Stefan Goldmann did some adjustments and there was one or two other people. Marcus Worgull once came up with this idea and we were like, ‘Let’s do it.’ I think artists should do what they do best. We have a vision for the label, a graphic vision. It helps them if we keep to and follow this vision, it just makes this better product and it helps the artists. I realized even great artists I admire, they don’t even know what of their music is good. There’s the first problem that most artists have: they are great at whatever, they produce 10 records and they show three of them they love and I’m thinking ‘Yeah, that’s cool, but there’s this one other — this is the one,’ and they’re like ‘Yeah, really? OK.’ I mean, they produce it, so they like it, but they don’t really see the importance of that record.

As Innervisions has grown and your reputation has grown a lot with that, how does that reputation as a label impact the decisions you make when you’re developing newer things? People have certain expectations and what-have-you, how does that impact your decisions?

Maybe it’s very proper to say ‘Hey, we don’t give a fuck, you know, we just do our own thing.’ I think it is a little bit like this, you follow what is around, of course. But we are not living for the label, its not that we need to earn whatsoever money to survive, and we only release five or six records a year. With that in mind, you carefully choose what you’re doing depending on your own feelings. So the expectations of the people are… sometimes you fall into that, you know, you release one or two records where the feedback is not as crazy and you think, ‘Oh, did I do something wrong?’ But then you look back at the records and you think, ‘No, no, no, no, this is exactly what I was feeling, so this is right for the label.’ So this is one thing. The other thing is that we have nearly only in-house artists, you go with the way the artist develops. It wouldn’t make sense to ask Âme to release a “Rej” again. It’s just not their intention anymore, you know. They have totally different things in mind now. It’s much more art, and just a completely different view on the release. Maybe everyone in the beginning, you try to copy certain things because you’re inspired by your heroes, and you come up with something nice in the meantime that is maybe a little bit different, you release it, you’re overwhelmed by the success and maybe do it once or twice again. But then you move on to other things you’re interested in.

Focusing again on Âme, they are very open-minded people and they’re not focusing only on music, so the inspirations come from completely different stuff. It’s not really thinking of ‘OK, what do we have to do now to fulfill the expectations?’ It’s very much ‘on what point are we now? What is it that we really like and we present?’ Maybe that’s the point, to present it in a way that the people will understand. Maybe not make it cheesy or whatever, but like ‘We are on this crazy mood now, this is the right record for that mood, people will not understand it, so we just “whole-package” it a bit. We release, maybe 2 months before, nothing, just to have silence for a little bit, and then come up with a new track which is then important because people think ‘Wow, a new Innervisions!’ And then they listen to it and they are like ‘What the fuck?’ (laughs) Maybe you think it’s shit, but it has importance. You know you can do certain things to give a strange record a bigger impact.

Since you started doing Innervisions proper, what’s changed for you as far how you run the label? From 2004 to now, what’s different for you? What do you do now that you wouldn’t have even thought to do in 2004?

I think one of the main differences is that we are not just releasing music anymore. Well, six records a year. We are four people. That’s not a hard job to do, and especially with the fact that we are releasing what we are feeling, you know, it’s an easy thing. So there’s space for other stuff. I think two years ago we just released, even if we limited it to six a year, but at the same time we basically released tracks. Now it’s a little bit like, what times are we in? Music prices, you know, what do they mean? Everyone is doing house music, so we are thinking a lot more about this than we did before. We are trying to make more statements. Before we just wanted to have a track out, now it’s a little bit more statements. Also, we speak a lot about filters at the moment, with the fact that record shops aren’t there anymore, nobody is selling vinyl, blah blah blah.

There are basically three shops — three digital platforms, and there are three people working at these platforms and they decide how they present the music. Yet there are 2,000 releases there, you know, so it comes down to three people which record is heard and which not. That’s a really bad thing in my opinion. Before that you had a distributor and the distributor was selling to the record shops, so one buyer in the record shop decided what they’re selling. Then you have the person in the record shop trying to sell his favorite records to the people, so you have the next person that wasn’t involved in this whole process, and this is all cut. So we basically decided we want to be a filter now. We opened up our web shop and we decide what we want to sell. Maybe it’s like the Secret Weapons, where we decided we want to present music to people we liked last year that was never heard. Now do we do this with the web shop. We pick two records a week or something that we offer to people. We think that with all the digital platforms, there is no fucking filter anymore. They sell house, and then it means they sell everything that is released. There is no one saying anymore, ‘This is just shit.’ This is what we are trying now, we are trying to just release stuff that in our point of view is important and should be presented to people. So, a lot of things are at play here. Fast times — the deconstruction of time, and losing filters.

Couple follow-ups on that. You were talking about how there are no filters, and that’s partially piracy — digital piracy has become a big thing. I was just curious to get your thoughts, not on music piracy because I’m sure you could talk for days about it. What sort of considerations does that add to your day-to-day operations, or how does that change how you feel about the work that you go through to put out a record?

We think the value of music is plummeting. So therefore to give it some value we just have to make nice products. You have to focus on what you’re doing. I know some labels that are– we are, what four years old now? And we are on number 23 now? There are other labels that started at the same time and they are number 100 now. So if you release a record every month the records are losing their importance. With the whole piracy thing, you have to give the people a reason to buy it. And this reason, you have to establish a strong brand and you have to have control. That’s why are investing a lot of energy and time in our web shop right now. For instance, I don’t know if you heard this, we have the subscription pack where we try give the music a face again. This is lost, you know; there are no covers anymore in the digital world. There’s so much there you cannot you cannot focus on anything anymore, so we actually try to give it a face again, to give it a certain feeling. We try to do this by selling it directly to the people. Answering our forum. Being there. You can ask. Maybe you don’t like my answer, but I still answer, you know? And being there for the people to have a contact with the director, this is very important in these times.

Now your subscription package, has that become popular for you?

Yes.

That’s great. Do you think that’s something other people are going to catch on to?

Yes, I think so. I think the future is very much in the direct contact between the label and fans, and therefore I think it makes sense to do something. But, you need to have a company that people are, I mean, it’s a big trust that people have. They paying 140 Euros or something in advance and they’re getting 7 records, 3 CDs, one t-shirt, and one limited edition, and they haven’t seen everything, they haven’t heard everything. Being in this position, you need to put in a lot of work to keep people’s trust.

Do you think that one of the reasons, and maybe this is what you’re getting at, the reason people feel the need to hear a whole record before they buy is because there’s so much stuff out there?

Yes. The problem at the same time is that there’s so much stuff out there, but how do you want to listen to it? But it’s getting better now, the clips are getting longer and longer, especially WhatPeoplePlay.com. There are always four minutes clips or whatever, so it’s getting better. But at same time there’s too much stuff that sounds interesting after a minute, and then you buy it and it’s just not. People want to listen to it before they buy, and it’s very normal, it’s very natural, but they can’t listen to it properly anymore because they just get sound clips. You know when I was shopping in a record store or CDs, it doesn’t matter, I was deciding which part of the record or CD I wanted to listen to, I was deciding if I wanted skip the second or third track of an album after one second or not. But it was me who was listening, who was deciding what to listen to with my experience. Now someone in this whatsoever company is doing this job of making sound clips for one thousand records a day, he’s deciding what I have to listen from this record. I don’t know this person, I don’t know why this person choose that clip. But it’s there now, so I’m depending on this person now, and that’s not how I want to shop for music.

Tell me some labels that you really respect and you revere, either for how they put out music or for the music they’ve putting out, past or present.

Warp, Perlon, and maybe Cadenza. I like two facts. Coming back to Warp, labels that just risking something, and at the same time having a vision. Because sometimes labels that are doing a lot of stuff are just doing a lot of stuff where there’s no connection between record A and record D. Maybe like Sonar Kollektiv. Warp has this, there’s always a certain thing in Warp, when I hear what they’ve signed, I’m like, ‘Yeah okay that fits, that’s Warp.’ Maybe it’s this whatever obscure hip-hop track or album or this whatever strange techno thing, doesn’t matter. For Perlon or Cadenza, for instance — I’m not playing that much Perlon records, but they have a vision and they stay true to it. They have a certain business model that they’re following, I really like this. I don’t like labels that are listening to what is happening and going in this direction and next season they’re the next thing. They can be good records; I’m not saying I’m only buying or playing Perlon records. No, no, no, I’m buying a lot of records from these records that are following trends. But as a respect for the label, that’s not there.

Was there anyone when you were first getting involved that was instrumental in teaching you the most important things. The values that you put into your label now, who instilled those sort of things in you besides your own personal experiences?

I don’t think I’m very like obviously following someone, unless maybe, I don’t know, all the Hard Wax people. They were doing their vision, they were doing all this Maurizio, all this stuff. It was very influential for me. And at the same time looking back on my favorite labels like Prescription, how many Prescriptions are there in the world? Not that much. I love this label. I love the fact that they were concentrating on what they were doing, doing not too much. So yeah maybe Prescription would be something like this. And at the same I think very influential for me was DJ Pierre when he said, ‘You have to take a risk to be aDJ, to be heard, to make a impact, or to just fulfill yourself.’ And you can take this risk because you have these other records that are just sure shots. I was never really inspired by a DJ Pierre set, but the way he described that was really stuck in my mind, and it was going to other things, to the label. I’s the same for the label. You can risk two or thee releases, we are able to have this weapon again. I’d rather take the risk and be heard then because you are different, than just doing sure shots.

You guys put out 150 copies of that Precious System record from Running Back. I was wondering if you guys are going to be partnering with other labels kind of like that again in the future.

We will; the next two things that are coming up from us. So it’s very limited editions of something that are only available in our shop. It’s coming back to the theory of being in direct contact with your fans. If you like this, shop here. We give you a good price, we give you a good product.

What is it that you’re releasing?

Dixon: The next one is gonna be, I’m doing a mix CD that’s coming in September or something, and on our label. And for the mix I got not just tracks, I got the files from all the tracks and basically remixed all this stuff. So there’s tons of different versions of tracks that people know. Right now I’m thinking we’re gonna release four of these edits, I call them edits, and two on each release. So it’s two releases with edits from my compilation.

It kinda reminds me a little bit of how Ostgut Ton does the two EPs per mix CD. Mix CDs are really something that interest me right because they’re in competition with podcasts, they’re in competition with sets that people record and stuff like that. What’s the strength of a mix CD right now? I mean besides the fact that you’re editing it so much, what’s the benefit of a mix CD that you can’t get in something else, in a podcast or something else like it?

First of all, I’m trying — and it’s not working always — but I’m trying to make sure that no sets from me are appear in the Internet. I’m really much believing in this aspect of the show now. You are there, you like it or not, but you cannot listen to it again. Like you have your favorite group and they are playing live, and then they are playing different versions of the tracks that you know. And that’s great for that moment, and that’s what you’re gonna remember, that moment. So I really don’t like when someone is recording the sets. It happened two or three years ago that it was like every week there was a set from me online. No one knows why I play the records like this. Was it empty? Was it a shit sound system? Was I tired? Was the crowd not getting it? Where was it, the beginning of the night? You don’t know why I’m doing this like this, so you cannot judge it, firstly. The other thing is, people got like expectations from it for when I came to town, they wanted to hear that song, you know. I don’t like that. You come here to be surprised by what I’m doing, and I’m pretty sure people will exactly remember this.

Because of this, when I do a mix CD it is special because there’s not a hundred other sets from me around. So that’s the second aspect. The third thing is that, as you say, everything becomes so available that it doesn’t make any difference anymore. So therefore I’m trying to make it not available, except… I wanna sell the mix CD on the same point. I’m trying to reduce my availability in the Internet and at the same time make a really great product that is strange and different. I’m just finishing a mix CD now, and let’s say it’s 50 tracks on it, I think 10 of them you cannot hear anywhere else like this. Saying it’s edits doesn’t just mean there’s another hi-hat. It’s really a reconstruction of it. Therefore I think this product is gonna have an importance. And the last thing, we did The Grandfather Paradox compilation and for us at the time, the approach was to do a timeless thing. The mix CD series we started on Innervisions which I’m gonna do the first one and Ame is gonna mix the second one is called Temporary Secretary, meaning it’s not timeless. It’s that specific moment — this is what I’m feeling right now. Maybe I don’t like it next year. (both laugh) It’s not an approach of timelessness, doing a wise music collection. No, this is exactly here, this year it is right now.

You don’t really have much in the way of solo releases, so I was curious if you were ever going to consider doing one; and also why you’ve enjoyed remixing mainly, or like working with Ame and Henrik on larger scale releases.

I was very often in a position to have people around me who I like work with. And I’m seeing myself more as an executive producer in the traditional way. Working with Georg Levin together and coming up with ideas, but being the one that decides where exactly we’re taking from this. I’m not a virtuoso instrumentalist and I don’t really have that much deep music knowledge, but what I have is — I think I have a great ear for good ideas, and as the other guys say, whoever works with me, I’m very focused on details. Someone is playing a line and adding one other note, I’m like, ‘Wait a minute, four days ago you played this line without that one note, it was much better without that note. I think this is my strength, to hear something and realizing what is great about it. And I think it’s what a lot of artist are missing, they are maybe music genius but they don’t really know what is important about what they have there now. Is it the bass line that is so strong? Is it the sum of it all? The beat is strong? I think this is my strength, and realizing this over the years, it was always really good to work with other people and give this to them. I have a good studio and equipment knowledge. For instance with Georg Levin, he didn’t really have this, so I could offer him to work with me in my studio, my producing this. And over the years he learned more and more, now he can do it, now he is using my studio while I’m in Detroit. He’s doing it by himself. The new Georg Levin album he’s going to release soon on BBE is all by himself. Nowadays he’s sending me his song and just asking for my opinion. Before it I worked with him on every detail.

The last point is, tell me a little bit about A Critical Mass. One, why you chose to do it in this format, and B, what you’re actually doing?

What I’m doing or what we’re doing?

What you’re doing as a whole.

When we did the BBE compilation we connected our computers for the first time ever. Which means we could have real time work as musicians. Like as band everyone has instruments and is playing and you can somehow create something in real time. Before we were always like in the studio and there was one computer and someone was doing something and the other was waiting until he was finished with hi-hat. And this feeling of like doing it in real time we never had before, I was never in a band before. It was something really new for us and we had a lot of fun on this compilation with that concept and we felt like, ‘OK, there actually is a way to perform live.’

As a first step we remixed all our hits, or the important tracks for us, and we’re presenting the remixes now so that people listening to us will not hear “Rej” as they know it, they will hear it completely different. They will hear it “Chicago” from Henrik Schwarz, and I think the remixes are so different they will not even realize it’s “Chicago.” One track is somehow prepared in the way we somehow know what to do and then the next thing is free flowing. We know there could be four or five different bass lines to it and the Henrik, Henrik just decides which bass line to play. Or I decide if the beat has to be strong now, or is it just easy nice groove at this moment, and by the fact Frank hears what kind of beat I’m choosing he reacts with what he is doing if he is playing a weird solo, if he is playing you know just a hook on top, so it’s an interaction. Somehow we already know what we’re doing, but in real time we decide what to do when.

And the Critical Mass idea about is like doing something you think has importance and then somehow it’s there but it’s not a finished product. It can always fail. You can do something, and yeah, Frank has to react now to the beat I’m doing and maybe he’s doing shit, you know? Well I can tell him like, ‘Hey Frank, aargh, not the solo now.’ It’s this approach of being on this edge of just completely fucking it up. Because we always have the feeling that, in our set, that was always the moment that was really sticking in our heads. When we reach something we really liked and then it was like blowing up– by blowing up I mean like being super cool or just falling down. We always remember that.

[BBE]

We were always minimal. This seems to be the learned lesson of the Innervision team’s stunning 2-disc comp The Grandfather Paradox. Their laser-focused curatorial skills deftly traverse a musical history so broad that we’re left with a series of epiphanies about form and genre that taken together read: we were minimal, even when we didn’t know it. In their liner notes Henrik Schwarz, Âme and Dixon write the compilation title stemmed from the feeling they were “traveling back in time and manipulating the old music with modern knowledge.” Except things are in truth a bit more complicated than that. The paradox, in case you were never a high school science nerd, goes like this: you travel back in time and kill your grandfather, which in turn means you could never be born, and thus never go back and kill him, and so on. As far as this compilation is concerned, the translation of this problem into music-historical terms might be: if you start screwing around with your own predecessors, what becomes of your identity as an artist, and thus what in turn happens to all the screwing around you’re doing? The result of this abyssal probing is the opening up of an infinite conversation between past and present, in which each iteration binds the two more inextricably together.

On the first disc, past and present are cross-wired from the start. The mix opens with a linchpin track in minimal music: Steve Reich’s “Electric Counterpoint,” famously sampled by The Orb for “Little Fluffy Clouds.” The transition from here through Liquid Liquid’s steely street grooves is a tour de force. The rest of the mix is as well deployed with the trio’s characteristic effervescence and elegance, a seamless and dynamic metamorphosis of genres: Balearic into funk into acid into house into techno. On full display here is the sheer elasticity of the term minimal; it is fundamentally a vibrantly trans-genre category, and as such its musical value can never be subsumed within what we know as minimal techno. The second disc provides some mix highlights in full with a few other key gems thrown in for good measure, including tracks by Arthur Russell and Young Marble Giants. Neither disc assumes a comprehensive or defining posture towards minimal music, preferring instead to revel in the term’s fertile open-endedness.

The movement of history is always about reinterpretation, and as the Innervisions crew points out, minimal is a highly suitable genre for such a DJ time warp: “In minimal music there is so much in between the sounds and the space, which gives you a lot of opportunities for your own interpretation.” Brimming with insight, The Grandfather Paradox not only takes the spaces of minimal as the grounds for its creative interventions, it leaves these spaces still fascinatingly exposed and open, as if sending them into the future, prepared be born again once more.

[Innervisions]

Any time Henrik Schwarz, Âme and Dixon all grace the same slab of vinyl, chances are it’s going to be a big deal. This precedent was set in 2006 with the quickly canonized “Where We At,” capturing the warily optimistic zeitgeist with a prescient Derrick Carter vocal sample which hung above stirring (and label-defining) underpinnings. In 2007 the supergroup reconfigured as the Innervisions Orchestra to remix Underworld’s “Crocodile” to popular effect; and separately, Dixon has a way of subtly reshaping his friends’ material to best suit the occasion (his “Mifune,” “I Exist Because Of You” and “Headphone Silence” edits come to mind). Two years after setting the bar so high, the Innervisions triad is back and offering two broad strokes of Chicago-inspired house with “D.P.O.M.B.” And once again this meeting of minds/ears/hands is cause for celebration.

The elements used will be familiar to Âme and Henrik Schwarz fans, but the soul-singeing energy coursing through both versions may take some by surprise. Beginning with a simple throb, wordless vocal and raw hi-hats, “Version 1″ ratchets up the tension as bongos, claps, bittersweet synth counterpoint and a characteristic string whine crowd the frame. (But unlike Laurent Garnier’s “Back to My Roots,” which attempted something similar, there’s ample room for each element to swing freely.) Within six minutes, the monster has torn away its layers to rebuild again atop Wild Pitch ostinato jabs. More refined than ferocious, “Version 2″ finds Moondog-tinged flute/clarinet/horns piercing the rapid synth chatter to flutter and stretch gracefully, as if delicate dancers riding a roiling piece of earth. Compared with the barreling headfirst charge of “Version 1,” which could easily slide into a techno set, “Version 2″ is multi-faceted and perhaps more memorable, as it best represents the organic textures and thrumming minimal energy loved by each artist. The “D.P.O.M.B. EP” is indeed a momentous occasion, both as heartfelt homage to Chicago and DJ Pierre and as the successor to “Where We At.” I won’t be shocked if this one to stays in DJs’ crates nearly as long.

By the way, this is our 500th post. Yay LWE!

[Sonar Kollektiv]

Confounding audiences is something Roland Appel is quite good at. His highly rated solo debut, “Dark Soldier,” made more than a few dancers cock their heads in disbelief as its eerie vocal lines crept from the sound system, then again at the fractured and misplaced bridge which cheerily chimed in and retreated. As in his past projects (Trüby Trio, Fauna Flash and Voom:Voom, all of which twisted the genres they somewhat resembled), Appel’s solo work shows little regard for the “proper” grammar of house music. His latest, “Unforgiven,” is a double A side on Sonar Kollektiv and challenges listeners to keep up with his rampant imagination. “Unforgiven”‘s trudging, synthesized stand-up bass ushers in a swinging arrangement that feels perfectly at home with the Sonar Kollektiv roster. Soon it grows long-legged string movements to sway gently above hand drums and detached piano chords. Araba Walton (of “Dark Soldier” fame) soulfully pipes in, “You askin’ me?” as if even she’s unsure of the tune’s next turn.

Of course, that’s when Appel delivers a hard left turn as tenacious synth charges yank away the cool, collected curtain and embrace full-on 4/4 rhythms. With all the elements pumping, it’s just enough to look past how outwardly cheesy “Unforgiven” might sound, especially the careening snare rolls. Exhausted, the house cadence eventually fades behind the swinging calm. Appel again stuck to his guns — unapologetic histrionics and strong vibes — and crafted a fine follow up that’s bound for buzz. If that wasn’t enough, Dixon’s edit of “Dark Soldier” will surely put this single over the top. He wisely preserves much the tune’s hallmark arrangements, adding only a lithe, Henrik Schwarz-esque progression and understated house touches to gear the track for wider DJ use. And by pairing slightly unexpected key signatures (his and Roland’s), Dixon keeps unexpected cleverness as the tune’s enduring motif.

01. Matthew Dear, “Don & Sherri”
[Ghostly International] (buy)

Picking my favorite track from Asa Breed was no small task, but “Don & Sherri” emerged as the winner because it combines all of Matthew Dear’s varied facets in one brief tune. He unabashedly revels in the weird (both aurally and lyrically), he knows a great hook when he hears one and he’s not afraid to go balls out to make an impact. I tense up every time during the short breakdown, just waiting for that unforgettable chorus to lay me flat once again. That’s the kind of feeling I demand from my favorite music, and MD and “Don & Sherri” delivers.

02. Lee Jones, “There Comes A Time”
[Aus Music] (buy)

Lee Jones reprised the stunning quality of my favorite My My track, “Propain,” with the achingly beautiful Aus Music release, “There Comes A Time.” He packs in hovering tones that soothe, lithe rhythms to set the pace, peculiar crackles to keep dancers and DJs on their toes and acid chirps for everyone’s delight. Even Prins Thomas, the tune’s flipside remixer, couldn’t do the tune any better. Hopefully we get more bombs like this in 2008.

03. Arto Mwambé, “Noh Ngamebo”
[Brontosaurus] (buy)

Easily my favorite track in 2007 from a previously unknown producer, Arto Mwambé’s take on deep house reflects his surroundings (Burkina Faso, if his Myspace is to be believed) and a heavy respect for artists like Moodymann and Ron Trent. On “Noh Ngamebo” his percussion jangles like bells around a cow’s neck, while the piano chords, fizzing arrangements and sensually shifting bass line split the difference between the best of Chicago and Berlin. Highly recommended for those who pine for soul to overtake minimalism in modern deep house.

04. Âme, “Enoi”
[Innervisions] (buy)

The constant evolution of Âme is wonderful to pay witness to; fittingly, “Enoi” catches them halfway between nu-deep house roots and a dynamic, experimental future. Frank and Kristian fill the club with bizarre vocal snippets and bombastic foghorn blasts and still make room for highly nuanced percussion patterns, tense melodies and a bass line on the edge of fuzzing out. To paraphrase their own album art, Âme, I Luv U!

05. Henrik Schwarz, “Walk Music”
[Moodmusic] (buy)

“Walk Music” marks Henrik Schwarz’s return to releasing his own material after a seemingly endless string of prime cut remixes. As with many Schwarz productions, it’s meticulously constructed from choice timbres, and in its more muscular 2007 form, it’s solid enough to move more deeply-inclined dancefloors. And though it was largely ignored upon its release, “Walk Music” stands as one of 2007′s best tracks and a high point for Henrik Schwarz himself.

06. Tiger Stripes, “Hooked”
[liebe*detail] (buy)

Mikael Nordgren knows how to start quite a fuss with relatively little, as evinced on “Hooked.” Shying away from his meatier stylings, Nordgren pounds simple deep house patterns into the floor as a flirty, twinkling pattern that shows dancers the steps. 2007 was a big year for Tiger Stripes, and while his “Voyager” may have sold more copies, “Hooked” likely won more hearts.

07. Ricardo Villalobos, “Primer Encuentro Latino-Americano”
[Sei Es Drum] (buy)

We’ve all heard someone described as the guy/gal who “brings the party.” Ricardo Villalobos, my beloved Chilean techno muppet, is definitely one of those people; and on “Primer…” he manages to stuff an entire festival into his cheerful house structure. Rousing almost to a fault, it has the potential to get clubbers arm in arm, chanting along with unintentional but no less heartfelt South American pride.

08. Cobblestone Jazz, “W”
[Cocoon Recordings] (buy)

The highlight of Cobblestone Jazz’s debut album first appeared on the already tremendous Cocoon Compilation G, and wow, what a highlight. “W” cuts straight to the chase, launching off the back of a deep and spring-loaded bass line, kept moving by shimmy and shake rhythms, vocodered whispers and reaching the peak with its step-like progression of broad ambient planes. Almost makes you wonder why the Cobblestone boys bother with the jammy stuff (though that has its place too).

09. Ben Westbeech, “Hang Around” (Wahoo Main Mix)
[Brownswood Recordings] (buy)

Georg von dem Bussche and Steffen Berkhahn (aka Dixon) craft an effortless deep house monster here, its hard, pacing motif a perfect platform for Westbeech’s buttery pipes. Even better, they pull an Âme and utilize every inch of speaker for overwhelming swells. I’ve played this one more times than I dare admit and I still can’t get the lyrics out of my head. Oh wait…

10. Prosumer & Murat Tepeli, “What Makes You Go For It?”
[Ostgut Tonträger] (buy)

When audiences ran from mechanical minimal into the beefy arms of deep house I expected to hear more tunes covering the range of human experiences. Only “What Makes You Go For It?” dared to really try, and I have a great deal of respect for Prosumer and Murat Tepeli for it. They paired vintage gear sounds with a jealous tale sung beautifully by Prosumer, ending with the most memorable line of the year: “Will you tell your friends about me/or will you tell your friends about a fuck?” A great prelude to their excellent forthcoming album.

Honorable mentions:

11. Len Faki, “Odyssee II” [Podium] (buy)
12. Gaiser, “Withdrawal” [M_nus] (buy)
13. My My, “Fast Freeze” [Cocoon Recordings] (buy)
14. Paul Kalkbrenner, “Altes Kamuffel” [BPitch Control] (buy)
15. Melchior Productions Ltd., “Her Majesty” [Perlon] (buy)
16. Al Usher, “Here Today” [Misericord] (buy)
17. Andy Stott, “Massacre” [Modern Love] (buy)
18. Justice, “D.A.N.C.E.” [Ed Banger Records] (buy)
19. Simian Mobile Disco, “I Believe” [Wichita] (buy)
20. Marc Romboy vs Chelonis R. Jones, “Helen Cornell” (Stefan Goldmann Macro Version) [Systematic] (buy)
21. Beck, “Cell Phone’s Dead” (Ricardo Villalobos Entlebuch Remix) [BPitch Control] (buy)
22. Burial, “Archangel” [Hyperdub] (buy)
23. Etienne Jaumet, “Repeat Again After Me” (Âme Remix) [Versatile Records] (buy)
24. Shackleton, “Blood On My Hands” [Skull Disco] (buy)
25. Brendon Moeller, “Space” [Third Ear Records] (buy)
26. Substance & Vainqueur, “Reverberation” [Scion Versions] (buy)
27. Len Faki, “My Black Sheep” (Radio Slave remix) [Figure] (buy)
28. Motorcitysoul, “Space Katzle” (Sydenham Blacktro Penetration) [Aus Music] (buy)
29. Kraak & Smaak, “No Sun In the Sky” (Henrik Schwarz remix) [Jalapeno Records] (buy)
30. Efdemin, “Just A Track” [Dial] (buy)
31. Escort, “All Through the Night” [Escort Records] (buy)
32. Len Faki, “Rainbow Delta” (Jerome Sydenham remix) [Ostgut Tonträger] (buy)
33. Metazoo, “Sigh” (2000 and One remix) [Cray1 Labworks] (buy)
34. Stereotyp, “Keepin’ Me” (Fauna Flash remix) [G-Stone Recordings] (buy)
35. Matt John, “Soulkaramba” [Bar25] (buy)
36. Harri & the Revenge, “Lunar Tune” [Five20East] (buy)
37. Solomun & Stimming, “Feuervogel” [Diynamic Music] (buy)
38. Osborne, “Outta Sight” [Spectral Sound] (buy)
39. Jichael Mackson, “The Grass Is Always Greener” [Musique Risquée] (buy)
40. Stimming, “Funkworm” [Diynamic Music] (buy)
41. Kalabrese, “Not the Same Shoes” (ft. Kate Wax) [Stattmusik] (buy)
42. Mark August, “Old Joy” [Connaisseur Recordings] (buy)
43. Dusty Kid, “Tsunamy” [Systematic] (buy)
44. Chaim, “It Never Ends” [Love Minus Zero] (buy)
45. Pigon, “Promises” [Dial] (buy)
46. dOP, “Allo Boom Boom” [Circus Company] (buy)
47. Fabrice Lig, “X-Slaves Who Changed The World” [Versatile Records] (buy)
48. Agnès, “Controversial Advantage” (Ripperton’s Game Set & Match remix) [Resopal Red] (buy)
49. Naughty, “World of a Woman” [Moodmusic] (buy)
50. Aril Brikha, “To Begin” [Poker Flat Recordings] (buy)

Berlin DJ/producer and Innervisions co-owner Dixon (aka Steffen Berkhahn) is the fourth producer to helm Get Physical’s Body Language mix series and the first not to have a release with the label. It makes sense, then, that Dixon’s contribution is also the most likely to catch the ear of the crossover crowd occasionally meandering into dance music territory, getting the hired guns to recruit. While many of his selections are regularly caned during his DJ sets, a few (Thom Yorke, Chromatics) seem aimed at this elusive group. Fortunately, their inclusion doesn’t detract from the mix; it’s more like Dixon is playing tunes for new friends whose comfort levels he doesn’t want to test just yet. After a brief strings-and-things intro by Timo Maas, listeners are treated to the obscuro pop of Chromatics’ “In the City” and Owusu & Hannibal’s “What’s It About,” which infuses Paul Simon-esque songcraft with 21^st century soul. Dixon gets to his true passion – house and deep house music – with his laid back funk version of Château Flight’s “Baltringue” done with Innerzone’s pal Henrik Schwarz and Mari Boine’s “Voui Voui Mu” – another Schwarz remix. He also includes some of 2006’s standouts and 2007’s better tracks so far. Stefan Goldmann’s version of It’s “Women In Toilet” clangs sweetly with shuffling repetitions, while Larry Heard’s brilliant acid house b-side “The Sun Can’t Compare” makes way for the mix’s crown jewel: “Where We At” (Part 2) by Dixon, Schwarz and Innerzone co-owners, Âme. Featuring a prophetic sample of techno legend Derrick Carter ruminating about a “never-ending war” and clashing moral values, this soul-stirring tune brings the whole mix together and sneaks in some social commentary. The mix comes to a close with live set staples such as Martin Buttrich’s evocative remix of Tracey Thorn’s “It’s All True” and the brass-house stomp of Herbert’s “Moving Like a Train” remixed by Smith N Hack. Despite a couple tracks which lack the personality of the rest of the selections, the well-mixed Body Language Vol. 4 is a proud moment for Dixon sure to bring him wider exposure – inside and out of dance music culture.

Mari Boine, “Vuoi Vuoi Mu” (Henrik Schwarz remix) [Universal Jazz]

Owusu & Hannibal, “What It’s About” [Ubiquity]

Herbert, “Moving Like a Train” (Smith N’ Hack remix) [Studio !K7]

IT, “Women In Toilet” (Stefan Goldmann Macro version) [Electrochoc]

Dixon is spinning tonight at Ohm in Chicago.