[More Music]

Midland’s solo debut last year, “Play The Game,” was an out-of-nowhere anthem, a big, obvious breakbeat track with gorgeous strings, blissful vocals and a perfectly rendered MDMA-fueled inexhaustibility. It was the sort of accessible track you could imagine soundtracking as many movies or advertisement spots as raves. After a considerable amount of attention and hype, Harry Agius’ second release finally arrives half a year later for obscure London house label More Music, and, well, it sounds like more Midland.

“Bring Joy” is not quite “Play The Game” redux, but it’s close. Balancing on the same precarious assemblage of slippery, skittering breakbeats, “Joy” builds methodically, slowly climbing to nirvana rather than the inhale/exhale swell of of “Game.” Midland releases the pressure through chord stabs that ricochet and fly off like hasty afterthoughts, weaving through a freefall breakdown before everything falls into place again, the type of airtight exactitude one comes to expect from the Leeds producer. “Bring Joy” gets two remixes: Radio Slave pounds the track flat into one of his usual thin and crackly grooves, but the vocal samples — oddly distorted until they sound almost ghoulish — quickly move from distracting to grating and derail the track entirely. UK up-and-comer Youandewan provides a digital bonus remix with his “warehouse dub,” which also stretches the track into twelve minutes of austere functionalism, the remnants of Midland’s percussive emphasis imbuing Youandewan’s effort with a subtle skip.

The B-side “Dead Eyes” lacks the anthemic quality — a nice change from all the breathless beauty — and instead offers up a dignified, mutating tech house groove grounded by Agius’ substantive percussion. Both tracks emphasize the accessibility and friendliness of Midland productions, where the cinematic is just as important as the danceable and where even his most functional moments are built with real, palpable heft. With such a friendly and appealing sound, it’s no wonder Agius has seen so much success in such a short time, but if he keeps making big, sweeping tracks like “Bring Joy” it’s probably not going to slow down anytime soon.

[REKIDS]

REKIDS broke nearly five months of silence with a new single from label proprietor Matt Edwards, who appeared under his supposedly soon-to-retire Radio Slave guise. It’s not entirely surprising they sat on I Don’t Need A Cure For This as it’s noticeably more subdued than Edwards’ usual club-clobbering fare, but it’s paired with the ethnic-sampling house varieties he’s helped popularize lately. There’s a distinctly introspective tone to the title track that gets minds wondering just what Edwards is refusing a cure for. The track itself suggests a spell of self-induced exhaustion: trotting along at a deliberate 124 bpm as a persistent ringlet of looped bells mimics tinnitus, it doesn’t peel clubbers off the walls so much as encourage them to save their energy. Glum, descending chords likewise counter the peppy tambourine patter and flat claps. If it weren’t for the trite sample of a woman speaking Spanish, “I Don’t” would almost be Edwards’ anti-anthem, a track that sees you off into the morning light instead of begging you to stay for just another hour.

Its flipside, however, embraces trendy house tropes with both arms. The bongo-clad “N.I.N.A.” finds Edwards twisting and tweaking the filters on an indistinct sample before an African children’s choir (later joined by their vamping director) chirp something vaguely close to the title in a tone that’s tries to be endearing and ends up almost menacing. For a track in this style it’s quite well made and will no doubt go down well in clubs where its ilk is the reigning sound. It’s the junk food counterweight to a track that’s as appealing as a bowl of broccoli to populist DJs. Yet I’d wager anyone who returns to this single in the next few years is seeking the title track, imperfect but noteworthy for capturing Edwards downshifting his hard charging Radio Slave moniker.

Running Back is one of the most consistent labels about. Only in terms of quality, mind. Consistency doesn’t equal homogeneity, and frankly Running Back can be all over the shop stylistically. Ravey, wildpitch house from Radio Slave one release, Robert Dietz’s desiccated Mannheim funk the next, Running Back is unafraid to thumb its nose at genre purists. This past year has been a particularly fruitful and varied one, combining essential reissues of the famous Prescription label and bizarre Japanese sound effects with original and enervating productions from Dplay, the mysterious Precious System, Lil Tony, Jacob Korn and of course the massive Tensnake disco-smash “In The End (I Want You To Cry).” Without a set roster, and such a varied palette, many other labels would be left floundering. Fortunately, Gerd Janson is at the tiller, keeping the good ship Running Back on course with his sturdy hands and immaculate taste. Mr Janson may be familiar to you from any number of encounters; interviewing Theo Parrish for the Red Bull Music Academy, manning the decks at his internationally famous local Robert Johnson, or applying his dry wit and playful phrasing to his journalistic assignments for Spex and Groove, among others. For a busy man, Janson is exceptionally generous with his time, and it was a pleasure to shoot the shit with him for a couple hours about the eternal vinyl versus mp3 debate, Walter Benjamin, British dub soundsystems, and what we can expect next from the least predictable of labels.

How did Running Back start? How did you pick the name?

Gerd Janson: Ah, well, I’m not sure of the English word, but it was quite a fast idea. Back in 2002, I spent a lot of time with Thorsten Scheu, who was producing under the moniker of Glance for the [Frankfurt] label STIR15 which was coming out with some deep house, classic house influenced releases like Motorcitysoul, for example. We just talked about starting a label for his stuff, and a few other close friends’. We had quite a hard time finding a suitable name, and all the best names, like Strictly Rhythm, were already taken! Another friend, Thomas Hammann, who I still DJ with quite a lot, he came up with the name Running Back. We liked the notion of it; of course on the one hand it is an American football reference, but then you could also use it as something old-fashioned, or anachronistic. Going back, but forwards at the same time, if that makes sense. It can be quite difficult at first to find a name for this idea that you have, but after a while when other people are using it also, it starts to make sense.

[Later] Thorsten then sort of got out of the straightforward four-to-the-floor house music, and more and more interested in Northern Soul. And a lot of the other guys like Mute, who did two of the early releases on Running Back, he slowed down with his productions, and I had to ask myself, is this something I want to carry on? There were never any hard feelings, but if you’ve started something for a group of friends, and then over time they become less interested in making music or prolific or dedicated… So from the first Mark E record onwards I took it in my own hands.

I was interested in how you hooked up with Mark E… and then also you have this thing on your MySpace page, “The Demo Policy Of Truth,” which is pretty funny…

(Laughs) Well, y’know [the policy] sounds quite blasé, but it’s not really meant that way. Of course people who you don’t know can approach you, and you can tell from the way they approach you [that they are genuine]. They have certain manners: ‘Hi, my name is …, I like your label, blah blah blah.’ Even if you can say these are superficial things. You get so many emails and links, and you can tell the guy doesn’t even know, he got the label email from I don’t know where, and they don’t even bother to BCC the addressee, so you can see he’s sent it to every label on the planet [laughs]. Sometimes it’s almost rude: ‘Please let me know when you want to release it’. Of course part of this is due to language barriers, but…. One day I got so angry… I don’t know if it helps anything, it was just my little take on it [laughs].

With Mark E, a mutual friend, Rob J, who runs these nights in Birmingham called Dropout Boogie, said, ‘Hey Gerd, there’s this guy who you should check out.’ Mark had just brought out the first Jisco release, which I liked a lot. So we got in touch, and brought out the “Deja Vu/Beat Down” twelve, and since then we’ve worked together — there was another one [Slave 1] and there will be another one.

I never have the feeling that I have to use handcuffs for people. I’m just glad if the thing works, and then of course they are free to do stuff for other labels or starting their own labels, like Mark has now. I always try and look for what is best for the music. I am sounding pretty angelic here, although in reality it’s just promiscuity. Of course you get demos that you like and that you would buy, but you don’t know when to do it, or how to do it. This is almost the hardest thing. On the one hand there is this talk, ‘Yeah, the music industry is all going down, blah blah,’ but then on the other, I’ve been a record buyer for some years but I’ve never got that feeling, like it is nowadays, that there is too much music to buy. Reissues, re-edits, new stuff, old stuff.

I know, it’s frightening isn’t it?

Yeah, it is. It’s not only the money thing, but also who can digest all of this stuff?

Yep, who has the time? The way there are so many micro-genres, it’s all quite segregated, and there are so many records. You can’t go into the record shop and say, ‘Give me everything.’

Yes, you could spend your monthly budget just on dub-techno [laughs]. No need to debate if there is any need for it after Maurizio and Chain Reaction. A lot of the stuff is very good and well produced and has a certain aesthetic, but do you want a whole Ikea Expedit shelf full of just dub-techno? I have a bit of a thing with the dubstep stuff. I’m talking here about the reggae or soul influenced stuff. I’m not a fan if it gets too dark or ravey…

Who are you thinking of specifically?

Well, there’s this Shackleton guy, and I’m not namechecking him just because he is on Perlon, but you know you can’t label this dubstep at all, he is in a league of his own. Peverelist, Appleblim, if you like the IDM branch of dubstep. Kode9, and recently Joy Orbison and Martyn also. I was always a fan of UK bass music, Shut Up and Dance for example, jungle, and this stuff talks more to me than the ravey stuff. I guess if you are dubstep DJ then you can buy all of it, but I’m not. And I love Roska, Roska, Roska who is an exponent of a new genre altogether, right? The funky commonwealth. And then I’m a big reggae fan, and in that field it’s almost impossible to keep pace with it. Then there is the old records, the second-hand market. It’s a downward spiral [laughs].

Running Back has a very open policy, and it almost feels as if you would release anything, as long as you thought it was good. Perhaps like the old Playhouse/Robert Johnson t-shirt: “Good music I dance. No good music I not dance”?

Yes, if you want to put it in a nutshell, this is it. I mean, within a reasonable frame. As I say, I am a big fan of reggae and Jah Shaka or Aba Shanti and these other very unique UK takes on steppers riddims, but it would not make sense for me to put them out. The electronic music guys, some of them might like it, but… And guys that were into that wouldn’t check for Running Back, so… It’s just looking at what you can do with the four-to-the-floor stuff, and there is enough already that I like. I like the idea of concepts (for example I mentioned Maurizio earlier), but I think with Running Back we’re not tied to a particular clique or gang, so it doesn’t make sense to be that strict about it. If it feels to me like a thing that I would buy, or play, I try to make it happen.

I also wanted to ask about the artwork – the Sex Mania tribute for the Radio Slave record, the football team for Dplay, and the Jacob Korn — I heard somewhere that this was your niece, or?

[laughs] Actually no, this is Prins Thomas’ son. If you look closely, it credits him on the sleeve, with a little help of LastMinutePanic, who has been looking after the artwork since the start. The first four releases looked quite similar, the idea being to have cheap, interchangeable artwork; we change the colors, and the names, and then off we go.

I guess like Perlon, with their instantly recognizable company sleeves.

Yeah, exactly. But I also feel that after about number twenty, it all starts to look samey. I like the idea that the records are quite different to each other, and giving each one its own face. With the Jacob Korn record, the initial designs looked a bit sterile, so I had this quite cheesy idea to have this child’s drawing…

I like the way that the drawing matches the optimistic or almost naïve feel of the music.

That is very kind of you. I actually called up the mother of my niece, and asked if she had a picture of the sun lying around. Her name is Rosa and she is turning three now, so she’s not really painting or drawing yet, it’s only scribbles. So I asked Prins [Thomas], who of course does the remix, and his son is a little bit older [laughs]. Prins said he ended up feeling like one of these football coach fathers, motivating their children: ‘C’mon, draw more, draw more.’

Like you said, we try and match the artwork and the music. With the Radio Slave, I am a big fan of DJ Duke, and when Matt [Edwards] played me the tracks that he kindly donated to Running Back, I felt like it was an update to this sound. And with the original Sex Mania artwork, I always thought it was a shame that the girl didn’t have a bra, so I thought it was a good idea to give her one [laughs]. I’m not a graphic designer, or a big art guy, but if I have seen one thing in my life over the years, it is record labels. I like the idea that it could remind you of something you have seen before, or that it fits with the record. I feel like artwork is important, especially when you have these dry download files.

So what is your favorite Running Back release, and why?

Ah, it’s like asking a father about his favorite child. I can’t really pick one. The main impetus for me is picking something that I would play and that I like. Maybe a fan of the Mark E, 100bpm “Deja Vu/Beatdown” release is put off by the Radio Slave, or maybe the guy that likes Radio Slave is put off by the Jakob Korn because he thinks, ‘Oooh, this is not techno!’ or whatever. For me, it’s just different sides of one coin.

It’s also for different times of the night, right? Your Radio Slave is for 4 o’clock in the morning and the others are for earlier or later…

Ideally, yes. I mean someone once said that for a music journalist I put out pretty straight records [laughs]. I mean, I’m a DJ as well so I see it like that. ‘OK, this is something I would play at this club at that time, and this is something that I would play at another club, at a different time.’ But really, picking a favorite, I can’t. I know it’s a cliche, but I like them all for different reasons.

Well, I guess my question is as much of a cliche [laughs]. Which brings me onto my next question — you write for Spex and Groove — how does it feel to be “on the receiving end”? People reviewing your stuff, me asking you stupid questions…

Actually it’s pretty strange, because when I’m on the other side, it all seems pretty easy. I’m asking questions, I’m putting records in a certain context. For example, I don’t have a problem if someone says, ‘Oh, this Running Back record is utter shite,’ not at all. Of course, artists don’t want to read a bad review or a poor RA rating or whatever. I look it from this angle — I can read a bad review and then actually listen to the record and really enjoy it. That’s how I try to do it — the reader should know why the guy does or doesn’t like it and what his arguments are. For instance, it wouldn’t make sense for me to review Tiësto’s new album because that’s just not the music I’m into. It wouldn’t be surprising to read me saying bad things about it. Then for interviews, it’s harder than I ever thought. Actually it feels a bit like on Sigmund Freud’s couch because a lot of the time it’s the first time you consciously think, ‘Why am I actually doing this?’ I know it’s also a cliche to say that it’s a gut feeling, and then all of a sudden you have to answer these questions. I hope I’ll get better at it! [laughs] Now I finally understand why many people don’t like music journalists. Talking to guys like you, or Bjørn [Schaeffner] who did the RA feature, it’s a bit different, because you are like-minded people, people who are music fans. I think the bad reputation of music journalism comes from more of the (can I say this?!) Jockey Slut or MixMag, the British dance press thing. They have more of a tabloid, sensationalist mentality, y’know, phoning people like Theo Parrish and saying, ‘So, Theo, who is better, you or Kenny?’ Things like that, which are not even tongue-in-cheek.

A few of Running Back’s notorious center labels

So what is the best thing about running a label, but also what is the worst?

Well, the best, it’s no secret that you won’t become a rich man but it’s still a nice thing if you can sell a decent amount, to break even, or even make a little bit and share it with the artist. It’s nice to see that people actually enjoy the music. Of course it’s a bit selfish also — it’s putting out stuff that I want to have on vinyl!

Surely it’s also a thrill to hear music you’ve put out in a club?

Yes, of course. This has happened to me a few times, and you can try and stop yourself a little bit, but you have to smile! And sometimes it took me a while to even recognize it. You know the feeling of thinking that you have heard this record before somewhere. The worst stuff about it: it’s time consuming, all the accounting and so on. I’m a really bad guy with paperwork!

It’s just you running the label then?

Yes. I mean if you start bringing in other people, someone to do your office or whatever, then the costs rise and you have to sell more, and it can all get a bit out of control. I think even in the small world that we move in, there is something of the 1980s idea of the pop star: ‘Oh yes, I have this number one record, I’m getting remixed by so-and-so, now I need an agent,’ and so on. We mentioned Perlon earlier, and I think they are a good example of how to keep your integrity in some of this madness.

Yeah, I like the fact that they don’t have a website, no mp3s etc.

Yes, it’s very basic, very 90′s. You can still send them a letter, or handwritten fax. But my take on the whole mp3 thing is a little different. I think these days, you don’t really take record-buyers away, by having your stuff available digitally. They are so into records, they want to have the physical object, and so the mp3 only tides them over until they have it in their hands. On the other hand, a guy that plays with Serato or laptops, they might not want to make the effort to buy a record and then digitize it. So OK, I also like their hardcore approach to it, but then you can also get every Perlon record digitally, albeit not legally. The 20th century already made art reproducible, if that’s a word…

You mean like Walter Benjamin?

Yes exactly, I wasn’t sure of the title in English…

The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction.

He has some very valid points, about ritualism, these kinds of things. But if you look at the bare facts, it was never as easy to get hold of music as it is today. It’s about making it available in a way so at least the artist gets a little bit out of it. I think it was Ricardo Villalobos who was talking about how his music is specifically made to be played from vinyl, on this soundsystem, in a certain situation. You can’t really make this decision any more. As soon as you release something, it is taken out of your hands. It’s a bit sad, but also you know before this Internet age people, I think especially in Great Britain, were really quick to bootleg things, if they were popular [and] as soon as they were out of print. I’m sure you are familiar with the situation with Theo Parrish’s Ugly Edits, and no year goes by without some Moodymann bootleg. Even Todd Terje gets bootlegged these days!

Of course there was the situation with Henrik Schwarz’s remix of Bill Withers’ “Who Is He (And What Is He To You)”…

Yes, that’s the same thing. The label maybe decides not to release something, and then they get a mp3 from somewhere, perhaps even cut out of a live set, and they press it up.

It’s pretty crazy!

In a way, from one perspective, it’s kind of funny, you can look at it in a Jamaican, no-copyright way. ‘The music has to be heard on the streets’ [laughs]. It’s also really crazy, the way it paralyzes the artists, and the label.

Moving on, we’ve talked about Perlon a lot, and you say that setting up Running Back was quite a spontaneous decision, but are there any other labels that you admire?

Ron Trent and Chez Damier’s Prescription label was a really big influence, actually the reason I started buying vinyl. I was more of a club kid back then, but I liked the music so much I had to own it. Erm, Playhouse, one of the greatest electronic music labels of all time. The list is endless: Nu Groove, Strictly Rhythm. And then all these little New Jersey labels that you love for their naïvety and roughness, and the same with the Chicago ones, Trax and the smaller ones. Labels like Warp that you have to pay your respects to. Labels I like now: too many to mention! I’m a big fan of what Prins Thomas has been doing with Full Pupp, Internasjonal. I like the Workshop or Wax approach where you are not sure who the artist is, although I guess the cat is out of the bag already. I like Ostgut [Ton] for the reason that it portrays what they are doing with their club. Underground Quality, Novel Sound. My friends from Innervisions who have been always very supportive. There is something to find in very contrasting sounds. The Smallville or Dial camp, the ethics and aesthetics of Innervisions or loners like Omar-S, who is just doing his own stuff. And then the Sex Tags Mania guys, they just don’t care about anything. I think it’s the same motivation I have, they want it on vinyl, so they put it out. They also have a great sense of humor, like the 909 bass drum record — it’s just one locked-groove of a straight Roland TR-909 kick drum, without anything else. [laughs] Things like that are great. A quintessential techno record!

As you see, the list is endless. The bottom line is, these days you have to respect anyone who puts the time, effort and money into putting out an actual physical record.

I also wanted to talk to you about your involvement with Robert Johnson club. You had the mix CD with them out a couple of months ago?

Yes, I’ve been playing there for, all-in-all, nine years now. They had their 10 year anniversary this summer, and I think more or less one year after that I had the honor and privilege of becoming a resident there. Actually, this was due to Thomas Hammann, who is one of my all-time favorite DJs and friends. He got asked to do a night there and took me along too. So we have been doing this night now for nine years, mostly pretty low-key, sometimes with guests like Soundstream live, or Mark E or Maurice Fulton. To me, and this always sounds a little stupid if you play somewhere, ‘Oh, this is the best club in the world,’ but to me it comes pretty close to an ideal room for the kind of music that I like in a club. Not too small, not too big, quite open and it has a balcony, so you can always flee the scene if you so wish! You can pack in 800 people if you so wish, but also have a fun time with just 200, because the bar is movable. They always keep the balance between really known people, or more underground people. The fact that people like Ricardo still want to play there tells you something; of course the big names can’t get the same amount of money there as they can at the bigger clubs, but they still come. It’s just so much fun playing there. There are certain records that you play there, and then you play somewhere else, and it’s just not the same. Of course this is formulaic resident DJ stuff that they say about their own clubs! [laughs]

Another big honor was to mix the fourth CD in the Live At Robert Johnson series with Thomas. It’s a little snapshot of what we’ve doing there over the years. It’s all our favorite house music. It’s really hard to do a CD without doing it on a laptop, and still have all the stuff in there that you want to include, as your DJ business card. Whatever, it’s a mix! It was a big relief to finish it, I find it such a pain in the ass! I hate doing DJ mixtapes!

Yeah, I read that RA interview where you said you had to keep re-recording your RA mix.

Yes, I like to do it with record players, or maybe a CD player, rather than these music programs, where you can just perfectly sequence it. I’m a pretty laissez-faire guy, I like mistakes usually, but if I do it myself then I hate them [laughs]. It can make you go crazy! Some of the commercially released mixes are very sterile, if I may say so, because they are using these programs, and all has to be perfect. Then there are these other restrictions, like you have to get everything licensed. It’s a lot of work.

I guess this follows on a bit, and I know you’re a big record buyer. I read, I think on the Innervisions blog, where they were describing you as their “favorite truffle-pig,” so digging up new, or old records that no-one else has heard of! You also curated a record for Sonar Kollektiv a couple of years back, Computer Incarnations for World Peace, is that right?

Yes, together with Alex from Jazzanova for the first one, and then the second one I did on my own. The second was trying to pick some stuff that was influenced by the music on the first CD, so Brennan Green, Daniel Wang and Maurice Fulton. Actually I would give the guys from the famous web forum DJHistory.com the badge of being great truffle-pigs! You have people like Mark 7 or the guys from Pure Pleasure who are massive record collectors if you talk about this old 80′s stuff, or disco and Balearic music. Everything that goes beyond the usual house and techno stuff, they are amazing at finding strange records.

I also wanted to ask you about your interest in hip-hop. I noticed some of your pseudonyms such as DJ Pink Alert or Tuff City Kids are very apparent rap references.

Uh, the Pink Alert thing came about because I was wearing a pink polo shirt, and someone asked me, ‘Hey, what’s your DJ name?’, and I was like, ‘Oh, it’s Kool DJ Pink Alert because I was just talking about Kool DJ Red Alert with someone else earlier. Of course it’s a funny name, and Morgan Geist once said to me it sounds like a pale guy having an erection [laughs].

Tuff City Kids, well of course I love the label Tuff City, and great artwork and so on, but actually this was from a tag in this club I used to play at in Mannheim. I always wanted to take a picture, and when I started doing remixes with Philip Lauer, I decided we should use this name. But, yes, hip-hop is one of my favorite genres, A Tribe Called Quest, DJ Premier, all the “golden-age” or “daisy” era stuff. Of course the earlier stuff also, Tuff City. Also when Stone’s Throw or Rawkus appeared on the scene, maybe this is the last time it really hit me hard. I still follow it, but I’m not so keen on a lot of it now. There are still great people doing great things, but not so much that I want to spend money on. It feels like everybody is still trying to redo J Dilla or mimic Flying Lotus now. Even the top 40 American stuff has somehow lost its momentum a little. Maybe it’s just me! On a positive note, I enjoy this guy Onra.

So how many records do you have?

Oh, I stopped counting, and this is always a bad sign when someone says this! I have too much, too many. In my old flat, I even had them placed in the kitchen. My girlfriend said that it’s somehow enough now, so I can’t have them in the bathroom or in the bedroom, that’s sanctioned! And nothing is in order! I liked ordered collections, and I’ll go to someone’s house, and it will be ordered, and I can go alphabetical from The Go-Betweens to Drexciya and I know exactly what’s in-between, but I never managed to do it myself.

Wrapping things up, what’s the plans for Running Back in future, and for Gerd Janson? You’ve done a couple of remixes as Tuff City Kids, but do you want to go into production, or?

Well, I respect some producers as a fan who have, to borrow Theo Parrish’s phrase, a “sound signature,” you know that when you hear them, that it is them. I’m not sure I have that in me. Remixes are a different matter, because you can hear them as a DJ and think, yes, this would be really good if I added this. Or maybe you just think it would be good [laughs]. I’ve bought some equipment, but it’s also a time thing. I don’t know. I just bought a MPC-60, there’s the hip-hop thing again! We’ll see.

And for Running Back?

A lot of stuff is in the making, as we speak. There will be another Mark E thing, hopefully another Radio Slave record, a few other bits and pieces. There is one by this South African guy RezKar including a John Daly remix that has just been released. I try to make sense of things in the sequence that they are released — to speak bluntly, not to put out two Radio Slave records next to each other. Different stuff, to keep it interesting. There will also be the first album on Running Back now by a fine woman called Mim Suleiman. She is originally from Zanzibar, lives in Sheffield now, sings in her native tongue Swahili and you have to guess who the producer is. I am quite thrilled to see people’s reactions on this. Then there will be a Databoy 78 record with a remix by the fine Swiss beats boy Lexx, a project by Marco Passarani and some more fun things! Maybe stuff will happen, maybe not. To answer your question earlier, this might be one of the fun things about running a record label, if you don’t have a business plan!

[International Deejay Gigolo]

When I read in July that Radio Slave would be joining hands with DJ Hell and P. Diddy on a 28-minute remix of the latter pair’s recent collabo, “The DJ,” I felt as though I had finally found the master plan behind my existence. “Go forth,” God seemed to be saying from between the lines of this bizarre Resident Advisor news blurb, “and review this record.”

My moment of clarity sprang not from any extra-special interest in the personnel. Despite his decades in the game and extensive back catalog, DJ Hell and his tough-guy electro hover just off my radar. Matt Edwards reveals a subtly avant-garde compositional impulse as Radio Slave, but his cinder block epics fill dance floors more cavernous than those I prefer to inhabit. And Biggie Smalls aside, P. Diddy doesn’t exactly engender much of my respect by reason of being, well, P. Diddy. Nor did my drive to tackle this remix derive from excitement over any limit-pushing it might engage in. One of the positives of the music industry’s gradual acceptance of digital releases is an artist’s ability to eschew formal constraints about song length: LCD Soundsystem, Lindstrøm, Ricardo Villalobos (twice!), and most recently Bruno Pronsato have all let 25+ minutes tease unforeseen brilliance and singularity out of their established sound palates. Nay, my interest in “The DJ” (Radio Slave Remix) stemmed from a continuing desire to see notions of good taste roughed up, the excitement of earning cool points while simultaneously losing cool points. DJ Hell, P. Diddy, Radio Slave, and 28 minutes — in the same sentence — collectively sounded like the ticket to unparalleled, if not revolutionary, cheese.

Upon finally getting my hands on this already legendary mp3, I’m a little shocked at how un-unhinged “The DJ” (Radio Slave Remix) has turned out. Surprisingly little has changed since Matt Edwards got his paws on the raw tracks. On Hell’s original from this year’s Teufelswerk double album, horror movie orchestral flourishes and grinding, sexed-up bass comprise the soapbox on which P. Diddy espouses the myriad benefits of the special disco mix. “You can’t even get into your thang on a four-minute version,” Diddy explains in his opening invocation. “This goes out to all the motherfuckers that like 15-20 minute versions of a motherfuckin’ record!” (One such motherfucker feels inclined to note that this original version illogically clocks in at a scant eight minutes.)

Radio Slave’s mix subjects Diddy’s already lame-ass commentary to the minimal effects assembly line of rapid chops, filters, bit destruction, and pitch drops. Slapped without rhyme or reason over Radio Slave’s sveltly techno-fied rhythm, Diddy proves an even greater hindrance to dance floor marinating (his word, and actually a pretty good one) than a brief run time ever could. His BlackBerry thankfully dies at around 13:30, and we’re treated to some uninterrupted headspace: Hell’s bass line, amidst slamming snares and exotic ambiance a la Edwards’ Quiet Village project, hypnotizes like only on-point Radio Slave can. The K-maze lasts for about four minutes before a breakdown and more Diddy malarkey, and yes, you will have barely enough time to get into your thang before you recommence hating this track. But it still has many minutes to redeem itself. A wormhole opening at about 21:00 lets in the non sequitor you may have been waiting for: Radio Slave aerosol-sprays delay-piano over his groove, and a Jus Ed-style underground house freak-out is born. As unsettlingly good vibes shimmer over the canyon, the remix achieves a kind of tenuous dance floor bliss. Whatever payoff ensues depends entirely on the number of decibels and scrambled brain cells involved.

Matt Edwards claims to have played 25 minutes of “The DJ” (Radio Slave Remix) at Fabric without boring anyone. I’d reckon if anyone could thread that needle, it’d be that master of monolithic boogie. But as for rest of us, I’m somewhat dubious. While I like the remix’s deranged end note, the preceding 20+ minutes don’t constitute a necessary pilgrimage. In a year featuring a track like Bruno Pronsato’s “The Make Up The Break Up,” which spends nearly 40 minutes making tiny sounds wiggle intricately towards far subtler ecstasy, Radio Slave’s entry into the fray feels a little cheap. My wish for wacky excess aside, this long-form thing is probably best approached seriously. It’d be tough to come away from this spirit journey denying Edwards has production chops, but he fails to reveal anything he couldn’t in his usual 11 or 12 minute epics. He should certainly try again, but he should do it with his own material and store blather-prone hip-hop moguls safely away in the Hamptons.

[Ostgut Ton]

The first extracts from Len Faki’s curate’s egg of a mix CD showcases an established figure, and a relative newcomer. Radio Slave falls into the former category (if you haven’t heard one of his pounding remixes in the last couple of years, you haven’t been near a nightclub), while Tony Lionni is the fresh face in the Berghain finishing school.

Lionni has released a spate of excellent Detroit influenced tracks in the last year on Versatile, Wave Music, and more recently Aesthetic Audio and Mule Musiq, and “Found A Place” is his finest moment so far. An ecstatic piano vamp accompanied by a wordless diva is nicely offset by crisp high-hats and a rocksteady bass drum. It’s certainly not what The Shangri-Las had in mind when they sang “Sophisticated Boom Boom,” but that label fits here. “Neverending…,” in the words of the Ronseal advert, does exactly what is says on the tin. Matt Edwards’ work has always been about joy in repetition, and there are no surprises here. In Len Faki’s hands on Berghain 03, it expertly marks the transition from bare-chested techno thumpers to mid-90s styled house, with a Dennis Ferrer a cappella layered over the top. Clanging dub chords echo into infinity, providing the dictionary definition of “DJ tool.”

The churlish could probably build a strawman argument with these tracks, positing that they represent the worst tropes of today’s techno retro-fetishism. Sure, “Found A Place” wouldn’t exist without those Mark Kinchen remixes of Chez Damier, and “Neverending…” is essentially “Phylyps Trak” redux, but the execution of these tributes is so masterful that the rest of us will be happily dancing to these for quite some time this summer.

01. Radio Slave, “Incognito” [R&S Records] (buy)
Another big year for Matt Edwards and a return to prominence for Belgium’s R&S, 2008 saw the former help reboot the latter with the storming “Eyes Wide Open” single. But hiding on the B-side is something better, the gut-punching floor filler “Incognito.” Although it’s much more fierce and straightforward than its name suggest, the track pumps like a power station — pistoning bass and synth riffs driving dancers wild and sultry female exclamations letting off excess energy. DJs should not leave home without “Incognito.”

02. DJ Aakmael, “Get Down” [Uzuri] (buy)
Hitherto a well kept secret from Virginia, DJ Aakmael may be hard pressed to keep a low profile after this killer EP for the up-and-coming Uzuri. Like his Uzuri peers, Aakmael works with a raw toolbox across the “Music EP”‘s four tracks. The best of the bunch is the funk-tinged “Get Down,” whose tom-dappled groove slides by on backwards stretched pads and is given levity with short bursts of rubbery keys and calls to “get on down.” Don’t mind if I do.

03. Lawrence, “Forever Anna” [Spectral Sound] (buy)
While busy releasing an album as Sten, Peter Kersten largely left his Lawrence moniker on the shelf until the “Divided EP” for Spectral Sound. By and large, it was worth the wait. Where the title track couches its overcast mood in shuffling grooves, “Forever Anna” offers unrestrained aural beauty. Kersten pulls out all the stops and gets dense and intricate, expanding from a Chicago-inspired bass line into trickling bell melodies and syncopated synth string stabs, all flowing with the stately grace of a classical piece.

04. Wax, “Untitled 2″ [Wax] (buy)
Hardwax is a sure hotspot for artists releasing anonymous, hand stamped records, and this sizzler from Wax on, um, Wax, is one of the latest and well promoted. Some have speculated it’s the creation of rising star Shed, a suspicion that gains plausibility upon close inspection of the record’s particular palette. On “Untitled 2,” rigid, itchy rhythms are afforded a dose of relief by knife point synth jabs that blur, waver and hang in the air — defying time and shape. When the hi-hat (and thus, swing beat) kicks in, the creative use of rhythm and space ring true with Shed’s style. But whether he’s behind Wax is half as interesting or enjoyable as this platter.

05. Spencer Parker, “Improvised Minotaur”
[REKIDS] (buy)
The lead cut of Spencer Parker’s latest for REKIDS is something of a Trojan horse, because the front end of things hardly prepares you for the monster track within. Its live drum sounds and Sasquatch-in-an-empty-theater claps meet metallic resonance and feel incomplete; of course, that’s when the piano creeps in. Steady waves of warm piano chords lap at the percussion and launch into a catchy hook, and suddenly it’s got the charm of a Henrik Schwarz production with a singleminded approach and more troughs for mixing purposes. Use this one to slay a dance floor near you.

06. Pépé Bradock, “Mandragore” [Atavisme] (buy)
07. Sascha Dive, “Deepest America” (Moodymann remix) [Ornaments] (buy)
08. Kassem Mosse, “578″
[Mikrodisko Recordings] (buy)
09. Margaret Dygas, “See You Around”
[Non Standard Productions] (buy)
10. Omar-S, “The Further You Look – The Less You See” [FXHE Records] (buy)

Check out staff charts after the jump.

Staff Charts
(Note: Because of year end coverage, many of our writers are saving their charting energy for year end lists.)

Per Bojsen-Moller:

01. Beat Pharmacy, “Time” [Deep Space Media]
02. Chaim, “No Getaway” [BPitch Control]
03. Scuba, “The Upside” (Martyn’s Down Mix) [Hotflush Recordings]
04. Daniel Stefanik, “Hey, Hey What Can I Do” [Freude Am Tanzen]
05. Harmonic 313, “Arc Light” [Warp Records]
06. Peverelist, “Clunk Click Every Trip” [Punch Drunk]
07. Seth Troxler, “Aggression” [Moongadget]
08. Guy Noir, “Delusion” (Argy’s Big Room Dub) [District of Corruption]
09. Motorcitysoul, “Hatohay” (Manual Tur & Dplay remix) [Simple Music]
10. Alex Under, “Azul Terio Cerebral” [Cmyk Musik]

Todd Hutlock:

01. cv313, “Subtraktive” [echospace [detroit]]
02. Bruno Pronsato, “Nobody Calls” [Hello? Repeat]
03. Minilogue, “Mr. Mustafa” [Minilogue]
04. Sons of the Dragon, “Motor City Matrix” [Sons of the Dragon]
05. DJ 3000, “Meridian” [Motech]
06. Efdemin, “America” [Curle Recordings]
07. Lawrence, “Miles” [Dial]
08. Guillaume & The Coutu Dumonts, “I Was On My Way To Hell”
[Circus Company]
09. Bvdub, “Wish I Was Here” [Millions of Moments]
10. Luciano & Mirko Loko, “Mousa Big Band” [Desolat]

[REKIDS]

In his recent slew of releases, Matt Edwards (aka Radio Slave) has focused rather exclusively on lengthy peak time killers. Over the years, he’s had so many pseudonyms and side projects that, as the bio on his website claims, “If Matt comes up with another two projects he’ll have enough alter egos for every day of the week.” So, when Edwards’ REKIDS label drops a pounding 14 minute monolith by a hitherto unheard of artist named Veinte Tres, you can’t help but wonder if Matt’s up to his usual identity shenanigans.

Speculation aside, “Serpiente Cosmica” is one mean record. The beat is urgent and aggressive, with the same harsh snare that made Grindhouse Tool a hit complimenting an absolutely mammoth bass kick. The beat plods along heavily as distant drones evoke the yawning infinity of the cosmos. The atmosphere is filled out nicely with reverb-laden sheets of white noise and, eventually, the voice of a man mumbling deliriously in Spanish. As the vocals disintegrate into inhuman drones, the mood grows increasingly ominous. Between the ultra heavy beat and vastly abyssal imagery, it’s hard to imagine a track sounding more massive than this. Even without the eerie vocals, the instrumental version on the b-side is still a wonderfully rich and sinister track. Regardless of who’s responsible for this single, it’s another badass steamroller to add to REKIDS repertoire, and one I’d love to hear out at a massive club.

For our fourth report, LWE’s editor in chief Steve Mizek picks his top five overrated singles from the first half of 2008.

The number of dance music singles released each year is absolutely mind-boggling, likely well into six digits and rising each year as production software becomes more accessible. So how does a track stand apart from the multitudes of would-be hits? Unlike rock or pop, many techno and house artists rely on other artists to give their tracks exposure in their DJ sets/charts. Or, if producers are of a sizable stature and credibility, they can cane their own work to massive crowds of receptive fans (and consumers as well, though the correlation between underground popularity and sales is quickly ripping at the seams). So if John Digweed loves your newest, you may receive a deluge of new fans through his DJ sets, mix CDs, radio show and even word of mouth between $uper$tar$.

But this formula for exposure can also lead to the over inflation of some otherwise underwhelming tracks. Because there are more DJs than producers, and DJs want to get popular too, many opt to follow in their heroes’ footsteps and crib relentlessly from their playlists and charts — Beatport and Juno make this exceptionally easy. Because a DJ’s success also depends largely on the happiness of the audience, some may select low-hanging people-pleasers (or at least familiar tunes) over less obvious gems. And of course the print and online press are complicit to a degree in all of this, as well.

With that in mind, I’ve cobbled together a list of five tracks I believe have grown far more popular than their characteristics warrant. Not all these songs are crap, per se, though many of them rely on rather base, lowest-common denominator tactics to get crowds worked up, remembering the track and clamoring for more. And so the circle continues.

01. Hugo, “The Sloop” [Tuning Spork Records] (buy)
I suppose it makes sense to sound the foghorn for a nautically themed track, but it’s an increasingly common way to spice up otherwise ho-hum arrangements, especially one so typically Tuning Spork in execution. Combined with its tonally static build, “The Sloop” hardly strikes me as novel so much as a cheap shot in the arm for DJs with flagging dance floors. Try Âme, “Enoi” instead.

02. Radio Slave, “Grindhouse Tool” (Dubfire Terror Planet Mix) [REKIDS] (buy)
That Dubfire is a massive prog-house to “minimal” convert is less troubling to me than how awful everything he touches comes out. His vast reworking of Radio Slave’s perfectly balanced gloom tool, replete with bug-eyed, de-pitched vocals and generic chromatic scale progressions, lets loose Dubfire’s “scary” indulgences to reverse the original’s haunting restraint. What surprises me is not Dubfire’s poor taste, but that so many DJs are willing to punish their audiences with this “Terrible Planet” tripe. Try Raudive, “Here” (Len’s Podium Remix) or Sasha, “Park It In the Shade” (Audion Ain’t Got No Friends Mix) instead.

03. Patrice Bäumel, “Roar” [Get Physical] (buy)
Credit is due to Mr. Bäumel for his relative bravery in omitting a requisite kick drum, but one bold decision cannot save “Roar” from his meeker ones. The rubber band plucks and claps are a good start, but are run off the road by an oppressively tight and overdriven loop which revs like a motorcycle. It seems every other year someone imitates this sound, if for no other reason than to make dancers rev their invisible choppers like metalhead tykes. Taken in a different and more complex direction, “Roar” could’ve lived up to it’s “tool of the summer” tag; instead, creativity whimpers in the corner as clubbers mount their big wheels. Try Stephan Bodzin, “Liebe Ist…” or STL’s carefully reduced tracks instead.

04. Laurent Garnier, “Back to My Roots” [Innervisions] (buy)
LG’s so-called return to form is a poignant reminder of why he had moved to less floor-driven electronica in the first place. The drawn out and searching tones at “Afrodiziac” mix’s core are promising, but soon find themselves buried under every organic percussion sound Garnier could fit without freezing his Mac. The fact was made even more evident as Henrik Schwarz, Âme and Dixon’s “D.P.O.M.B.,” which vastly improved the mold, upstaged the tune only one release later. I sense many DJs played and charted this one out of devotion to Garnier’s legacy, but would have done better to stick with his prime cuts.

05. Johnny D, “Orbitalife” [Oslo] (buy)
Last year if you asked me who Johnny D was I would probably have half-heartedly guessed an old NYC cat. This year his “Orbitalife” is the most charted track on RA ever. Unlike the rest of my list, however, “Orbitalife” deserves some of the buzz it’s received. His smooth and soulful voice rises from the nagging beat without disturbing the flow as the perfect compliment to subtle adornments. Still, I can’t help but feel this is a weak choice for the year’s biggest track, its immense popularity smacking of a bid for hipness more than a vote of confidence in a stunning tune. But much worse could top this list, and therein lies some hope not all overrated tracks are complete dreck.

After a few days’ rest, LWE’s Nate DeYoung files his report:

In the Sonar coverage I’ve seen over the years, I never read too much between the lines -– the fact is that this is a festival built upon the principle of overwhelming you. Take a couple of sweat-drenched summer days, add four official stages which end only at sunrise, mix with dozens upon dozens of parties happening at night/day/roof/beach/club/bar/stadium and you’ll find a recipe for letting go. And for my first Sonar, I let it wash over me. The only real decisions of the festival could be summed up with a short bullet point list: A. when to go to the next party B. when to eat and C. when to sleep. So with a hyper-saturated Sonar, it’s safe to say that it’s an experience where you drink as much as you can from a fire-hose. No matter how many favorite artists you catch, there’ll be just as many you miss. In my case, big gaps are named Shackleton, Kalabrese and Loco Dice/Luciano -– but spoken without regret. For such a festival, there’s no recap, just a highlight reel.

Claude Von Stroke was all smiles

Directly off the plane and taxied straight to the hotel Diagonal Barcelona for Mobilee’s first roof-top party of the weekend, I caught the last hour or so of Radio Slave’s set. Decked in a dripping inside-out Mickey Mouse shirt, Matt Edwards played his trademark hypnotic slow build techno. Sure, it was probably better suited for dark rooms than afternoon rooftops but Edwards had the good sense to finish up the set with a little sun-drenched house, spinning hit after hit ’til the staff pulled the plug. After the success of the party last year, Mobilee doubled up this year, hosting a second party the next afternoon/evening. Always graceful when DJing, Anja Schneider provided a nice set of simmering techno and Claude Van Stroke pounded away at an endless parade of minimal bangers. All told, the setting was hard to beat -– a gentle breeze, pool, and the 21st century homage to a dildo, the Agbar Tower, looming in the background.

The view from above

Architecture and space made a huge difference for parties. For Raum’s Open Air at Velodrome de Horta, everything pretty damn underwhelming. The line-up of Cadenza, Desolat and Get Physical DJs looked like the best ticket of the weekend, but the cavernous space swallowed the music alive – both dance floors were sparse, devoid of energy or excitement. Thankfully, I got out before I became bitterly disappointed. On the other end of the spectrum the Innervisions Night party packed into BeCool’s tight basement space. It might’ve been as dense as any dance floor at Sonar, muggy and full of cigarette smoke clouds, but it was impossible to not get sucked into Henrik Schwarz’s set immediately. Same went for Resident Advisor’s Night at the tiny Macarena club -– Dan Bell played a great set to a crowd jumping in the back, spilling drinks in the front. Smaller venues all seemed to have a bigger sweet spot for a proverbial hit.

Martyn and Conforce at RA’s party

The programming for the official Sonar events was varied enough to experience as a nice potpourri. How about this for an example — when M_nus launched to its latest victims of the Cube, Mala was dropping bass, Roisin Murphy was playing a deranged pop-superstar and Justice were lighting up their stack of Marshall speakers. A little schizoid, but it was hard to be disappointed with anything for too long. Probably my favorite Sonar line-up was the D*I*R*T*Y crew of Pilooski, Discodeine and Dirty Soundsystem picking up a crowd that had hitherto been content to just laze around.

Pilooski’s set was smoking

Thankfully, there was little pretension (*cough* outside of the cube *cough*) to get in the way of fun at Sonar — artists mingled around in crowds like fans and shit-eating grins were infectious. For a festival so overloaded, so full of missed shows and connections, my only regret was leaving too early. Some friendly advice to future Sonar attendees: make sure to stay until Monday to soak it all in.

Wolfgang Voigt ain’t no one to fuck with!

Matt Edwards, better known as Radio Slave, is one half of hypnotic disco duo Quiet Village with DJ Joel Martin. Edwards has been incredibly prolific as a producer, remixer and label owner, and Quiet Village is where he’s gone to hang his more relaxed hat. After three singles and a slew of remixes, the pair has released Silent Movie, their debut album for !K7. Listening to it, I get the impression that when Edwards hangs out with crate-hound Martin the two “select” the soundtrack to their lives. Tellingly, the album has the bombast of an Italian soundtrack artist melding together very fundamental classic rock themes with starlit disco strings and soulful vocals. In fact, most of the tracks are largely built upon samples tweezed and looped in the modern edit-fashion which has become quite popular over the last few years.

These days everything has a soundtrack. The newfound portability of music has allowed music lovers to score every twist and turn in the storyline of their life — every received phone call, munchie run and visit to Myspace. Most of us aren’t musicians, so we’re not making new music so much as adapting that of others’, leaving the painstakingly-selected messengers of our musical emotions to tell the story. That’s fine. But when it’s in album form, as it is on Silent Movie, the personal soundtrack is easy on the ears and also somewhat reheated. The duo nicely strung together and blended some excellent material but didn’t do much else to it. Other artists like the Avalanches were more ornate in their patchwork of samples, whereas Zero 7 covered a similar musical territory but wrote new parts.

A lot people aren’t going to care. “Circus of Horror” has an irresistible swagger, in the plunging strut of its rock bass line, in the cooing vocal/string interplay and dabs of soundtrack noises; it just barely jumps the hurdle of cheese into triumphant territory. “Free Rider” seesaws between a dusky shootout at sundown and furious acoustic strums approximating CSNY/Nick Drake. One of the most charming sequences on the album is from “Too High to Move,” in all its heavy-lidded horizontal disco poise, to the earnest soul assurances and slicing strings of “Pacific Rhythm” — or rather, their edit of Sister Sledge’s song “You’re A Friend to Me.” It keeps the blood racing when it might otherwise run to your head. Kudos also for working in the painkiller-glazed sound QV fans crave on “Utopia” and “Can’t Be Beat.”

So when evaluating this album, you have to decide what you’re after: a personalized soundtrack that’s catchy and familiar or an original thought from Matt Edwards and Joel Martin. I wish there was more of the latter. Silent Movie is not an album I would ask to switch off nor an album I would ask to put on. We all have our own soundtracks, and much of Quiet Village’s debut is not on mine.