[Pittsburgh Tracks]

It was like Pittsburgh Track Authority sprung from the creative womb fully formed. The group — consisting of Preslav Lefterov, Tom Cox and Adam Ratana — debuted last year on Lerato’s esteemed Uzuri imprint, unveiling a full-bodied, multifaceted sound that had no trouble articulating its aims. Utilizing their intimate knowledge of techno and house archetypes as starting blocks rather than building blocks, PTA took off in their own direction and proved to be compelling composers with a considerable knack for arrangements. While also exhibited on their 2011 Archipelago 12″ for Further Records, it’s even more apparent on Pittsburgh Tracks 001, the inaugural release of the trio’s dedicated label, Pittsburgh Tracks.

It’s true PTA owe a considerable debt to classic American house and techno, but no more than any other producers in their current milieu. Where A-side “Untitled” is inspired by Underground Resistance and its cohort, the captivating track wears these influences lightly. Part of it is the narrative structure, which introduces and snatches away each element thoughtfully to keep listeners hooked. The smart pairing of a bleepy but pliable progression and a resolutely plucked bass line bobbing on gritty machine rhythms is what first catches your ear, yet it’s the swooping synth strings lifting “Untitled” to the next level. “Monongahela Rainforest” gives the appearance of being a fairly candid deep-house track, its legato electric piano chords wafting through the weave of hand drums. Their meditative flow is broken by syncopated claps and toms shoving you into the next bar, eventually cresting on tender strings and starstruck cowbells before plunging back into the rhythms. Immensely well written with the dance floor firmly in its sights, Pittsburgh Tracks 001 is a high watermark for a group who continues to generate them.

In a departure from the regular format of LWE’s Curator’s Cuts series, the 21st edition features some of LWE’s writing staff discussing five of electronic music’s prevailing trends in 2011, noting some of our favorite underrated tracks, and opining on what 2012 might have in store for us. Editor-in-chief, Steve Mizek, served as the moderator of a conversation between Per Bojsen-Moller, Steve Kerr, Chris Miller, Jordan Rothlein, and Andrew Ryce.

Curator’s Cuts 21: LWE Staff (67:34)

[Marcel Dettmann Records]

Like his Ostgut Ton colleague Ben Klock, Marcel Dettmann is rather selective about the artists who release on his eponymous label. His ear for outstanding techno has yet to disappoint the imprint’s dedicated fans, inviting Norman Nodge to make his debut and T++ to remix two of MD’s tracks. Dettmann entrusted the eighth volume with Wincent Kunth, an unknown, purportedly Swiss producer whose only appearances to date were two remixes of Dettmann’s tracks. It also marks a shift away from the standard of stamped white labels and towards full-color sleeves and labels. The stark beauty of Act’s industrial photography on the cover is mirrored in the four tracks beneath it.

Unlike so many Berghain-inspired tracks, Kunth’s music manages to be commanding without attempting to intimidate. The elements he calls upon are often simple and common, but programmed with such skill and finessed throughout so as to wring every drop from them. With nagging claps and hi-hats that fall like welding sparks, opener “Promise” begins as a jack track whose droning synth work evolves into an enrapturing legato progression. Hypnotic tones steer clear highlight “Relove (Edit)” towards house territory as an organ progression glinting with overtones makes its case over insistent percussion. “Sinking” entangles listeners in quaking tones as Kunth tweaks and adds to his adroitly patterned vintage drum machines. “Trickle” begins nearly fully formed, a mesmerizing array of unearthly tones, piano stabs and a vocal-like loop that’s fastened together by tight and perfectly timed drumwork. In style and substance, MDR 8 is a record you might expect from such revered producers Dan Bell or Ben Klock — an uncanny feat for Wincent Kunth’s solo debut. Whether under Dettmann’s wing or on his own, Kunth’s is a name to watch for in 2012.

[Secretsundaze]

The easy and popular thing for producers to do at the present is write a house track that references Chicago’s golden age by adopting its palette. Emulating the 707 drum kit, 808 claps and Juno-6 bass affords some of Chi-town’s gritty immediacy, although these sorts of tracks so often enter one ear and out the other, replaced by the next crop of epigones or someone’s vintage house collection. It behooves producers, then, to look past the building blocks and study the more intricate rhythm patterns in which they were originally used. Doing so might not yield something staggeringly original, but the results have a better chance of being memorable, especially among bland peers. UK duo Ethyl & Flori take this tact on their Shelter single for Secretsundaze.

Where previous E&F collaborations for Freerange Records, Quintessentials, and Fear of Flying landed on the functional side of deep-house, “Shelter” is altogether more lyrical and vintage sounding. It glides on the backs of swooping synth-strings and their mellifluous piano counterparts, but bears a toughness imparted by early Dance Mania-influenced percussion — an array of stop-start shakers, nagging hi-hats and shrugging tom patterns. This pairing seems to beckon to the weary with its melodies and protect them with drums, all while hearkening back to the time when Chicago’s well-loved club Shelter first existed. While veteran producer Rolando likely remembers that period, his remix is more contemporary and streamlined in nature. He breaks the original’s melodies into pieces that arise from a stream of insistent hand percussion and ostinato tones, occasionally congealing into the familiar motif. Shelter finds Ethyl & Flori exhibiting considerable growth as producers and provides for a broader range of jocks, continuing Secretsundaze’s run of quality singles since turning its focus to artist-led releases.

Tells us a bit about who you are and what you do for Smallville Records on a day-to-day basis.

Smallville is run by Julius Steinhoff and Just von Ahlefeld, also known as Smallpeople, and Pete Kersten, also known as Lawrence. Basically the Smallpeople run the everyday life at the Smallville record store: we sit in the shop to sell records, do the orders at the distributors, plan our parties and label projects from the store and pack orders from our online store. The shop is a place to hang out and meet people, to listen to and talk about music or start a track. But around Smallville is also a great gang of people who are part of it, working and helping out. It’s really a good bunch of people, like Stefan Marx, who is responsible for the complete visual side of Smallville; Jacques from Smallville Paris, who lives in Hamburg for some years now; Richard aka RVDS, who is running It’s and releasing good music, recently on Laid; Wiebke (aka Elin), who runs the party series Dear in Hamburg, Christian (aka Blessing) works in the store with us plus does the artwork for Laid; Helena Hauff is also working sometimes and is a great DJ. It also includes people like Christopher Rau and Tilman tausendfreund, who are friends and also help out if needed; and last but not least Stella, who lives in Berlin now but opened the store with us in 2005 and is a initiator and member since the very first thought about the store.

How did the Smallville record shop come about? When did you branch out with the Paris shop? And what spurred you to start releasing records?

Actually we just wanted a good spot in Hamburg, a shop and hangout. We didn’t really think about whether it would work or not, more just did it. And it worked, we’re doing good — actually better then ever before now. After six years of doing the shop, we know a bit more how everything works. We cannot offer every record that is out there and we don’t want to. We would rather take a large number of one record that we believe in to offer it in the store for a long time. We just made two people really happy a minute ago, because we still had Workshop 9.2 on stock. I guess it’s very good for the store to have a certain sound that we stand for and offer. It’s always the music we love the most, that we sell the most, even if it’s a wide range between deepest house and techno. But that is a good thing and a very important point for our good feeling in the store. The plan to release records and do a label, too, was there from the beginning — it just took a while to set up everything.

The Smallville shop in paris is run by Jacques who lives in Hamburg, but he’s doing the orders from here and visits Paris regularly. The Smallville shop there was originally initiated by Pantha Du Prince, who just stocked a lot of Dial stuff and some good records in a shop for clothes; and he found Jacques to help him out with the daily work in the shop. But meanwhile Smallville paris is integrated in another record store called ground Zero, which is cool. If you are in Paris, you should check it out at 23 Rue Sainte-Marthe, 75010 Paris — it’s nice and cosy.

For a while the label was very closely affiliated with Dial, to the point De:Bug felt it necessary to say “Smallville nicht Dial ist.” Was it difficult to establish the label as its own entity?

Well, actually not. Dial and Smallville are close together due to Pete, who co-owns both imprints, but Dial is 11 years old and smallville only six. The Smallville record store is kind of a Dial shop now, too, as we have the Dial/Laid warehouse in here. Maybe Dial and Smallville are like brother and sister in a way, but in the end still two different labels run by different people. We were not looking to divide it music-wise — this comes naturally — and it’s also natural that it’s still close together, working well with each other. But yeah, there are things in common — artists, sounds and everything — but mostly also the way we look at running a label: without any need to be functional or to fullfil any commercial purposes.

Smallville’s records are synonymous with the artwork of Stefan Marx. How was he first involved with the label and why was he chosen to visually represent the label?

Stefan is a fixed part of the Smallville family and a long-term friend of ours. He was working for Smallville since the very beginning — his first work was our small village logo and text. He’s responsible for every part of our visual body — record covers, party posters and the windows of our record store. Stella actually introduced us to Stefan before we opened the store and we were amazed by his stuff. Stefan also likes the freedom he has to do things. He also released on Smallville; Smallville 25 is from him, it’s called The Dead Sea, a three poster collection in a gatefold record sleeve. All in all, we believe it’s the best thing that could have happened to Smallville. we are very thankful to have him.

What is your A&R policy like these days? Are you mainly seeking out music from people close to you or are you open to demos? How did the Melchior & Pronsato record about?

The Melchior & Pronsato record actually just happened. We knew Bruno and Thomas before and Bruno once just told me they had two unreleased tracks and if I’d be interested to listen, as they like Smallville. Of course I was interested. We all liked the tracks, so we released them — it’s not a long story. But besides, that we must admit, we are not really listening to a lot of demos. There are just too many and unfortunately a lot of bad music that doesn’t fit at all. We got to listen to so much music every day and during the week, so we find it hard sometimes. Most of the Smallville releases came naturally through friendship and people around we knew and like or find interesting. For us it’s important to have a good feeling with the artist, too, and to be on the same wave length, doing it from the heart.

The label’s releases can generally be described as deep house music, but there have been some outliers — perhaps most notably STL’s “Silent State.” Are you looking for specific aesthetic choices to align with the Smallville sound or is it more a certain vibe you’re aiming for? Is there anything specific you won’t put out?

There is no certain aestethic we are looking for, or at least nothing that is verbalised. It’s really more the vibe, the feeling. If something fits Smallville, we will realize it quite fast.

Smallville has been around since 2006, and obviously the musical climate in house has changed a lot since then. How much do you feel the need — or even pressure — to respond to what’s popular at the moment or that year?

We don’t feel the need to respond to anything. I guess that’s important. Of course we are influenced in a way by what is around because we go to parties, clubs, places and cities, and play a lot, so that’s an influence. But not in a way to react on something “popular.”

How much input does the artists themselves have in the final product?

You mean the artwork? It is always an important step to visit Stefan Marx in his studio and to have a look at his works. After that the process comes naturally as there is a lot of inspiring stuff at Stefan’s studio. So artists can definitely take part in the process as long as they don’t want a surprise.

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

It’s a good feeling that we are still feeling all the releases, from the beginning until now. Standouts in terms of the label might have been the album by Move D & Benjamin Brunn, as it was out first album on Smallville. It’s really a timeless piece of music and we got a lot of so nice feedback from around the world. That was amazing to realize and it still makes us happy to see it on Smallville. We won’t forget when we first listened to it in the store. And the same with the “Silent State” track. This also got so much love from so many different camps. I still carrying it in my case wherever I play.

What are some labels, past and present, that have influenced how Smallville is run, and why?

Dial, Emphasis Recordings and FXHE! The first Omar-S records on FXHE were just coming out when we opened the record shop. We loved them a lot and also invited Omar-S to play in Hamburg a short while after. There are a lot of timeless tracks on these labels. Emphasis is the label from Steven Tang. Every record is great and these are always a good hint for people digging for records in the store. We bought a lot of these, so we can offer them as long as possible. Steven was also guest at our Smallville party series and it was great to finally meet him.

Is there anyone Smallville wants to release who it has not yet released? What are your plans for 2012?

The release of a Steven Tang record would be something truly great for Smallville. We are big fans. As for 2012, we are working on a Smallpeople album, hopefully for the first half of 2012. There is some really good stuff in the pipeline for the Smallville label.

Talking Shopcast 14: Smallpeople (67:17)

Tracklist:

01. STL, “Birdart” [Something]
02. Herbert & Dani Siciliano, “I Hadn’t Known (I Only Heard)” [Phonography]
03. Sun Glitters, “Beside Me” (Essáy’s Calm Interpretation) [Kann Records]
04. Ben Westbeech, “Hang Around” (Karizma’s Kaytronic Dub Mix)
[Brownswood Recordings]
05. Juniper, “Jovian Planet” [Ominira]
06. Smallpeople, “untitled” [white*]
07. Smallpeople, “Black Ice” [Smallville Records]
08. Capracara, “Flashback 86″ [Soul Jazz Records]
09. Tang, “Horizons” [Emphasis Recordings]
10. Glenn Underground, “Vision” (GU’s Original Instrumental)
[Strictly Jaz Unit Muzic]
11. Inner Sense, “Vibin” [9Ts Records]
12. Second Life, “Inner Love (Give It Up)” (Black Keys Rework) [Running Back]
13. Omar-S, “Phazed” [FXHE]
* denotes tracks which, as of the time of publishing, are unreleased

[Live At Robert Johnson]

Frankfurt producer Christian Beißwenger is a consummate team player. Since 2002 he’s been half of several production duos, most fruitfully as Arto Mwambe with Phillip Lauer, but also as High Tide with Lukas Bacsoka, The Exile Missile with Philipp Lange, and most recently B.H.F.V. with Oliver Hafenbauer, manager of Live At Robert Johnson. Beißwenger’s solo works appear more sporadically: his last CB Funk release, the sought-after Subway To Cologne 12″ for Story, arrived in 2008. While this year has seen him keeping busy with Arto Mwambe and working behind the scenes on records by Lauer and Ata, Beißwenger found time for a new CB solo project. The Citizen’s Band makes its debut on the white hot LARJ imprint with 77 Reasons.

Although Beißwenger’s catalog could hardly be described as staid, there’s a cheekiness to “West 42nd” that immediately distinguishes The Citizen’s Band’s material from the rest. Opening with an irreverent deployment of kick drums that could challenge even seasoned DJs, the tune becomes a head rush of effervescent tones that begin to streak as they hit warp speed and twinkle when slowing down. Fortified by playful, garage-influenced drum programming and sublime pads, “West 42nd” bustles with kinetic energy while whirling around listeners’ heads. The title track is slightly more conventional but just as accomplished, imbued with a similarly brazen spirit. Ear-catching tones flicker against a spectral slate of rippling organ tones before the track drops into a dogged, bass-aided groove. An early break lets the organ roam and triggers the bass line’s long-legged walk, setting off a dazzling blend of elements you’ll want to soak up with your eyes closed. 77 Reasons is not only Christian Beißwenger’s stunning return to solo releases, it’s perhaps the finest capstone LARJ could desire for a year of stellar releases.

It takes guts to name your house music project after one of the genre’s most revered records of all time. Jozef Lemmens and Pierre van der Leeuw, the Dutch duo who produce as Morning Factory, have more than intestinal fortitude — they have serious talent. After cultivating their musical tastes as record shop clerks and DJs across the span of two decades, the pair tried their hand at making the stuff in the mid-aughts. In 2010 their investments finally paid off when Yore Records and 20:20 Vision signed their first records, revealing a tech-edged house sound that has continued to evolve and take on new dimensions in their 2011 releases for Royal Oak, Fina Records and Pets Recordings. As one of house music’s most compelling new prospects, LWE tracked down Morning Factory to discuss their division of labor, their take on the Dutch dance scene, and the advice they would give young producers. They also provided us with our 105th exclusive podcast, a blistering 80 minutes of high quality house laced with vintage favorites and potential classics.

LWE Podcast 105: Morning Factory (79:48)

Tracklist:

01. Roc & Kato, “Jungle Kisses” (Club Kisses Mix) [E Legal]
02. Matthew Styles, “We Said Nothing”[Diamonds & Pearls Music]
03. Cassius vs Prince, “Untitled” [white]
04. The Mole, “Nervous Disid” [New Kanada]
05. Brotherhood, “Memorial Smith” (Daniel Stefanik’s Buki Good Remix)
[Kann Records]
06. Dimitri & Jaimy, “Waitress Of An Open Mind” [Outland Records]
07. Rob Mello, “No Ears Dub Debut” [Sublevel]
08. Russ Gabriel, “Back In Charge” [Soul On Wax]
09. Tan Ru, “Assembly” [Trelik]
10. James Duncan, “Yes I Can” [Real Soon]
11. Prassay, “One I Saw J.C” [Basenotic Records]
12. Kenny Dixon Jr., Winter Breeze” [Soul City]
13. J.T. Donaldson, “Make You Higher” [Pacific House Brand]
14. Jovonn, “Back To House” (Ian’s New Dub) [Underground Solution]
15. WK 7, “The Avalanche” [Power House]
16. Kramer, “Untitled” [white]
17. DJ Marcello Presents Barrington, “Generate Love” (Original IQ Mix)
[Secret Love Records]
18. Justin Vandervolgen, “Sheebooyah” [Golf Channel Recordings]
19. Egoexpress, “Weiter” (Antonelli Electr. Remix) [Ladomat 2000]

How did you two meet and begin producing together?

This must have been in the early 90s when we met as young kids in a record shop. Soon we became colleagues in that same record shop and worked there for many years. During this period, 1994 to late 2006 (when the shop went bankrupt ), we were part of a collective of like-minded souls and co-hosted numerous parties. Carl Craig, I-F, Erol Alkan, The Glimmers, Freddy Fresh, Charles Webster and the DMX Krew were just a few names on the long list of great artists we as part of this collective had the pleasure to invite and DJ with.

Anecdote: It seems that Francesco Tristano met Carl Craig for the first time at one of our parties. Francesco and a friend of his were there (we never met them though), which is quite funny in retrospect because this must have been one of the last parties we organized, in autumn 2005. Carl played an excellent set (still with vinyl in those years) and showed not only to be a pro but also a very warm and friendly person.

Actually, we never really had the urge to produce and we were quite happy working in the record shop, being part of this party collective and DJing ourselves all those years. But after the shop went bankrupt the crew slowly but surely fell apart with people choosing different paths in life. We got together and soon came to the conclusion that we could never live without electronic music and decided we were ready and up for a next challenge, and so a new chapter began.

Do either of you make solo productions as well?

Yes, although not for official output. Maybe someday we might, who knows? And if so, we will always hook up and ask each other for an opinion or advise. However all this is not a serious topic for us as our main focus is Morning Factory.

Is there a division of labor between you two in the studio? What does each of you bring to Morning Factory?

Joep is more the technical guy and makes the first sketches and we take it from there. JP gives the input to compliment the production process. From there we work on the tracks until we have a piece of music that we feel comfortable with, as we agreed not to release music which is not up to our own satisfaction.

Morning Factory is by all accounts a reference to the Ron Trent/Chez Damier track of the same name. How did that end up as the name for your project?

In our opinion Ron and Chez are among those few who truly can call themselves legends. Simply because they created honest and original music, not a style, not a genre, no hypes, no trends. You still feel that today. Their track “Morning Factory” was and still is a firm favorite of ours; that is why we choose the name. Mind, we don’t compare ourselves with Ron and Chez, neither do we want to copy their sound, which would be impossible anyway. What we do is follow our heart, try to aim for the best we can possibly be, listen, learn, love and enjoy all this great music which is still around, old and new.

Earlier this year you posted a photo of your studio which was quite crowded with gear. With all that gear and only two years of releases, how long have you been producing?

Oh yes, that one! Haha, we have to be honest here, it’s not ours! Both the picture and the gear belong to Jean-Michel Jarre (another legend). Our studio is not like that. We use software technology which can be at your fingertips nowadays as a substitute to all that great vintage equipment, which we still love.

How much sampling do you guys do?

Every now and than we sample some things out of old records, not too much though.

How did you first get connected with Yore and 20:20 Vision? What about Clone?

Yore began by sending a friendly e-mail through Myspace to Gerd Janson from Running Back, which is a favorite label of ours. He almost immediately responded and said there wasn’t any room for us at RB (as we expected) but that we should try Yore. So we did, rest is history.

20:20 Vision is a label we started to follow from day one. We did send them some tracks after we noticed Ralph Lawson charted our first EP (Forgotten Moments on Yore). Ralph Lawson and Andy Whittaker personally replied within 24 hours. Together we compiled the Dazin’ EP, a double pack. Ralph and the whole 20:20/FINA crew are great people, they don’t push us or tell us what to do. Music-wise we are free to do what we feel. Hope we can give them some fresh music soon.

Serge from Clone, a man we didn’t knew in person but respected deeply for his Clone achievements, sent us an e-mail to congratulate us on the aforementioned Dazin’ EP. We were quite surprised as we never dared to send our music to Clone, thinking it wasn’t good enough for the label quality-wise. So when we had some new tracks we were bold and just sent them to Serge and that’s how the edit for Reggie Dokes’ “Once Again” and Fantasy Check on Clone/Royal Oak came about. It speaks for itself that we are very proud to be a little part of that big Clone history. We would love to stick around Clone.

The Dutch house/techno scene of which you are a part has been particularly strong over the last few years. Why do you think it’s been fertile ground for so much good dance music? What are your favorite parts of the scene?

True, the Dutch house/techno scene seems to be blossoming. In a way it always has, from the late 80s up to now, but not always in a true and cutting edge way. It was either very clubby or gabber, nothing in-between. Now people take notice of producers who have been ignored for many years. However, as strange as it may sound, we don’t consider us a part of this so this called Dutch scene. We both live in a small town all the way down the south of Holland, tucked in between Belgium and German borders, which are both literally a 10-minute car drive from our homes. Of course we did and still follow what is happening “up there.” Clone, Rush Hour and Delsin are true innovators, but when it comes to influences we have say that they came and for the bigger part still come from Germany, Belgium, France and the UK rather than Holland. Besides that, foreign countries were picking us up from almost scratch and up. Until now, Serge was the only one in Holland who was giving us faith and props.

Who are some some of your production contemporaries you admire and why?

Always tricky to namedrop because you always forget the ones who deserve a big shout out, respect and love too. In Holland we really dig I-F, Duplex, Newworldaquarium, Alden Tyrell, Conforce, Delta Funktionen, Gerd, Tom Trago and Dexter. Outside our country the list is almost endless: Cosmin TRG, Lone, Kassem Mosse, Jacob Korn, Omar-S, Benjamin Brunn, Vakula, Ripperton, Gavin Russom, Space Diminsion Controller, Wbeeza, Actress, Linkwood, Untold…

What is the best advice you’ve received with regards to making music? What advice of your would you give to up-and-coming producers?

Simply that there are no rules in making music, just do as you feel like, make mistakes and don’t be scared making them. Music was never meant to be perfect or sound like this or that. Go with whatever happens in making a track — it’s a small journey, enjoy it! When you are too focused on a certain sound or goal on what the track should sound like you can miss all the nice and spontaneous things that happen in a production process. We noticed all the times that we want to create a smooth track it can turn out raw and nasty. So, we just go with the flow and things can just fall into place. We try to keep an open mind about the whole process.

What’s coming up from you two over the next 12 months?

We just finished a remix for Gerd’s 4 Lux label and really looking forward to continue our work with Clone/Royal Oak. The rest is open and we’ll see what the future has in store, no master plan here.

When you’re away from the gear and turntables, what do you do for fun?

We love to cook and eat, catch some movies with a preference for the lesser known and more obscure, read a good book, wine tasting (not connoisseurs though), going on a bike ride or a run in the hilly countryside, architecture, and browsing Discogs

[Lick My Deck]

Thomas Melchior’s once restrained release schedule, which only occasionally exceeded one record per year, befit a master of patient, subtle grooves. But in the wake of his landmark 2007 sophomore album, No Disco Future, the gaps between Melchior releases have shortened considerably. Not only has the period given birth to the Cinderfella alias, it’s seen Melchior venturing further afield from his home base at Perlon (while still contributing two EPs to the storied label) and rejoining his Soul Capsule collaborator, Baby Ford, for two new singles on the renewed Trelik imprint. One wonders, though, if the lengthy gestations of his releases were actually to their benefit. Because as exciting as it’s been to receive a flood of new Melchior material, the unrivaled quality associated with his name has dipped significantly. Where even his most reduced tracks once hypnotized while sounding effortless, many of his current works have lacked that earworming quality and feel somewhat half-baked. For all its lengthy repetition, the same fate befell his Latin-themed 2010 single Apariciones for Lick My Deck. Apariciones Reworked aims to inject some magic back into the original tracks with remixes by Melchior’s long time friends Baby Ford and Ricardo Villalobos.

Some may be surprised that both veteran producers opted to refine Melchior’s originals rather than transform them more radically. This speaks to either the level of respect they have for the source material or a lack of better ideas. In the case of Baby Ford’s “Cinza De Fenix,” the former rings truest as he focuses on making the track more immediate. The original’s snorting, unkempt organ riff is pushed to the front to wriggle like a marionette in the thicket of bloops and clinking percussion, making it much harder to ignore but not much more interesting. The newly plucked bass line, however, is a winning addition, as its distended notes open up a great deal of space in the busy track. Villalobos’ remix pulls “Todo Mundo” out of the haunted house and into the mirrored fun house, shedding many of the cacophonous percussive elements along the way. Instead he reaches for a crisp, bass-gulping beat upon which the original’s Spanish vocals have their pitches bent and their speeds tweaked. While his version is less cluttered or demanding, it feels as if the venerable producer ran out of steam before he had the chance to make a memorable contribution. It becomes the kind of track you’d find Villalobos using in his DJ sets as a base layer for more arresting material, which would an enviable position for any less established producer but seems like a punt for his own remix. Although fans of the original Apariciones will likely enjoy this vibe-extending remix package, it offers relatively little of the awe-inspiring creativity which once established these three producers as leaders in their genre.

[Royal Oak]

These days it seems like each new Gerd release is described by its label as having been recently unearthed from his old hard drives or DATs. That the Dutch producer is still turning up fresh delicacies is a testament to how busy he’s kept in his two decades of production. But it also speaks to just how tremendous his talents are, as each track feels uncannily in-tune with the current milieu and timeless all at once. Palm Leaves, Gerd’s latest for Clone’s Royal Oak sub-label, is perhaps his best and most relevant find to date and comes with dub mix by Clone founder Serge and Alden Tyrell.

Unlike “Time & Space,” his last Clone-released record which originated in the 90′s, “Palm Leaves” was composed two years ago yet contains no obvious hallmarks of 2009 except its 126 BPM tempo. Appropriately for a track that finds the Dr. Orion (aka OlivierDaysoul) intoning about wanting to be in a tropical locale with you, its main motif is breezy and embellished with what sound like velvety vocal touches. Willowy percussion and tinkling key progressions sustain the weightless feeling until a deep, brackish bass line anchors the tune to the dance floor. Garnished with ebullient synth leads, “Palm Leaves” is as intoxicatingly sweet as the most potent of mojitos. Serge and Tyrell’s dub pushes the bass line’s arrival into the second minute and provides it with more room to swagger and vibrate. Dr. Orion’s vocals are flayed into stuttering fragments that are sprayed over the top at less than natural points. It’s not a bad rework, but next to the calm, expertly arranged original it’s a bit rough. If the rest of Gerd’s leftovers are of the same quality as “Palm Leaves,” this Dutch master won’t need to compose new material for years to come.

Patience is not the most common feature among up and coming producers these days, but for Sean Hernandez it was the only way. A Chicago native who joined its house scene in the late 80′s, first as a teenage party-goer and then as part of a DJ duo with his older brother, Hernandez learned the art of working a crowd for years before starting in on production. Once he did, he lavished attention upon his hardware, mastering the basics and absorbing every intricacy. It was only in 2007 that he began seriously submitting his music to labels both in Chicago and abroad, finding homes for his refined yet spazzy house tunes on M>O>S Recordings, Eargasmic Recordings, and Uzuri. Now that determined approach is paying off as people are aligning Hernandez, as Chicago Skyway, with part of Chicago’s house music vanguard. LWE recently caught up with Hernandez at his home and discussed the early days, his philosophy on house music’s purpose, and his sublime collaboration with Dcook. We’re also proud to present our 100th exclusive podcast — a double podcast showcasing both sides of Chicago Skyway: a groovy, sweat-inducing DJ set and a live set made almost entirely of unreleased CS material. We can’t think of a better way to reach this milestone than with two incredible works by one of Chicago’s rising stars.

LWE Podcast 100-1: Chicago Skyway (60:50)

Tracklist:

01. Black Traxx, “Holiday” [Night Club Records]
02. Markey, “5 Minute Workout” [Cajual Records]
03. Deymare, “Your Love” [Boe Recordings]
04. Ethyl & Flori, “Malmö” [Quintessentials]
05. Marc Vacher, “I Know” [Boe Recordings]
06. Jump Cutz, “Why You Wanna Play Me” (Norman’s Original Rare Groove Mix)
[Luxury Service]
07. Groove Committee, “Let’s Groove It” [Nu Groove]
08. TNT Subhead, “Deep Shit Show” [Groovement Records]
09. Joe Drive, “Towards The Light” [Mathematics Recordings]
10. 7 Citizens, “Quietus” [Praterei Records]
11. Perseus Traxx, “NR-707″ [Boe Recordings]
12. Steve Poindexter, “Computer Madness” [Muzique Records]
13. Joseph Bacchilega, “Human Form” (Piero Russo/ESOM Re-Form) [PulseWave]

LWE Podcast 100-2: Chicago Skyway (56:08)

Tracklist:

01. Chicago Skyway, “Plan B” [white*]
02. Chicago Skyway, “Joaquin Looks At The Stars” [Eargasmic Recordings*]
03. Chicago Skyway, “Butterfly’s Flight” [white*]
04. Chicago Skyway, “Confusion” (Wait Mix) [white*]
05. Chicago Skyway & Dcook, “Lager Dream” [white*]
06. Chicago Skyway, “Wreckage” [Eargasmic Recordings*]
07. Chicago Skyway, “Bad Driver” [white*]
08. Chicago Skyway, “Purgatory” (Yesi’s New Hair Cut Mix) [white*]
09. Chicago Skyway, “Noise” [Uzuri*]
10. Chicago Skyway, “Chicago Skyway Theme” [white*]
11. Crystal Maze, “Crystal Maze” (Chicago Skyway Remix) [aDepth Recordings]
12. Chicago Skyway, “122606″ [white*]
* denotes tracks which, as of the time of publishing, are unreleased

Tell me a little bit about how you were first exposed to house music and roughly when that was.

Sean Hernandez: I would say that was in the mid to late 80′s. Definitely [W]BMX, I mean that goes without saying. Anyone that was in Chicago from early 80′s to — when did it end? Early 90′s? Everybody was exposed to that. Everybody and their mama was talking about it.

It was like pop radio for Chicago wasn’t it, practically?

I never knew that it was only a Chicago thing back then. We were all just like, ‘Aw man, house music.’ And then, you know, [W]NUR would be playing the hip-hop show — Streetbeat show. And you know, the Streetbeat show would also play house music. So it would be like listening to BMX and the Streetbeat show on — what was it 89.3, or whatever? But we’d also get the early taste of hip-hop too. And then the New York guys that would come and — whatever, somebody was related to somebody that lived in New York. ‘Here, man, I got this record; I’m going to play it.’ Everywhere in grammar school everybody would have boomboxes. Not everybody, but some of the more well-off kids. It was kind of a mixed school. The poor kids or middle class — I grew up in Wrigleyville.

Oh, OK.

So it was very diverse. It was up and coming, aka was getting gentrified. If you go to that area like Chicago right now, it’s nothing the way it was when I was growing up in it. It was majority Puerto Rican, but I mean, it was still diverse. It was still very diverse class-wise, racially. You know, it’s funny because we were all the kids that were skateboarders. And skateboarding, you know, everybody gets along with everybody for the most part. And we also had that house music thing in common. And in grammar school people would bring — because it was always the lunchtime mixes. During lunch somebody would be playing their boombox. Or they’d have one of those little radios with the little headphones. It was everywhere. People were trading mixtapes or whatever.

Were you latching on to any artists or specific records at the time? Or was it just sort of like, “It’s all good.”

I mean, Farley [Jackmaster Funk]. And I definitely related more towards, I guess Rafael “Razz” Rosario because he was Latino. He was the Latino. But I always really dug Farley’s tracks more, and his selection better. We were aware that there was a Music Box and there was a Warehouse because everybody’s brothers or sisters would go, ‘Aw yeah, man, my brother was telling me that fuckin’ Ronny [Hardy] beat that shit yesterday.’ And we were like, ‘Uh, what the fuck is that?’ And that’s my earliest memories of actually being aware — I never knew what it was called, but people would be like, ‘Oh, this fuckin’ music.’ Because people would have Italo, they’d have sprinkles of disco, and all of a sudden this beat track would come on and everybody would just be losing it. We would be in the lunch room, people would be eating, and people would be dancing to it and whatever. If you were walking down the street in my neighborhood at the time, there was this place — there was this street like a block away. My parents would be like, ‘Don’t go down that street. There’s a bunch of gang bangers over there.’ And there were, but I mean everybody would be blasting BMX or whatever mixtape they have, and they’d be like throwing their gang signs at you and shit. It was everywhere. That and Puerto Rican music, obviously. You know how you see those movies of the Bronx in the 70′s and 80′s, and you see the clothes lines going from one building to another and people playing bongos and shit in the streets. That’s the way it was over there on the north side. So I mean it’s a far cry from what it is now. It’s always, like, twentysomethings, new transplants from Chicago now.

And when did you actually start DJing?

Well, going back to the gentrification process of Lakeview, the rents got so high that we had to move. So we ended up moving to the suburbs, to the west suburbs. And I was a freshman in high school, and we didn’t really have shit to do. I always thought, ‘Aw man, this is going to be, like, some fuckin’ “Brady Bunch” suburb.’ Hell no, I was completely wrong. The majority of the school was black; it was Proviso West High School, and the majority of the school was black and Mexican. And everybody was listening to house music and hip-hop also. My brother one day came home with a boombox. It was a huge boombox, and it was one of the boomboxes that lit up — the woofers lit up. He also had these two beat-up-ass turntables. One was a Gemini, one was a Technics. It wasn’t like the Technics 1200s or anything, but one had a roll pitch this way, the other had a little sliding roll pitch like that. They were belt drive, and my brother, from what I vaguely remember he was like, ‘Man, we should try to DJ.’ I was like, ‘Yeah, let’s fuckin’ do it.’ And we started just really paying attention to what they were announcing on the radio: ‘This was whatever track. “We’re Rocking Down The House” by Adonis on Trax Records, go get it.’ You know, Gramaphone was a couple blocks away from us, and we would just walk over there. Or we would go to Imports every now and then.

Little by little we started buying the records. And then something kind of clicked like, ‘Oh, every beat four measures and 16 and 32′ — you know, ‘Eight, 16, and 32. Hey, I’m starting to get the concept of this.’ We were really bad DJs. Especially because with those belt drives you have to kind of give them a push. It’s not like the 1200s where you just give it a little nudge. No, these motherfuckers you have to, you know, wind back and push. So it finally kicks in after, like, three measures. It’s funny because nobody was really a DJ; everybody was a graffiti guy or some shit, you know what I mean? Somehow we just ended up getting all these house party gigs, and everybody would be hiring — ‘Oh, that’s the Hernandez brothers. They have turntables and they have a mixer.’ We had like a RadioShack Realistic mixer. It didn’t even have a cross fader, just two channels and a mic channel. Somebody we knew had a — I don’t know if it was really a “banging” sound system, but it was these huge car speakers. It was like, ‘Hey, man, let’s just fuckin’ hook up the mixer and the turntables to my speaker.’ Like, really fuckin’ ghetto. And he’d be like, ‘I’ll help you guys.’ And then we kind of started forming this little crew in high school. We started throwing our own nights at American Legions. Some cop in Northlake ended up taking us under his wing and started throwing parties with us in them, and he started hiring Bad Boy Bill and Joey Fernandez.

Really? Wow.

I remember the first time he hired somebody, he hired us, Bad Boy Bill and Kool Rock Steady. And he had no idea how to throw a party, but he gave us our chance. He was like, ‘Hey, I really like what you guys are doing, and I’m a big house head’ and blah blah blah blah. So he printed 500 flyers because the capacity of this party was 500 people. There’s this place in the western suburbs on Lake and Mannheim, and it’s this retirement home. It’s this high-rise by the expressway. And in the very top of this high-rise is this party room, but it’s all windows. So you can see the skyline and shit. We set up lights and a sound system, and nobody came. Bad Boy Bill was playing. He was like, ‘Fuck that, I want to play first.’

Right, ‘Get me out of here.’

‘Get me out of here.’ Tou had to go in through the lobby and one of the security people would let you up in the elevator to take you all the way upstairs. But Kool Rock Steady was like, ‘No, I’m Kool Rock Steady. Let me in. That’s my boy playing upstairs.’ And they were like, ‘We’re not going to let you in; you have to pay. You’re not on our guest list.’ It got into this whole thing where they all started fighting and shit. Bad Boy Bill just grabbed my record, threw it on there, scratched it, and just fuckin’ left. But I mean, that’s basically how we started.

How old were you at the time when you got your start?

I must have been about 14. How old are you when you’re a freshman? Like 14?

Yeah, about 14.

It’s always something that I wanted to do. My brother’s two years older than me, and we look similar. So I would always take his ID. He was in high school; he used to go to Lakeview High School in Lakeview. There was this school named Gordon Tech that was an all-boys school, and there was another one that was the sister school that was all girls. So they’d always be throwing parties, and they had some party — I think at the time it was the Master Mix Six or something like that. It was after Farley left BMX and went to [W]GCI. So it was Bad Boy Bill and Farley and Fast Eddie. I ended up taking my brother’s ID and I went. I paid my five bucks and that was the first party I had actually gone to. There was tons of people. The DJ was just up there fuckin’ jamming, and lights all over the place. I was like, ‘Man, I want to fuckin’ do this. I want to be that guy up there making all these people dance.’ I don’t even remember who was playing that night. It must have been Bad Boy Bill that was playing, and he played “Strings of Life,” and people just lost it. I was like, ‘Man, I’ve got to figure out how to do that song. I’ve got to figure out how they made that song, and — first I’ve got to figure out how to make motherfuckers dance.’

So when did you actually get your start in producing?

That’s kind of hard to say because I mean — like I said, everybody was into house. Even people in my family. My uncle, who was a younger guy, he was — I want to say he was 19, 20 or something like that — he was always into music. He still has really great taste in music, and he brought this little SynSonic Mattel drum machine. It has four pads; it comes with drumsticks you can hit it with. And it has these little buttons that sounded exactly like an 808. I was convinced, ‘Wow, this is what they’re using!’ So I’m making the four-on-the-floor beat on it. I was like, ‘I can do this!’ Because right away after he got it and he’s like, ‘You know what? I don’t have any time. I’m going to let you borrow it.’ This must have been, like, around ’88, ’89 or something that it came out. And I was having a blast with that shit. My mom and dad were probably just going nuts like, ‘Whatever, stop that shit already.’ Eventually I started doing more research. I was trying to get my friends together to — I was like, ‘Man, this gear’s really expensive. Let’s get together — you know, we all work. Let’s get together and buy gear.’ But everybody was just kind of wishy washy about it, and I’m like, ‘Well, alright well, fuck you guys. I’m just going to do it myself.’

So I think the first actual thing that I ever bought was an MC-303, and I think a lot of people — I know Hakim Murphy has one. Anyway, that got really boring after a while. I guess I outgrew it. I know people that still fuckin’ use that thing, but I got tired of it. I started talking to more people that were producing music — not anyone specific, no one that’s big time or whatever, but they were like, ‘Oh, we use this drum machine, and we use this synth. Here’s the way you connect shit.’ I had a friend named Derrick Kyles who had a ton of gear. He had a R8, he had some Roland synth, and we started working on music. He had, like, an Amiga, the and we’d do sequencing on that. He taught me a lot. I think he’s still DJing. We recorded a couple tracks and submitted them to Cajmere for Relief Records. Because everybody wanted to be on Relief Records, either Relief or Dance Mania. And Caj said he liked it, but Derrick and I, we always had conflicting schedules. I was still a young producer so I was really experimental, and I’d be like, ‘Oh, let’s make it go in triplets] [claps in triplets] you know? I could tell Derrick would sometimes look at me and go, ‘What the fuck is wrong with you?’ But he was just gracious enough to let me get that all out. A couple years down the line we ended up meeting up again, and tried working on stuff, but again our schedules conflicted so it just wouldn’t work out. But the Caj thing, there was never any follow through. And every now and then I’d see Caj, and he would be like, ‘Yeah, man, what happened to those tracks?’ I’d go, ‘Oh man, we never finished them.’ [laughs] And all of a sudden, what happened to Relief Records, you know what I mean? A couple years go by, and I’m like, ‘What the fuck happened? I thought this was going to last forever.’

So when did you — so I know you put your first record as Chicago Skyway in 2007? Is that right?

Mmhm.

So were you spending — up until that time were you just sort of working on stuff, and then 2007 just felt right?

It was the first Eargasmic release, which was a digital release. Just the first versions of “Heavens.” I had been DJing straight through the late 80′s, throughout he 90′s, and towards the early 2000′s I just got so fed up with it. I think a lot of people just got frustrated with it, and some DJs went to hip-hop. The full-timers, they weren’t making any money off of house anymore, and it wasn’t as big as it used to be. So they went either to hip-hop or towards the Euro shit or whatever. And some people just got burned out because of the drugs and all that shit. We were still throwing parties, but it was more like deeper house, which is still — you know, I still love deep house. More vocal-y — you know, that type of deep house. New York-y, I guess. Some people say, ‘Oh, that New York — gay vocal house.’ But that’s also great house, you know? And after a while we we started settling down. My brother got married, he had kids. This was before I had kids, but I’m like, ‘Yeah, you know what? I’m tired of this already. Let me concentrated on my career, and let me just get shit rolling.’ As opposed to going out to party all the time, getting drunk, and stupid — let me be a responsible adult.

But at the same time, while I was doing all that I was slowly starving myself to save money to buy gear. I ended up selling my MC-303, and I bought another synth that was called a Sirius. It was a Quasimidi Sirius, or something like that. It was kind of an all-in-one thing also, but it sucked. And I ended up trading that — this old man in Iowa. I drove all the way over there, gave him my keyboard, and he gave me a 909. I would literally sleep with that fuckin’ 909, try to figure out every subtle nuance. And not that there’s much, but there are subtle little things, like when you program a clap or a snare of whatever. I tried to recreate beat tracks I would hear. The whole time I was just studying my gear. Because a lot of times my friends would be like, ‘Oh yeah, so how does it work? Show me how it works.’ I’m like, ‘No, fuck that; read the manual. I read the manual.’ And that’s the thing: I was just trying to figure out my gear, especially with those early Roland machines, the manuals are just fuckin’ worthless, man. You might as well just fuckin’ cross everything out — you can’t figure it out. You have to talk to somebody or something.

I would always record stuff. It was really bad, actually, and I would show it to friends. And one day my friend was playing at this place called Dante’s. And Daryl Cura was playing also, and my friend played my track. Daryl was like, ‘Whoa, what the fuck is this?’ My friend said, ‘That’s that guy over there.’ He introduced himself and we just started talking. We started a dialog, and started talking about music — we got along really well. He was like, ‘This is still really rough, but I like where it’s going. It’s very old school sounding.’ And I was like, ‘Well, that’s not what I’m trying to do, but if you like it, then that’s cool.’ A couple years later when I felt more comfortable — even though I still don’t feel comfortable about ever releasing music — I finally gave him “Heavens.” He was like, ‘Dude, this is great. I’m going to release it, but I’m not going to release it on vinyl. I’m just going to help you out and release it on digital.’ And I’m like, ‘Well, do whatever. I don’t want you to spend any money on my behalf. Just see what happens.’ He was the one that basically gave me my break, as far as that goes. Later on I ended up sending those same tracks to — because I kept all the rights and publishing, all that stuff — to Delsin, because I really loved Delsin’s shit. It was months and months and months. I sent it to a lot of people in Amsterdam. Because, what had just come out? The [Para]disco 3000. It was this five or six album set. Eskimo Music released it. I just started sending it to all these guys, ‘He said the song’s old school, these guys seem to like old school house; I’ll send it to them.’ I think it was Marcel from Delsin who contacted me. He was like, ‘This is not really up our alley, but let me get you in contact with Steven Brunsmann, who runs the M>O>S label. This is more up his alley.’ Steven and I started talking, and he ended up releasing ‘Heavens’ on vinyl. Around that time also Daryl ended up releasing “Bells.”

So you named yourself after the Chicago Skyway, which is an interesting Illinois landmark, and I’m curious how that name came about.

I’ve always thought it sounded so cool. It sounded like space, like — ‘Skyway,’ you know? There’s so many reasons why it’s the perfect fit for me. One of them is — you’re the DJ; you’re elevating the crowd. I’m from Chicago. It was also kind of a marketing thing. Because right away I thought, if someone sees something that says Chicago on it, I know right away I’ll pick it up. There was a label that would say “made in Chicago.” And I would be like, ‘I’ll pick that up; I want to give it a chance.’ I thought the same thing: ‘I wonder if Chicago Skyway would work?’ Also because of my nickname, Changó. My friends would call me Changó, some of my family members would call me Changó because I’m a goofball, basically. And Changó is the god of the sky. There are a few other reasons, but it kind of stuck, you know?

That’s great. So obviously being from Chicago, the Chicago house influence was going to be very strong on your music. At the same time, I imagine that you didn’t want to just make straight Chicago house that everyone could tell right away. How do you sort of take that influence and make it your own? Because it’s so easy — and so desirable for a lot of people — to just redo the past, basically.

That’s the thing: there are a lot of producers out there that are mimicking it to the tee, where even the labels are looking like old school labels, like hand-drawn labels. With me, I never tried to sound old school. But I’ll admit that when I got the drum machines, I was trying to recreate some of the music, but that’s because I needed to figure out, why is this so good? And I’m not trying to compare myself to like a jazz musician or anything, but it’s kind of the same way a saxophonist will try to memorize a John Coltrane solo. Like, why does this work so well? And that’s what I would do. And I mean you’ll hear it a lot in my music. There’s a beat track that doesn’t have a name, but whenever you hear it, everyone just goes nuts. It’s just a simple 808 beat track. And when my friend sold me the 808, that was on there. He was like, ‘Man, check it out; I recreated it.’ I erased it and I recreated it again. In some of my productions, you’ll hear that. I’m using old gear so it’s always going to sound like it’s old school.

But if a trumpeter’s playing bebop, in a bebop style, he’s not trying to sound like Dizzy Gillespie, although there is that kind of nod to that early jazz. So there are going to be some notes or something similar from the past, but they’re going to throw in their own little flavor in there. And that’s kind of what I do. I don’t ever try to sound old school, but it just happens that I’m using old gear, because in my opinion, I think that’s the best-sounding gear. It’s house music to me. The 909, the 808 — that’s house music to me. Now I’m starting to step away from it for a little while. Another big influence on me is DJ Rush, early DJ Rush. Some of my friends are saying, ‘Oh man, that sounds like DJ Rush.’ And I’m like, ‘Yeah man, it’s those drums.’ Also Cajmere — Cajmere told me he uses just an MPC. I’m not ever trying to sound that way — because you’re right: it is easy to get caught in that, but — and this sounds so fuckin’ cliché — I like to have one foot in the past, one foot in the present, looking towards the future. You know what I mean? I definitely want to keep my sound, but I do want it to evolve. I hope it just doesn’t get too cheesy. [laughs]

So on that tip, you were talking about DJ Rush, and I know you also cited Traxmen and just Dance Mania in general as big influences. A lot of that stuff tends to be a little bit harder, a little bit faster. And I just wondered how that — because a lot of your stuff tends to be more melodically focused — how you thought that sort of filters into your style? It’s not like someone would necessarily say off the top of their head “Dance Mania,” or whatever else.

Yeah. I’ve always wanted my music to be party music. This is probably going to sound cheesy, but I’ve always tried to study a crowd and what they react to. I just recently came back from the UK, playing Freerotation Festival, and it was funny because I was with Steven Tang, and I’m like, ‘Look at this. Watch, watch, watch.’ And then something would drop, and the audience would go, ‘Yeah!’ I’d go, ‘See that, man, see? We’ve got to do that! Right there, right there, right there!’ I never try to be deep with my music. I don’t go, ‘I’m going to play this open hi-hat, and it’s going to be the pain of the world.’ None of that shit. I want it to be escapism; I want it to be party music. And all that Dance Mania stuff, all the Trax stuff, that to me was always party music. So going back to my experience at Freerotation, I was shitting bricks. ‘What am I going to play? You know what? Fuck it, I’m just going to pretend like this is like a house party in Chicago.’ And I started playing tracks. I started playing not Trax Records, but track-y stuff. I started playing some of Tang’s stuff, I started playing some vocal house. I only had two hours, so I tried to kind of go all over the place to feel out the crowd. And they responded to a lot of the tracks, a lot of Cajmere shit that I was playing. And I’m like, ‘Man, this stuff works so well. I think I need to make more of this stuff.’

Interesting, yeah.

Because I want people to have fun. When they’re listening to my music, I don’t want them to be like, ‘Ah, this is so fuckin’ depressing. This isn’t dance music.’ House music is about escapism. That’s what it all boils down to. The punk rock people, they were for rebellion. They were like, ‘Fuck this shit. Fuck the establishment.’ House music’s like, ‘Fuck everything, let’s just fuckin’ go have fun, let’s fuck, let’s do weed,’ you know what I mean?

So your most recent record was with Dave Cook, and I just want you to tell me a little bit about how you know Dave and how you came together for that record.

Dave — I would actually see him — bald, white dude — I would always see him at parties, and Specter, which I don’t know if I should even describe who Specter is. Because I know not a lot of people know who Specter is. Specter is a fellow Chicagoan producer. I’ve known Specter forever; I would also go out to his disco parties, and we would hang out. We were in the same circle, you know? He introduced me to Dave Cook. Every now and then I’d see him at some of my parties we were throwing, or at some of Specter’s parties, or some of the Soul Foundation parties. One day I saw him online, and we just started talking, and he started sending me some of his music, and it was like — it was kind of like the reaction the west side people had with me. Like, ‘Damn, look at this white boy trying to sound like Theo Parrish.’ You know what I mean? Because that’s the way his stuff sounds. Dave is brilliant when it comes to tracks. He does some really brilliant shit. I told him, ‘You know, I’m just starting myself. We should work on shit.’ Years passed, and one day I called him, ‘Hey, dude, let’s get together. Let’s have a couple beers and let’s throw something together.’ And we did, but nothing came out of it. A couple years later it came again, and [we were] like, ‘No, this time, for real.’ ‘Okay, now I have a couple records under my belt; we need to do something.’ One day we just went over to his house, and we started some arpeggiated synth line and started opening bottles of beer —

Hence, “Lager”?

“Lager,” yeah. I never know what to call — I never name anything. I usually ask my friends. Like, with Wolfgang Hair EP I asked my my boss, who’s also a graphic designer, ‘Hey, what should I call this EP?’ [He was like,] ‘Wolfgang Hair EP. Like Wolfgang Weingart.’ Everybody was like, ‘Who the fuck is that?’ I’m like, ‘Wolfgang Weingart, man. He’s a designer, dude.’ And his hair’s really fucked up. If you Google his name, you’ll see. So Dave and I got together, and we actually started in Reason, and from there I took it into my hardware and just started fucking with it. And from there, it just kind of blossomed. It’s funny because that track — and I shouldn’t say this — that track was only three minutes long. And I lost the original recording of it. And Steven Brunsmann had always gotten on my ass about, ‘Dude, this shit is awesome, but’s it’s one minute.’ And I always joke, ‘Man, that’s all you fuckin’ need. Here in Chicago you need two minutes. Hit it, quit it, get the fuck out.’ I asked him, ‘Hey, what do you think of this track?’ He was like, ‘Yeah, it’s good, but it’s too short.’ So I re-edited the fuck out of it. I took little bits and pieces, and it — it took me about an hour or two to edit it to where I wanted it. It does feel very loopy. So I took three minutes of it, and extended it to whatever it is — five, six minutes. And then ‘”Bad Driver,” that’s actually my track. I submitted that to Steven a long time ago — that was around the time I submitted “Heavens,” but it never found a place on the EP, but he always wanted to release it. He’s like, ‘Let me do an edit of it.’ Steven loves to edit my stuff, which I’m fine with. He adds a little bit of that Aroy Dee flavor, and I love his productions so I’m fine with that.

Yeah, I was curious about that.

Yeah. The original version’s on that mix that I gave you.

Oh, really? Awesome.

Dude, there’s a ton of shit on there that’s original versions. The very first version of “Lager” is on there too.

Any more collaborations you’d like to do?

With Dcook?

Well, with anyone.

Well, Steven and I are working on tracks right now. I want to collaborate with Hakim Murphy. Specter, I’ve asked him, but Specter kind of does his own thing so I respect that. I’ll collaborate with anyone. Just as long as I can have a place to work on music. If I have some sort of hardware– although I’m never opposed to digital because I have done stuff in digital. Right now I’m working on a Chicago Skyway and Dcook thing for Uzuri. And you’ll probably hear that track — that DJ Rush-style track — on Kerstin’s [Tama Sumo] next podcast mix that’s coming out. She said she played it at Panorama Bar and people went nuts over it.

That’s great.

I was like, ‘Fucking great!’ She said, ‘You’ve got to come to Berlin.’ I’m like, ‘Send me there. I’m ready. I’ll fuckin’ tear it up.’ Steven and I, we’ve been remixing each other — I’m actually working on a remix for Steven right now. For his next Synapsis release. So I’m doing another remix for him. We’re getting into this thing where we’re exchanging remixes. I think that’s the coolest thing, too. In my eyes it’s a lot easier to remix somebody’s music who I know, as opposed to somebody that comes up to me [and says], ‘Hey, I like your music. Can you remix my shit?’ I’m like, ‘Dude, I’ve never even met you. And I’m not even familiar with your music.’ You know? A remix is kind of a collaboration. I have that remix that just came out for Crystal Maze. I also did a remix for this guy out of Chile, a guy I have never met in my life. He has really good taste in music, and I ended up remixing his stuff. So that should be coming out at the end of the year. And I’m supposed to be doing another remix for this Irish producer who’s a really cool guy. We were chatting at Freerotation, and he was like, ‘Man, — ‘ because I told him after this year I want to stop remixing shit. I’ve got to work on my own shit. He was like, ‘Come on.’ Anyway, he was a real cool guy, and I was like, ‘Yeah, I’ll do it.’

Who is that?

His name is Graham Bray.

Do you know what name he produces as?

I think nothing yet. [laughs]

Oh really, he’s just getting it going?

It’s, like, stuff in the works, but he’s kind of trying to plan for the future.

That’s great. So one thing I’ve noticed a lot about American producers in general, but also specific about Detroit and Chicago, is that a lot of producers then go on to start their own labels. And it’s not something that you’ve done yet, and I was just curious if that’s something you were interested in doing or not?

I definitely am interested in started my own label; the only thing that’s keeping me back is finances. I think with every producer, it’s kind of like, OK, why am I going to keep on giving my stuff away and making other people money when I could be making all the money myself?’ When I start my own label I’d probably just have it where the main focus is me. Because I don’t ever want to play the, ‘OK, here’s this contract, and — ‘ Never say never, of course. I mean I’m sure I’m going to hear someone like, ‘Oh, wow, this is dope — how much do you want for this? I’ll give you this much and I’ll buy you a Happy Meal or something.’ I think eventually when I do have the right the connections and I do get it together — because I don’t ever really like to do anything half-assed or too half-assed. I want it to be really good. I want it to be, beautiful artwork like how your label is. I want it to be decent distribution. It’ll get there. But I’m not going to stop giving music to other labels. Like with Lerato [Khati, of Uzuri], or with Steven and Daryl, I will give them music because I they’ve helped me out so much and I’m forever in debt with them. I mean, they’re just great people to work with.

Right on. So you were saying you’re a graphic designer.

Yeah.

And what is — it a firm that just does it for different clients, or? Tell me a little bit about that.

It’s for the University of Chicago. And I mean before I used to work at a free publication, and I was an art director there. I was working there for seven years.

Do you ever do any graphic design for labels or anything like — I don’t even know.

Oh dude, my flyers are everywhere. I do a lot of stuff for [Funky] Buddha [Lounge], a lot of stuff — I used to do stuff for the House Spot. I don’t know if you’re familiar with that.

No.

It’s like an underground disco kind of party. I used to do stuff for Cuatro, I used to do stuff for, man, so many people. And I mean, these are all my friends who are still throwing parties from back in the day when we used to throw the deep house parties. I still keep in touch with them. I give them the super-cheap friend discount. I still do that on the side. That’s kind of how I make ends meet, with some of the freelance stuff I do for them. Like, I do identity systems for them and all that fun stuff. I mean some of it is better than others; it’s not like my professional stuff, but —

And what do you do for fun? Obviously you’re quite busy with your kid.

I just play with my kid. I have a really boring life. I mean I come home, I play with Joaquin, hang out with my girlfriend — soon to be wife — they go to sleep, and I just stay up all night working on music with my headphones. It’s rare that I get a chance to mix because my son is so into the music. He loves music. He has this little guitar that — he wakes his ass up at — it’s Saturday, six in the morning [and says,] ‘Dada, let’s play music! Let’s dance!’ He loves to dance.

Oh, that’s awesome. How old is he?

He’s two.

So what’s the next 12 months look like for you, release-wise? I mean, you mentioned some of the remixes earlier.

Doing a remix for Steven Tang. I hope I finish that by the end of this month because that’s when he wants it. I’m finishing up an EP for Uzuri — for Lerato. We just need to tighten up two more tracks, and we have a Hakim Murphy mix on there. I have that a remix for a Chilean label, that should be coming out at the end of the month. Finally the Wreckage EP will be out by the end of this year also. [Daryl]‘s going to release two EPs at the same time, a package set. I don’t know if you remember, there was an actual CD. That’s going to be coming out, and that’s going to have some different versions on there that I played on the mix. There’re going to be extended versions of “Wreckage” and “Joaquin Looks At The Stars.” So a lot of people kept on telling me, ‘Oh, shit’s too short. You need to extend that.’ I was like, ‘Alright, I’ll fuckin’ do it.’ I’m also doing — there’s this guy named Malcolm Moore, Altered Moods Recordings. We did the Pancake Sessions EP — me, Steven Specter, and him. I’m working on an album for him. I haven’t really started; it’s kind of in my head, what I want to do with it. It’s going to be a deeper one. [laughs] I hate the term “deep.” It irks me. House music should be party music. I mean, even Larry Heard shit, which is considered “deep,” it still moves you. I mean, his later stuff is a little on the sleepy side. Sorry, Larry. I love you, but some of that shit is sleepy.

I mean, look at what a spaz I am now. You know, I’m always like this. I actually can’t remember if it was Steven Tang — somebody like, ‘Man, your productions are exactly the way you are. You’re a fuckin’ spaz. There’s fuckin hats all over the place. Claps and fuckin’ snare fills and shit. You’re nuts,’ you know? And that’s kind of my personality. When Malcolm approached me with the Altered Moods thing, he was like, ‘I want a deep Chicago Skyway track, kind of like “Heavens.”‘ And I was like, ‘Dude, I’ll never be able to recreate that; that’s why I have so many fuckin’ versions of it.’ It took me months, and I was afraid to show him that one, and he’s like, ‘Dude, this is the shit.’ Maybe a year later he was like, ‘Hey, I want an EP from you.’ Malcolm’s a really good person to deal with also, and I think for the most part I’m going to just keep within those people. After that I’m just going to release shit on my own. But he wanted something for November, but I have a lot of stuff coming out at the end of the month, and I don’t want it all to conflict. I kind of told him I haven’t really worked on it. I haven’t had time to work on it. But it’s in the works. So I’m hoping at the beginning of the year. Definitely a lot more travel. Lerato’s been setting up a lot more gigs. I’m supposed to go to Berlin, hopefully soon. Japan is in the works right now, and so is Australia. So hopefully [knocks on wood]. I mean, I can’t get a fucking gig in Chicago to save my life, but I’m glad people over there are appreciating what I’m doing.

So tell me a little bit about the mixes that you made for us.

It’s funny because I was actually going to be a lot more creative with it. I was going to record Joaquin interrupting me, and seriously just change up the mood of the whole mix. I wanted to be a little bit more creative with it, but the only time I had was when he was asleep. And the majority of the time when I’m trying to practice [he's like,] ‘Dada, dada! I want to scratch!’ I gave him his own record, and I gave him his own beat-up needle so he can actually fuck with it. And then also my turntable was fucked up, and I’m like, ‘Aright, let me fix it.’ It was just so many things, and summer’s just awful because it’s like 50 million Mexicans have their birthday parties, you know what I mean? So when I finally got change to do the mix, Joaquin was asleep and so was my girlfriend, and I had to play really low. I mean, I’m not trying to come up with excuses for my blending, but I think I heard a DJ Harvey saying, ‘I think sometimes perfect blends are kind of boring. I kind of like the DJ to struggle with the music sometimes.’ I hope this makes a lot of people feel the same way.

But you know, Chicago, man, you have to be fuckin’ tight. Motherfuckers will be standing in the middle of the floor, pointing at you. ‘You bastard! How could you do that?’ I never claim to be the best blender, beatmatcher. So I was playing that mix really low, trying not to wake them up. While I was picking up records for that mix, I was also picking out some other stuff that I hadn’t released because I wanted to also put that on there. But for some reason — I was playing off my laptop with the mix with all the other vinyl stuff — the laptop wasn’t working where I could play both those together. So I’m like, ‘Eh, I’ll just keep on going with the vinyl.’ I picked out those tracks because I thought they did go smoothly together, for the most part. Not the beat blending, but programming-wise. When I was at Freerotation I got a lot of promos, a lot of really great stuff from Ben Boe. I love his label. I remember I was talking to Perseus Traxx on Facebook or something, and we were talking about — I made a comment about how awful some design is on record labels, and if I’m sifting through records and I can’t even fuckin’ read your shit, why would I want to pick it up? And he showed me his label for Ben Boe’s thing, and then I go, ‘I can’t read it, but it’s Ben Boe so it’s good.’

Yeah, that hand stamp was a little murky, but the contents are good.

So it’s like a typical Skyway set where I’ll start off with some of the more — I don’t know what the word is for that type of house — but more of the mellow house into the banging shit, but I started getting tired, [laughs] and towards then I was just forcing shit. So some of the stuff towards the end is really slow, but it’s like more of the banging shit. And I mean that’s like a typical Skyway set where I’ll leave the crowd like, ‘Yeah!’ It’s kind of the way I played at Freerotation too. I’m sure I was putting people to sleep at the beginning, but towards the end I think people were like, ‘Oh shit, okay. Now I know who that guy is.’

And so the other mix is all your own stuff?

The other mix is all my own stuff, and it’s stuff from various versions of my studio, and various versions of my skills. It’s kind of all over the place. But it’s a lot of unreleased stuff. I would say that the only thing that’s released on there is the Crystal Maze remix. It’s funny because a lot of people have asked me, ‘Well, what’s the original of the “Bad Driver” song?’ I’m like, ‘Well, it’s pretty much the same, but Steven added that synth part, those washes. Mine isn’t like that at all. It’s just straight beat and [imitates bass]. And then there’s this long-ass breakdown, and it comes back. There’s stuff that is possibly going to come out on there, but might not. I’ll probably end up waiting to release it on my own. Yeah, it’s just a bunch of stuff that — I mean, 98 percent of it is unreleased shit.

Very cool, well we’re privileged to have that.

It’s one of those things too, because a lot of people are like, ‘You don’t really have that much music out.’ It’s because I’m really fuckin’ picky. I tell my girl, I’m like, ‘Give me this weekend. Just I want to fuckin’ get this shit right.’ And the majority of the time, the music that I do — I rarely sequence it out. I have my MPC in front of me, and I have my drum machine on one side and synths on the other. So I press play, and then I start triggering buttons and drum patterns and sort of twiddling knobs live. It gives a better feel to it. It feels a lot more raw than when you sync up something and feels very robotic. You know what I mean? Or I’ll sequence this part, but I’ll keep fuckin’ with this part. Like a synth or filter, or I’ll changed drum patterns with this hand, or whatever. And I mean that’s the way I work with the majority of my tracks. And then later on, maybe I’ll record again two minutes — two or three minutes of it, and then I’ll come back and look at it on this program and just edit what I didn’t like about it, maybe make it go backwards. That old Derrick May style shit. Or even Ron Hardy — Ron Hardy used to do it all the time. But I mean, just to get the party hype, of course. I’m very picky about shit, and anyone who knows me, they’ll tell you, ‘Man, this motherfucker has, like, eight versions of one song.’ So some of those versions that weren’t released are on there. Because I mean, it’s always going to be a different version. Within a day, it’ll be a completely different song.