audio Kultur issue 03 mar 2014 free
02 Word for the Herd
I
moved to Beirut five years ago with some finagled cash, a DSLR and a vague idea of how to sustain myself when said cash eventually dried up. I went into nightlife because it’s what I knew best, having been one of the biggest constants between the three cities that I have had the pleasure to call home. In the intervening years the scene has expanded exponentially. Parties have grown in stature, music tastes have changed and level of quality has risen to international standards. Beirut is a tiny city compared to some of the European giants, as we all know. But the rapid growth of the scene in the last few years has gifted clubbers with a wealth of options. On any one weekend you’ve got an option of getting pissed to the beats of five different top notch selectors. With little synergy between outfits what this means is that on any given weekend we’ve got five pretty sparse dancefloors. Long gone are the days of legendary massive nights. Magda at B0, We are Your Friends at the old sugar factory, countless night I can’t even remember at Behind, the first time Butrich played über and fuck, as much as it pains me to say, I’ll even throw in that one Underrated party at Interneon just for good measure; these are the nights that define partying in Beirut for me. They were massive, the kind of nights where everyone was so into what was happening that adding one more body would have caused the building to collapse. We don’t have those kind of nights anymore and while people are quick to scapegoat the volatile political situation, the answer is a little more cannibalistic. Everyone wants a piece of the pie and the pie simply isn’t big enough to go around. In our January issue we published an impressive year-end list of the international artists that visited Lebanon in 2013. The list was longer than we imagined, a remarkable testament to how far the scene has come. However that same achievement might very well be our preemptive death knell. This scene is just not big enough to sustain this rapid growth and cracks are already beginning to show. Clubs closing prematurely and nights jumping venues after only four or five parties, just to benefit from a big opening/closing, are things that we’ve seen recently. But the most dangerous manifestation of the current situation is far more detrimental. Because of this fierce competition between promoters no one is willing to do something different, no one can afford to take the risk. As a result, all those options are all beginning to sound the same.
Publisher überhaus
Editor-In-Chief Tres Colacion
Managing Editor Emma Gatten
I don’t know about you, but I’m kind of bored.
Art Director
Till next time, Tres
Writers
Ali Sayed
Editor-In-Chief
Emma Gatten, Andréane Williams, Jackson Allers, Nabih
Got something to say? Write us at Junkmail@Uberhaus.me
Comic
Esta, Ronald Hajjar
Gab Ferneiné
Table of Contents 03
04. Featured Artist:
Pig & Dan
14. Featured artist:
Hernan Cattaneo
20. Featured artist:
Sasse
26. Featured artist:
06. Flashbacks
& Revelations
16. Feature:
B(0)RN AGAIN
22. Feature:
OkyDoky
Timid Boy
28. Tuneage 30. Techno-logic
32. Feature: 34. das Komic
Onomatopoeia
04 Featured Artist
Pigging Out Pig & Dan have been through it all and come pretty far out the other side
Featured Artist 05 become a label, or a track. And that's how it works. We're constantly creating without even knowing it.
AK:Working together so closely, you must rub each other the wrong way sometimes?
D: Of course, but it's so rare. It's like being married to each other.
I: After ten years of working together we are still working
F
rom a chance meeting on a plane 15 years ago to playing sold out parties around the world, Pig (Igor Tchkotoua) & Dan (Duncan) have had a busy career to say the least. The duo has released records on some of electronic music’s finest imprints and in 2012 launched their own ELEVATE label. They’ve most recently popped up on the revival of Richie Hawtin’s Plus 8 label, remixing none other than EDM superstar Deadmau5. Before their Beirut debut for 6th Sense Productions in February we caught up with them to discuss everything from rehab to EDM.
AK: You guys met on a plane about three years before you started working together. What were your initial impressions of each other? Igor: He was a dick. Dan: I was a dick. I: You were up your own fucking ass dude. He was like so cool and like 'I work in Ministry of Sound and I play drum and bass.' Dan: I was a prick. I was at a good point in my career, I was young, and I was arrogant....It was a weird point in my life cos I was dealing with a lot of insecurity mixed with success, which is a terrible disaster. I: It wasn't that bad. We just met in a plane. I was a bedroom DJ, he was a sort of cool Ministry of Sound DJ... we exchanged words for about 30 seconds...We talked about weed more than music. AK: When it comes to a remix, who brings what to the
table? D: We both bring shit to the table in reality, don't we? I: Yeah. We both have different styles, different ways of thinking but in a weird way it works. What's that word? Synergy. D: That would be a good name for a label. I: We can make a track called Synergy...See that's how it works. I just thought of a word and that word could
together so we've been through thick and thin. It's been fucking hardcore. He's been through my drug addiction. I've been through rehab. I've been through his shit, and we always seem to come back.
AK: So no major fallings out? D: We've walked away from each other for an hour, in the airport. But in the end we were laughing. I: We have a system and it works. If one or the other of us died or something it would be pretty tragic for us. It would suck.
AK: Is one of you more technically capable and one of you more musically? D: I trained in music and the technical side. He also trained in the technical side, but what I do is stay a lot within the rules. And the beauty of what Igor adds is the piece that somebody who trained in music would never be able to add. And he creates the funk, the chaos. He adds the chaos to the organisation, which hopefully works. I: He cleans up my shit. I poo digital. D: I clean up his shit. Or he shits on my things. I: He really has a studio history that is really admirable. He did stuff for The Cure etc. D: Yeah, loads of pop stuff in the late 80s, the early 90s. I: Was it Rick Astley? D: No, it was Jason Donovan...I did a lot of embarrassing records. It was all about analogue. It was all about running the first computers with the analogue and spending fucking hours making the sound. Now if you've got a laptop you can create so quickly. AK: What did you guys grow up on, as ravers? You used to play drum and bass back in the day in England, Dan. Was it acid, house, techno? I: You grew up on acid, didn't you? And the first drug you took was acid [laughs]...The first time he took acid he took a whole brick of the wall. And every brick was four tabs. D: And I didn't know. It was a horrible experience. I was just in a puddle, watching melting colours, for 13 hours. I'm a soul boy, really. Originally. We both are. Hip hop, Hendrix. I: Michael Jackson. In the 80s dude, come on. Metallica, all sorts of music. The Doors, Jimi Hendrix, Bobby Brown. AK: So, if you guys weren't producing techno, what
would you be making? I: Probably funk and soul. Dub reggae. We've actually done some pretty dubby tracks. D: Also we've made music like soul and trip hop. We've got other things going on that we don't release under our name. However, I think we're going to be releasing a downtempo track on a new [John] Digweed compilation of techno artists doing trip hop tracks, for Ibiza...They asked for a couple of downtempo tracks and we have an album we never put out so we're going to put out a couple of tracks from that.
AK: What's the strangest request you've ever had on a night? D: It was you I: Lady Gaga. In Holland. In a proper techno club. A very very educated audience. We were playing proper techno and this chick comes up...I was like, sorry, you've got the wrong club. AK: Biggest regret? I: Not going to rehab before. I wish I had gone six years
before. I had a chance to go and I didn't.
AK: What do you look for in what people send you? D: Stuff that is off the beaten track music that isn't sample-CD based.
I: We just look for what we want, what we like, something
that makes us tingle. It's a bit like record shopping...It's not even something being good, but about something that goes along with our tastes at that moment in time.
AK: Any names you think are going to be big in the near future? I: Dean Demanuale. A Maltese kid, he's one of our proteges...He's producing with Lee Van Dowski ...He's going to be releasing on Mobilee... he might be releasing on Cocoon. D: How quickly this guy has got good is why we're talking about it...He's devoted 24/7 to get where he wants to go. His tunes are rough, and I'm not saying that just cos he's a mate. You play that tune tonight and watch the crowd. AK: Where do you see music going? I: Techno's coming back. D: It never went away. We just sat with a load of EDM
guys...techno is one of the longest-running styles of music in history. I: But it never had such a big moment. D: No but it's constant. I: The scene in London is amazing. A lot of artists are going to bring people into the techno world. D: We're rather sure about that. We can't say anymore, but we're sure about it. There are some larger artists that perhaps wouldn't be in the techno trail into the techno trail.
City:
Palma de Mallorca, Spain
Label:
ELEVATE
Website:
www.piganddan.com
Essential Listening:
Pig & Dan - Paint It Black [Suara] Inner City - Good Life (Pig & Dan Good Life Less Is More Dub Mix) [KMS Records] Pig & Dan - Savage [Elevate] Pig & Dan - Love Song [Pig & Dan Records] Pig & Dan - Sympathy For The Devil [Tronic]
06 Flashbacks & Revelations
Flashbacks & Revelations A month of the hottest parties for your viewing pleasure
Flashbacks & Revelations 07
bphotos018by Saad Salloum
08 Flashbacks & Revelations
cphotosu nxt sat by carl halal
Flashbacks & Revelations 09
Merry go round photos by Appwe
10 Flashbacks & Revelations
Mix FM, Beirut In the Mix and Kicks'n Ties Photographer: Mike Ossman
Flashbacks & Revelations 11
nacht by 端berhaus photos by rami hajj and charbel saade
12 Flashbacks & Revelations
PINDOLL &photosCOTTON CANDY by JIMMY FRANCHISE and LAURA BERDOYAN
Flashbacks & Revelations 13
Stereo photos by charbel saade
14 Featured Artist
Don’t Cry for Him Hernan Cattaneo is going to play what he wants, when he wants, and he doesn’t like all his fans
Featured Artist 15
AK: You have been involved in all aspects of electronic music for over three decades. In that time you've taken on different roles: DJ, producer, label owner, etc. Which role do you enjoy playing the most and in which one do you think you've had the biggest impact? I started long ago as a DJ and that always been the center of my career. I enjoy the radio show a lot, the production side and also the label, but DJ is still the one that rules my professional life. Having the chance to travel around the world sharing the music I love is a big privilege and I’m tremendously lucky to be a worldwide DJ.
I
n the ever-changing landscape of dance music, Argentina’s Hernan Cattaneo has been a constant for two decades. A frequent feature in top DJ lists, he rose to prominence with a residency at Buenos Aires’ Clubland Pacha in the 90s and has maintained a name as one of the world’s most reliable progressive house DJs in the world. Audio Kultur caught up with him when he was in town for Merry Go Round and JK58’s Inca Rhythm at Studio Interneon.
AK: You earned the respect of many big European DJs as a resident at Clubland in Argentina. What do you think about the South American electronic music scene now? Which producers and DJs should we look out for this year? The scene is great and is still growing in different directions after so many years. The smaller countries and scenes are also not so small anymore, so we are all very pleased. Argentina and Brazil lead the way, but Chile and Peru are getting better and better, and the same [goes for] producers coming from the continent.
AK: Obviously throughout your illustrious career you've
had the opportunity to play across the world. When you play in a new country or city, do you approach that gig differently? What do you think makes "Beirut" different to a "Berlin”?
Well, in general terms, I play the music I like and that is not negotiable wherever I may be playing. But having said that, the reaction to the music can vary a lot from one place to another and that makes a big difference on the impact you can have on the night.
AK: As a tastemaker, what are some upcoming trends
that you see? Who do you envision having a big year?
I try not to follow the trends. If you do that, you end up changing your style every 2/3 years and I can’t do that. If you look back, deep house is trendy now, before it was techno, before that tech house and before that electro and so on. I don’t buy any of that. I play whatever I feel is good and interesting.
AK: What's the worst context in which you've ever heard your music? Have you ever heard someone you really can't stand drop one of your tracks in a set? Not exactly, but one very big commercial DJ once said I was a big influence for him and I definitely didn’t feel proud of the results.
AK: You must have a pretty hectic touring schedule. Tell us how you would spend your ideal day off. When I’m not travelling, I spend all the time with my family. That’s the only downside of this amazing career, you miss a lot of time moving around.
AK: If you weren't able to make a career DJing what do you think you would be doing right now? Any other thing music related: a radio show, or music journalism. AK: What's the most anti-social thing a fellow DJ can do? What or who's been your biggest disappointment? A bad warm up is always on top of the things you want to avoid. AK: As a label owner what can an aspiring producer do to get you to notice their tracks? Make music YOU like, you want, [not what] you think we or the people will like. Personality is the most important thing.
City:
Buenos Aires, Argentina
Label:
Sudbeat
Website:
http://www.hernancattaneo. com/
Essential Listening:
Mattia Cunico & Martin Morning - Outside It's Better (Hernan Cattaneo & Soundexile Remix) [Monique Music ] Marc Poppcke - Cosmopolitan (Hernan Cattaneo & Soundexile Remix) [Crossfrontier Audio] M.O.D.E - Circles (Hernan Cattaneo & Soundexile Remix) [Sudbeat Music] Nadja Lind - Limbus (Hernan Cattaneo & Soundexile Remix) [Lucidflow] Hernan Cattaneo & Soundexile - Japanese Snowbell (Day Mix) [Sudbeat Music]
16 Feature
B[0]RN AGAIN Changes afoot at Beirut’s oldest club as it turns 20 By: Emma Gatten
Feature 17
While Beirut's clubgoers may always be drawn to the new and the underground, B0 offers a kind of stability, the acceptable face of Beirut's clubbing scene on the international stage, consistently appearing in lists of the top clubs to visit around the world.
T
here's something very established about B018. As countless other parties and clubs have come and gone, the club – which next month celebrates its 20th birthday – has earned its place as the city's mainstay, sometimes in the background, but a consistent presence.
If the club is these days the backbone of the city's nightlife, it was once its beating heart. It has, of course, a respectable legend; emerging from the burgeoning party scene of the post-civil war years. With a newfound freedom to move around, and a desire to let loose, a small group of the city's educated youth began throwing parties whenever and wherever they could. Elias Merheb was a teenager at the time; he went on to become one half of Gunther and Stamina – who began their residency at B018 in 2006 – and is now the club's entertainment manager. “It started off as very small parties, kind of 40 people, 50 people, sometimes only 15,” he says. The scene was impromptu: a group of friends renting a soundsystem, invites spreading by word of mouth, the location wherever available. “In forests, on the beach, in the mountains, in a villa.”
It clearly felt like the start of something new. “I think people kind of found their way to escape their problems. It changed everything in their lifestyle,” Merheb says. “Even the way of wearing clothes; like, 'these are party clothes, we're not gonna wear the same clothes as if we are going for dinner' … [People] started waiting for the weekend to do all this stuff. You talk about what happened on the weekends, who was there, 'oh, the music was out of this world.' The whole crowd changed.” Naji Gebran was a musician at the time. His parties with Bernard Khoury – held at a beach chalet number B018, as the story goes – laid the groundwork for the club. Gebran DJ'd alongside the likes of Karim Farah and George Skaff. “They were crazy,” Merheb says of the nights. Eventually they morphed into something more permanent, starting with a small venue in Horsh Tabet until eventually Gebran opened at the now world-famous location in Karantina, with Khoury as the architect behind the club's macabre design. It's the design, as much as anything else, that sets the club apart, and is responsible for its international renown – deservedly so. Publications from the world of architecture, design and nightlife have raved over the 'communal grave'
18 Feature
– sunk into the ground of a concrete car park, the club was built on the site of a massacre by Christian militias in what was then a slum, in the early years of the civil war. Its dark charm was completed by coffin-shaped furniture. The roof, which opens periodically to reveal the night sky, was a revelation when it was built, and still stands out among the rooftop/warehouse nightclubs in the rest of the city. B0 provided a musical education to clubgoers in the late 90s and early 2000s. “When I started DJing, we didn't have the internet and vinyl shops. So I had to wait every five or six months to buy my vinyls,” says Merheb. “I would have to give money to someone to go and get my vinyls [from abroad], and then maybe the ones I get, I'm not going to like them, because I'm not the one choosing them.” Since people didn't have access to the kind of music he was playing, Merheb didn't have to worry about bringing the newest and latest music to the crowd. “You had to get the crowd [interested],” he says. “To work on music education, to get people listening to music in their homes.” Gunther Sabbagh moved to Lebanon in 2005 from Paris and five months later took up residency at B0 alongside Merheb. “We are considered the godfathers of techno and tech house [in the Middle East],” he says. “The market then was very different. I used to play my music a bit faster, because the
crowd was used to listening to trance music. I came with my techno at a very low level. They couldn't assimilate; they found it very slow. So I was going down one or two beats per minute.” In the mid-2000s, the scene, and B0, began attracting big name DJs from around the world -– Sasha, John Digweed, Richie Hawtin – and gaining international recognition. But with maturity has come relative calm. In the past couple of years, the club has got quieter, shying away from booking international DJs to rely on its local roster, and opening only three nights a week. Gebran explains the club's contraction by pointing to Lebanon's shaky political and security situation, which has taken a serious toll on nightlife and tourism across the country. But not everybody has followed the direction the club has taken. In August last year Sabbagh left to pursue his own projects. He cites disagreements with Gebran about wanting to move the club forward as part of the reason.
would lose his image … for me [that happened] when he began the 80s night at B018.” Even as the situation for promoters has grown riskier, the scene has expanded exponentially. In the past five years an alternative scene has blossomed, one that has refused to rely on swanky permanent venues, or to remain staid. In 2005, a group of advertising creatives began throwing parties under the name Cotton Candy. Until then, B018 and the Basement in Saifi had been the main options for alternative clubgoers. Cotton Candy represented something new: pop-up parties in changing locations – warehouses, car parks, abandoned buildings – bringing up-and-coming DJs (most notably a young Jamie Jones) and a more hedonistic atmosphere. Others followed in their wake, as young partygoers realised they didn't need an established venue, or even a name, to play the kind of music they wanted to hear.
“B0 cannot stay like the old B0. They cannot sign an artist to play once a week, every week,” Sabbagh says. “If you look to any club in the world today you don't have residents. This is an old-school scene. You can't compare Lebanon to the international scene, but it's catching up.”
And while B018 has recently shied away from the risks of bringing high-profile international acts, others, perhaps with less to lose, have kept on, suffering plenty of cancellations along the way, but keeping the local scene alive, and raising the bar. Whereas a few years ago a good weekend might have meant one international DJ in town, now there are three or four, with promoters vying to have the biggest name in town on a Friday or Saturday night.
“[Naji] didn't want to accept this,” he says. “He told me he
“The new crowd now … they know more about music,
Feature 19
they're more educated than three or four years ago. We were still educating them [back then],” says Merheb. Sabbagh agrees that B0 has helped create a new generation of music lovers. “Ten years ago we could not play this music except at B0,” he says. “Today B0 is one of the best clubs in the Middle East, but for me the [same] vibe exists everywhere that there is a nice crowd and good music.” Keeping up with that means rising to the challenge and taking on the risks. “The whole B0 management wasn't convinced about taking the risk, because of the situation,” says Merheb. “It's a risk. We're still taking a risk, but we're ready to do it … You never know when there's going to be a bomb, a DJ could cancel, and the whole investment is done for nothing. But we have got used to it, and even if the bombs are happening, we still party, so why not do it?” As a whole new generation has embraced variety, B0 has plugged away at the familiar. Its ethos has always been centered around the music. “You go to B0 to listen to the music, not to socialise or to hit on girls,” Merheb says. Regular goers say the place began to lose some of its humour and conviviality in recent years. “The whole scene is changing. There's a new crowd and
they're more demanding. They always want new stuff. That's why we're changing. Putting some colours, some lights. It used to be dark all the time,” says Merheb. Early in March, B0 reintroduced international acts once a month, beginning with three acts from Berlin's Mood Music label. Emphasis was put on the visuals, with extra lighting and 3D mapping. Gebran says he recognises that the club must change to keep up with the competition. “Everybody [now] is doing events in Beirut and it's working for them so we decided to do it, because there's competition,” he says. He admits to some initial resistance to change, wanting to protect the club's moody vibes. “At first I didn't like it, I liked the club as it is, but now I have changed my mind,” he concedes. “If we do it only for events, it's OK to have the lights, the lasers.” Ultimately, the change became too big to ignore. “I like to learn and discover what's happening,” he says. “I like to change and follow the young. If you stay like you are you become old.” But even B0 may not be able to escape the ageing process. Where the club was once the city's innovator, its latest moves trail its younger competitors, bringing relatively low-profile international DJs once a month: similar music, similar visuals.
Gebran believes B0's latest evolution will maintain the club's reputation, and sees the club going further into the international scene. “I'm working to open B018 in Berlin,” he says. “In Lebanon, I'm not going to open another club.” He sees B0 to be something of an older brother in the scene, continuing its role as Lebanon's musical educator. For the past six or seven months the club has been running DJ clinics – teaching young local DJs the B0 way, while learning from their new experiences. He says the club's 80s nights are also a part of that education. Sabbagh sees the future away from B0. He and Merheb have recently started their own series of nights, Merry Go Round, with different themes and locations, also bringing international DJs (and adding to an already over-congested weekend). “Of course it's a challenge to keep up,” Merheb says. “We've been there for the past 10 years and we've been providing the best and we have to keep providing the best. It's very hard to stay on top.” But as the nightlife scene expands to the point of saturation, B0's biggest danger may be becoming part of the crowd.
20 Featured Artist
Finnish First This eclectic selector is at the top of his game, just don’t give him too many shots...
Featured Artist 21
AK: You come from a small city in Finland. How did you get into house and techno music in the 80s? Radio played a major role in my musical upbringing, we had some good shows for dance music on the national radio which we used to tape as kids and later tried to find the records in the few record shops we had. I think it started with Italo disco and hip hop, then slowly the early Chicago and Detroit sounds started and eventually house and techno from NYC and Europe.
AK: Your label, Moodmusic, has been around for about 18 years now. Did you envision it having this longevity?
F
innish player Klas Linblad has been involved in dance music since the 1980s. During his industrious career he’s worn more than a few hats – from DJ to producer, club owner to label head, Sasse has done it all. Now based in Berlin, he’s released two full length albums and a slew of 12 inches on labels such as Berwick Street, Forensic and Hairy Claw. We caught up with the Finnish maestro ahead of his Beirut debut at the legendary B018 to talk about everything from laptop DJs to what tickles his fancy as an A&R.
I never thought I would still be doing what I love the most after so many years. I really have met, heard and seen so many people and artists, that no one could have foreseen this in the 90s when we started to DJ and when the label started. It's also a great feeling to still be there, even today when the music business is so different than it used to be. I still enjoy doing the label very much so I can only be grateful.
I think laptop DJs in general can be a bit of a joke, I mean it does look like you are reading emails when you should be playing music. But some DJs can be really good despite playing from computer so I can't really generalise this. I would never do it myself though. K: What's been your biggest regret so far? A gig/ A remix/track etc Hmm, I think there's a few gigs which I think I could have played differently, but hey we're human and we make errors. Sometimes you read the crowd differently after a hard weekend and too many shots, but that's part of the job.
AK: If you weren't involved in music, what would you be doing? I´ve been thinking about this a lot lately actually. I think it would be something artistic, like graphic design for example which I still love to do but never went fully professional with.
AK: What do you like to do after a gig?
AK: You have lived in Berlin since the late 90s – how connected are you still with the Finnish scene?
I get my drink and continue to party of course. Depending on the flight time the next day I need to do some decisions how long I wanna stay in the club though…
I do play in Helsinki 3 or 4 times a year and the scene there is great. So many good friends live in Helsinki so it's always a special night when I play there.
AK: As a tastemaker, what are some upcoming trends that you see? Who do you envision having a big year?
A K: W hat gets your attention in tracks that people send you? This is hard to explain, sometimes it might be just a hook line or a vocal. Other times I fall in love with the general vibe of the track. But let's say it like this:if I listen to the track 10 times in an hour and it still sounds good, I think about signing it. But I need time when I do A&R work, so please be patient is all I say. Sometimes I come back after 4or 5 months and want to sign something. The quality control is the most important thing to keep the label alive. AK: What's the worst context in which you've ever heard your music? Have you ever had a DJ you don't like use your music? This is a funny question. I think everyone has the right to do with their DJ sets what they want. If a trance DJ wants to play my music on 140 bpm it's his choice. I personally think it will sound really awful but luckily it's his own set. So I try to concentrate on my own life and my music and let other people do what they want. AK: What's the most antisocial thing a fellow DJ can do? What or who's been your biggest disappointment?
Well, there is always a great feeling finding new artists who are on the rise, or even better, it's your own artists who are getting recognision in the scene. I´m really happy my artists are making an effort to get to the top, and guys like Ed Ed are getting out there to play. I think there a good few labels out the doing great stuff at the moment, like Karlovak, Ab Initio & Stranjjur for example.
Essential Listening:
Sasse & Stelios Vassiloudis - Options And Futures (Original Mix) [Audiomatique Recordings] Sasse - xChange (Dub) [Pooled Music] Deux Tigres - Dragonfly (Sasse Dub) [Moodmusic] Sasse , Stelios Vassiloudis - The Z (Original Mix) [Bedrock Records] Sasse - One for Oscar (Original Mix) [Room With a View]
22 feature
Sonic boom Audio Kultur interviews Berlin-based, Beirut-raised electronic music producer Faysal Bibi aka OkyDoky a few months after the release of his debut album Boombox By:Jackson Allers
feature 23
Boombox is 16 tracks of heavy synth action, futuristic digital flourishes, thick MPC breakbeats, and dirty bass lines. It's that rare find musically: a record that has the power to ignite feelings of a time when people listened to albums on cassette tapes or vinyl from start to finish without the 21st century impulse to skip past tracks.
i
n January, Audio Kultur sat down to interview palaeontologist, university professor, and electronic music producer Faysal Bibi aka OkyDoky to discuss his debut instrumental electro breakbeat LP Boombox.
As the title indicates, the album is arranged around tightly-wound beat structures – booming beats and features the glitchy sounds that distinguished OkyDoky's work prior to Boombox's release – in the 3-years (2008-2011) he developed his live sound with another electronic music producer mainstay in Beirut, Sary Moussa aka Radio KVM. You can see the blueprint of some of OkyDoky's Boombox sound on one of his few previously recorded tracks “I Am Robot” on indie label Ruptured'sRuptured Sessions Vol. 4 – 2012. However, Boombox is a musical departure for OkyDoky, and an homage to early hip-hop producers such as Afrika Bambaataa. In his own words: “Boombox is the culmination of a year and a half of inspiration from the raw energy of drums and synths. A lot of slicing vinyl samples to make [drum] kits, a lot of classic drum machine samples, a lot of analog synths or analog sampled synths, and a rule of keeping to somewhere around a fast hip-hop tempo (85-100bpm) and under 3 minutes length...it was an entirely new analog space that made me aware of an ingredient I already searched for in electronic music – some degree of rawness, imperfection, improv, i.e. some human
core, inherently imperfect and unpredictable even within the cloak of a [digital audio workstation] and a rhythmic beat. The opening track "Pocket Knife" is a great tip-off to the musical pulse of the album, with an electro bass touch reminiscent of the 1984 cut "Egypt, Egypt," by Los Angeles' The Egyptian Lover. Each song contains remarkable thematic changes that often occur several times in one song – taking the music into dubstep or breakcore territory, but more frequently sticking to the type of abstract beats you'd find at a Low End Theory club night in Los Angeles – with producers the likes of Flying Lotus, Gaslamp killer and Daedelus. Boombox also has a cinematic quality reminiscent of the soundscapes crafted by legion producers DJ Krush, DJ Shadow, and more recently Bonobo and Prefuse 73. You feel a sense of completion at the end of each one of the 10 tracks OkyDky has produced. And there are six stellar remixes from four local producers the likes of Radio KVM, Jad Atoui, Liliane Chlela, and Palestinian producer Osloob from the raucous hip-hop crew Katibe 5 – with additional remixes by French producers The Dvj Doussare and Reznyck. The following interview with OkyDoky took place at the cafe Radio Beirut just days after his first live performance of Boombox at the Beirut nightclub Yukunkun.
24 feature
INTERVIEW AK: You're a scientist by training – a palaeontologist to be exact. You had said to me that your connection to music and science don't necessarily dovetail. But my contention is that in the vein of music that you produce you have to learn about frequencies, modulations and all of these other aspects of electronic production and old school analog synth production – there is a science to that? OKYDOKY: There is. You're right that there's a connection. I mean electronic music is an extremely scientific pursuit – much more so than playing actual instruments. As far as it relates to me, I started off playing guitar with rock, and metal bands in Lebanon in the 1990s and, for many practical reasons, I made a switch to electronic music. Over the last 10 years that has meant that if you had a laptop – if you had a computer – then you could make music. There's so much software available for producing music.
When you start there, it's an extremely scientific pursuit especially when you get into things like sound synthesis. And I learned so much more about sound from a computer – strange to say – then I ever did playing a real instrument. From playing a real instrument you learn about melody and rhythm and improvisation and why certain notes are going to make you feel the way they do, played after each other in a way that you think about consciously – you just do and it feels good. With electronic music the focus is very opposite. To a large degree I've been unhappy about how divorced electronic music production is from the beautiful live improvisational aspects of playing with an instrument. Actually from the early days, I was looking for a way to help me actually play the music instead of compose it. I'm bound to a computer. The instruments that I play on a computer like synths and drum machines and samplers – they're hardware instruments you can buy if you have space and money. But there's this medium ground these days which
involves using all sorts of controllers – which help you also manually improvise your music – keeping the whole computerised mouse click notation aspect down to a minimum. And then I discovered more about the analog synth world after meeting this guy in Berlin who was a synth fanatic! He's got synths from the early 1970s until the present day. I learned a lot about the types of sounds I was using digitally. I learned about what their basis was in the real world. How they work. How the circuits for analog synths work. What kind of synths are out there. Roland; Oberheim. What a sampler was. What a wave table synth was. Eventually I realised that one of the main musical genres that was [being produced] along the lines of how I wanted to be producing – combining all of these analog and digital elements into cohesive song compositions – was hip-hop!
AK: People always seem to relate to flaws more than they relate to perfection. Speak about that because the
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sound you've tried to create – that live sound – you ended up opting more for live production than programming.
AK: You had six remixes done for this album. What was it like giving up creative control that way?
O: I realised that imperfection was a big part of what I was drawn to in music, and that imperfection is what retains a human or organic or natural – choose your adjective here – warm sound.
O: It felt great. With six tracks out of 16 being remixes, I feel this has been a group or collective effort. The whole story of how I started doing electronic music in Lebanon was never for me an individual effort. It always involved other people promoting and supporting me...us. So I think I was looking for a bit of that – even in an album production
So I started to think about all of the various things that involve sound and I started to work a lot more with samplers rather than digital synthesizers. For synth sounds – I could record a synth sound and then sample that and then make a synth out of that on my computer, but the basis of the note is a basic analog driven synth tone. With most of the drum beats that you hear on Boombox it's me playing them by hand on an MPC-style [drummachine] surface that records the note to the computer. Nothing is ever 100 percent perfectly timed, unless I'm looking for a particular part of the track when I want that feel of 100 percent clockwork [which he sequences and then loops on music production software,Ableton in his case].
AK: Now Boombox is out and it's living – so you're going back to playing live shows again? O: Jad Attoui organised a show at Yukunkun [in East Beirut in late December 2013], and it was a great opportunity and a bit of a kick-in-the-ass. I had spent all of this time on the production side of things and I was thinking about how to transform this album into a live set. I realised that I was nervous about taking it live, but also realised I had already done most of the work with the intense attention that I had paid over 1.5 years producing a sound that was relatively consistent over a 40-minute duration. I realised it was fertile material for a live set.
I brought back elements that I used in my past live sets that I didn't have on the album, like the microphone – the vocoders. Live playing of synths, and live finger drumming that I developed over the last year. I'm very excited about the live set. Maybe soon I'll try it out in Berlin in the diverse multicultural society of music that's there. Certainly, I'll come back to Beirut to fine-tune the show.
26 Featured Artist
Braving it Paris nights and deontology with Timid Boy
Featured Artist 27
F
irst rising to prominence in 2003 with a DJ residency at the famous Rex Club in Paris for Ellen Allien’s BPitch Control parties, Damien Almira, aka Timid Boy, runs the Time Has Changed label with Acumen and releases on famous labels such as Sci+Tec, Viva, Form, Great Stuff and Rawthentic to name just a few. A touring DJ, producer and label owner as well as an established electronic music journalist in his early days, Timid Boy's reputation grew quickly in the European scene. We had a very interesting chat with the man of the moment
AK: Could you tell us about the scene in Paris? We remember the good days of Redlight & Le Manray, but when we were there a few months back, we felt it wasn’t the same vibe…
I continued the work in Paris, we had some back & forth between him and I for this track then Intacto, a great label from Shinedoe that I like a lot, was interested to put it as track 1 of its last compilation. We were really happy about it.
For around two years Paris has been incredible. There are parties everywhere, for every kind of people (young, older), places (club, boat, warehouse…). There are also great events on Sundays. It’s like a new generation of clubbers, 18-23 years old, who go to our music again. In the middle 00’s their “old” brothers and sisters left our music bit to go to French Touch 2.O, Ed Banger & Justice… Now a new cycle has started and it’s really exciting. A lot of energy, a lot of parties, new labels, new producers, I seriously think it’s the most dynamic town of Europe along with Berlin. I don’t know how long it will go for, but it’s really good times for us now. Oh, also, we never had summer techno festivals in Paris, and last summer we had three which were successful! Crazy!
AK: Have you been to Beirut before, not for a gig but for a visit? What did you enjoy about it? Have you heard anything about its electronic music scene?
AK:You have so many releases on great labels, how do
AK:What is waiting for you in 2014? Any upcoming
you balance your studio time, gigs, friends and family?
plans you’d like to tell us about?
I have lived off my music for four years now. I was a journalist for almost 10 years. A rock critic for famous French magazines as Rock & Folk, Technikart, Jalouse… And I was deputy editor of the famous French electronic magazine Trax during 3 years. That’s why, by the way, I took a pseudonym. I wanted to separate my journalism activity from my artist activity. A lot of times I did interviews by phone or email with an artist then I played with him some weeks after, and I never said the “Damien from Trax” who made the interview is Timid Boy who will play with you tonight. It was a kind of deontology stuff, I don’t know if I was right to do that, I see so many people who use their job in magazine, clubs, booking agencies or whatever to [get to] play more as DJ… I thought I was maybe a bit “rude” with myself and my deontology, but whatever, that was what I wanted to do and be at the time…
A lot of things are gonna happen this year: I signed a new EP on Sci+Tec (Dubfire's label), also on Form (Popof’s label) with remixes by Jon Rundell and System of Survival, on Intacto and there's some stuff to be announced soon. I also have my fresh new EP on Time Has Changed out in March, composed with Marwan Sabb, with two big remixes by Tripmastaz and Spencer K & Trockensaft.
AK:We’ve been smashing your collaboration with
André Buljat for a while now, super acid-y stuff! Big love for analog. How did you guys collaborate on this EP? Did you sit together or just send the project back and forth until it was done? We made a series of tracks together. André started on his own studio in Barcelona, using analog elements, then
Yes I was in Beirut at the end of 90s! I went with my mother, invited by a friend of hers during summer time in a village called Deir El-Qamar. It was so great. I loved so much the people and the country. It reminds me of the south of France – I come from Montpellier – its Mediterranean style. I love it, I come from this culture. But I have to say that I don’t know so much about clubbing there. But for some months I have heard great stuff from the Beirut electro scene, I’m really curious to come play there.
City: Paris, France Label:
Time Has Changed Records
Website:
www.soundcloud.com/ timidboy www.facebook.com/timidboydj www.residentadvisor.net/dj/ timidboy
Essential Listening:
Baisers Voles (Original Mix) Timid Boy [Time Has Changed Records] Osiris (Original Mix) - Timid Boy [Time Has Changed Records] A Tribute To Some People I Love (Original Mix) - Okain, Timid Boy [VIVa MUSIC Limited] Hexagon (Timid Boy Remix) Toni Varga [ElRow Music] Lonely (Remix) - Timid Boy [324 Records]
28 Tuneage
Tuneage Adham Zahran & Hisham Zahran
And.Id
February 26, 2014
February 28, 2014
Lunar Seventh Sun Reputation EP Distance ( djebali ) EP Mobilee Records February 25, 2014 Oh! Records Stockholm Djebali
4.5v/5 One of the defining tracks from Djebali’s back catalogue, “Reputation” helped transform him from fresh-faced Parisian DJ to here-to-stay underground producer. Originally released digitally on Nordik Net in 2011, this contemporary classic returns as a one-off vinyl edition, loaded with a very special remix. One of those mythical 90s figures from the Paris underground, Point G gained much respect amongst his peers with timeless productions such as “Underwater”, which was hurled back into the limelight by the repress on Apollonia last year. Staying true to character, Point G offers up a dark, raw interpretation of the Djebali house favourite. Stripping back the vocal to the bones and allowing the kick to take center stage, an eeriness is added with industrial echoing clonks and the beat that goes thump in the night. Without a doubt, a remix that lives up to his reputation.
4/5 On their first release for 2014, Oh! Records Stockholm have the two brothers Adham & Hisham Zahran from Cairo, Egypt on their cards. Both artists have previous releases on labels MoodMusic, AudioTonic, Brown Eyed Boyz and Vice & Virtue. The second track on the EP, “Seventh Sun & Corvidae,” is a specimen of proper deep house music. The opener is a slow burning tune of the deepest order. On the remix duties Moodmusic’s own labelboss Sasse takes a crack at the EP’s b-side, and Nils Penner (of Mazi Mazi and Suol fame) takes charge of “Seventh Sun”.
4/5 And.Id’s upcoming EP on Mobilee, Lunar Distance, is a love affair between artist and concept. Mixing conceptual inspiration with his signature style, from his love for old disco to a message on a card that led an uninspired artist into a creation process that itself was a journey and adventure. The opening track, “Lunar Distance,” plays like a journey from Earth to the moon. The spacey effort is a driving force with a sound made for the dance floor. “Radik’s Groove” is a melody driven track rooted in simplicity. The last track on the EP “One & One,” showcases his love for disco. Made from old recycled samples and dusty analogue synthesizers, the track takes us to a familiar place; one that is somewhere between disco bliss and a down tempo wonderland.
Tuneage 29
Eddie Richards
David K & Francesco Farfa ft. Dr Felix
Butch
March 3, 2014
March 3, 2014
March 17, 2013
Soul Is Life / Come Up From Persistence M’Baby of Memory EP The Darkness Storm Recordings Visionquest Souvenir 4.5/5 After a 10 year hiatus, UK ‘Godfather of House’ Eddie Richards has relaunched his much sought after Storm imprint. Following a resurgence of interest in his older tracks which have recently been played by DJs including Cassy, Guy Gerber and Subb-An, amongst others, this is the first release of an ongoing series featuring his own original remastered tracks accompanied by brand new remixes from some of the most talented names in contemporary club music, Mihai Popoviciu and Tigerskin.
3.5/5 David K represents something that’s all too rare in electronic music today: an artist who makes music first and club music second. For him, emotion is paramount, melody is important, the pop format has its perks and original material is always better than a sample. Late at night and early in the morning he dances alone in his studio, tapping away on his keyboards and throwing together arrangements on the fly (a pianist by training, he can’t bear to make music slouched over a mouse). His only goal is to make something that will keep himself dancing. His new single, alongside Italianborn house and techno producer Francesco Farfa for Souvenir, sees the pair draw upon their unique, shared skillsets. Initially Farfa contacted David to enlist him for remix duties on one of his tracks. After listening to the remix, Farfa asked him to refurbish the original together. “Come up from the darkness” marks another stellar collaboration between the pair.
4/5 Renowned for his chameleon approach to electronic music, Butch descends on the Visionquest imprint once again with another style-bending 4-tracker featuring collaborations with long-time studio partner Hohberg and latest protege C. Vogt. A-side “Peyote” is an epic, synthladen space odyssey, building and bubbling with dubby atmospherics, dense rich percussion and psychedelic Eastern melodies under a rumbling groove. On the flip, “Ozymandias” is more squarely aimed at the dancefloor, with a hypnotic, soaring synth line and stripped drum groove, that make way for warm, sweeping chords. “Missing Channels” with C. Vogt darkens the mood with a mutating soundscape of bleeps and fx and a menacing, arpeggiated bass line, while the digi extra “Peyote (Atmo Trip)” takes the track further in a subaquatic stoned, reprise.
30 The Review
W The Review
e’ve decided that reviewing shit that actually exists is pretty fucking boring. That’s why this month we’re going to harness the power of the internet to bring you some stuff that’s so cool someone else thinks that you should pay to bring it to life. Venture capitalism is so 2010, it’s all about crowdfunding these days and we’ve decided to get with the times. So without further ado here some of the strangest unrealized projects from a deepest realms of Kickstarter...
The next time you’re surrounded by hipsters dropping obscure band names that sound like autocorrect mishaps make sure to throw Slavic Soul Party! into the mix. The 20 member Balkan brass band from Brooklyn are going to be touring Europe and want your money to help them reach their spiritual homeland of Serbia. Now my knowledge of Balkan music is pretty much limited to the one time I got drunk and stormed the stage of a Goran Bregovíc concert with a bunch of my friends, but these guys sound pretty cool. And given that they’ve already raised nearly half of their goal figure some other people must think they’re ok as well. If you give them $50 you’ll also get two tickets to a private SSP! show when they get back from the Balkans, assuming they don’t overdose on turbo folk and rakia.
Send Slavic Soul Party! to Serbia Funding goal: $4,800
Mous Funding goal: £25,000
Mous claims to be “the simple solution for storing your Apple headphones.” I always thought either stuffing them into your pocket or throwing them into your bag was the simple solution, but apparently I’m not in touch with technology and shit. Mous (their stupid spelling, not actually a typo) is basically an iPhone case that has a port to hold “your tangled headphones.” The people behind Mous (seriously, that is the worst name ever) describe the case as “slim, simple and stylish,” but I had to stare at it for about five minutes before I even realized what it was. Anyway, for £1,600 the Mous people will send you 100 of the things. They’ve raised a grand total of £225 at the time of print which I suspect has come entirely from the inventors’ grandparents.
The Review 31
Jaded
Last Night Out Funding goal: $3,000 I stumbled upon Jaded: Last Night Out using the search query “drugs” on the Kickstarter homepage. Expecting to find a revolutionary new pill testing kit or a DIY meth lab set, I instead discovered some kind of graphic novel. Jaded: Last Night Out is an “anti-drug comic” that is set in the NYC rave scene and is filled with “reckless drug use.” Curiosity mildly piqued, I decided to watch the video that the comic’s author, Philip Huang, made for the Kickstarter page. According to Huang, Jaded “is about drugs, sex, dancing and loneliness with a hint of metaphysics.” In the two minute video he also gives a light show with some weird raver gloves and claims “drugs fuck you up,” all while appearing to be on drugs. The comic is choose-your-own-ending, with eight possible outcomes, nearly 300 pages long and looks to have a serious PLUR thing going on. Probably not for anyone that doesn’t own a gigantic pair of orange pants.
The dude that submitted this project describes it as the “Kitchen Nightmares of the adult nightclub business.” I found this highly intriguing. Who would want to make a cooking show set in a strip club? Google then told me that “Kitchen Nightmares” isn’t really a cooking show and is actually just Gordon Ramsay berating failing restaurant owners. Then I got it. Who wouldn’t want to watch a show where Gordon Ramsay rinses dodgy strip club owners. The text describing exactly what the producers wanted the $10,000 for was really long, had bad punctuation and was just a single block of text so I didn’t really get the detail of it. But they do say that half the cast/crew (who are working for free?) need to be flown from the American South to Northern California where they would be shooting in some dilapidated strip club. For a donation of only $2,500 they’ll make you an executive producer and you get to be an extra. Not really sure what being an extra consists of. I wrote them an email asking how much I would have to pay to be the club DJ, but they have yet to respond.
Hardcore Club Restore Reality T.V. Show Funding goal: $10,000
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The sound of music Onomatopoeia provides a space for baby bands to perfect their Stairway to Heaven By:Andreane Williams
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“We want to encourage people to make music instead of let’s say… politics. This city needs culture”, says Jo Elias, one of the three co-founders of Onomatopoeia. The young man, who is also a musician, opened the space with his partners to encourage Lebanese musicians and to give music lovers a space where they can share and indulge in their passion. “During our youth we lacked places where we could play and be surrounded by musicians”, he explains, while walking through the cafe, which also host small concerts and weekly talks about music and culture.
A
group of friends sit sipping beers on a terrace surrounded by greenery. Inside, a music teacher is seated at at a lounge table, working on his computer, while students walk in, holding their instrument cases. Nestled at the bottom floor of an apartment building in the residential neighborhood of Sioufi, Onomatopoeia is a new and unique concept in Beirut. This NGO/ coffee-lounge and music school opened last October and aims at offering music lovers of the capital a new spot to gather and play together..
The lounge, which has been furnished with recycled material, is warm and cozy. The main table was built from an old door and the couches seem to be from another era. A library also allows people to borrow and share books. Behind the lounge, a corridor traversed by shelves destined to exhibit the students’ work leads to three back rooms; a small tutorial room, a large room that can accommodate group lessons and a soundproof band practice room. “Many people don’t know that we have so many Lebanese bands and artists. They are surprised when they realize they are all locals”, Jo says, showing a glass cabinet displaying CDs from local bands. As we enter the band practice room, four teenage boys are tuning their guitars. Their group is called Slag Rejoice. They come here twice a week to practice. “It’s cool here. The sound is good”, says Joey. “It’s the first place like this in Lebanon. Before, we had to practice at his house”, Karl, the guitarist says laughing, pointing at the drummer. “There are many young bands practicing here because renting the studio almost the same price as other places but we have better equipment”, Jo says as the young musician start playing the Led Zeppelin song Heartbreaker.
Surviving off music Though only a few months old, Onomatopoeia has already gained a good reputation in Beirut’s music scene. Jo says most people learn about the place from word of
mouth. “A teenager who plays here with his band once came with his dad to show him the place. The father actually used to play the guitar when he was younger and decided to call his friends from school to start playing again. Now they practice here twice a week,” Jo says. Eleven music teachers work at Onomatopoeia. They teach the guitar, oud, piano, drums, violin, cajon, djembe, vocals and music theory and composition to students from 6 to 72 years old. “We are the cheapest school in Beirut to learn music”, Jo says. Indeed, Onomatopoeia wishes to make music accessible to as many people as possible. To sustain itself, the music school has opened a coffee shop that serves drinks and snacks. “We serve very good coffee because we want people to also come here to drink, not only for the music”, he adds, proudly. All the investments for the project came from Jo and his partners’ personal money. They say they don't want political money to be involved in the project. “It is not easy to get funding for music now because most of it goes to humanitarian work”, says one of Jo’s partners Youssef Naiim, also a musician. Both men explain they cannot live off their passion and had to get “real jobs” in order to support themselves. They hope a space like Onomatopoeia will promote music among the youth. Nabil, a drum teacher who has 18 students at Onomatopoeia, also thinks the Lebanese music industry lacks a lot of support from the government. “It’s difficult to live as a musician. It is a field linked to the entertainment and tourism business, which is directly affected by the bombings and the political situation”, he explains. “I noticed through the years that many music schools are opening, but music never gets funding from the government. Attendance to live concerts is growing, but people have to do everything by themselves”, he adds.
34 das komic
das komic 35
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APR.
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CATZ 'N DOGZ (GET PHYSICAL, POL] ROMAX & TIA, PHIL, RONIN & NESTA