Meet You in the Basement: Lotic in Conversation with Peaches

Words: Nathan Ma

Photography: Elizabeth Herring

Two generations of transgressive artists on reshaping counter-culture and bringing a dose of disorder to their adopted hometown of Berlin

New York is the city that never sleeps, and perhaps Berlin is the city that never sits still. The German capital has been divided by wars and by walls, but the preclusion of settling down has kept the city’s circuit churning toward new artistic frontiers for decades. Heralded as the epicentre for aroundthe-clock parties and groundbreaking music, Berlin offers a much more intimate experience for artists and performers looking to break new ground: it’s a home.

For legendary Canadian electronic musician and performer Peaches, it’s a city that grew up before her eyes in the (nearly) two decades since she crossed the Atlantic; For Lotic, it’s been a city in which they saw their personal work bloom since they moved here from Houston six years ago. We brought the two artists together for a candid conversation on breaking out, breaking down, and breaking into Berlin’s scene.

Crack Magazine: How long have you two lived in Berlin?

Lotic: I have lived in Berlin for six years.

Peaches: Really? Six years? I've lived in Berlin for 18 years. Oh my god!

Crack Magazine: Do you want to talk about the story of how you two met?

Peaches: Well, how many years ago, how many Björk albums? She just keeps putting them out.

Lotic: It was Vulnicura [2015] right?

Peaches: Yeah. You opened for Björk! Just to tie things in – I also opened for Björk a long time ago. But my experience was quite hostile. I had people taking their index fingers and putting it across their necks horizontally like: “I do not want to hear this, I want my queen, I want my queen!”.

Lotic: I mean, her fans are... her fans.

Peaches: [You and I] met there after the show. I think we rode in a cab together. I got in trouble for eating potato chips in the taxi.

Lotic: We were starving.

Peaches: We were hungry! Björk didn't feed you!

Lotic: We ate, but it was before the show and then we were on our way to the afterparty, which was in town.

Peaches: That afterparty was incredible, too. It was at OHM. Who else played that party?

Lotic: It was just me and Arca.

Peaches: Björk didn't end up playing, she was just dancing around, having a great time, which is always such a great thing – how she is so supportive. I remember when I would play and her audience was so hostile, she would come and dance in the front so that people would be like, "Oh, wait! Björk likes this! Okaaaay!". I'd been away from Berlin for a while, I was living in LA for a few years, and when I came back, I shared the summer, fell in love, and actually I was taking my boo on a date that night. The first date! We went to OHM, and it was like, "Berlin is still Berlin... thank you".

Lotic: What were the venues and the crowds like at the time you moved here?

Peaches: It was funny. There were these bars called, like, The Monday Bar, and everybody would just show up at The Monday Bar. And it'd be a crappy, dirty floor in a half-abandoned building. Then, there'd be The Tuesday Bar, which would be kinda the same thing in a different part of Mitte. I was never really big on the techno scene.

I like crappy places. I've always been sort of low-key. There was such a strange, amazing freedom in that way, but there was also a lack of diversity and also even in the queer scene there was a lack I found – and I'm sure people will be appalled that I say this – but I couldn't find my own queer at the time. I feel like a lot of the people that are coming in are bringing such a great new and diverse feeling. It’s definitely super different.

Lotic: I struggle a lot with the queer community here too. It's changing even in the six years I've been here. It's way more inclusive than it was. But coming from music, I've noticed that only certain kinds of hip-hop will pass, and only certain kinds of electronic music will pass. It's supposed to be this quote-unquote "more open community", and they're not open. I have more success, unfortunately, with a straight white male crowd than I would in a queer crowd in general. I think we in the queer community need talk about that a bit more, I think there's a little bit of denial. Also there's a little bit of misogyny that's not being addressed especially in Berlin. It can be male-centric.

Peaches: Yeah, definitely.

Lotic: I don't know if it was always this way? Maybe it's more recent.

Peaches: To me, I think it's actually less misogynistic and less exclusive in some ways. I always say this: things grow exponentially in every direction, also. There will be more of every kind of scene. So then you have to come stronger with your idea… I have an agenda. I have a queer feminist agenda. It's so obvious, and I'm not going to be bashful about that. And the more I do it, the more I see it happening. It helps me feel like I'm a part of it because it feels like I'm helping propel it. Even though I'm an old lady!

Crack Magazine: What brought you to Berlin?

Peaches: I was in Toronto being weird and being, like: What is this? What is this music? Is this performance art? I don't understand? With friends that were making completely different music, but we were all feeling the same way. I visited here with my friend Chilly Gonzales. It's funny because we both came here and we didn't set up a tour or anything, but we decided to play electronic music. 1998. And I had a Roland MC505 Groovebox and he had a double CD player in one. We didn't even have microphones. But also we had no plan. We were just playing weird crap. We came to Berlin and found this place – Gallery Berlin Tokyo – right now it's called Pan Asian restaurant. And it was this underground of artists and musicians, and we were like, "Can we play here?" And they were like, "Yeah! On Thursday! The Thursday Bar!"

Lotic: The Thursday Bar!

Peaches: We weren't even particularly good. It was just something very experimental and interesting. I went back to Toronto and I started to write The Teaches of Peaches and sending over demos. I came here and played a show and this small label was like, "Come over and drink champagne.” And they're like, "We just signed you!" and I was like, "Oh, you did? OK. Alright. I'll come over here."

Lotic: For me it was not dissimilar actually. I’ve been doing music since I was 12, so I kind of always have known that I would end up being a musician somehow. Before I moved here, I was living in Austin. I wanted to move to Montreal, because me and my boyfriend at the time were both very frustrated. He hated his job. I was like, "I can't graduate into this economy".

Peaches: Montreal! In my country.

Lotic: I love Montreal. We had never visited here though, but he had heard of this magical place: Berlin. He somehow managed to land a job and they basically took care of everything. It sounds like a fairytale, but it's what happened. It was actually really horrible. I was like super depressed and sick for the first year that I moved here. It was very shocking, culturally and the weather and everything. Obviously, it worked out enough.

Peaches: How did you find your scene, your people?

Lotic: It was slow, but the Janus parties started happening in the fall of 2012, and so then I had a regular gig to start learning more about myself as a DJ and as an artist. The rest is history.

Crack Magazine: Can you tell us more about the Janus parties?

Lotic: Yeah, Janus is – y'all gotta go! The Janus parties were for two years at a space called Chesters, which I don't know if you've been, but it's just a tiny 200-capacity club.

Peaches: It's kinda like an old-school Berlin club.

Lotic: Yeah, it is. It was not really a club when we started there. We agreed to buy CDJs and add a few more speakers, but it was a rock club, and I think before that it was a sex club. We just wanted a place to practice – that’s me, M.E.S.H. and KABLAM. Janus is organised by Dan DeNorch and Michael Ladner. We did that for two years so we could practice DJing but also to start booking acts that we weren't seeing here, like Total Freedom and Venus X, who we really modelled Janus after, to be honest. We did that for two years, then Berghain invited us to do a night twice a year since then.

Crack Magazine: Could you describe each other and the work that the person sitting across from you does?

Lotic: Wild! Amazing.

Peaches: Amazing! Wild!

Lotic: I know, you can't capture it. If you've been to a Peaches show – first of all, you know what you're getting into, and you also don't. The big, giant phallus...

Peaches: Yeah, it's a big, condomphallus that goes over the audience, propelled by a fan, then I walk through it over everyone.

Lotic: So Peaches.

Peaches: I get away with a lot of vagina, penis, penis-vagina stuff that is wrong but right in the context of what I do. It's very visual and it's very visceral, and I think that's something we share – that it's very visceral. Lotic music, you have to feel it.

Crack Magazine: What are you two working on now?

Peaches: It's gonna be a monster. I'm doing a work with Stuttgart – the theatre, opera, and dance department. I don't know how much I can say. They're doing an opera, and they asked me to do an answer for the second half. So I'll do new music for it. It's gonna happen in November.

Lotic: That sounds so fun.

Peaches: That's the kind of stuff I want to get into. I love doing my own shows, and I can go forever, I really could. Just play Pride forever and ever – which I will be playing in Bucharest and Llubjana, which I'm really excited for. Places that really need Pride. Not like, "The bank is sponsoring Pride".

Lotic: I'm putting my first album out on the 13 of July.

Peaches: That's exciting!

Lotic: It is exciting! I was able to play two live shows already, so I'm excited to get a real, proper tour going. Might get my looks, get my voice ready because singing and dancing is not easy. I don't know how these girls do it. Oh my god.

Peaches: You've got to sing and jog, that's what Beyoncé has done since she was like, I dunno, five?

Lotic: In heels!

Peaches: Are you going to do a lot of dancing?

Lotic: I notice I can't not dance. It's just part of my performance. I've always enjoyed music that can make me dance. My stuff hasn't always been the danciest but I still have to move around. I have to move around. I’m trying to shoot videos – you know, the album thing. And I have this project Fleshless Beast with my friend Roderick (George), a kind of dancetheatre piece. It's a different kind of performance for me.

Crack Magazine: Do you think you'll ever tire of Berlin?

Lotic: Of course, yes. It depends on who's here, what's happening, what you're doing. It can be very hostile and cold at times, but I don't think overall I'll get tired of it. One: I think there isn't a place like it, and two: there're always some new, fresh people coming through and revitalising the city, shaking it a little bit. Hopefully that doesn't change, but who knows…

Peaches: I can't tell if I'm just a fixture in Berlin. I've lived in the same apartment for 12 years, which is so weird in my head. I think Berlin can help you develop new ideas and collaborate. It's so open especially with dances and music and with art spaces. Artists come here with the mindset of experimentation. For some people, it really disappoints them. There are a lot of people who come to Berlin and leave. It's too experimental, or not enough commerce-based...

Lotic: Or not in the way that they wanted it to be.

Peaches: Or they feel like, "I'm going to change Berlin, I'm going to make it this way" – that doesn't work here!

Lotic: We don't care.

Peaches: We don't work that way!

This conversation took place at the SONOS Store in Mitte. Listen to the podcast and others from our Berlin: Here and Now series at mixcloud.com/ CrackMagazine