Alex Under, brainy minimal

Multumita Studio Martin, mai exact lui Lovely Lore, care se pricepe la facilitat interviuri, spaniolul Alex Under are cuvantul. Aleluia!

– You say your work resembles the collage technique in visual art. What kind of sounds do you assemble, in order to create a new whole?
– That’s exactly the point, the sounds I use are part of already made tracks, I mean, I first make a basic track or loop, then I use cuts, slices, clicks, and parts of this track as sounds to make a new track. That way every single sound has a whole world of sounds on it. It’s a very complex technique that needs a lot of time to make a track. Unfortunately I don’t have that much time, so I don’t use it always. You can listen to “collaged” tracks in the “Multiplicanciones” series on Apnea Records (listen here), some of my early CMYK Musik (listen here) releases and the “Collage EP” (listen here) on Plus8.

-You say there is something alchemic in your music. What is the purpose of your music?
– The purpose of my music is to evocate feelings in the listeners, probably the purpose of all the music, though. It depends in what I’m working on, but right now my aim is to make people dance with an ear-to-ear-smile in their faces.

– What’s the story of you making music?
– “When I was seventeen, it was a very good year” do you know that Sinatra’s song? It’s a good one! Anyways, I started when I was a teenager, I used to play in metal bands in my hometown, I spent all my youth in a hole we had rented for play, I played everything, guitars, drums, bass, but I didn’t sing ever, thank God. Then I discovered electronic music and I got amazed with it, firstly I tried to mix it up with the music we were doing with the band, some kind of (hahaha) techno-metal, but of course it was a shame. And then I kissed bye bye my band buddies, and started my solo career as a techno kid.

– Where is your studio, what is the sightseeing there?
My new brand studio is in Madrid, we have a new place with 3 studios and the office, it’s a Paradise, we were working on it very hard, doing some handyman’s stuff after the professionals finished the hard work. The sightseeing (hahaha again) is not bad, I have a 2×1 meters window that connects my studio with the office, and so every time I see the face of my partner Jose, he is not that ugly, but the sightseeing could’ve been better. So, I have Jose in front and the rest of the guys, Tadeo, Imek and Damian in the other studios.

– Do you use any gear?
– I don’t use much gear right now, I got into the computer music very quickly because it makes my life easier and it permits me to make music in less time. My vintage favorite is my SH-101 and my brand new favorite is an MBase01 by Jomox, which is a very small analog machine to make only bass drums.

– How many hours per day do you work? How long it takes till a track becomes a good track?
– I don’t have a routine, I have a 2 years old kid, and I’m all the weekends out of home, plus the office work with the labels, so its really hard to me to have a fixed schedule, either for work or sleep. I didn’t spend too much time in the studio lately, but I have a good working plan for the next months so I hope I can make it for 5 or 6 hours everyday. Anyway is hard to say how much time needs a track, some of them need weeks, others just hours.

– Does your son react to any type of music?
– My son, Cyan is 2 years old, and he is the meaning of my life, he is my world. Cyan loves the music, especially funky; his favorites are Herbie Hancock and Earth Wind and Fire. Is amazing how he reacts with “headhunters” of H. Hancock, since he was 3 months old. I love to watch him dancing in my rear-view mirror when we are in the car.

– You come from Madrid. How was your childhood, what were your musical influences? Do you still have tapes or vinyl from that period?
– My childhood was very smooth; thanks to my parents I always had lot of freedom. It was in the old-times, so a 10-year-old boy could go out by night in the summer without any danger, so I loved the street. I was always “having bad ideas” as my mom defines my childhood, this is something nice of being artist, now those bad ideas are named as creativity :))).
I have a brother and sister (+4 and +5 years older than me) my brother was very involved in music composition since he was a kid, he had the very firsts synths and computers.
The first bands I liked by my own, after listening to my brother’s tapes, was Metallica and Sepultura, followed by a long tail of thrash, gothic or death-metal bands. Shameless I don’t have much tapes or CDs from that period, but I do have a lot of vinyl from my family collection, very miscellaneous collection.

– How is the clubbing scene in Madrid?
– I’m afraid I’m not the correct person to answer this. Unfortunately I don’t have a clue of what’s happening in Madrid during the weekends. I live here Monday to Thursday, but I know only the day life here. I can tell you we have great parks to go with the kids, but surely if you ask Richie Hawtin or Ellen Allien, they would know much more than me about the club scene in Madrid. In the last year I played 2 times in Madrid, in the whole year!

– Compare the West European crowd with the East European one. Where did you play in Eastern Europe except Romania and how was it there?
– Every club and every city is an absolute different world from each other in terms of crowd, but, in general terms, I think the crowd in Eastern Europe is usually younger, they have much more energy. Two of my favorite countries are in this region of the world, Romania and Georgia. Playing there is always a peak-feelings-time, I don’t need to be so technical as in UK, Germany or US (i.e.) the show is something much more passionate and the contact with the people is more direct and intimate. Something I love when playing in Eastern Europe is that I have the same feeling I used to have when I started clubbing, really cannot explain what the hell it is, but is something that goes up and down in the guts.

– Tell us the importance of a good sound in a club. Did it ever happen to you not to play your set because of a bad sound? What’s a perfect club for you?
– The happiness and enjoyment of a DJ is the same as the sound system he is playing on, so you can guess how important it is. I never said I don’t play, but it crossed my mind in a 20% of my gigs I played with so crappy sound systems, but is part of the game, though. A perfect club for me I think in Studio Martin in Bucharest, this is a perfect club for me.

– What is the story behind CMYKmusik. How did the idea appear? Where does it have the headquarters? How does it look there?
– CMYKmusik (listen here) was the first label of the Net28 family. I used to have a record shop, there, it was the very first HQ´s, and I met there all my buddies, all my partners now in Net28. I was new in town, I knew nobody in Madrid, they also didn’t know each other, so we all started meeting at the record shop, and we became a close family. All the shop was handmade with recycled stuff from the streets and it looked very funny, all the record shops in Madrid were like the modern black/silver painting and CMYKmusik shop had colors everywhere, it was very warm.
Downstairs we had a cellar, very dark and with lot of humidity, really uncomfortable, but there was the beginning. After 5 years I closed the shop and we formerly moved the net28 office into a flat, nothing special, and now, since February ‘08, we have the best office in the world! It’s big, spacious, we also have the studios there, we play here darts, basketball, ping-pong, and we also do some work, sometimes.

– When did your other three labels come into the story?
After CMYKmusik, I started thinking I needed something else, something like a platform to move with, I was lost with the label, I just made the music, but I didn’t have any distribution, any promotion department, anything else. So it was necessary to create a huge net around everything related with a label, as a manufacturing department, promotion department and booking agency, and of course, some more labels to build a proper musical scene. At that time, each one of my partners started a label.

– What defines each of your labels?
APNEA Records (listen here) – the word “apnea” refers to diving in the sea without any kind of artificial help, just the human, and that is exactly what Apnea is as a label too, deepness and humanity. CYCLICAL TRACKS is about something complex built from a basic pattern evolved on a loop basis.
Bemysheep is the label we use to release weird stuff, as bootlegs or freaky-versions of pop anthems as Shakira’s “Whenever” or Snap´s “I got the power”.
MUPA is the youngest of our labels, house music oriented and fine stuff, and CMYKmusik is all about personality, we don’t care what kind of music is released, just need to have the own personality of the artist on it.

– What do you think is unique to the first compilation of Net28?
– Is our first release in CD format, this for starters. Then, is also our first compilation of various artists, and we wanted to do it with unreleased tracks, we asked everyone to make a special track for the compilation, so all the artists had a common motivation to make a track. So that’s why the compilation has this “karma”, you can feel the community concept when listening to it, all tracks are different, each one with it own style of each artist, but all them are almost-mystically connected to the rest of them. I think its a important break-point in all our careers, as artists and also for the labels, all we were working for some time and the compilation is something that had make us to stop, think and breath.
It took around one year since the first email asking for the tracks to the artists till we received the CD at the office, a long walk, but it was worth it!

– How and when did it start Musica Charlista (listen here), the project shared with Damian Schwartz? How is working with Damian?
I hate working with other people. I just cannot do it. But, one day we were just messing up in the studio and we got into a really good concept, the “conversationalism” between sounds, (“musica charlista” means something like “chatting music”) and we made cmyk004 release. It was very fast, smooth working, everything came up almost by itself. It was very funny to do it, but unfortunately we don’t have much time now to work on this project now.

– What do you prefer most and why: to make a set as a producer, only with your tracks or to play as a DJ?
– I will try to not be too abstract with the answer, but is always complicated to choose one or the other in general terms. I’ve been playing a live set with my own tracks since I was touring with “Dispositivos de mi Granja” LP (listen here), in 2005, and I really feel comfortable with this kind of show, it has a negative thing, I get bored of playing the same tracks every time. Because is not easy to have a new live set every month, I use to add new loops, sketches and arrangements every week, but even with this is easy to get bored with it, and this is highly unrecommended. So, last year I was testing “Loopsi Driver”, which basically is a live set but using tracks and loops produced by the artists on NET28 labels. During that time I had the chance to renew my life set in a 80%, and now I’m again playing only my own tracks and I’m enjoying it a lot. So, the bottom line is, the very best is to change things, set up, concepts, whatever that could bring yourself to a new adventure.

– What is the new trend Berlin will set this year? What do you think about new rave?
– Is so boring to me, I can’t even debate about it. Waiting for a new trend from Berlin? That’s sooo optimistic! I don’t know what’s this “new rave” you are telling me, but if it’s pumpin´, funny and kicking ass, I like it! Save the rave.

– Debate on this theme: vinyl or Ableton, digital or analog?
– About vinyl or Ableton, that’s easy to answer, talking about performance, Ableton is my choice. I love vinyl and I do collect them, I love all the magic surrounding a vinyl, although that has almost disappeared. When I remember the old times, when I had the record shop, and the customers came the day we had news incoming, it was such a great community moment. But times had changed and we must accept it, vinyl is now a collector item. Is not profitable for the labels and is very environment unfriendly.
Digital or analog, I don’t have preferences in here. .

– What is your set up for a live set?
– My actual set up is: Macbook Pro laptop, RME Fireface 400 soundcard, Evolution UC-33 midi controller, mini-Kaoss pad FX.

– You are a label owner, you make music, and you have a son. When do you find time for everything?

– Don’t forget I’m also traveling 3 days per week ;)
I was listening to that Japanese woman, 120 years old, the oldest alive person in the world, it was amazing how she looked like 60, walking, speaking fluently… so, she told her secret to the interviewer, she just sleeps 1 night in 2 days, that makes 40 hours awake / 8 hours sleep.
Now it could be really cool to tell you I do the same, but… unfortunately I can’t! I did try to, that story amazed me, and I tried it hard, but it does not work with me. I think the only secret to make things successful is to do it with all the senses on it, with the heart, the soul and the brain too.

– How do you see yourself in 20 years? What about music? Will the vinyl disappear completely?
– I see myself that kind of old man that doesn’t want to get old, so he wears “young” clothes and speaks the slang people used 20 years ago, drinking beers alone in a crappy bar and trying to get into the disco’s without any hope to achieve his purpose… Neah, I’m kidding. I see myself in my own Caribbean island drinking piña colada and listening Thomas Brinkmann´s “Rosa” in my own Martin audio sound system, placed in the beach.
In my point of view, music will be based in frequencies and noises; will be more something about sound than about music. And yes, the vinyl will be out of scene at that time, but also the CDs and DVDs and the kind of hard drives we know today.

– What means techno for you?
– Techno means the biggest motor of emotions and feelings known.

Posted in interviu on April 22nd, 2008 by fresh good minimal | 8 Comments