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"You want everyone to have a consensus"

TEIL 3

OK. The music that you make is very precise, very ordered, quite sort of obsessive and relentless. How is that matched in your personality?

Well, because I think, the way I look at music is the same way that I look at communication. So if I’m speaking to you and I’m speaking with logic and direction, it’s important that you understand what I’m trying to say. So music is no different. So it’s really important to make it very precise and to only say what is necessary, to make sure that those words or notes are very firm so that you understand it. So I would think as a composer it should become easier to digest, easier for one to understand, if it’s very simple. And I’m not confusing the communication, so I have the opportunity to be able to leave those things out in the studio and only present the things I really want to say in a fashion that you will have more chance to understand it. So DJing is the same. Everything that I play, there is a reason why I’m playing it, even if some of the records – well, a lot of the records – that I carry with me are not hit records. But they all serve a purpose. They set the audience up for something that they will react to.

When you say "set it up", I mean, because you say you’re not planning, do you have a curve when you do a set, a flow, a way of getting up and down?

Sure, because I’m pacing the audience and I don’t want the audience to get too excited too quickly. Because I need to pace them, so you, you know, you hold back. Because I could make the first record just be a bomb, you know, and all the records could be a bomb, one right after the other. But it’s better to create a transition and grow and grow and grow, so you create a different sort of equation. So using certain records I can make the audience wonder what is coming next, based on, by doing an act of certain things. So I can create complete curiosity, thus meaning that people are vulnerable to anything. So after a while you know these tricks, I suppose, or you know …

… ways to build the pressure.

Right. So I can use silence, you know, and then you can allow the people to hear how quiet they really are, and as a result how alone they are in this sea of people, you have and things like that, and you know, you develop these tricks.

Um, you’ve talked in other interviews about techno as a means of communicating between people, as a means of bringing people together. What is it about techno that can cause people to communicate and unite?

Well I mean, well, in the past, there, you know, techno, house music has been used as a tool to be able to express the voice of … you know, rave, rave culture. So acid house, for one, and house music, and you know I think that at times music is used as a weapon, it’s used as a tool, and, um, well, I mean, everyone has their own objective. Why they listen to it, why they play it, why they go to places where other people like it as well, because they want to associate with like-minded types of people or the way people look, they want to be part of the … it’s a social preference, and I would think that most people think this music signifies a certain kind of mentality, a level of awareness to technology and how that makes up the soundtrack for their social life, and things like that.

But you wouldn’t normally think – well, I wouldn’t think – of techno as being the number one music for getting people together. You have all these songs where it’s not like a song where everyone can hug and things.

True. Well, I mean, it really defines a culture. And you have some people that do not want that type of deeper love, you know, something reminiscent of the Bee Gees and sexy and things like that, they want things that are more thought provoking, they want more by saying less. They want to be alone, they want to experience things with 3,000 people but they want to be alone. They all want the experience. So I think that’s how …

So it’s like a personal, individual path, which is enjoyed by thousands of people at the same time?

Well, I think electronic music has always been more towards the, you know, the figure of one, more so than the many.

Is this why it doesn’t have lyrics?

Um, that has helped, well, that kind of fuelled the direction of it. If there are no lyrics then you can make up your own meaning. You can decide your own perspective of what the record is trying to say, reinforcing this idea of being open …

You’ve done a lot of work recently with audio-visual projects. Like when I saw you in February there was a big white Jeff Mills behind you sort of playing (he laughs) and you’ve done some film soundtracks and things like that. How do you feel about using audio-visual technology? Do you not worry that it will sort of reduce that personal abstraction. Do you know what I mean? Because personally, for me, when I’m listening to techno it’s very much about going on your own journey: whatever colours, whatever shapes, whatever forms it suggests to you, are suggested purely by the music. Do you not worry that when you start to play big images as well you’re attaching something concrete to that music?

Well, that’s the idea. I think that we’ve worked a lot with the idea of focusing on just sound. I think that we’ve reached the point where we can get beyond that now. The position of electronic music is safe. There has been a new force, people have made it known that they like it, there’s a fascination there, so to stay there is not very helpful. So to go beyond that, to begin to show more of what you’re actually looking into, should create a better understanding. And I think that we’ve been able to tap into more and more senses, not just hearing, but actually seeing, smelling, feeling, and that should enhance the overall understanding of it.

But don’t you worry that it will take away that level of personal …

No, no, I think people have a greater capacity than what we’ve been giving them. People are not bipolar. They have the ability to look at things and still imagine. Most of us look at TV all the time anyway, we look and we understand, so we’re already conditioned to understand by seeing, anyway. So we’re just using what’s already there. And I’m sure it won’t stop, it’ll continue.

Where is it going to go next?

I have a sense that because of the direction in which things are going now, everything is, or feels, more personalised. So technology is making our world more personalised. And I would think that the club atmosphere, club life, should eventually go in that direction. That it probably won’t be enough to just stand there and experience someone performing on stage or DJing, surrounded by people. You probably will want to experience all of the aspects of the situation, in other words, how the DJ is feeling, what his senses are.

Do you think that’s why there are more and more cameras showing people’s hands?

Yeah, because I think it’s an attempt to try to explain to the audience what the artist is doing and what makes him special from the next person. And that will probably grow more and more as the genre becomes older and things should become more interesting and people want to know why it’s becoming more interesting, why these people are doing such things. And there’s more and more information, different camera angles, more virtual reality, interviewing … media should become better over time, the questions should become more interesting.

Do you think that we’re reaching the limits of what you can do with turntables and CD players?

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