Robert Merlak Interviewed by Phthalocyanine P: What are the best techno labels and the best releases on those labels? RM: Hard one! But I always liked the stuff from these (from the top of my head): Rephlex!!!, Irdial-Discs, Ifach/Trelik, ACV/Out of Orbit, early Djax-Up-Beats, some Axodya, early Source and Reflective, UR, Transmat, BC/CR, B12, A13, A.R.T., Likemind, some GPR/INM, Ferox, Retroactive and early Planet E... Really underground stuff, acid, classics that needs to be mentioned and isn't mentioned much?! a lot of it, that would be: Jason Potratz "Transfer", Aqua Regia "N.Y.C. smile on me" (Irdial-Discs), Anibaldi "Canibald" (ACV), Like-a-Tim "Look a Like" (Djax-Up-Beats) and a lot of other early Tim's music, Himadri's EP (+8) from '94., A3000 "Magnetic Gilding" (Disturbance/Axodya), The Suburban Knight "The Art of Stalking" (Transmat), 4E "Asclepias" (Delirium), Automatic Sound Unlimited "Tu*bx Double Pack" (Hot Trax), Drexciya"Deep Sea Dweller" (Shockwave), Ifach001 12" (Ifach), O ''Metri'' (Sahko), Mono Junk "Gloom" (Dum Trax), Phylyps Trak (Basic Channel), Storm ''The Art of In-Sync" (Djax-Up-Beats), UR's Final Frontier, Riot, Electronic Warfare, Codebreaker EPs and Acid Rain stuff (UR), X-101, X-102 & X-103 CDs (Tresor), all Universal Indicator records, Ceephax Acid Crew ALL OF IT!, Robert Hood "Minimal Nation" (Axis) and all the Waveform Transmissions (Tresor), a lot of Koen Lybaert-especially Lowground collaboration with Mark Broom (Silver), Up-Link Data Transmission and Privileged Frames for Reference (for Objective's track) (V/vm), Rephlex stuff like Vibert/Simmonds and From the Cockpit (Rephlex) definitely need more attention, Move D and D Man's Homework comp. (Source), ...Beltram stuff like Mentasm, all Machine Codes, every Quadrant, Russ Gabriel's VCF (for the Hydrochloric), early Ferenc, Mike Ink/Burger acid!.....also, on the other hand, still enjoy Beltran's albums on Peacefrog and debut for R&S and a lot of other tunes from that period (93/96), especially stuff like Nuron, Reflections from As One, Slater's 4 Cornered Room or Fred Giannelli's Telepathic Romance, Reload/GC/Evolution and that B.Hannant's Texturology gold LP with totally different tracks than the sliver one and these are so much better too...slowed it a bit on buying records, but of more recent stuff i really enjoyed Libythth, Terminal 11, and Wobbly. O.S.T.'s Seimlste, 25 Tracks Fer 1 Track, MVFS, Mimi+Boyd is mental!, and Transfer from Jason!, Harnessed the Storm, Transllusion stuff and Shifted Phases as well, some O' Connor/Sutton/Childs, Satanstornade! and Russell's album for Mego, Sistol of course, new from The Mover on Tresor, Yoshihiro Hanno:9 Modules+, Baby Ford and the Ifach Collective on Klang, some of albums that came out on Source-especially Eyephone and Alex Cortex, then Rei Harakami's Unrest and new Lexaunculpt album! + a lot of other more obvious stuff (i.e. Ae's Confield, BogdanOvucaVenetianSquareAfx&alikes) that is mentioned 100 times more than these above and aren't definitely that much better albums at all, just more exposed ones... This was my top 15 tracks that I compiled like 8 years ago for the radio here... In-Sync ''Storm" (Irdial-Discs) Glenn Underground "101 Dolmations" (Djax-Up-Beats) Vibert/Simmonds "(This Can) Robotic" (Rephlex) Analogical "Camillo" (Djax-Up-Beats) Leo Anibaldi "Random Attack" (ACV) Ron Trent "Altered States" (Warehouse) Kibu "No Humans Left" (Rising High) Terrace "The Encounter" (Djax-Up-Beats) Sleazy D. "I've Lost Control" (Trax) Laurent Garnier "Water Planet" (Fnac) Ongaku "Mihon" (Pod) X-101 "Mindpower" (UR/Tresor) Miss Djax "156 Miles" (Djax-Up-Beats) Psychick Warriors Ov Gaia "Pull" (Kk) Dave Angel "Bounce Back" (R&S) This list would probably look totally different today, hmm maybe, don't like these kind of lists though, because of elitism and confusion that goes with them among trainspotters who can write every day new top10 list with different tracks in it :-II ...with all the label's data, cat. numbers... This list is here to express my reaction and feelings in words when you asked the question above... this was the 1st thing that came onto my mind...I know I wrote different things earlier but today I just feel a bit different. Listening to tracks like these is so much better for people to learn about techno and music and why techno sounds like it sounds than trying to explain what is techno with words, techno is about all kinds of sounds and structures that you can imagine, about tracks, there are no boundaries at all, innovate and experiment at all costs! ...and the more strange/good bizarre/ interesting sounds you get that's it... Techno is also term for music that reflects certain time or music era, it's the music of now and it means much to me as a word, too...good music...music that is driven by technology and computers...the tracks I love, and so on... the sounds/tracks/music is what really techno is about... I pulled out some of these tunes today and was so excited to hear it again after a while, this Altered States track still sound so fresh!!! And some of other djax from 92-95 are just as brilliant especially this Glenn Underground stuff.These are just great pieces of music, don't even want to call them techno because categorisation for those above is absolutely not necessary and these tunes speak best for themselves when listening to them. P: What albums do you have unreleased? From what years? What were you into then? Now? RM: I started making tracks in 94., have a lot of stuff unreleased; some bad, some good... I'd like to compile few albums of the better ones, already have some ideas with some of older tracks from 95-96... in the past I was recording albums onto tapes and have like 10-15 proper recordings under the Icepick guise and some of those tracks are featured on Icepick Tracks and some on Albumski. My first album is called morbid past (95) and it's shit, I like 2 tracks that were featured on Icepick Tracks, the rest is boring. in '95 i was doing an album with the band, actually duo (my friend Ole and me), called Bohemia Fear, playing banjo and singing occasionally, the album is called forces ('95) and I actually like some of the tracks from that one. Miro started making music before me, in '93 and I was cowritting some of the trax for his Spleen ('95) and Selected Modules ('95) albums... then in '96, the year I worked a lot and recorded some of the best tracks, many of which are featured on Phthalo albums, did Guilty ('96), 1 Variable Function ('96), Asleep ('96), Acid Trax v.1.1 ('96), FNK 'M 'LL ('96) (half of Albumski is compiled from this album), Tech.Product ('96), Lunapark ('96), House ('96) and We Play Live! ('96, did it with Miro). In '97. I started to work more with Miro and we recorded qwerty1 ('97) album. Miro later in '98 used qwerty name in many of his recordings, and still use it today. Those two tracks on Icepick Tracks album that are marked ''/w qwerty'' are from Qwerty1 album. in '97 I recorded a lot of acid techno stuff, untitled albums full of acid tracks which I stored to 5 CDRs lately and call them Acid Tapes v.1.2, v.1.3, v.1.4., v.1.5, v.1.6. then I stopped doing more new tracks for more than 2 years. compiled Icepick Tracks in '98. and sent 3 copies of it to my favourite techno labels of that time: Irdial-Discs, V/Vm Test Records and Phthalo, ...never got reply from Irdial, but would like to hear Mr.fernandez's opinions, probably the hairs on the beck of his neck didn't stand up... I knew V/vm people and I think James liked the stuff, but reply from Phthalo was faster and I emailed James V/vm saying that my album will be out on Phthalo along with their The Stranger (PH07) at about the same time, which was cool ;) . Then in '99/'00 I compiled Albumski, but it was all older material, in '02. I compiled and mixed 286 datalines ('02) but also out of older tracks. Some newer tracks that I recorded mostly in '01, some in '02 are featured on my Finomehanika ('02) album. What I was into when I was doing all these tapes and albums, it's too many stuff to mention, much of the stuff that is mentioned above and some of the influences that come to my mind really quick without too much thinking are: Richard H kirk "Black Jesus Voice" (Virgin), Psychick Warriors Ov Gaia "Psychick Rhythms vol.1" (kk), early Djax-Up-Beats, Sleazy D.'s I've Lost Control and a lot of acid stuff from Chicago and elsewhere, In-Sync's Storm, also Kibu (Ubik) on Rising High, Polygon Window's Iketa, Pod's Northern Lights, and a lot of UK-techno from these years... and italian and german as well and from usa and everywhere really... Was so inspired to make music and record tapes when Panasonic's Vakio was released, also Anthony Manning's Cromium Nebulae, Chart Runners and Navy Warship. Then Ifach and Trelik, everything from Seefeel, Freeform's stuff, especially Heterarchy and Patterb Tub album then Palavalamp, also Free EP and all the early Skam 12"s, especially Jega ska006, Hi Scores 12", Aquarius/Chinook 7", also Jeswa's Scone EP... A lot of essential stuff in my head all the time, like Amalia from As One, Neurotic Behaviour from Psyche, Wagon Christ's Phat Lab Nightmare (especially for Mahadelic track), a lot of early Aphex, Rephlex and Ae and all around Ai series, Repeat album, stuff on Source like Yoni, Ro 70, Headshop, Reagenz, then Velocette's Sonorities by Starlight that was out on Reflective, Solitaire on Fax... Now I went through all this text and would probably write it completely different now...so, just random thoughts here... P: Who knows more about records; you or Potratz? RM: Hmmmmmmm, let me think...Potratz! ;) P: What are your thoughts about Potratz? RM: USA, Denver! I think of Out of Orbits vol.1 vs HAB2...Mike Dread's Machine Codes, Kinesthesia's Speng II, Mike Ink, McBride (4E) and Joey Beltram early acid!!!, Leo Anibaldi's track from Muta, i-f Mururoa track! Ifach: Monolense track!!! and off the Man as Well, bc01cd, Nine Machine ''9'', Iannis and Sun Ra, Buzzcocks vs. Synectics :) P: Who's the top Phthalo artist? Why? RM: I love all ! :) but really appreciate Phthalocyanine, Libythth, O.S.T., Ekswyzia... because it's so inspiring and fresh techno stuff!!! and it sounds so raw and technoid!!! :) P: What are the most universal/important soundsources in techno? RM: What do you mean by universal? Standards like 808 or 303 or 106 or 101...808 drum kick would probably be universal thing! Still didn't get bored of it...or 303 bassline bubbling in your head just makes you wanna lick someone all over :) ...used to rave on a lot of the classic acid stuff in car with my mates and just drive around, it was really special when we all admitted that we wank on 303 tracks! stimulating, try it at home! :) Important soundsources for techno are every sound you can imagine and you want manipulate with ...think about the new sounds/forms/structures a lot, and that's missing in a lot of techno that is coming out, lot of boring uninspiring stuff out there because everyone can make music today, but that's also good, so I am a bit selective and picky when it comes to techno soundsources subject, so again diversity+new ideas make certain soundsources important... P: What is the role of techno in all of music? How important should it be? RM: It's on the margin, you usually got negative connotations like old stuff sampled and nothing new there, infantile music, aaah techno is about drugs and raves, soulless, too mathematical and digital, cold, whatever... That's ignorance talking from people, they don't use ears for listening or their cranium receptor units are broken, just defending their stands formed from hearing 2-3 techno CDs while sitting on their ears and wandering around and didn't let themself go to feel the impact of the techno waves! it's a shame when you hear such things from people that are into music, but then that's not matter of tastes like some say, that's also stupid and again defence of ignorants. Fuck tastes if something is good! It seems a rule: the less you know about techno or anything, more negative stuff you can say about it, and the more you know and dive into techno then gets real confusion, you don't even want to talk about it and when you do then you got into pointless arguments that can just drive you mad like here :) P: How do you define techno? RM: This is the subject to overheat the head, techno?!?! What is techno? Come on! :) I don't like labeling stuff, particularly when speaking of music (and techno), but I don't see techno as a music tag, something you can put in a right drawer. Techno is more about emotions/sounds and how the sounds are structured together into tracks-love that word! So when you are comparing some of the classic techno tracks like Soundersons's The Groove That Won't Stop with some of the stuff on Phthalo like Libythth you can see that we are dealing with the similar thing, both of them added some extra flavours to techno, expressing what is missing in the music of now ...techno are tracks made with machines. Techno is not definitive something that has borders, it is more like a liquid that can be spiced or coloured with anything, and it's constanty evolving and breaking boundaries. People usually refer to detroit stuff or the stuff you can hear at raves when talking about techno, but techno is not just about detroit or these beats and shit. Every aspect of it matters and the more flavours and colours (sounds, structures, whatever...) techno adopts it gets more diverse, sophisticated and challenging ...don't even know if techno has certain rules by which you categorise something as techno. What are techno standards? Every answer would limit techno ...really love to shout when hearing stuff like devil ray cove: THAT'S SO TECHNO!!! and libythth's pleaserubourhead !!! :) Techno is also the way of listening not just the way you hear or create sounds. Applying technology to sounds/music particles/structures and numerous production techniques, reconstructing and reassembling tracks, lucid ideas and innovations, all this makes techno what it is. Creativity is what matters. These sentences are so techno! Techno music is not genreous! :) Meaning, don't care about genres at all. And I talk too much and my head will explode. Is music genre? P: Are people's opinions of techno too limited? RM: Yes! People are people. Because of the need to label music! ''This is not techno, this is some crazy electronica, and this is wierd experimental broken chaotic dark ambience'' :) ...it's not, it's just techno! Limited opinions about anything come from people's ignorance.Techno is mentioned 49 times here, a lot, so I am off now.....