I first heard this record played by Boris Dlugosch at Hamburg’s Front Club, sometime in the 90’s, where particularly “Illusion” became a cherished and trusted screaming anthem. It was a fairly obscure Jersey sound item, but not that hard to find. I actually got a hold of it in a bargain bin for just a few Deutschmarks, and since every time I played it out over the years people kept asking about it, I kept recommending it and every new owner was happy to find something so special for so little money. I was convinced it could stay this way forever and never checked back, but as I played “Organized” at Vancouver’s New Forms Festival this year (see Hot Wax 022, around the 1:50 mark) it was welcomed on the floor like an old friend, with people coming up to thank me for playing it out, and cheers all round. I told them the usual about it being a gem that is still out there for easy grabs, and then to my surprise got told that it was quite the opposite now. Well, it totally makes sense.
DJ Dove probably would have loved to sound as classy as the more successful protagonists of the New Jersey and New York House scene, but it is most likely that there was little money for equipment and studio and his label maybe had even less to spend. Thus you have a record bursting with great moments, and mastering and cut do their best to reduce it to a back door to back alley version of what was best intended, and still it is a wonderful example of what you can achieve as long you have ideas. Nowadays each week sees releases by up and coming producers who gather costly vintage equipment (or according presets) and muffle what they have on purpose, aiming for grit and that enigmatic authenticity, an air of mystery even. Still, if you think what you hear without the filters and hiss, there is not much left to stay in your memory but an aesthetic which has already crossed the gap to a cliché without much meaning. And the reason why a track like “Organized” is still ruling is hardly because it is raw, it is because it is a really good track. But there are plenty of forgotten releases from the past like this, raw because there was no other way, and there will be plenty of new releases longing for this punk deepness, and coming up with the necessary tunes to combine a certain attitude with, well, music. You will have trouble achieving longevity if you neglect the music for anything else. Here’s proof.
Mix for the fine All City label from Dublin. For no particular reason I decided to contribute a mix with Hip House instrumentals.
Doug Lazy – Let It Roll – (Dub Version) Reg Raw – I’m Housin’ (Pump It Go Dub) Lord KCB – I’m Housin’ It (Dub Version) Royal Party – Can You Party (Instrumental Dub) Long Fellow – This Is Penis (Instr.) Brooklyn Funk Essentials – Change The Track (Brooklyn Bomb Dub) Faheem – Must Be The Music Dub Laurent X – It’s Magic (Funkstrumental) Too Nice – I Git Minze (Extended Dub Mix) Kraze – The Party (Tunnel Mix) Cool House – Rock This Party Right (Tyree’s Beats 4 Now Mix) Mix ‘n’ Tel – Feel The Beat (Instrumental Mix) Fast Eddie – Yo Yo Get Funky (Woo Yea!) Fast Eddie – Yo Yo Get Funky (Use To Hearin’) Rashiid – I Go To Work (Supermix) Mix Masters Feat. MC Action – It’s About Time (Tyree Cooper Mix) Tyree Feat. J.M.D. – Move Your Body (Tyree Lost His Vocals Mix) Tyree – Turn Up The Bass (Instrumental) Tyree – House Music Is My Life (Instrumental Mix) Precious – In Motion (Dub Dub-Rob Hanning Mix) Rob Base & DJ E-Z Rock – Get On The Dance Floor (The Surgical Sky King Dub) KC Flightt – Jump For Joy (Underground Dub) Doug Lazy – H.O.U.S.E. (Red Zone Mix) 2 In A Room – Do What You Want (Morales Slammin’ Dub Mix) Fast Eddie – Make Some Noise (Joe Smooth’s Club Instrumental Mix) Maurice – This Is Acid (Deep Dub)
When I first heard LFO, I instantly thought this might be the first music to really challenge the legacy Kraftwerk left behind. Meaning, a legacy based on game changing achievements in sound and ideas, and much else beyond. I never really felt the need to revise that first impression in the years to come. Hardly any music of that era has aged so well, and still sounds so unique, and particularly Mark Bell followed it up with a whole lot of comparably superior music, either as collaborator, or on his own. I always had this feeling he might drop a release that would shatter a whole scene again, at any given point. But now he very untimely passed away. There will be young, determined and insanely talented producers again, but Mark Bell’s legacy will be really difficult to match. R.I.P.
Finn Johannsen is the kind of DJ we didn’t think existed anymore. He has an encylopediac knowledge of music and it’s apparent when watching him play that his understanding of music moves him while he’s moving the crowd. The Berlin based DJ has been a fixture in house music since he began spinning in clubs in the ’80s. His command of music has led him to branch out from DJ’ing, as a buyer for legendary Hard Wax in Berlin, where he curates a selection of sometimes very hard to find vinyl in different genres, like dub or acid techno. He’s a co-owner of Macro Records, a label which reps artists like KiNK and Morgan Geist. He’s also a writer, contributing to electronic bible Resident Advisor.
Our favorite thing about Finn, is his dedication to vinyl. He only plays vinyl during his sets, which is quite a feat, considering he tends to play marathon sets (we caught him during a three-hour feat). It’s easy to keep the crowd moving when you’ve preselected a surefire mix with whatever is trendy at the moment, but Finn chooses to keep an eye on the crowd and let that determine which record he ducks down to grab from the thick stack he’s brought with him (did we mention he doesn’t play the same set twice?).
We asked him to tell us a little bit about how he got started, the state of the music scene in Berlin and his advice for aspiring DJ’s. Catch the Q+A below.
What attracted you to house music?
When I first heard house records in clubs, internet was not an option. I learned where it came from from magazine articles, but later on. I liked that it condensed a lot of music I liked before into something new, which sounded primitive, fresh, and effective. For me it was just another step in the chronology of club music though, albeit one that surpassed early fad status very quickly.
How has house evolved since you first started spinning?
It absorbed a lot of music styles and got bigger and bigger. But it also fragmented into countless sub-genres. Nowadays the style is as detached from its origins as it is close to it. And that is not even a contradiction. It seems anything is house, and nothing.
How do you think social media has changed the way music is shared?
Social media has changed everything in terms of accessibility. You can be up to date with anything you are interested in, no matter where you are. The problem is that you are also up to date with anything you are not interested in, and there is not much you can do about it.
What is the Berlin scene like right now?
Berlin drains a lot of talent from anywhere else in the world with the promise of affordable everyday living, and lots of opportunities to earn money and reputation with what you do, particularly in the club scene. That may be true in comparison, but it also means a lot of competition with a lot of talent, and the affordability is waning. The influx of national and international artists have not yet led to a distinctive sound you can link to the city either. The sound of Berlin now is a plethora of sounds, with a huge network attached. But the city also has a plethora of distractions, which are not always helpful with a creative process.
You impressed us with your 3 hour set, and you’ve said that you don’t play the same set twice. How do you read a crowd and keep the party going?
To me it makes no sense to repeat certain sequences that people might have heard at other gigs or on online recordings of mine. I have enough records to try and avoid that. When I travel and I have to do a succession of gigs with the same record bag, I try to change the set as much as possible, in order to challenge myself and offer some surprises for the ones who came to see me. I am interested a lot of different kinds of music and I like to make use of that. Well, I get bored very easily, too. And I do not want anybody else to get bored either. When I’m about to play somewhere I’m the type trying to arrive in time to check out how the night is evolving. I only play vinyl, so I have to get along with the records I brought, and I select those records by doing some research about the place I’m due to play, and sometimes who else played there as well. But how much I can succeed with said selection is pretty much down to the experiences gained in nearly 30 years of playing out in clubs. It works well most of time, but there is never a guarantee. And there should be none. Routine is the enemy, and failure is as important as success.
You move seamlessly through different fields; is it easy for you to transition through each field? How do you balance?
It actually is not easy at all. Not only in terms of scheduling, but also because certain things I am involved with do not get along to well with others. I think it is obvious that running a label myself and buying and selling other labels at Hard Wax does not really blend well with writing about other labels, for example. So I stepped back from writing considerably, even if I am missing it quite a bit. I still do some interview or features about more general topics, but nowadays discourse is an almost totally neglected aspect of music journalism, both due to networking obligations between the music business and the media, and a lack of self-criticism on the side of the artists. This also applies to the other things I do. Mostly they benefit from each other, but there is also always a potential they might affect each other negatively. You have to keep a lot of things in mind, and often you do not want to, or even can.
We’re in the era of the “laptop DJ”. Do you think it’s important to learn to spin on vinyl?
I have not much respect for digital DJ’s who stress the layering aspects of their setup, and then just play track after track from a huge database. For me then, the only aspect is convenience. But the entertainment value of a DJ set is not dependent on the medium it is performed with. The music matters. Still, I prefer DJ’s who do the mixing by ear, and who rather watch the floor instead of a display. I do not think that you should start DJ’ing by learning your craft with vinyl. But you should learn your craft first.
Is dj’ing an art form?
No, it is the means to an end.
What advice could you give to dj’s who are just beginning?
There are legions of DJ’s. If you want to make a difference, be different.
dBridge – Wonder Where Ruffhouse & Clarity – Aphasia Gremlinz & Reza – Bloom Ruffhouse – Strangers Foreign Concept & DRS – Falling Stars Nasty Habits – Shadow Boxing (Om Unit Remix) Paragon – Precipice Ruffhouse – Classified Sam KDC – Erosion Skeptical – Sphere Nucleus & Paradox – The Return Of… Fre4knc – Marching Cube VIP Data – Passive Aggressive (Stray Remix) Blocks & Escher – Moods Fre4knc – Cardiome Kasra & Enei So Real D-Bridge – True Romance VIP Lenzman – Empty Promise (Jubei Remix) Artificial Intelligence – War Horse Response – One Nation Enei – Goliath Loxy & Resound – Monsters Fracture & Neptune – Deadlands ST Files – Eric Bristow System – Sound Man Foreign Concept Feat. T Man – Tag Team Kinetic & Mark Recoil – Cold Streets Skeptical – Blue Eyes VIP Dub Phizix – The Clock Ticks Stray – Award Tour Foreign Concept & Stray – Bang It High Contrast – Global Love High Contrast – Twilight’s Last Gleaming High Contrast – Return Of Forever Kevin Rudolf – I Made It (Cash Money Heroes) (Rockwell Remix Dub) Amit – 9 Times Jubei – The Path Halogenix – Her Waves Ivy Lab – Missing Persons Ivy Lab – Baby Grey dBridge – So Lonely (Consequence Rmx) dBridge – Plain To See dBridge – Not Known Synkro – Letting Go (dBridge Remix) dBridge – City Of Lonely Runaways
Recent Comments