Crack

Adam Beyer is an ode to preserving your style. While techno music has experienced numerous diversifications over the years, Beyer has remained a stout preserver of the notion that harder is definitely better.

Without ever going into the rather scary and twisted realms of psych or the bland, temporal end of minimal, Beyer has stayed true to the core sound that is now propelling him into the upper echelons of one of dance music’s most polarising strands.

Techno music in its pre chic, DC10, ketamine, minimal guise was a much stiffer affair. Harder-edged drum patterns gave way to a sense of minimalistic Ibizian and mid-morning cool, when the lookers looked at techno again. Major players like Richie Hawtin shifted their gaze from the tougher stuff that had made them household names and explored this new avenue. It was a watershed for techno as we know it and pushed names onto the techno train who maybe should never have been there.

Adam Beyer is a techno artist in every sense of the word. The 4/4 beats that keep people returning to him are still there, but there is a freshness to his sound encapsulated by the success and re-invigoration of his Drumcode label. There is a relenting positivity in the productions from the likes of Alan Fitzpatrick, Cari Lekebusch and Beyer himself. This is hard-edged stuff, it’s just not scary any more.

Watching Beyer at this year’s BLOC festival among the fist in the air moments, you had strings, soul, synth and space. It was great to see a DJ playing these elements with a tougher sound. You didn’t have time for chin stroking because you were too busy going crazy.

Beyer’s longevity, DJ’ing prowess and consistency in both his label’s productions and his own has seen his stock richly rewarded. The renaissance of Beyer’s sound culminated in a huge Drumcode party in September with all the label’s major players and Beyer himself stamping a real mark on the scene. Crack caught up with him before the party to talk techno.



What was the plan in completely reinvigorating and restarting the Drumcode label?

I felt the label had something to say again. It was getting slightly hard to find good techno the way I wanted it. I knew the brand still had a lot of fans, so instead of making a new label I managed to fuse the old with the new and kept going. I’m glad I took that decision looking back at it.

Your sound is regarded as being at the harder end of the techno spectrum, do you think this is fair, or do you think your sound is more diverse than this?

Well as a DJ I tend to play a bit more across the spectrum, but I am happy my name stands for a certain type of techno. I love when I play parties where people are open minded and you can take them through the whole thing, It’s all about the journey.

What in techno is exciting you at the moment and are there any British producers that you are keen on?

I have always been all over British techno. At the moment people like Alan Fitzpatrick, Ben Sims, Gary Beck, Mark Broom, Edit Select, Luke Slater and Reset Robot are producing quality stuff.

I was reading that you have relocated to a more rural area of Sweden, do you think this has affected your production style and/or how has this change affected you musically?

Not really. I moved there 1st of July and I´ve been home maybe 14 days since. I haven’t completed any productions there yet.

Do you think The Drumcode warehouse party in London is a pivotal moment for yourself and the label? Do you think your music is best presented in these kinds of spaces that have a real industrial feel to them?

It’s the biggest production we’ve done ourselves. We’ve done massive shows before with bigger audiences, but we didn’t control the whole production so it was more like being a guest. I like different kinds of spaces but techno being played on a loud volume in a rough space is always something special!

What is it about Jeff Mills that inspires you so much? He is a DJ revered by many prominent techno artists.

He used to inspire me a lot in the 90´s. The way he played techno and his productions were very groundbreaking. If you track back (even today), you can find references to old Jeff Mills songs in almost every track still being made (sometimes without the producers even knowing). He is definitely one of the cornerstones of the scene; his work will always keep influencing people.

Who else has been a massive inspiration to you over the years?

Richie Hawtin, Sven Väth, Cari Lekebusch.

Do you think techno is entering a period of creativity or do you feel like the whole scene is being somewhat recycled at the moment?

It was in a creatively great place a while ago when I was getting really wowed by something new and fresh all the time. Everything I hear today references back to something similar already been done, but I think it’s a bit dangerous to get too caught up in trying to create something new as usually those things come by accident or randomness. I still feel very exited by the music, but maybe the purpose of it is no longer to create or produce something never heard before. In the end it’s very much the DJ’s job to create the journey.

When you play harder records, do you like them to incorporate something else – maybe strings or an emotional edge? Do you like the harder-sounding records to have another dynamic?

A bit of both; it can be nice to break things up with a bit of emotion from time to time, but I definitely like to keep the energy level throughout my sets.

I also read you are a bit of a ‘control freak’. Is this a fair statement?

Not in a negative sense (hopefully!), but when you run your own business and you are the one doing all the travelling I think it’s pretty normal to have control over it since it’s the biggest part of your life.

Is Truesoul Records still active in releasing some of the less ‘harder edged’ tracks you play in your sets?

Yes very much so, we just had a release from Swedish Dj Ida Engberg and we have a Joel Mull album coming up later in the year also.

What other artists on the Drumcode label are especially exciting you at the moment?

We´ve just signed Gregor Tresher for a four tracker, a new Swedish guy called Patrik Siech and obviously Alan Fitzpatrick, Joseph Capriati, Slam and all the others.

We saw you at BLOC Festival last year in Minehead, what can you remember from that gig?

A guy running around dressed up as a dragon!

What does the future hold for Adam Beyer?

More Drumcode records and an artist album sometime soon.



Tune: Antistius

http://www.myspace.com/adambeyer

- - - - - - - - - - - - -