MODESELEKTOR

Berlin’s foremost double-act have just condensed 10 years of their existence into an engrossing new film.

If watching endless seasons of Blackadder instead of working has taught us anything, it’s that we should probably get a better hobby, that meggings looked shit even the first time round, and that sometimes it pays to have a cunning plan.

History’s full of evidence to back that last point up. Just take a look at Steve McQueen. What if, instead of carefully orchestrating The Great Escape, he’d just run at the nearest fence the moment the guards had their backs turned? He probably would’ve ruined that nice leather jacket, and it would’ve made a rubbish film. But Gernot Bronsert & Sebastian Szary of Modeselektor think otherwise. Like eating a whole bowlful of your own hair just to prove it’s possible, for them having a plan is neither necessary nor particularly enjoyable.

Over the course of a career that’s spawned three albums, another as two-thirds of Moderat, two labels, several world tours and the occasional dancing man in a monkey suit, the pair have always sought a more impulsive path. Rather than attempting to mastermind some elaborate route to musical superstardom, they’ve spent the past 15 years leaping over serious-faced scenesters on a motorcycle made of smiles and unsettling the ranks of the global A-list with a fun and unpretentious approach to rave. And now they’ve had a film made about them, too. One that’s actually rather good.

“Our number one rule is that we never plan anything in advance,” Gernot tells Crack over coffee at a café in the shadow of their central Berlin studio. “It’s served us pretty well. I would never have had the idea to make a documentary about us, and neither would Szary. That’s just not how we work.”

Titled simply We Are Modeselektor, the documentary charts the group’s complete journey through music thus far, covering each member’s individual history as well as the birth, growth, and continued success of the act today. The film’s UK premiere will be shown at Modeselektor’s show in London’s Roundhouse venue on 17th May. As a pre-show appetiser, We Are Modeselektor will ignite a buzz for an evening in which promoters Eastern Electrics and Black Atlantic have also harnessed DJ sets from affiliates Apparat and Siriusmo, as well as a live show from Mouse On Mars for the event. It will also be the only time Modeselektor pplay live in the UK this year.

“The guy who came up with the idea is a good friend of ours,” Gernot says of the documentary. “He’s filmed us a lot over the years, so when he first mentioned the idea we thought ‘sure, as long as we don’t have to do anything and it’s not going to cost us any money!’ We certainly didn’t know what he was going to come up with.”

Whether they planned to make it or not, it’s clear the project has been a labour of love for filmmaker Holger Wick. Before the film had even been christened, he’d been shooting footage of Modeselektor on and off for over a decade, so we’re certainly not talking some flaccid ‘on-the-road’ tour documentary, thrashed out to sell more records or deepthroat artist egos.

Covering everything from the first rudimentary warehouse raves Szary organised as a teenager, to the colourful period of life he and Gernot shared while living in adjacent apartments in Berlin, and finally onto their evolving existence as a bill-topping headline act today, the film leaves out little in its quest to show the audience the full picture. Sadly, none of it is delivered from a bubble bath.

“Holger has done a really great job; we’re very happy with it,” Szary beams. “The funny thing is, a lot of the tapes from those very early parties I threw were actually taken by the local dope dealer! He was the only one with enough money to afford a proper video camera, and he used to walk around the rave with this big light strapped to his head so he could see while he was filming everyone! Can you imagine a drug dealer strapping a light to their head these days? It was hilarious!”

While any documentary of this kind is bound to mean whipping out a few old photos and bits of archive footage (like Michael Aspel brandishing his big red book of shame and dubious haircuts), this time we’re not just talking embarrassing baby snaps or a story about how one of them fed the neighbour’s dog a dishwasher tablet. The classic VHS recordings of those early bunker parties – complete with rare pre-Modeselektor live performances – show first hand just how long the pair have been involved with the underground rave scene. And it’s this energy that has helped shape the group they have become today.

And what kind of group is that? Well, if their international tour schedule is anything to go by, Gernot and Szary are fast becoming two of the biggest and most successful musical exports Berlin has produced in decades. Having smashed headline-grabbing crowds everywhere from Manchester to Guadalajara, gracing stages alongside some of electronic music’s most prominent names, they’ve certainly earned their place dining at the big boys’ table. However, they’re quick to disassociate themselves from the archetypical ‘Superstar DJ’ persona.

“There are some parts of the film that show us either backstage or about to come on just before a show, and yeah, it looks like being a rockstar,” smirks Szary. “But, to be honest, we’ve never felt like that. We’re just normal guys and we don’t like any of that ego. Sometimes, while you’re travelling, you’d wake up on the tour bus with Holger right there in your face, and be like, ‘No, please! Not the fucking camera again!’ But then you just get up and you get used to it, and all you see is your friend there, not the camera.”

While watching the DVD , it becomes apparent how important this honest and down-to-earth attitude is to the pair’s dynamic. While distinctly different characters in their own right, Gernot and Szary have a comfort and ease around each other that feels like the two familiar faces of the same well-tossed coin. Playing live, this translates to all manner of performance showboating and improvised antics, but through all the stage invasions, champagne showers, and reckless bouts of crowdsurfing, nothing about them ever feels forced or phoney.

Clearly, these are two guys who have shared a friendship long before they ever had to share a tour bus, and it’s that friendship that comes out every time they step in front of a crowd – no matter how big or small the gig.

“Of course it helps a lot to know the other person so well, and to be so comfortable onstage,” explains Gernot, without even needing to look at the chair beside him. “When we play, obviously the music is important, but it’s also important to have the right attitude. You shouldn’t create an attitude just because you feel like you have to. You can look at what is going on in the US right now and draw your own conclusions about that kind of thing – but we don’t like to talk about ‘EDM’. If we’re going to talk about EDM we might as well sit here and talk about Las Vegas or Disneyland!”

“We were lucky that we’ve been doing performance ever since the start,” echoes Szary. “We’ve never had some big management company telling us we need to hire a massive LED wall or do a stadium tour in order to be famous. That all happened as a result of our own work. We started out making gold from shit, and things have just progressed from there.”

Gold from shit, that’s one way to look at it. The pair have certainly come a long way since their first record was commissioned by techno über-doyenne Ellen Allien for her fanatically regarded bPitch Control imprint back in 2002. It was a big break for an act like Modeselektor, who up until that point had been purely a live phenomenon, and it was the start of an important learning curve for each of them on the road to becoming the all singing all-dancing men in charge they are today.

“Our time at bPitch taught us a lot of things – both good and bad!” laughs Gernot, from behind his coffee. “We made a lot of experiences, and a lot of it was trial and error. We found it was very much like a family, which was great. The only trouble was we never really liked any of the music! Now we’ve tried to take that vibe and pass it on through our own labels – and this time we love everything that comes out of it.”

If there’s been a success story in recent times comparable to that of Modeselektor, surely it has to be that of their twin labels, Monkeytown and 50 Weapons. The former was originally conceived purely as an outlet to release the music of the duo’s longtime friend, the notoriously mediashy producer Siriusmo, although the imprint was soon broadened into a wider home for other artists. The latter, meanwhile, has cemented itself as a dependable source of brick-heavy club bangers from the likes of Shed, Cosmin TRG, Benjamin Damage, Marcel Dettmann and Phon.O, and has become something of a staple in the record boxes of DJs who know their shit and aren’t afraid to hit you with it. Most notably, it’s served as a refuge for many international artists looking to experiment with a sound slightly different to the one they’ve become known for – like taking an indulgent trip into the deviant pastimes of a debauched weekend in Berlin.

“When people come to Berlin, they are allowed to let go in a way that they have not experienced elsewhere,” Szary asserts, matter-of-factly. “And this can often affect the music they make. But the important thing to know is that this is not a ‘Berlin sound’. There is no such thing as the ‘Berlin sound,’ there is only the ‘Berlin feeling’. The sound comes from all over the world, and it’s the people who bring it here to this city.”

“The Berlin we know is like an old lady who smokes 50 cigarettes a day and drinks two bottles of schnapps, but for some reason is still alive and kicking!” laughs Gernot. “Everyone has one of those friends, who drinks too much and takes loads of drugs, but still gets up the next day and goes about their business like nothing ever happened. That’s Berlin, and that’s our city.”

Someone else who calls it their city is a certain Mr Sascha Ring, better known to the world as Apparat, who joined forces with Modeselektor in 2009 to form Moderat. Following a critically-lauded collaborative album backed up by string of legendary live shows, the two forces parted ways in 2011, asserting that was the end of the project. Until now, that is. Gird your loins, Crack readers, for we’re sure many of you will moisten to learn that work has recently finished on a long-awaited second Moderat LP, due for release on August 2nd. On the same day of the release, Moderat will headline the outdoor Transformer stage at Eastern Electrics with a world premiere of their new live show, the epic dance-orientated event that’s taking place in Knebworth Park. So what was it that brought everyone back into the studio together?

“I think Sascha just got fed up with playing guitar!” Gernot quips, with a smile. “Actually, I’m kidding. I think after you’ve played that many loud, sweaty, energetic Modeselektor shows, it’s nice to do something different. Modeselektor can be a lot of work, and Moderat is … well, it’s more hard work! But it’s a different kind. It’s hard work where we can wear a suit.”

“It’s especially hard during production,” Szary confides. “Normally decisions are just made between me and him. ‘Bass drum louder? Yes? No? Ok. No problem.’ Now suddenly everything has to be a three-way decision, and it’s…”

“Go on, say it. It’s a real pain in the ass!”

As difficult as it may have been to produce the record, there are few things so likely to cause a case of trouser turbulence than the prospect of fresh Moderat material. And not just some tantalising single or EP either. In true Modeselektor style, II (as the follow-up is called) will be a full-blown album, although exactly what it will sound like remains a mystery.

“At certain points when making the new record we found ourselves listening to the old one for a reminder of what inspired us,” reveals Szary. “But we stopped that pretty quickly. This new record is a fingerprint of who we are and where we are right now. We don’t want to be looking back.”

“We’ve always been about albums, and it was important to us to do it this way”, Gernot expounds, leaning further over the table. “I think with an album you can tell more about an artist; you grow and develop in ways you never could just by producing 12” singles, and if you do manage to come out of the other side, you’re better for it. There are lots of artists who make great dance music, but who can’t do albums. We’ve never been that kind of artist.”

So, once the new Moderat record is out, what then? Where do the pair envisage their musical journey will take them next? How can we even ask a question like that to two men who find the idea of future planning about as appealing as a night huffing paint and playing hide the weasel with Angela Merkel? Free of any concrete answer, it seems – like always – that Gernot & Szary are quite happy to simply let the techno do the talking. They’re just going along for the ride …

“Techno is a very special thing. It’s like a plant – if you treat it right, it can have a very long life,” Gernot muses, with a philosophical air. “It doesn’t need too much water, it doesn’t need too much air, just the right kind of earth and the right kind of light! That’s what we’re trying to help produce, both by ourselves and with the labels.”

“Techno is more than just music; it’s a total sensory experience,” Szary weighs in, his face laden with the sincerity of a true connoisseur. “It’s made to be played in clubs, and you’re supposed to feel it and smell it just as much as hear it. Perhaps one day they will invent the technology to capture the smell of a real techno club to go along with a CD, and then Modeselektor will do the first ever scratch ‘n’ sniff album! But until then we’ll just go on creating the music.”

Given the aroma of the average nightclub we’re not entirely convinced that’ll catch on. Still, for these two freewheeling pioneers, we’ll try anything once. Plan or no plan, they might not know exactly where they’re going, but you can bet your last piece of bubble gum that it’ll be an interesting ride.

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modeselektor.com

Words: Alex Gwilliam

Photos: Fabian Frost

We Are Modeselektor is released on May 3rd via Monkeytown Records.

Modeselektor play their only live date in the UK this year at London’s Roundhouse on Friday 17th May 

Moderat play Eastern Electrics on 2nd August and Simple Things Festival, Bristol, on October 12th.