Ahead of both their appearances at Saints Don't Sleep this Friday, Pulse Radio organised an exclusive two way interview between Glaswegian deep house mainstay OOFT! and Rose Records head honchos, M.ono and Luvless. The Scot behind Foto Recordings opened the questions:
You guys are from Leipzig right? What is the scene like there in comparison to the rest of Germany? what are the best clubs to hear good music in Leipzig?
M.ono: Leipzig has a nice small music scene with some great artist and labels. Everyone knows everyone and there is a record store called Kannstore from the label Kann where you can meet DJs and producers from Leipzig. And of course we had a lot of clubs in the city. I think the biggest and most famous are Distillery and Conne Island. The Distillery is an electronic music club only. Every Friday and Saturday are events with house and techno music. Conne Island is more broad in its music, it's more a youth center, with hip hop or rock events but also great house and techno events like the "Weekender".
Luv: I think Leipzig has a good variety of steady clubs and other smaller venues to hear good music. I think in some other cities you need to rent a specific location and carry in all your gear for the night to host a party. Not very handy i think.
How and when did you guys meet and when did you get in to making music? M.ono: We met us about 15 or 16 years ago at our apprenticeship. We had the same musical interests and a lot of fun at this time. After the apprenticeship we went our separate ways and met again about 8 years ago in Leipzig. At this point we spend a lot time together, started DJing together and later produce tracks.
Luv: I made my first steps with an old Amiga Computer back in the late 80's in the GDR just before the wall came down however this was very sporadic and just trial and error. I think I realised that I liked this form of music and how to create it then. I was never was into classic guitar music and metal or things like that, I felt more attracted to electronic beats. In the 90's I bought turntables and a small rotary from my first hard-earned money - just for my self with no real professional ambitions. Some friends of mine hosted small parties near Leipzig from time to time where I came more into Djing. On the side, I was also making music with my PC and Reason software. Hardware was very expensive and far far away for a young guy! The idea to launch a label and put out music for the public came when i met m.ono years later.
Can you give some back ground information on Rose Records? When did it start? who are the creative forces behind it? What is the musical policy? M.ono: Primarily we started Rose Records to release our own tracks, I think that was in the spring of 2011. Behind Rose are Eva, Martin (Hayes), Lars, Luvless and I. We are all good friends and we met here in Leipzig years ago. Martin, Luvless and I are the "producing guys", Eva and Lars are at the background doing the administrative stuff etc.
Luv: As a self-distributing label it's very nice to have a bunch of dudes around who care for the label. It would be hard as a single person I guess. We all like different genres but for the label itself it's house in all it's forms I would say. We have no specific grid the music should fit into. First of all it should warm our hearts. We never think of functional music.
What’s the plan for 2014 release-wise? Is there a particular direction either of you want to take the label in? M.ono: We will finish the Artist trilogy with Martin Hayes - Rose06. After that we have some ideas in the pipeline but nothing definite yet. I think the new Eva's Finest will hit the stores in 2014 and we are working on our first M.ono & Luvless EP. Luv: I think we'll do another various - various 04. I've almost finished my EP for Tsuba that will come in 2014. No further plans yet. Let's see what happens..
Do you have a shared studio or your own personal setups? what are your setups? M.ono: Mac, Yamaha HS80M, Ableton and a large box of samples.
Luv: Nowadays I mostly use masterkeyboards and my Mac. I sometimes use a mic to sample a clap or something but i don't think it's really necessary anymore because there's no "sound" that's not sampled already - It's just for fun. From time to time i plug in my drum machines. I have a Yamaha dx7, which is hard to program but I like the sound. Maybe i can afford a Jupiter 8 some day. I'm no professional keyboard player but i like to squeeze knobs and see the effect. That's it.
Vinyl or Digital? M.ono: Digital
Luv: Vinyl & CD
What are your current favourite records when DJing?
M.ono: Good Guy Mikesh feat. Filburt - Place of Love (MP Edit)
Luv: One is hard. I really like this one: Phuture Scope - What is House Muzik? Classic record on Emotive from 1994.
What are your top three Foto recordings tracks?
M.ono: Craig Bratley - Get Up
Andy Hart & Max Graef - Dem Young Jabronis
Ooft - Arbitrary (Piano Dub)
Luv: La Tuerie - Filter
https://soundcloud.com/aliooft/la-tuerie-filter-foto-007-lo
OOFT! - Billy
http://www.beatport.com/track/billy-original-mix/3399551
Andy Ash - Mason in my Basin
In part 2 of the interviewer becomes the interviewee and vice versa as the UK debutants M.ono & Luvless talk about.... ahead of their appearance at Saints Don't Sleep this Friday. Tickets.
When did you start making music?
I first started dabbling with cut n paste edits for DJing with around 2004 using an old version of Soundforge. It’s been a gradual process of self-education in production and studio techniques over the intervening years.
What are your biggest musical influences? First record you owned/bought?
I would say the two biggest influences are my parent’s record collection when I was growing up, and listening to Harri & Domenic every week at the Sub Club when I was in my early twenties. The music on when I was growing up was classic 80s pop such as Chris Rea, Dire Straits, Fleetwood Mac etc. So great pop/rock subliminally taught me about hooks and song structure. Subculture on a Saturday night has always been about playing great house music old & new, and one of the things I learned on the dance-floor is how simple tracks can sometimes work better than heavily produced ones, but arrangement is really the key. The first record I bought was the Michael Jackson – Bad LP. Chamone.
Tell us more about your other projects called “Prophets of the South” and “Midnight Marauders”. What was the inspiration behind them and is it just you or are other people involved?
Both of those are collaborations. Midnight Marauders is withTelford from the Sub Club, although it’s on a bit of a hiatus as he’s the manager there now as well as one of the resident DJs so he doesn’t have much free time for studio work. Prophets of the South is a newer collaboration with Esa from South Africa, so it’s more of a fusion of his African rhythms with my straighter white-man dance sound. I really like working on collaborations as you end up making completely different music than you would on your own.
What was the inspiration behind FOTO recordings?
I started Foto after the previous label (L.E.S.S. Productions) I was involved in finished up. The original idea was for it solely to be a vehicle to put out OOFT! tracks on my own terms and timetable, although I’ve ended up releasing tracks from quite a few different artists now. Looking in to next year I think I may go back to the original plan and try to step up the OOFT! output on there.
Tell us about the scene in Glasgow? What was it like growing up and what is the club scene like?
Glasgow has a fantastic underground music scene which far outweighs the population of 600,000. There are at least 5 excellent club venues, amongst countless other more middle of the road establishments. As I said previously being able to go to the Sub Club and listen to the best house records every week, on what is probably the best sound-system in the UK really shaped my sound and what I was into when I was younger. The club scene almost has too much going on which makes for very high levels of competition, but it definitely keeps everyone on their toes and we get the best guest DJs and live acts constantly passing through as a result.
3 Records/Songs that define Glasgow?
Ooh that’s a tough one. Not sure I’m qualified to answer this as the music scene is so huge and diverse. I guess to narrow it down to my own experience’s 3 defining tracks would be as follows:
Global Communication - The Way (Secret Ingredients Mix). Pretty much the definition of deep house and sounds just amazing on any dancefloor.
Midnight Star – Midas Touch. Probably the biggest of all the 80s Soul/Boogie tracks and one that many Glasgow DJs play on the regular. The soundtrack to many a great party.
Underground Resistance – Transition. Glasgow has always had strong ties with Detroit through the Rubadub record store and distribution company, so UR tracks have been big. I could have picked anything really, but Transition has that crossover appeal between house and techno which made it a bit of a classic round these parts.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Kd4AKKSn4w
How do you manage Music, business, and family life?
As best I can! At present I’m DJing and doing studio work full time so am based at home through the week. My son has just started school so he’s out through the day giving me a few hours to get work done be it DJ mixes, studio work, or running the label etc. We have a lot of family nearby so babysitting isn’t a problem thankfully!
What is your studio setup?
My studio is rather small and is in my house. The main bits of equipment are as follows: Ableton Live 9 as my DAW/Sequencer, along with a mixture of hardware and 3rd party software. Maschine supplies all the beats. Juno-106, Microkorg, and Novation KS Rack for pads n strings. Moog Minitaur for bass, plus various less regularly used bits in a rack. I just picked up a Boss Space Echo pedal so I’m looking forward to hooking it up to the above bits and seeing the results.
Where is your favourite place on earth?
Hmmm, not sure I’ve found it yet in terms of an actual destination. However there’s nothing better than coming home the day after a gig, usually with very little sleep and a large hangover and getting massive cuddles from my son and fiancée. *Soppy old guy alert*
Top 3 Rose Records tracks?
Luvless – The Better Days. What a groove! Could listen to it for days…
https://soundcloud.com/rose-records/rose05-luvless-the-better-days
M.ono – Love Pass U By. Another mid-tempo insatiable groove.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fSTGA0ognd0
Luvless – Come On Closer. Deeper but oh so good. I’ve played this one a LOT.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wqjUEXs5tbA