It’s been long known that in the age of digital, quantity can trump quality at every turn. Many of today’s labels of every genre continuously pump out track after track in an effort to cast the widest possible net. However, 5 years on, Oliver Huntemann and Ideal Audio co-founder Jan Langer, have never lost sight of the old ways, instead giving the public a taste of only what it deems to represent the core ethos of its brand perfectly – great techno music – with every release. Having worked with artists like Dubfire, Pan-Pot, and Marc Houle, Ideal Audio is celebrating 5 years of music with a double CD, 5ünf – Five Years Ideal Audio, along with an Ideal Audio tour, and has given Pulse Radio a special little something (this free download of High5), which you can listen to below. So we caught up with the label’s front man to chat 5 years of Ideal Audio.
Congratulations on five successful years of Ideal Audio! Looking back on the last five years, have there been any big lessons learned? Life is all about learning. I’ve set the focus more on creating an artist-based label with a small group of people instead of releasing one-off singles. I think that helped much to make the brand stronger and it supports talents better, too. Unfortunately the “music for free” mentality makes it really hard to sell music - a very bad and dangerous trend for artists and labels. Imagine you are only a musician and not able to be on stage for some reason. It’s been always hard being an artist but nowadays it’s even more difficult.
Is there anything you’ve taken away from the last five years that you’ll apply to the next five? We didn’t do many showcases and label parties during the past five years. This is definitely a point where I want to work on more particular from next year.
Would you say the label has changed or evolved much since its inception? Evolved seems to be the better description to me. We’re having a common theme for Ideal, but I´m also searching for something new, something different or something unique for each release.
How do you go about finding new music to release? Does any of it come from demos, for instance? We are listening to all demos but it´s terrifying how low the quality requirement of many producers in themselves is. But of course it’s worth to listen to all of the tracks to find this one artist who brings the fresh vibe. A good example is Rob Hes from Amsterdam, who [will release] a strong single in the beginning of 2014 on Ideal. Another way of receive new music are recommendations by other artists and friends, or getting in touch with producers personally who’ve already released somewhere else. This happened, for example, with Dubspeeka.
What would you say is the label’s main ethos? For instance, is it about quality over quantity for Ideal Audio? As you might know we are not having many releases, which has its reason. It’s all about quality for Ideal. Each release is picked very carefully and tested properly by me during my DJ sets before it gets signed.
How difficult was it to narrow down which tracks and edits to include in the second disc of the mix? The selection for CD two, “The Past,” was one of the hardest parts to finish our compilation. There were so many great tracks on Ideal the past five years. I told André Winter, who did the mix for CD two, to combine, in his opinion, the most popular songs of each artists with some of the best remixes. It took us a while to find the right balance.
And finally, how did you select which cities you would visit for the label tour? That’s easy, I gave my agent a list of my favourite clubs in the world. The rest was on him.
Oliver Huntemann presents 5ünf – Five Years Ideal Audio compilation is out now on Ideal Audio.
Ideal Audio tour dates:
SATURDAY, 21.12.13 - Kaballah Festival, Sao Paulo, Brazil
TUESDAY, 31.12.13 - Petrol Club, Antwerp, Belgium
SATURDAY, 01.02.14 - Cinema Hall, Budapest, Hungary
FRIDAY, 07.02.14 - Watergate, Berlin, Germany