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| nidan (二段:にだん) |
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Joined: Wed Jun 18, 2008 8:36 pm
Posts: 79
Location: istanbul
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Something old, something new: the Innovator on the Transmat relaunch.
A funny thing about Derrick May interviews: for a man obsessed with the future, he finds himself spending a lot of time talking about the past. Perhaps understandably, as after his iconic Transmat label ground to an unsatisfying halt, there was little to talk about except the Belleville Three. In the past year, something changed. The self-styled superhero has decided to relaunch the label and – typically – is already talking a good fight.
Perhaps surprisingly, the credit for the inspiration behind this development goes elsewhere – to Carl Craig. May is pointed and effusive in his praise of Craig’s work ethic, citing the many projects C2 is involved in as a key reason for the relaunch.
Interestingly, May – an admittedly savvy media operator – promises that this won’t be any half-baked operation: he points out that he has enlisted the help of his original label manager and designer to help oversee the project. And although reluctant to go granular on exact release schedules and possible production projects, the details he does give suggests that the Innovator is firmly at the controls.
In terms of A+Ring the label, how is that working?
“I’m being really slow, really selective, as I don’t want to get barraged by a bunch of stuff. It’s a cause and effect thing – the more people see the first Transmat is available, which will be fairly soon, it’s going to be… overnight, we’ll be getting stuff in the post, we know it.”
Will the Greg Gow record you have been playing in your sets be among the first releases?
“That’s going to be out in a couple of days.”
Will there be any ventures into more leftfield territory – similar to Tony Drake’s ‘Textures’ album?
“Of course, definitely, 100%.”
We stayed hungry enough to keep playing the music, but not making it.
And will you be producing once again? Has the fire come back?
“You know what? It’s interesting – the fire never went away. I put the fire to the side. I felt more compelled to do other things: to help artists, to get involved with artists, cultural things. I just had energy to other things. I made music that is today becoming contemporary.
“It wasn’t that easy to do: the creative process looks easier than it actually is. It’s just that for me… I was always inspired by what I couldn’t do. I always knew I could come back to it. That might sound like some hypocritical bullshit, but I always knew I could make music any time I want. To be able to talk to journalists, to travel the world, to meet people, to do this, do that, that’s where I had my head. But now the label is up again, so the question will come up a lot.
“The first thing I am going to do is pull up a couple of old releases no-one has ever heard, and I’m going to release those. And then I’m going to see what people’s reactions are to those, and then I will go from there. Because if I get anything, it will be based on releases that never came out, so I will pick up from where I left off.”
I read something online about you working on a project with Donnacha Costello – can you tell me any more about that?
“Who told you that?! Actually, I won’t comment on that!”
Will you be looking toward the vibrant Detroit house scene for any releases on the label?
“First and foremost, I’ll be going for the unsung heroes. There’s about five or six guys who should be leading the scene – Arne Weinberg is one of them. Greg Gow is another. And there’s three or four others that I’m going to work with that I think will be prolific. And I will always pay attention to the little guy. People think that because downloads are available now, people get exposure. No. Not true. Too many downloads, over exposure, people aren’t hearing anything.
“The first thing I am going to do is pull up a couple of old releases no-one has ever heard, and I’m going to release those.
“At the moment, I’m trying to get back in touch with my Detroit brothers, to see what’s going on with them. Because outside of Omar S and Theo (Parrish) and Kenny Dixon, and a couple of young guys, the scene in the city is fragmented. But people need to know that somebody cares.”
You’ve been DJing for 25 years now – how do you retain a passion for it?
“I don’t know. I’m not bullshitting you, this isn’t an auto-pilot comment – I don’t know. I don’t want to know. I don’t want to even partially know how I do it. I just want to know that I keep doing it. The moment I figure it out, I’m probably going too deep. I never look at myself on video, or listen to my sets.
“I saw myself on Youtube once, and I freaked out. I’ve never seen myself play. My daughter, she’s five years old, she came to a festival I was playing, and she started crying. Because I do things when I’m playing – make faces, my body contorts, it’s like what happens when you drink too much, out comes this alter ego motherfucker. So it frightened her, it wasn’t her daddy. So it’s deep. And I don’t want to know that person, but I hope he can keep coming for another 25 years.”
A number of respected techno figures have re-emerged in the past 18 months. Why do you think this is?
“You know, we did so much, so young, we passed so many people, we were miles ahead of the whole world, we made a lot of money. We had women, money, houses, cars… we had the life. And we kind of got diverted by that – we got caught up in blowing smoke up our own asses.
“We stayed hungry enough to keep playing the music, but not to keep making the music. I think it’s come full circle. I think guys have lived long enough to realise that the city is dying, lots of things around us are dying, very few artists are left, there’s nobody behind us. We are like Jedi knights, samurai warriors. It’s time to fight the good fight – and there is no-one behind us, no-one coming through…maybe three or four, but there’s no generation of young guys in Detroit truly focusing in to fight the fight.”
So you will be leading from the front again?
“There is no other choice”.
Derrick May begins a short European tour next week:
Oct 16: Pod, Dublin
Oct 17: Ministry of Sound, London
Oct 22: Weekend, Berlin Oct 24: Paradiso, Amsterdam
Oct 30: Movement, Torino
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