amazing stuff, but sometimes I see this sort of cultural imperialism that can stunt
the conversations that electronic music was creating for me years ago.
‘So you don’t want to follow the dogma of today’s dance music, which you are
comparing to religious dogma, but you’ve always done that. Deepchild music was
always about pushing the boundaries for me,’ I tell Rick, ‘yet being accessible.”
‘Yes, definitely. I have no wish to; ironically, dogmatically alienate anyone by making
“unlistenable” music. I’m really interested in having a populist conversation, which is
also the same reason that I have a deep love of contemporary R’n’B. I just did this Alicia
Keys bootleg, and you know Beyonce’s last album is dope. I’m really fascinated by what
popular music says about us and I’m interested in entering into a conversation that
isn’t se tting out to alienate people.’
So why won’t you tell us about your aliases if you want to engage in conversation?
It’s a bit contradictory isn’t it?
“It is a little bit contradictory, I guess at this stage the alias thing is a bit of an
experiment, particularly as one of them is being reasonably successful. The
experiment is also a personal one because I’m always so quick to seek validation
saying ‘This is a Deepchild track or something’ so it’s an experiment in restraint
for me. How do I feel if the music that I do is well received or people critically
acclaim it, and it’s not written by me.
At the moment that’s how this experiment is being framed because if people don’t
know it’s me, then in a sense it’s not me, so it’s a bit of an ego challenge. I want
hear my own music differently as well. What can I learn by putting out stuff then
surrendering recognition, because I really want people to know it’s me’ he says,
which leads us both to laugh at the irony of it all. “I want to hear my own music
differently because I think it might help me create new risks that my name has
been a blockage to. I’m definitely more aware when I release Deepchild stuff.”
Is it a bit like playing your friends a track that you’ve done without them knowing
it’s you?
“Exactly. I mean the other thing is people hear your music differently if they don’t
know it’s you, and that’s neither good nor bad. I had been working on some
Deepchild stuff, and I played it out and people would say,’Yeah, this is very cool’
but then when I release it as an alias they are besides themselves going ‘Wow,
this shit is amazing!!’ I do the same. I guess we’re all the same.”
Tell me about the sample libraries that you’ve done:
054 djmag.com.au
“I think I’ve done 5 or 6 in total. It’s a really interesting experiment, again talking
about these secret aliases, doing sample libraries is kind of a funny experiment
in-between in as much as, I’ve done sample loops which I’ve heard and have used
in some really popular charting artists. A couple I know they wouldn’t want me to
mention their names, but someone like Thomas Schumacher wrote to me saying
he’d been using my sample packs, so that’s cool. It’s another way of having
conversations with some artists, who I didn’t realise were using sample packs, but
it’s a funny thing, there was one artist who used the material, which is a good
thing that’s why I make them, but didn’t want to be identified when the track went
well. I was just interested and said ‘Hey this is a Deepchild sample’ and they were
like ‘No it’s not!’ and I pointed out what the sample was, which they used verbatim,
which is cool. I guess I’m in a time of flux where a lot of the things you assume will
work well in your career as an artist haven’t and sometimes that’s because your
name has been around for too long and people have expectations of what you
are going to do. In certain territories that works really well, like the U.S. I have great
bookings there. But in another context it’s like, well, Deepchild does this. People
want the novelty of the new and I can appreciate that. I’m experimenting with
new things and some of the things I didn’t think will work out have been unlikely
successes. My goal is to try and make music and be unfazed by the vagaries of the
scene. The fact is, here in Berlin in particular, the fees for headline gigs have gone
down. There are so many great DJs moving to Berlin to become Techno DJs, that
you are starting to see something that has been happening in Australia for a long
time which is 10 or 20 artists on a line up. In Australia I would play some gigs where
it would be a 45 minute set. It hasn’t gotten to the point where it’s like that here
but it’s changing and particularly with a lot of ex-pats coming here to be part of
the music scene. We’re seeing nights dominated by Australians or New Zealanders
or whatever, and getting more artists squeezed into a line up for less money. It’s
easy to moralise about that and that’s what I want to avoid. It is what it is.’
So when can we expect some new Deepchild music, is there anything in the
pipeline?
“Yeah there is some stuff in the pipeline; in about 3 weeks is the next release. It’s
a two track release on a label that I started about a month ago called Seppuku,
which I’m running with my manager, which is good so I can focus more on the
creative stuff. You can hear a preview on Soundcloud”
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