Brightest Young Things

Interview with Insideout February 25, 2010 by Zoe Nightingale

Grant Aaron is Insideout, dj since '97 and master of an after-hours sound that has taken him around the world and back.  He's recently returned from Berlin to New York and ahead of his performance tonight at the 411 Loft with Stranger Than Paradise's NavboX & Rosario, I got the opportunity to Skype him and ask about his roots, production habits and some of the sounds he's diggin right now!

Z: I’m excited for your show tomorrow, this should be a lot of fun! Start by telling me how you got into this, how did you find this to be your passion?

ISO: When I first started going to parties, that kind of thing, and it happens in ‘94 I think, it’s the same story for a lot of people, I was sort of dragged to this rave …

Z: What were you wearing?

ISO: [chuckles] well, you know, I never really pushed the whole baggy thing Z: no glow sticks, nothing?

ISO: No, no, no, I was like a punk skater kid in high school, so I kind of kept that thing going on for the whole time I was into the rave scene. I got dragged to this rave where Rich [Richie Hawtin] and Josh Wink were playing in this barn, and it kind of changed my life, and so, it was a couple years after that when I was hitting up friends of mine who’d been dj’ing for a while and ... I had good people telling me what was up in the beginning, they were just like ‘if you want to be successful at this, the most important thing to do is to know the music you are playing.’ And so, I just started buying records, and I was really into, at that time, coming from more of a punk no wave background, I was really into more deeper or experimental music. And so I really followed those trends for a long time, I’ve actually been on that kick forever. And my label [Clink Recordings] puts out more minimal sounding stuff and it’s sort of progressed into more deep techno these days, but it’s always kind of been on that vibe. I’ve always really connected with that sound.

Z: What direction do you see your label and techno music in itself going right now, because it’s been in this weird state, where it’s sort of moving towards dancey soulful, where do you want it or see it going?

ISO: It’s in a good state. I’ve always been connected to soulful music but if we’re talking about where I see trends going, this whole minimal thing that blew up five years ago, it’s definitely coming to an end, coming to an end in a sense of, a lot of the same kind of sounds, the same kind of production techniques have been regurgitated over and over again. This kind of bleepy kind of thing that’s been going on, I think people are pretty much over it. And that’s fine for me, my label did a lot of that kind of stuff and I think with people who have been involved with my label like Camea and Tim Xavier and Alexi [Delano] and some other people, we were always pushing something that had a lot of history to it. Tim came from a hard techno background, Alexi Delano has rich history, in everything from Swedish techno to house music and he was always bringing that fore. Camea, she wasn’t making music when we first started the label, but she designed her sound around a lot of these elements and created something that’s of her own, and I’ve been making music for a long time and I come from an ambient background, what I first started doing. And so that’s really been recognizable in the stuff that I do. It’s more atmospheric stuff. This last year, if you were in Berlin over the summer, you probably got a whiff of that, of how things are changing, this tech-house thing has been going kind of crazier, what I like to call ‘throw-back house’, like is said, regurgitated things that have been happening. I think people are smarter than that, and they’re seeing how the roots of where a lot of this music came from, that’s sort of where the real good stuff is, the stuff that inspires people… You can have a million plug-ins and a million different ways to do things in the studio, but the core elements of what makes techno or dance music good hasn’t really changed over the last twenty years, or longer. I think what I see happening is, especially in the States, just from some of the shows I’ve been playing in the States over the last year, is the stuff that I’m playing, the sounds that I’ve been doing, have really been going over well. And it was an experiment for me, because last year, the year before that, I was always playing more minimal kind of stuff. And now I’m playing kind of more hollow, techno sound. And it seems to have a much more of an impact, which tells me that people are starting to pick up on it. Just to name some artists, I play a lot of Sandwell District stuff, a lot of Ben Klock sounding stuff, Marcel Dettmann, the Cio D’Or stuff that’s coming out on Perlon… There’s a couple new labels that are super underground, that have surfaced over the last year, year and a half. It’s these artists who remain anonymous kind of stuff, really super deep techno.

Z: So tell me a little bit about your creative process, do you hear sounds on the subway, do you go home and recreate them, do you pick up pieces from records, or tell me a little about that…

ISO: A little bit of all of that actually! When I work on original material, a lot of times, I have these really quick moments of inspiration, and this happened to me a lot over the last year when I was in Berlin. A lot of the tracks I worked on when I was there, I would be at Club Divisionnaire and something would just pop into my head. It’d be a rhythm or it’d be a sound or maybe something I heard coming out of the speakers or something that my mind twisted into something different, and I immediately had to go! I was like, I’ll see you guys later, vamoose! I’d just split and go right into my studio and work for eight hours, nine hours, and work the idea out.

Z: So when you get home from playing a really long set, been in Berghain or Panorama Bar for 17 hours, what sound would you put on?

ISO: First off, it would depend if I had people with me… If I’ve been at Panorama Bar for 18 hours, usually I can’t go right to sleep anyway because that place is the vortex and there’s no just escaping that… some people will go right to sleep, I’ve never been that guy, I have to rock myself to sleep. What usually does it for me, is ambient stuff, I really like Moritz von Oswald., that kind of really expansive, spatial sounding techno stuff, or the really dubby Burial Mix kind of stuff, Chain Reaction things, this is stuff that puts me to sleep. Really dubby techno, love it! I used to play that stuff out a lot, and I have a vast collection of it, but now for me it’s more home listening music.

Z: The shows, traveling and long hours, they take a toll on your body, I don’t know how you guys do it…

ISO: The shows, one thing that I’m really encouraged about, one of the reasons I came back to New York, is I did two tours in the States last year, small things, just a few weeks at a time, but the shows were really fascinating for me. Because I’ve played in the states a lot over the years and it got really dull for a while, and last year, I had some sort of renewed spirit about the States. I played shows all over in Detroit, Chicago, Texas and just all over, a lot of places I hadn’t played before and they were all great, super intimate gathering, with people who were really into the music. The vibe was nice and thick, everybody was smiling. When you play really big shows in Europe, or play big parties in Italy or places for 3,000 people and you find that it can be really amazing, but at the same time it can also be really difficult to connect, and that’s why I prefer the intimate setting, a Loft party or a basement party.

Z: What advice do you give to aspiring DJs keep going when it’s really hard?

ISO: Well, I’ve been doing this for a really long time, and ... I just have enough shows now where it pays for itself. I know how difficult it can be, but one thing that I’ve noticed with people especially bedroom DJs or DJs who are first starting out or finding their own place in their own communities or their own scenes, especially in New York, one of the things that happens here in NY, is you have 20 DJs all playing the same records. I think if you want to stand out from this, which, by doing that there’s a natural progression that happens, find your place, find your sound. This is something that I’ve worked so hard on in the beginning, was really getting to know the music and the producers who were making the music and finding those little things that really appealed to me the most. We all have our connections to different kinds of music and you may love jazz or you may love symphony or whatever it is, if that’s what you like, you can find elements of that kind of music in techno. So maybe approach it from that form of viewpoint. Some people get the top ten off of Beatport and they think that’s what they should be playing, right, well, I don’t believe in that at all.

Z: If you weren’t a DJ what would you have done…

ISO: Would’ve been a producer for sure!

Z: Five pieces of music, techno or otherwise, that people should check out!

ISO: Albums that I’m loving right now, been out for a couple months, there’s a band from Brooklyn, called A Place To Bury Strangers, they’re kind of like this no wave, surf rock kind of thing, absolutely amazing, phenomenal stuff. There’s a band from somewhere in Germany, they’re called Bohren Und Der Club of Gore. They used to be a speed metal band, like 160-bpms or 180-bpm metal… totally terrifying. So one day, they’re all classically trained musicians, and they decided they’re gonna stop with the speed metal shit and start playing at like 30-bpm, big change! So they put this album and it’s kind of dark, jazzy, kind of smokey-sounding stuff, super slow. It just totally destroys me but I love it, I highly encourage people to check it out. There’s a new EP coming out, Bruno [Pronsato]’s new EP on thesongsays, it’s called Lover’s Due, it’s phenomenal, I have to give the man props. If you’re familiar with his last record, which was The Make Up, The Break Up album, this takes that in a totally different direction. I listen to it and I feel like I’m sitting in a smokey jazz club somewhere really strange, but it’s really beautiful. And he has another project called Public Lover too, which is with his girlfriend [Ninca Leece] and that stuff is about to come out, so people can check that out. PUBLIC LOVER SOUND CLOUD PLUGIN FOR WORDPRESS: [soundcloud url="http://soundcloud.com/r_co/public-lover-aka-bruno-pronsato-ninca-leece-live-the-golden-squirrel-france-february-2010" params="show_comments=true&auto_play=false&color=164eaa" width="100%" height="81" ]

There’s a guy named Kurt Vile that I’ve been loving too, and as you see I listen to more rock-based music. The new Kurt Vile is amazing. I don’t know a lot of stuff about the dubstep sound that’s been pushed around now, or has been developing for the last several years, if anybody hasn’t checked out Shackleton, they need to get up on that now! He’s dubstep sounding, but he’s much more. His album came out on Perlon, so you can imagine where that’s coming from. It’s got a lot of the Perlon aesthetic, the Perlon vibe. It’s on that kind of Perlon, reduced, heady vibe, but it’s magic, it’s got really intricate rhythms, it’s nothing like anything I’ve ever heard before. They played here last week and I had a gig in New York Friday and we went to see them before the party and I felt like it was 1995 again, being at a jungle party, that kind of vibe, but way headier, way up in the clouds, absolutely amazing!