Slovenia’s techno titans keeping the frequency right…
Two of Techno’s undisputed superstars Umek & Beltek return to Toolroom Records with undoubtedly one of the most eagerly anticipated artist albums of 2011, ‘Out Of Play’. This dynamic duo has quite literally devastated dancefloors this year with their pounding productions cleaning up the download charts on countless occasions. Umek has cemented his status as a Toolroom favourite, with his acclaimed ‘Toolroom Knights’ compilation and a forward thinking DJ set at TK5, two huge highlights in this hero’s illustrious career. Meanwhile, Beltek has continued his rise to stardom with twisting, floor charging productions weaving their way through hurricane paced sets that have earned him number 1 selling releases and accolades from DJ’s, peers and fans alike. With this prestigious production partnership locking themselves away in the studio, the creation of 10 essential dancefloor masterpieces was the obvious outcome. Dan Prince speaks to Umek, a man with a remarkable story that quite simply illustrates that if the passion is there, you will go to any lengths to chase your dream…
Umek, welcome to the DMC World. Tell us about the importance of the K4 club in Ljubljana for you. It was obviously a playground for Slovenia’s creative heads testing out productions and sounds – what important names have come out of that club?
”K4 really played an important role in my early career. I did some of my baby steps in there. At first I had to sneak in, as I was so young at the time that my mum didn’t let me go out clubbing in the middle of the night. But at the time K4 was the only place that I could get in touch with electronic music and I still remember DJ Aldo, MC Brane and Primož Pečovnik hosting Cool Nights residency. K4 is still considered an underground club, but in the early 90s it was really underground: it was designed in very rough manner, full of pipes and steel, and it was a notorious place as this was not only the meeting point of alternative musicians and artists ran buy Students Union, but also the first club that openly hosted gay nights – and this was almost 20 years ago where most of the people ins Slovenia didn’t feel comfortable even talking about homosexuality. I remember going there for the first time. I still have an impression of EBM crowd, mostly “darkers”, that danced in a very weird manner. K4 was a nest of alternative scene. Borghesia and in a way also Laibach came out of that club, and the first wave of Slovene electronic projects such as Random Logic, Ana Lies, Clock, Cell Block … Later it was (and to some point still is) a club where you could get in touch with the latest trends and new genres in the alternative electronic music scene, from Berlin techno and deep house to UK breakbeats, drum & bass and dubstep to mash-up, gipsy beats, world and reggae music, hard techno and everything else.”
How did you develop a love of dance music in the first place? What were your avenues to listening to the music you loved?
“I’ve had a taste for electronic sounds from a quite early age. It started with synth-pop music from Falco, Eurythmics and similar bands of the 80s that I listened to on my first double cassette player as a kid. But once I discovered a world of proper dance, house and techno music, I was sucked right in. One of the first big tracks that I remember really got to me was a Todd Terry’s ‘Can You Feel It’. But the crucial point for me was when I discovered the German rave scene and music from those parties. I came under some kind of spell and at some point my whole life started to evolve around music. Getting in touch with this kind of sound wasn’t really easy in the early 90s, as it was not played on the radio. There was a show called Cool Night on Radio Student where the guys played everything that bared at least some trace of electronica. Another way to hear some more commercial hits from German, UK and USA charts was the weekly Slovenian Discotheque Chart show on public radio station Radio Slovenia – Val 202, where they actually played a lot of DMC mixes at the time and those guys were also involved in organizing official DMC DJ competitions in the early 90s in Slovenia. But our best source of fresh music was pirate cassettes. At that time there were no decent record shop in the whole of Slovenia, copyright legislature was non-existing or at least not in-sync with the real life, so you could buy pirate cassettes on stalls in the middle of Ljubljana. And they actually had a really good and up to date selection of all music genres so the whole generation was musically raised on pirate music. In our case that was a good thing, at least for some time and to some point. Another way to get in touch with some fresh music was through basketball. I trained basketball for eight years and now or then we also played some games in Italy. This was a good chance for me to visit some small music shops and buy tapes or CDs. Later even my sport colleagues from the other side of the border brought me some cassettes with the mixes from Italian DJs such as DJ Moka, Stefano Noferini and Digital Boy that were really good and popular. At that time Italy already had a really strong club and EDM based radio scene.”
How did you develop your skill of three-deck DJing in a country where most clubs only possessed cassette and CD players?
When I first came properly in touch with DJing most of the guys didn’t use vinyl and they didn’t actually mix tracks but just played them. At the end of the 80s, beginning of the 90s vinyl still was a very popular media, but then at one point everyone shifted to tapes and CDs. But I got a chance to play in a club called Palma (it’s a place situated under the Tivoli sports hall in Ljubljana, where the first beat/rock club opened already in the 60s as Stopoteka and it still operates as an EDM oriented F club) where they had couple of turntables and a mixer. One evening I turned them on and tried to mix two records and it just happened. It seems I really have an ear for rhythm and pace as I’ve made it without any theoretical knowledge of mixing in my first try. I had a feeling that the best time to introduce a new record was after the break of the previous one. With techno records, at least the kind we played at the time, based mostly on repetitive beats and loops, you don’t really need to do it in the mix time as when playing more commercial dance music. We didn’t need mix time, we didn’t have to play the whole record, we could only play half a minute or a minute of a track and it worked. And that was pioneering in our work opposed to the discotheque deejays that played the whole tunes and just mix the end with the beginning of the next record. Latter, when I bought my own pair of decks, I borrowed another one and learned how to mix on three. And even a bit later I played on four but that was already a bit harder as it’s really hard to control three records simultaneously in all that mess of sounds. With that I came to the point where I realised I can not go any further by adding additional decks, so I shifted onto the digital platform, where I can do much more by combining classic mixing with some tricks that I learned as a producer.”
How much were you getting paid for your early gigs?
”For the first or even two years, I didn’t get paid for playing records. The only one that really took care of us young DJs was Aldo in K4 that always got us some money. It wasn’t much but I could warm up for him two or three times for an hour a month and for that I got enough money to buy a new CD compilation. At that time, this was a nice way to give a young DJ some chance to work and build his small music collection at the same time.”
Tell us about the weekly pilgrimage to Germany to buy your tunes and also attend massive events …
“As I’ve already revealed above, we didn’t have any decent record shops in Slovenia when I started DJing and the nearest ones were in Vienna and Munich, almost 500 kilometers away. So if we wanted to buy some new techno on vinyl, we had to go there by a shopping bus that took us on that long ride over the whole night (and that was in the time we still rode that uncomfortable smelly buses, without proper air condition and on some very bad roads) and we were able to buy only couple of records each time as we didn’t have much money. Beside that we didn’t know much about new releases and trends, so once we got to Germany we usually bought a Raveline magazine and tried to get some useful information out of it though we didn’t speak or understand German. There were a couple of good record shops for DJs in Munich at that time and I still remember Tom Novy was working at one of those we frequented. Munich was also where I experienced my first rave. I was 17 years old and without a driver’s license (which I still don’t have) but luckily my girlfriend was a year older. Our knowledge of rave music at the time was very poor, limited to occasional CD or pirate tape cassette that we got hold of. And so, one day, we decided to go to a rave in Munich. We invited a couple of our friends along and drove to this party called Technomania. We got to these industry halls in the afternoon at about 6 pm and totally over-burnt even before the party really started, as we were so overwhelmed with the whole scenery. We’ve never seen anything like that before. There must have been some 15.000 people and dozen of stages with different styles of electronic dance music. That was a huge shock. At that time the best thing we’d ever experienced in Slovenia was one big club DC3-Dakota with more commercial oriented sound, and even that was very vanguard for Slovenian at the time. At about 9 pm I was so exhausted from dancing that I took two hours break and slept a bit in the chill out area so I could party some more later in the night. We were there and we really enjoyed the whole thing and my friends didn’t event know any of the acts. But I recognized Westbam and DJ Hell and it meant so much to me.”
Who were the DJs you were giving props to back then?
“Carl Cox was definitely the one who instantly got my attention with his unbelievably energetic sets. You could literarily feel the energy flowing between him and the mass on the dance floor as he had and still has an amazing feel to control and move the whole party with his music. I can’t really describe it. It’s just what he still does and people like it. Even a bit before I was a huge fan of Westbam, the guy behind the legendary Mayday and Berlin Love Parade who was an amazing DJ and producer. At that time I liked everything he released. Anthems such as ‘Hold Me Back’ and ‘The Roof Is On Fire’ sounded so good at that time. He was a really skillful DJ, a proper turntablist, scratcher (if I’m not mistaken also a DMC mix championships finalist), which was not so common on the early rave scene. Jeff Mills was another amazing DJ at that time. He brought a totally new sound and style of DJing to Europe. I still remember his long fingers mixing records and twiddling knobs on the mixer. He cut tracks and mixed records in a totally different manner. He was a totally different school.”
You started to put on your own events – your first event in a fireman’s hall in Ljubljana only attracted 100 people and there was no money to pay the cleaning lady the next morning – did you clean up?
“Sure. Myself, my two partners in crime and we also called in some friends to help us. After the party we checked the cashier’s box and as we figured out quite quickly that we can’t afford to pay the cleaning lady so we decided to do it on out own. First we went to McDonald’s for some food and than we cleaned and scrubbed that hall for the whole day. There are some pictures of us standing in the big waste bins getting that mess cleaned. Remember that we did this after a whole day of preparations for the party, deprived of sleep, so at the end of the day we were so tired we could not even think straight any more. That was our first rave party so the memories are nice, though it was not a successful start of my event-managing career. But we learnt our lesson and we did hundreds of great parties and festivals after that.”
What was your first break career wise outside of your home country?
“In my case that’s hard to pin to one particular release or a gig. I made a plan to become a big global DJ in my teen years, right at the start of my career and I dedicated my life to achieve that, but I’ve built the career steadily, everything happened very organic, step by step, without suddenly breaking through. One big challenge in the early days was to gain some international bookings. I’ve hade already some dozen releases on really good techno labels out but I was still playing only in ex-Yugoslavia territories. At some point, let’s say around that time, when I released ‘Lanicor’, ‘Gatex’ and ‘Mumps’ on Tortured Records, I finally started to gain more bookings from abroad and once I started playing Europe regularly, the rest of the world soon followed.”
What did your parents think of your choice of career – were they into music in anyway?
“No, I’m not from a musical family but there was always music present in our home. If nothing else I played cassettes on my little stereo all of the time. Sure, when I dropped high school and basketball, my mother was far from being happy about it. I totally understand that as she was afraid for my future wellbeing. But once she saw I was really focused and determined to succeed, she supported me. Years later she told me that it was the right decision not to listen to her and to follow my dream as otherwise I would now not be a really happy and personally fulfilled person.”
At what point did your realize all of the hard work had been worth it, and yes, you had a career in music?
“I believe that was when Regis called me with the proposition to release one of the demos I sent him on the little label ZET Records. That was my first proper release outside Slovenia, so I was really happy. I remember I was literally jumping up and down in my studio for a couple of minutes. It felt like standing on the top of the world, though this was just the beginning of my long journey.”
Why did you set up your own label 1605 Music Therapy and what do you think has been your finest release out of the 500+ tunes so far?
“The 1605 label is just a part of the wider 1605 Music Therapy which is a unique, informal networking platform that connects established artists with young talents (not just musicians). It includes big festivals and club events, my global Behind The Iron Curtain radio show, charity and social awareness campaigns, creative challenges, exhibitions of visual arts and some other things. 2006 and 2007 marked a very important time in my career. I abandoned the analogue world on account of the digital one as a DJ and a producer. I parted with Valentino creatively and professionally, I refreshed my sound and thought a lot about how to face challenges of the new rules in EDM business and the whole music scene. The launch of 1605 marked the beginning of a new chapter in my life and career. And now I can proudly say that this is the best label I’ve created so far and the most personal of all my labels: I’m the only owner, I have a total artistic control and after all I named it after my date of birth. In just a couple of years we’ve build a strong group of artists around it so it’s already recognized as a label with it’s own identity and a niche sound. The main focus is on releasing good music regardless of names and status of the artists behind the production. If it’s good we play and release it, if it’s not, we don’t. Is just as simple as that. And that’s why we’re known as a label with special focus on young talents, especially the ones from my home region and wider Eastern Bloc, though we collaborate with artists from all over the world. In any case, it’s really fun to run the label that is supported by a strong team of professionals from all fields of creative businesses and a strong promotional network. That allows us to develop our own music story, promote fresh artists and take our own approach to development of the global techno culture. And you asked me to pick my favorite tune. That’s one of the questions that I don’t like as I’m not looking back that much, I’m more focused on my tracks in development and future projects. I just did an interview on a Halloween theme a couple of days ago and they asked me which of my tune would fit best in a horror movie. I’ve actually remembered I did a really weird, spooky track called ‘Catapresan ‘ sometime in the late 90s. And when I played it I was so surprised about it’s sound what I managed to create with the synths I was using then. What I want to say is that amid this 500+ and more than 100 hours of unreleased music I have done in the past, it’s hard to remember how each single track sounds like. So sometimes, when I actually listen to my older productions, it feels like listening to someone else’s music. And then I’m trying to figure out who that artist was, how did he think, felt, produced music as I’ve lost a lot of that along the way. DJ Umek, from the time when I started producing music and today are definitely not the same person anymore and I am not able to get into the head of the young Umek. Which is a bit sad, as I was kind of a clean slate when I started. I learnt producing music with limited tools, resources and knowledge, and if I listen to those tracks now, they sound so poorly produced, but at the same time it was that primal, rough sound with all the mistakes in it that made my name.”
How important a figure is Carl Cox to you: you have enjoyed many sets at his club night at Space in Ibiza playing alongside the master – what do you see has his greatest talents?
“I’m not sure if the word ‘talent’ means the same in English as in Slovenian. We use it more in a meaning that a young artist at the beginning of his career has a lot of potential to achieve something. Carl is definitely a very talented artist and he has proved his talents in the last 30 years many times. So I’d rather say what he’s doing is not showing his talents but setting standard for the rest of us. He’s one of the best EDM artists in the world, he’s an amazing DJ. He was one of the pioneers but what I enjoy the most is seeing him play and mix records. It’s amazing how much he enjoys this after all these years on the scene and after so many great parties he did. His motivation, dedication and love of music, the crowd and supporting artists are just amazing. I have worked with many artists all around the world, with some of the most popular as well as must skillful on the scene. But Carl Cox stands out by far.”
What has been the proudest moment of your career to date?
“That’s a similar question to that of the defining moment of my career. I don’t believe there’s one specific thing in my career that I should point out. The thing of which I’m really proud is the pace and longevity of my career. I’m glad I am where I am right now. I’ve been on the scene for almost 20 years now. Imagine how many working hours that is. Especially to be now part of a top range of artists on the global scene as a guy from a small post-communist country like Slovenia. It’s hard to compete with the German, British, French, Dutch and Americans…artists that have hundreds of thousands of followers in their home cities alone – there’s only two millions of Slovenes and most of them are not even fond of electronic music. It’s a challenge and struggle but I’m still following the pace of the global scene as one of the leading techno artists.”
How important to the DJ community is the DJ Mag Top 100 poll – do DJs really take it that seriously any more – you always hit the big hundred…
“This year I’m in the big 60. I don’t know. We think a lot about this every year in my office. It definitely shows some popularity of DJs involved as it’s the greatest global DJ popularity voting poll, though it can’t be seen as an objective measure especially not a single one of the quality of one’s work and his career. I can explain it by my own example. My highest ranking was 22nd place couple of years ago. I’ve been among the top 50 in the last couple of years, steadily falling and this year I’ve landed at No. 60. But if you take in account the releases, gigs and every other statistics it’s more than obvious that my career is on the rise and I’ve never done better in my life artistically and business wise than in the last three years. I’m fully booked and what’s more important the gigs I’m booked for are the best and the biggest, I’m playing at the greatest festivals and clubs all around the world, my releases and remixes are doing great, my radio show Behind the Iron Curtain attracts a lot of attention, the 1605 label is a respected label on the techno / tech-house scene, the demand for me from the media is also bigger than ever…so I can’t complain. I don’t believe that this list shows everything but at the same time I can’t question its credibility as so many people voted for me to stay on it. Those are very passionate supporters and every single one of them is important to me.”
What are the 10 big tunes you are spinning right now?
“This is mine and Beltek’s current Top 10…”
01. Umek & Beltek: “Out of Play” (original club mix) (Toolroom Records)
02. Ant Brooks: “Starlight” (original mix) (1605)
03. Umek & Beltek: “Firewalk” (original club mix) (Toolroom Records)
04. John Acquaviva & Dan Diamond: “Good Music” (Stefano Noferini rmx) (Definitive)
05. Umek & Beltek: “Pitchcraft” (original club mix) (Toolroom Records)
06. Tom Middleton: “Jungle Drums” (Sinisa Tamamovic mix) (Yoshitoshi Recordings)
07. Hardwell: “Smoke” (original club mix) (Toolroom Records)
08. Beltek: “Kalten” (original mix) (1605)
09. Slam: “Black Arts” (original mix) (Paragraph)
10. Daniel Portman: “Tremulator” (original mix) (Unreleased Digital)
What has been your summer anthem?
“One track I’ve played a lot this year, not only trough the summer, was WhiteNoize’s ‘The Underground (TJR remix). I just can’t get enough of this one, though I’m buying gigabytes of music every week, not to mention all the promos I get.”
What has been the best show of 2011 – TK5 in London was rocking!
“TK5 at The Brixton Academy was definitely one I enjoyed the most this year. It was an amazing party. I especially liked it as I had a chance to perform in a company of DJs such as Mark Knight, Fedde Le Grand and Funkagenda that are rarely on the same programme with me. I’m only occasionally included in programmes with predominantly house artists but I like it. After all I have an extensive collection of house music and I was among the pioneers of house scene in Slovenia. In any case I take that kind of gigs very seriously and try to present a bit of a different story. I like challenges like this one. I was thinking a lot of how the crowd was not my typical audience. A Toolroom audience is a bit more progressivee and commercially oriented and I wondered how they would respond to my music so I put a lot of preparation into it. And it worked!”
When did you and Beltek first meet and why did you start to hit the studio together?
“Interesting question…I don’t really know when we actually got in contact for the first time. I know he was coming to my parties for years and earned his techno stripes on the dancefloor. One of the ways I get curious about a young artist is that I start hearing his name from the people around me. And at some point at least ten people mentioned Beltek’s name to me in a very short time and I had to check him out. I immediately noticed the quality of ideas and the sound of his tracks and I felt I had to support him – literately pointing a finger and telling people they should listen to his music. I enjoy collaborating with fresh artists which many colleagues on my level avoid doing on account of working with “equal” or “bigger” producers. But some young artists that stand out really deserve to get some help and exposure this way. Well, Beltek and I, we got together, did some studio sessions, enjoyed it, talked about the music, laughed a lot, become friends and we have already finished many tracks together. Starting with the ‘Army of Two’ – a successful tune that was released on Armin’s Armada.”
What are each other’s best attributes that you bring to the mix – who does what and who is good at what?
“Beltek has an amazing touch for melodies, so obviously I let him take the initiative at that. We both contribute to arrangements, but I’m still taking the lead at mixing. A very important thing is that we do it whilst being together in the studio. Usually one of us is working on a computer and the other follows the process from the sofa. But in any case we do everything together and along the way we test and discuss the ideas. We listen to each other and make compromises and that’s why our joint output sounds differently as he or I would do it on our own. I like it and I enjoy it. In any case he’s much stronger in creating the melodies, which was never my strongest point. But he has the touch and all the knowledge to do it, as he has some classic music education.”
A massive new album out Umek & Beltek ‘Out Of Play’ on Toolroom Records – talk us through the album, how long did it take to create, what are the highlights on there for us all …
“The album was produced at the beginning of this year. Our plan was to create a track or two but once we hit the studio we were sucked right in and in no time we had done five tracks. That’s when we decided to create the full-length album and it took us some 50 working days in January, February and March to do it. Only then did we start to look for a label and as I had some really good releases on Toolroom last year and we’ve already talked to do an album for them, we decided to get together on this project. The album is roughly composed in three parts: a couple of more techno oriented tracks, some tech-house and several more progressive productions, though it’s hard to put any of these tracks into just one genre. Nothing sounds really typically techno, tech-house or progressive. Our basic aim was to combine a clean techno sound with some melodic elements and we didn’t really know where this would take us.”
What other producers around the world are doing it for you right now?
“Italian DJ and producer Stefano Noferini is releasing hit after hit. He’s a legend of Italian electronic music, I remember listening to his show on Radio Italia Network back in the days. At that time he played and produced much different music than he does now. That makes him even more interesting for me as he did an amazing comeback in the last couple of years. I play a lot of his stuff and we are also working on our second collaboration right now. Another one is Olivier Giacomotto. I play just everything he does, which is really rare thing for me. I should mention yet another Italian, a “funk master” from Naples, Uto Karem. We’ve just finished out first collaboration and I hope you’ll like it. I like his tech house fusion that sound very different to most of the track pigeonholed to this genre. That’s actually common to all of these producers: they produce music that fits perfectly into current trends but sound quite special at the same time. They’re a bit more tech than house and that’s what I like, techno with a lot of house elements but not quite the sound that everybody else does right now. Oh, and I should probably mention at least some of the 1605 artists, too. Christian Cambas, Phunk Investigation, Pleasurekraft and Beltek definitely have their fingerprint sound and they have been successfully developing it for some time now.”
What has been the finest record you have ever played to a dance floor?
“I have got no idea what to answer to this as when I think of one record my mind has already wandered away to the next ten. I buy and get at least some three to four gigabytes of mp3 each week (and that’s after I filter all the junk), so you can imagine why it’s so hard for me to answer your question. There’s just too much good music. Right now I could name at least 20 amazing tracks released only in the latest couple weeks.”
What are the plans for 2012 as a due / and your own productions …?
“The most important thing we’ve been working on for the last year or so is putting together the 1605 live show. We’d like to introduce not only a technically amazing show but also some really good creative content, a unique story if you want. We are still working on some special ideas but we plan to premiere this show in the early 2012. And sure, expect a lot of good music from me. The last couple of weeks I’ve spent mostly on planes as I’m touring extensively all the time, so my computer is full of new sketches and ideas that I have to develop into tracks. In the next couple of months I’ll be also doing some really interesting collaborations. Right now I really enjoy exchanging creative energy with other artists, so expect some really interesting music coming out in the 2012 from my studio.”
‘Out Of Play’ is out now on Toolroom Records
‘Out of Play’ album tracklisting…
1. Rasta Voice
2. Out Of Play
3. Firewalk
4. Casino Bounce
5. Pitchcraft
6. Keep The Frequency
7. Touch After
8. Charley Chopper
9. Disco Mile
10. Let The Bass Kick
11. DJ Mix (BUNDLE ONLY)
