by Polly Lavin
Who is Sascha Funke?
The aesthetic air of The Morrison Hotel is artistic a touch caused by the eye that John Rocha cast over when he designed same. We are straddled neatly on the edge of the River Liffey a river that communicates the main geographical identity of the city that U2 bleated about in “north and south of the river” and which slices the city into an almost perfectly parallel line, thus separating the differing identities (northsider/southsider) on either side. In correlation to this I meet the genteel persona that is Sascha Funke of Berlin record label B-Pitch Control. From initial impressions it is difficult to connect him with the harsh sounding landscape that is sometimes evoked from ‘Techno’. He is artistic in the way he communicates not focused, blunt or methodical which would be a personal expectation of same DJ’s. He strikes me as somewhat of an anomaly that we have yet to see the full unveiling of. The album he released in 2007 “Mango” artistically showed a producer ‘maturing’ and delivering a quality piece of compositional notation within the electronic genre yet, there is no doubt his sound is underground. As a DJ growing up in Communist East Berlin he tells me ‘There were no record shops in East Berlin that sold dance music. The only way I could access this music as a teenager was to record tapes of West Berlin radio that was being broadcast into East Berlin and cutting those tapes so I could play them in my mixes” As a producer creatively and technically he seems on par with respected B-Pitch Control founder Ellen Allien and with it’s Berlin labelling and repertoire of artists that include Funke, Allien and Mode Selektor B-Pitch is etching it’s mark as one of the most seminal electronic labels of present.
Firstly, he apologises to me being not completely ‘on form’ he has come from a gig in Lausanne in Switzerland if we were in different time zones I would think he was jet-lagged. He is effusively polite in and speaking of the first snow to hit Lausanne say’s “a lot of the crowd must have hit the slopes as the club was full but not packed”. Opinionated but not aggressively he communicates his point clearly and thinks on every question I ask popping out every other couple of minutes to smoke his soft pack ‘Parisien’ cigarettes. He informs me he has not extensively collaborated with women though he has honed an interactive ability to work equally with women producers whom he regards in high esteem as he tells me he ‘connects’ with women on a whole. He does show me he is still a man though when we discuss a recent article on topless women DJ’s from Russia he blurts enthusiastically ‘Topless Women DJ’s I don’t know them I want to meet them” and questions me about Kate Bush’s identity. I inform him Enya and Sinead O’Conner are our offerings of songstress to the world and he sinks into a melancholic haze about Enya “Enya from Orinocco Flow ? Really, she’s from here? She’s so wonderful and successful”. As the conversation ensues he leans back into the leather sofa he sits on and crosses his gangling long lean limbs as a pair of skinny jeans hug his whippet like frame further. He tells me about playing Watergate and linking the visuals to the music saying ‘The LED influences me but it’s not the main thing, the ceiling is a nice bonus that can influence the mood of the club but the DJ has to connect the sound with the club. I have seen many International DJ’s play who did not make the connection with the crowd, I mean it happens if you play another club you are not familiar with, but for me Watergate is the best club in Berlin’. He tells me this is the first time he has ever played in Ireland and that he has never played outside of London in the UK. Overall, my thinking is Sascha Funke is a quality producer who will see and hear a lot more of over 2009 and beyond. Welcome to Funke land.
Mango strikes me as a very visual piece of music that is emotive and essentially drawing the listener into a ‘landscape’. What influenced its creation?
60 – 70% of the album was made in Aix-en-Provence. It’s influenced by nature and life in the countryside. In the daytime I spent 2 –3 hrs in the studio then I went outside. You are surrounded by nature you breath/inhale the nature and the smells. The view outside my studio window was green fields, horses and vineyards
Do you feel that music artists need to disconnect themselves completely to create?
I was disconnected from the Berlin social scene. You feel alone; you can concentrate only on the music. In Berlin it’s a beautiful city, but often you have so many options it makes it quite difficult to concentrate on the music in Aix I could focus & concentrate.
The interview
There are a lot of artists based in New York, London etc that are confined to cities how do you think this affects their work?
It depends by the individual. I know some artists they have talent that they can produce tracks and know what they want to do everyday. I’ve never worked this way and I need this disconnection to wait for the right moment, the right melody, and the right idea to record. I could never go to my studios and know what I want to do before I go. It’s also different because making a single is completely different it would never be as deep and personal as an album. If you are listening to pop music (and I am a big fan of pop music) an album is always the king size version of what you express. I have big respect for the album format. That’s’ why I had to go to Aix I had to disconnect for the album. A single you can do simply in a city. It’s just for the dance-floor it’s bouncy.
When you went back to Berlin did you complete the remaining 30% of the album from the landscape & reality of city life?
I went to Aix to disconnect and in the immediate aftermath of returning I still had the vibe of Aix and was disconnected from the scene in Berlin. Back in Berlin no track was finished It was just full of ideas. I had a strong motivation to finish it and concentrated very intensely on its completion and I never went out to party when I was finishing this album.
When you are designing a sound do you think to yourself I want to create this for the home listener or for the club?
It depends. It starts not with the sound more with the mood that can come from a sound. Usually I need a basic mood to follow this and then I know after 2 – 3 hrs what direction it takes whether it is more clubby or home listening. Mango was a very free way of making music and just collecting the moods I experienced. Most of the sounds are based on samples that’s why its not really a sound I create. That’s why I take a sample, re-arrange that sample and recreate the sound.
Where did you get your samples?
From many CD’s just pop CD’s I cut a tiny piece of a pop song and then I put it into my way of making music and I re-work the sound? I sampled Kate Bush I don’t remember the song the piano on the 2nd track of the album is from a Kate Bush song. Sampling brings mood and warmth and feeling into a techno track.
You work parallel to Ellen Allien – do you collaborate in music production?
I have never collaborated with Ellen in the studio. I am a big egoist in the studio. I did something once with Chloe from Paris we exchanged unfinished tracks to complete for each other, that is about the extent of collaborations with me. I have just the computer and the mouse and I don’t think you can share physically when you are behind the computer. For ‘Mango’ I collaborated when the tracks where finished. I went to Sander VT and he did all the mastering and retouched all the tracks on the album. He brought a different element to the album’s completion.
Working with Chloe/Ellen do you feel it’s different working with a woman? Is there anything that you noticed was evidently different?
You mean comparing to working with a boy? Yes! Totally. I think this is something special and the point of view for me is I am always hanging around with Ellen so I never had this separate thing where I thought she’s a woman he’s a man. There are some clichés in the techno scene where people say ah she’s a DJ girl he’s a DJ boy. Chloe brought more sensuality to the production process basically for me its often easier to work or share time with women artists. I have a connection or a link that I cannot really explain I just feel more on par and I hang out in my private life a lot with girls. I am not sure why!
Your background would essentially have been Jeff Mills & Dave Clarke in relation to the Watergate CD is very different to Mango - do you feel your days of techno are over?
No I think this is the main difference between producing and being a DJ. When I am DJ-ing I could never play some tracks off Mango I would only play maybe one or two of them There is a strict difference between being a producer and a DJ. Also the way I am DJ-ing and the way I am producing. for the Watergate CD is different but it has to be different. It’s 2 different ways that I express my musical ability. So I separate the 2 completely.
You toured in America recently. What was the sound?
We had 8 shows 6 of the 8 shows were quite successful New York, San Francisco & Montreal were the best. Sometimes you have smaller clubs a very small crowd 150 people in a club that are completely fanatic. They know everything about you and they are very informed. Avalon in LA did not work for me due to technical glitches. Ellen went again in September and it was quite good so maybe we had just one bad night. There were sound problems. In general it’s quite hard to play with vinyl in the USA as all the DJ’s are using CD’s and all the sound-systems are set up for CD sound. Usually the DJ before us played CD’s I played vinyl initially but there was not the same volume or the same power in the sound being delivered. I think this is why it didn’t work for us. The party was good but the technical issue was the problem. New York, San Francisco the crowd was quite similar to Paris or Madrid. They are used to seeing European acts every week and they know what’s going on. In these 2 cities the curfew was at 6am and not at 3am. In the other cities, that was a problem as we always had to close at 3am the alcohol law makes everything difficult! In Berlin there is no closing time!
The secret language of Mango? What is it?
Last Summer I was often travelling with Tobias Tomas a DJ from Kompakt and Superpitcher. We were creating a new language we were joking and we thought ‘Mango’ should be a new word for something beautiful. It started firstly with girls if she was pretty we would say “she’s quite mango” and then when something was amazing or good or cool we would say “It’s Mango”. Then after I finished the album in September I met the 2 guys in Barcelona and they asked me ‘Sascha what's the name of the CD’? I said I don’t know yet so they told me I had to name it Mango, as it was the word of the year! That’s why the album is titled Mango it has nothing to do with the fruit!
Sven Vath mentioned recently that are bubbles of activity all over Germany, Berlin & Frankfurt namely, is there anywhere else that you notice quality production coming out of in Germany at the moment?
Berlin is where everything is happening to me that’s where the heart is. There is also a big hype around this scene in Frankfurt and Mannheim. Oslo records, Cecile, 8 Bit. This new house scene, all these new producers are making very good club tracks quite successfully Johnny D, Nick Curly they are already in the club positions of the DJ charts. As a DJ I think the music is very good for a set. I am also very connected with Cologne and the Kompakt family and I would say that Cologne is my 2nd heart in Germany. Kompakt is the main distributor and they hold everything together, they try to support every new label in Cologne and they try to represent the sound of the city. I also have relations to Hamburg because of Dial records, Dial records is more house then techno. The big advantage is that after the 2nd world war Germany was so federalistic you had so many cities that were growing equally to each other. So you now have a situation that there is no city that is saying it is number 1.
Tell us which artists/labels are on your playlist at the moment?
Matias Aguayo of Kompakt– Walter Neff– I play this quite often and listen to it at home. If I listen to a track at home it’s special to me. On the label side the whole scene in Amsterdam is going quite well. 100% pure are leading the way. There are always periods where one city is doing in 6 months so many nice records then it goes down then another city comes up. I don’t know why it happens or how but I never say a certain artist is the big thing. I more look for the whole label or the certain sound coming out of a city.
How do you feel about Kompakt adapting into other genres such as indie and dub etc? Do you feel it is necessary for a label to consistently think about ways it can evolve its sound or should they stick to what they become known for best?
I think that it was always their major plan to try to do something visionary. They didn’t only want to be a techno label. Wolfgang is a big fan of so many pop bands and now the pet shop boys singer and other collaborations are on the label. In Cologne there has always been a big flirt between techno and pop music more so then in Berlin. The Berlin posse was always more connected with Detroit and Chicago and the people in Cologne are more connected with the UK. For me its not a big surprise and I actually like it. It’s about innovation.
In Watergate you engage clubbers visually with the LED and with the sound. Do you think in the future we might see club promoters innovatively trying to stimulate clubbers other senses such as taste, smell & touch? No I don’t think there is any other way to engage clubbers. Imagine a smell it’s so individual you cannot find a smell for everyone as its unique – visuals and the music are the only important ingredients for clubbing.
In terms of Watergate, Berghain is there any other German clubs that deserve credit?
I like ‘Bar 25’ after-hours club. In Cologne there is also a club called ‘Total Confusion’.
Do you feel that the day of the ‘Superstar Ego DJ’ over? and electronic artists should concentrate on what their music production is?
No it’s not over we need superstars DJ’s to generate the next generation of kids. It’s very important to have these. 10 years ago it was Sven Vath in Germany, so I would say the quality of the DJ’s in the top positions is better then 10 years ago. The idols are playing better music then 10 years ago.
What city is the true ‘underground’ to you right now? What label is the true sound of the underground to you right now?
The underground why the underground I am not sure I like that word? New York because of MGMT, Vampire Weekend, TV on the Radio but from the techno side I don’t see any city. 10 – 15 years ago the music of the cities were more original and I could listen to a record and go ah this is from Detroit or Hamburg. Now it’s so equal because of the new production side with the software. There is not a regional difference.
Has clubbing gone back underground or more into festivals? Some people saying dance music is dying?
This is my individual point of view but I see more interesting techno acts on festival bills then 10 years ago and the whole rock scene opened that when they invited techno acts onto their rosters. I see a big collaboration not in every country though. If I am at Bennicassim in Spain its my favourite festival this is where you see the techno and rock crowd celebrating together, I think in the UK it’s the same.
What’s the weirdest thing ever seen on the floor?
In Berghain when their was a sex party it was a men only party but the men were getting it on, on the dancefloor. I think nothing is more funny then this.
What makes you happy about the scene?
That we found a way of sharing moments, being connected with one music. That the music can be a reason to meet for the social side.
What makes you sad about the scene?
Sometimes the drugs
http://www.bpitchcontrol.de
Photos copyright by marco dos santos
Interview/Article by courtesy of Polly Lavin
All rights reserved Polly Lavin
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