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You’ve been quite quiet on the production front recently. I gather you were building a new studio. Have you been working on new material?
“Studio is still not finished but IFM is keeping me busy although I tweak some sounds every now and than. I do not feel the desire – yet – to lay down a new production and I’m not going to do it for the sake of it, otherwise I would have done a 100 minimal records already. Making music nowadays is really easy if you have zombies as an audience.”
You’re a big fan of violentas, giallos, 70s cop movies of all shapes and stripes – and that informs the aesthetics of many of your label and artist ventures. Did you watch that stuff when you were a kid, or did it come later to you? What drew you to those films?
“Music and sounds have always been an important factor for me. I remember always being sent to bed as a kid when the good stuff came on TV – i.e. violent movies and police series. But I was always lurking from the corner of the hallway into the room where the TV was and watching them anyway. It was so exciting: those TV cops chasing TV bad guys with great music, fat cars and guns blazing. It was a major influence for my music. I love the tension and build-ups you often only find in soundtracks.
“Italian violenta from the 70s are a fetish for me, and Henry Silva is my all-time favorite hitman. He can wack me any day, it’d be an honour.
“There’s no other genre which is so raw and direct but if you ask me for my favourite director, that’s gotta be Jean-Pierre Melville. Le Samourai, Le Cercle Rouge, Un Flic – I think you’ll never see such masterpieces again.”
It’s currently possible to listen to IFM on mobile internet, right? Do you agree that mobile technology will make internet radio stations even more vital and popular?
“It would be like that already if it wasn’t for politics from mobile providers and the lack of normalization of phone application – each brand has its own OS, apps, etc. As long if it’s not a one push of a button thing it remains in the margin.
“But in the future I foresee car stereos with internet streaming possibilities and an expansion of the mobile internet network. I can listen IFM on my phone via the low bit-rate stream driving from The Hague to, let’s say, Eindhoven – but still not via the 128k main stream we offer. Still, it’s better than nothing.”
You DJ digitally these days, right? Do you still buy vinyl? Do you still have any strong feelings for, or attachment to, vinyl?
“I actually play with both CDs and vinyl most of the time. CDs give me the chance to play stuff no one else has, like unreleased material and edits, and on top of that I like to travel light and never want to worry again at an airport waiting for my records. This is bad for my heart.
“Most of the time records do sound better on the floor though. The problem with playing vinyl is that most clubs nowadays hardly accommodate it. There are always turntables but too often with broken needles or a defect channel and whatnot. That really sucks. “The format on which the music is being released or played is totally unimportant in the end. I’ve seen too many collectors not being able to just enjoy music anymore because it’s on the wrong label or the wrong format or not rare enough. This is madness and unreasonable. Those people need treatment.
“Music should be always #1 and then comes format and all the other blah blah…Fair deal if you like a track and refuse to pay for an mp3 or CD and really want it on vinyl. Nothing wrong with that.”
You’ve spoken before about playing a record on the radio being more satisfying than putting out a record on vinyl. Can you elaborate?
“That was maybe a bit ‘short through the corner’ as we say in the Netherlands. It’s just a different sensation.”
“Radio just has more possibilities than releasing records. I can play a lot more stuff I’d like you to hear on the radio in one hour than I can release on vinyl in a year. That’s all there is to it; it’s not that I don’t like to release records.”
Trilby Foxx
