Melbourne Techno Collective

We at the Techno Collective stumbled across this little gem the other day and just thought it was too damn cool not to share. These customised Vestax controllers replace the standard transport controls with 8 arcade style buttons, for serious button mashing madness and feature optional coloured knobs for additional flair. Personally we are hoping that the DJ Tech Tools team behind this custom controller, will soon turn their attention to Native Instrument’s X1, but until then we’re happy to occupy ourselves with this particular brand of DJ geekery.

These custom controllers are available to purchase from www.djtechtools.com

The latest Balance mix CD was released earlier this month on EQ records and has already received the sort of critical acclaim that we are coming to expect from the series. The Melbourne Techno Collective’s Sabine Brix took the chance to speak with the man behind the mix.

How are the balance release party dates going?

Thanks for asking, really good so far! i really enjoyed Arma 17 in Moscow, Loft in Barcelona, Rex in Paris and obviously Panorama Bar in Berlin ! All were really packed and I guess we all had lot of fun ! Great memories for the beginning of that tour! This week end i will be in UK touring, Pulse @ Edinburgh this Friday and Fabric @ London this Saturday! I obviously can’t wait to go to Australia for my first ever gigs in your country!

How is the CD being received?
Well it’s not out yet! But according to all the interviews and what people told me about the mix, I guess people are really happy about it and they all said they enjoyed a lot the selection and the way I mixed it… so let’s see!

What can Australian fans expect at your upcoming tour?
I hope the best ! We can never know before as the alchemy depends of the place, the crowd, my mood, the people around, the toothpaste,… I do hope I will be able to play all kind of stuff, and that everyone will leave the club with a big smile. I should have come few times before already for the Creamfileds and Stereosonic festivals but each time we had to postpone it for studio reason or sponsorships problems, so that time I really hope to arrive in your continent!

You mentioned this release, for you, was all about balance, can you explain this in more detail?

Well I made a long break not producing electronic music during two years as I worked on the soundtrack of “Go Fast”, a french movie produced by Luc Besson, and then I spent few months working on establish my own label InFiné, trying to develop it… At the beginning of last year I asked myself if I wanted to start working on a new album or anything else. I wasn’t sure i was ready to create new materials and honestly I was wondering if there was still a relevant reason to make a new mix CD. Every website get his own quality podcast, music is everywhere, I wasn’t sure of the necessity of releasing again a mix CD. But I decided to try. I thought it was relevant to find my own personal and exclusive selection in a time when u can find any single track you look for in less than a minute. How could I excite the desire of the listener one more time with this excessive music offer ? First I needed to find by myself the key to discover those tracks…I spent five months looking for materials, i wanted to experience again virgin fields. My desire to find music was a bit dead, we received so much tunes everyday by simple links on emails or promo accounts that I had the feeling I needed to find music by myself like when I was twenty spending my entire days in records shops. I wanted to experience again the happiness of finding music by accident. Nobody is buying records nowadays without having listened to them before. I do wish that the listener of both mixes will feel like entering in a record shop, letting himself to be guided by the sound of the shop. I also asked few friends to make me listen to 5 tunes each that I could have missed or I should known. I have obviously discovered massive albums that I didn’t know like the album “666″ from Aphrodite’s child. And I finally organized a contest on Soundcloud to find newcomers that have never released any record before. So the selection has been inspired by lot of different influences and styles. Then I asked EQ recordings to clear more than 120 tracks thinking that half of them will not accept to be part of the project and I have been surprised to see that almost everybody has accepted to appear on the mix. They have been so much efficient and quick! I had then so much material that the idea of finding The right Balance appeared like an evidence. This concept has been a great guide for me and helps me to innovate.
Do you think you have achieved a ‘perfect equilibrium’ as you have described, with this Balance, release?

Iwont be pretentious saying that I found that perfect equilibrium but I tried to get the essence of the tunes and to be as close as possible to this idea using all tools and ways to mix the selection. Sometimes I feel free to let entire tracks, sometimes I just spin few seconds, it all depends about the result I was looking for. For example on the second cd when I wanted to emphasize a growing with “libellules” I’ve added a track of Marc Antona + Avril + Gadi mizrahi before the climax of “french kiss”, it comes just after two minutes of a voluntary more monotone passage. Another example on the first CD, before going down on the second part of the CD, I thought it was useful to let the remix of Felix Laband by Todd Terje for four minutes alone cause it helped to catch the attention for the following. With this “little frustration” I could more easily turn down, something not so easy to do, it’s much easier to go mental or to grow than to go down step by step without loosing the attention of the listener.

What kind of sound were you aiming for with this compilation?

That’s not really the sound I would play in a club from 3 to 6 when people want to dance and have fun but that s definitely what I wanted to show on a mix cd. 
I guess both mix CDs represents me perfectly and that’s also what i’m trying to show with InFiné. Eclecticism, quality and homogeneity! I don’t mind if it s techno, pop, house, indie or electronica, it just need to be personal and different, it doesn’t matter if it is the trend of the moment. For example, we have been working on Aufgang project for more than three years now and i’m happy to see that Francesco, Rami and Aymerick are in the lightspot now. This is a “UFO” in the landscape of music released nowadays and that’s maybe why people are paying attention to it as well. I really hope that Aufgang will get the audience they deserve, they are truly gifted.

You’re working on a fourth album, when will that be out, what can we expect?

I will try to finish my album for next year…it’s too soon to give u an idea sorry.

Agoria’s Balance 16 is out now through EQ records.

MTC Radio 32 – March 15 2010

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Segment 1 – Craig McWhinney
Redshape – Blood Into Dust
Reeko – Untitled
Kirk Degiorgio – Swarm
Black Jazz Consortium – Tribal Dance
Mirko Loco – Love Harmonic
Examine – Confess & Undress (D. Diggler remix)
Dario Zenker – Belfort

Segment 2 – Sam McEwin
Umek & Jay Lumen – Sinful Ladies
Alain Ho – Je Pense A Toi
Justin Space – The Grip (Uones Dark Dub)
Mathias Meyer – Infinity

Segment 3 – Sam McEwin & Craig McWhinney
Karizma – Groove Akordingly
Le Click – Jack is Whack (2000 and One remix)
John Daly – Aurora
Matthew Dear – You Know What I Would Do?
Dollkraut – Loot
Luca Bacchetti – Night Over Kwazulu

When you venture out into the dark abyss that is the night life of Melbourne city, most people hang in shallow safe end of town, were wannabe cool kids hang listening to regurgitated mass produced puke. Few people have the balls to venture out into the deep end and explore what is out there. You can never be quite sure what lies beneath the murky water at the deep end, But you should not fear the unexpected, for it’s the unexpected the breads life, spawns passion and quenches the deepest of thirsts. Drink from the DEEP END.

This Easter Saturday is your chance to venture out to Miss Libertine and discover the DEEP END. This night will consist of some solid grooves and deep and often dark techno and house, brought to by some of Melbourne’s best and brightest djs featuring Myles McWhinney and Andy Hart (Melbourne Deepcast), Craig McWhinney (Haul Records & MTC), Sam McEwin (MTC) and Matt Radovich (MTC). Entry is Free and get along early for some tasty drink specials

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This 30 minute interview with techno god Sven Vath shows the serious side of the world’s biggest party animal and amazing DJ. The interview is in English with dutch subtitles and a dutch intro and is followed by another 30 minutes of footage from his performance at the Amsterdam Dance Event. (Yes that’s what it was called)

Sven Vath will perform at the upcoming Future Music Festival on Sunday March 7

Seth Troxler has continued his recent rise to fame, with the notorious party animal and wild child DJ/Producer throwing down the latest edition of BPitch Control’s Boogybytes mix series. Boogybytes Vol 5 - which hit stores last week – features an amazing collection of tunes from the likes of Luciano, Mike Shannon, Alexi Delano, Hearthrob & Fever Ray and the MTC’s Sabine Brix took the opportunity to give it a spin.

The fifth version of Boogybytes doesn’t really pack a punch until a few cuts in – then it really finds its groove, which is more akin to the refined tweakings of previous volumes.
Troxler starts off with jazz-infused house tracks but picks up the tempo with Spectrum’s Freakbox, which exudes twisted, minimal flavours, courtesty of Minimalist Man himself, Mr Hawtin.
Not straying far from the M_nus family, Heartthrob’s Signs, remixed by Troxler, is undoubtedly the standout for Vol.05, peppered with downright dirty, funky breaks, whilst Fever Ray’s Seven also gets transformed into a dark tech-house ditty.
Troxler proves that an outsider – he is the first DJ to mix the compilation, not from the label – is just as much a contender as the label mates who spun before him.

01 Seth Troxler – Intro
Ryan Crosson – Amb 1
02 The Royal We – Party Guilt (Dinky’s Arp-A-Pella)
03 Luciano – Fran Left Home / Mike Shannon – Sweet A Pella
04 Craig Smith & The Revenge – The Soul Part II
05 Baeka – Right At It
06 Dinky feat. Update – Westoid
07 N/A feat. Rosina – Fables and Fairytales (Deniz Kurtel Remix)
08 Spektrum – Freakbox (Richie Hawtin’s Uncontrolled Edit)
09 Alexi Delano – Molar One
10 Jabberjaw – The Connie Shake
11 Heartthrob – Signs (Thrill Cosby aka Seth Troxler Remix)
12 Birds And Souls – Birds And Souls
13 Roman Flügel – Stricher
14 Fever Ray – Seven (Seth Troxler Remix)
15 Kiki – Cinema Obscura
16 Nicolas Jaar – Time For Us

The long awaited Making Contakt DVD finally landed last week, after it was officially screened in Berlin in early February. The feature length documentary showcases the M_nus crew’s ground breaking Contakt events which sadly, have not yet found their way to Melbourne.

Spanning venues from Detroit to Tokyo, right through to Amsterdam – The DVD features Magda, Heartthrob, Mark Houle, Gaiser, Richie and the crew, delivering their awe inspiring showcase to heaving crowds with a unique, behind-the-scenes peak into this tight-knit techno family and their trials and tribulations in putting on larger-than-life parties.

The DVD is available now direct from www.m-nus.com
Learn more about the Contakt events

Yes Sven Vath is in the house, or to be completely accurate, was in the house – the house of Perth resident James Francis, who’s Future Music after party got a little bit wild when Mister Vath rocked up with an entourage that included John Digweed, Dubfire, Booka Shade and Above & Beyond. In the Mix reported on the techno legend’s cameo appearance, after discovering this Tweet from Above & Beyond which mentioned the impromptu gathering. “an amazing party here in Perth [at Future Music Festival], followed by a crazy house party with @svenvaeth who truly made it an unforgettable night!”.

ITM followed up by making contact with Francis who had this to say. “We had Sven Vath, John Digweed, Dubfire, Booka Shade and Above & Beyond all partying in our garden with about 70 or so other people,”  “…It was truly amazing. Sven played for about six-and-a-half hours, and all the other internationals just watched and danced in awe with the rest of us! Sven played ‘one more tune’ about 20 times.”

The full editorial can be found here.