Melbourne Techno Collective

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.