Important Things and Other Things Peter Rehberg

Do I keep it interesting? I’m not sure…I mean, I don’t wake up and go, “oh, want to keep it interesting.” I just wake up and carry on. Whether it’s interesting or not is for other people to decide. But, I mean, the main thing keeping me going is that there’s lots of work to do. And there are so many things: the label and its sublabels, the music, other productions—so I don’t get bored. If I started getting bored then I’d start to worry. In terms of releases, there are always ten or fifteen records planned at least, per year. For me it’s a job—it stopped being a hobby years ago. And exciting, well, yes—but what’s exciting? It’s kind of subjective. I guess there are still people who buy the records—not as many as there used to be, but there are people who are interested, who “like” things on social media, come to the concerts, do interviews. How exciting is exciting on a scale of 1 to 10? 5, 6, 7, or 1? But I think it’s still exciting, at least. And it’s always interesting. For example, a year ago, I’d have never known that I’d make a record with Nik Void!

Kind of, and I still am. Before we started Mego in the mid-90s, I was involved in the local “techno” scene. And I’d always be the one on the second floor, the chill-out room or whatever you call it, playing stuff that wasn’t necessarily made to dance to but still electronic in nature. And I played stuff from that era, like electronic ambient techno, but also other favorites—industrial and electroacoustic records. I wanted to push the genre a bit further. You know, the thing about techno in general that I found a bit weird is that it presented itself as some kind of revolution—“Before techno there was no music. Suddenly there was techno music.” Bullshit—there’s no such thing as a revolution in music. There’s always something that came before. Techno is basically a mixture of disco and industrial music. I remember people would come up to me at techno parties in the early 90s and say, “oh, you’re here as well.” And I’d said, “Well, why not?” And they’d be like, “I didn’t know you’re into techno.” But I was into it! And that’s kind of how Mego started. Because the other two guys I did it with, Ramon and Andy, they were running a label called Mainframe which was more techno-techno. And that kind of fell apart when they became fed up with techno. They got more interested in experimental music and Mego started coming together.

Yes—it could just be a playlist. Or you set an algorithm playing a random patch.

Well, you could also say you don’t need techno DJs.

Well, if you record a Jeff Mills set one night and play it the next night, it’s fixed! Techno sets are fixed, to a certain degree—there’s a build-up, there’s a breakdown. People wouldn’t notice! And now some people don’t even “DJ”—they play Ableton. That’s fine, but it’s not really “jocking the discs,” is it? You could also get an Octatrack sampler and just press play. But yeah… That’s another thing I never really got into, the idea that it has to be live music. DJs or musicians or anything, okay, they play an instrument, and doing it live is great. But it’s also the fact that they’re actually there in the place with other people presenting their work. And I was never really a fan of these so-called real musicians who say things like “Drum machines are going destroy drummers.” Well, not really—the drum machine has a certain tonality and a certain kind of rhythm that of course a real person couldn’t have—but why would she want that? There’s a need for both! It’s just another form of expression. And the idea that a drum machine is easy because you just have to press play…you still have to program it and tell it what to do. If you take it out of a box, it just goes tack-tack-tack-tack…boring! It sounds good, but program it! That’s the skill that needs to be recognized.

Yeah, that happens with the advancement of technology in general. Nowadays everyone can blast out their opinions on social media, whereas before someone’s opinion had to go through a filter, like media, newspaper, books. Now everyone can be a writer or…

Yeah, or a label-owner. In the golden days of the music industry, doing a label was a big business. In the old days, a label was a label because it could press the records. Nowadays you get someone else to do it. If you want to do a Bandcamp label (or some other digital-only label), you can do anything! You just need a PayPal account and a user name. There you go—there’s the label!

I always feel a bit unimportant—that’s human nature! But what is important these days? And what’s relevant? Some records don’t sell as much as others, but that’s something I can’t really decide. It’s public opinion, public taste. But we do have a kind of image or respect from some people, I guess. Others may think, “Oh no, not another record!” The marketplace has definitely changed over the last ten, twenty years. Nowadays it’s all about how you present yourself on the internet. More revenues are coming from Bandcamp and digital sales than from physical sales. That’s been going on for the past five years. Most people are listening to it by streaming, and they still enjoy it, but as a label you don’t get that physicality of one day having a big box of records and the next day having none. That was a symbol of things going well. Now you get a statement from your digital distributer once a month and you go, “Oh, it went quite well.” It’s more abstract.

Yes, because you saw that physicality! Now it’s hard to say. You post stuff on Twitter and Facebook and everyone likes it. But do they like it? Or do they just like the idea that you posted the thing?

Well, I buy lots of records. Most of them I listen to once or twice, but there are a few records I listen to ten times…or fifty times! For me, something is relevant when someone enjoys listening to it. But of course, with experimental music, you don’t listen to certain extreme records when you’re doing things—they need a different mindset. In the old days—like the really, really old days, before the internet—people bought records because it was the only way to hear music. Now you can turn on your computer and listen to anything you want. It’s maybe not a different value, but… the whole business side of running a label is based on selling records. That’s what we do, what makes it worth it. Of course I could do digital-only and not any physical records, but I would find that very boring.

Yeah, because they couldn’t—they weren’t really available.* Since we started this series with Stephen [O’Malley]’s artwork and the uniform covers and stuff, the records have sold really well. It’s even some of the bestselling stuff these days. Because no one’s really heard it. GRM is legendary. I remember first hearing about GRM in the early 80s, but you could never really get the records. The people buying our reissues are a mixture of people my age who are interested in finally getting a vinyl version of these works and young people just getting into it. So I think it’s relevant, I think it’s important. But you’re also right—it’s electro-acoustic avant-garde music that has a very small subject area. However, it’s quality and there’s so much in that field that’s actually rubbish, but this is the good stuff. This is the main reason why we did it.

Forgive me if I spread some bad news here, because the French are very delicate about this, but I’ve always seen GRM as more creative. The interesting thing about GRM is that Schaeffer, who wasn’t a musician—he was an engineer— really thought in terms of new music. They invented a kind of language. Their works were artistically more interesting and experimental, whereas IRCAM used to and still does concentrate on the actual technology, the hardware. They research the technological advancement of music and audio. This is where you want to go if you want to do something with incredibly complex recording techniques and things like this. IRCAM, like most other electronic music studios in the 50s, 60s and 70s, had those studios and played around just to see what happened, without making music. Like the BBC radiophonic workshop—all they actually did was make sound effects and funny noises for science fiction films: “beep-beep-bup-pffff.” It’s great that they did, but you don’t have to listen to it. The GRM stuff, though, is music you can still listen to now. They actually took it from being a bunch of funny noises and some weird synthesis equations into music. Stockhausen is another good example of this. He had access to all this studio equipment and helped build it, but I don’t think he was very interested in it, per se. Of all Stockhausen’s works, only around five have actual electronics on them.

It was never a statement to use a laptop in the first place. It was just a development. Our music was still made in the studio, with synths, samplers, and mixing desks. But then came the object of playing that live. And our first live gigs were like a nightmare, with big cases of racks, samplers, keyboards. Slowly, laptops started to be a bit more advanced. You had to make a few compromises, but you could kind of get away with performing with them. It was interesting from that point of view. And the media started calling it laptop music or stupid terms like “laptronica.” We thought it was a bit strange that people would make this big fuss about laptops.

And things bumbled on and I kind of got fed up with doing lots of gigs in the 2000s, opening my laptop, playing my noise, stopping again. So I stopped in 2009 and just did label and theater stuff. Slowly I got into using hardware again around eight years ago. I started adding more things, more synths, got into modular a bit later on. And I realized that what I do on a modular synthesizer network is the same as what I was doing on my laptop. I had already been using patches, like Supercollider and Max MSP, and now I’m doing it on a physical machine. Maybe the idea of plugging things in with cables is a bit retro, but lots of the modules are very, very advanced. They take a bit of old-school synthesis, a bit of computer technology/digital signal processing (DSP), and just blur them together into something new.

Yes, that’s basically what happened. It’s the same thing—it’s still source-sound or synthesis, processing, mixing, and editing. Nothing has really changed in the building blocks of electronic music.

But I like a lot of academic music, you’re suggesting?

Many people seem to feel that there needs to be some kind of academic discourse when music is extreme, experimental, and weird. But I’ve never really felt the need for that. I was lucky enough to grow up in the early 80s, and a lot of the weird and experimental industrial and noise records I got into I found through mainstream channels. You got into NON because you listened to Depeche Mode, or via Soft Cell you got into Throbbing Gristle or Psychic TV. So for me all this weird electronic music is just an extension of pop music. I always felt that way. I can listen to a Russell Haswell [see zweikommasieben #17] record and I can like it or not like it, but the reason for that has nothing to do with an intellectual discourse. I always felt that academia was used as an excuse for music for being difficult—but you shouldn’t have to make an excuse. So even though I work in an academic field with the records I release, I never really got into it. A lot of people who work in academia are really good at explaining bits of extreme music during the day, and then at home they go listen to something like ABBA. But I never saw big differences between the two. I like a lot of popular music and I like a lot of academic music. But what I don’t like on both sides—especially on the academic side—is the snobbery around it all. I see it a lot in new music circles—“We went to this fucking conservatory, blablabla, and we get all this funding from the government because we’re geniuses.” It’s like… “Go away! So what? Couldn’t care less. Your music is boring!” I listen to a lot of music, and I’ve been doing it for 40 years. I don’t need some academic to tell me what’s good or bad.

Maybe? I know that on the last Björk album there was a sample of the Sacred Flute Music From New Guinea compilation. Someone in Björk’s studio had a record we put out. Our records are available, but I don’t know if they directly influence—I can’t really tell. If they influence people to make music, be it pop or academic, then great. If not, also great!

Yes, kind of. When I meet people from academia, they think we’re a pop label. And when I meet people from more mainstream channels, they think we’re some kind of academic avant-garde powerhouse. It’s good to be in between. I’ve always preferred things to be more open—not random, but surprising. You never know what’s coming next! Some still think we’re putting out laptop music!

Well, yes, but it’s a bit more abstract than that. In terms of community, the label is based in Vienna, but there’s probably about six people here that know the label. There are small amounts of people all over the world who make stuff like this. I really like doing label showcases for this global network, bringing different artists together. Most of the artists are from different areas, different scenes, and it’s good to introduce people. It’s interesting! For the few people who are keen on music and passionate about good music, I’m sure we mean a lot. But in terms of society at large, we’re just this small speck in a mass of urban life. The average man on the street doesn’t know what we’re doing.

Not at all!