The conversation between Guy, Marc, Tom and Ed backstage at Berghain took the festival’s theme of “Dis-Continuity” as a jumping off point; various interpretations of and questions about both continuity and its antonym structured the course of the exchange.

“Con·ti·nu·i·ty: noun Uninterrupted connectedness, succession, or union; uninterrupted duration or continuation especially without essential change (Antonym: discontinuity)” ¹

Guy Schwegler In light of the CTM Festival under which you perform devoting itself to the concept of “Dis-continuity,” I wonder to what extent the two of you identify continuity in your respective work. Where do you find starting points? Which vectors and processes do you follow?

Edward Russell A reference point that unites the breadth of my work as Tessela is probably early mid-nineties hardcore. ² The specific element that provides continuity in that context is the percussion programming.

Tom Russell For me it’s definitely the techno drum. ³

I’ve experimented and played around with many styles, but always within the parameters of this drum sound and its rhythmic structure. I like to integrate new styles into that context and to explore these styles within that framework.

TR It’s a study in true continuity: purist house beats. In the end it’s all about what you can do with the machines within the techno frame.

Marc Schwegler Would you two consider your work, then, as part of the so-called hardcore continuum?

The British music journalist Simon Reynolds published a series of six essays in The Wire between 1992 and 1999. In these essays he dealt with the then-current UK rave music and the trends within it. Over the course of writing he noticed a unifying continuity within the various genres he studied. ⁴ Whether it be early jungle, 2-step or current grime, he proposed, the basis central aesthetic was one that had already been central to early hardcore. Although the tempo varies between the styles, new production techniques are developed, and increasingly diverse sources of inspiration can be cited, the core elements of the music stay the same for Reynolds: “…beat-science seeking in the intersection between ‘fucked up’ and ‘groovy’; dark bass pressure […] In a profound sense, underneath two decades of relentless sonic mutation, this is the same music, the same culture.” ⁵

TR addressing ER You’d probably be more likely to ascribe your music to the hardcore continuum…

ER Hmm, I’m not sure…

TR I see the influences of British dance and rave music in my work. Nevertheless, I’d still be more likely to label my sound as international.

An irritating moment: Reynold’s concept is met with some skepticism by the Russell brothers. They aren’t alone: other scene protagonists have also only conditionally welcomed the idea of a “continuum.” ⁶ This resistance can probably be attributed to the pessimistic implications of the suggested matrix: when one thinks the theory through to the end (which Reynolds indeed does ⁷), the connections and intersections of the different styles only lead to a kind of mishmash, thus implying that real, long-term innovation, tension, or development simply can’t be expected within that continuity.

GS Inversely where are signs of discontinuity in your work? Where are there schisms and interruptions? Tom, you’ve stopped your MPIA3 project, for instance…

TR I enjoy embarking on projects that have clear starting and ending points. Truss is the continuum, the name that I’ve always used as a DJ. It’s the name that’s affiliated with most of my productions and that I wouldn’t want to abandon: it identifies my main undertakings. But interspersed I enjoy working on things that have a limited scope.

MS What is the case with your joint project? Where are the common denominators, connections, starting points?

ER I guess it began when we were booked as DJs for the same gig. Someone then suggested that we should play together. Following the gig two friends asked us if we would collaborate on a record for their new label, Brothers. One form of continuity in TR\\ER is the focus throughout on the machines and our interactions with them — what can we find and get out of these boxes we own?

MS Beyond that, though, there wasn’t any kind of abstract or aesthetic concept that you guys specifically wanted to pursue?

ER No.

TR I don’t think either of us has ever seriously concerned ourselves with concepts. That doesn’t really work for me.

ER Our live project is actually more the opposite of concept-based work. To be honest, for my taste live shows get off track too often. They’re too often noisy, experimental and kind of stressful. Our approach is more: “Ok, we’re two brothers, we have a couple of drum computers, two 303s and we make proper club music that people can dance to.”

TR Our setup is old school: even twenty years ago people were making acid techno and playing live. I hope, though, that we can still do surprising things by using technologies that didn’t exist back then. With the computers we have, we can refine and enhance things and generate new sounds. Hopefully along with that new twists will emerge. I think this approach also sums up what we both try to do in our respective projects — in hindsight MPIA3 is quite honestly a completely retro-style project. I can only hope that I added something.

A sustaining, a revisiting, a starting fresh: continuity in the coordinate grid of dance music, ever-renegotiated and reweighed and nevertheless ever-oriented in its 4/4 time towards the dance floor. Constant expansion and regeneration. “We will not stop making ourselves into disciples of [the libidinal world’s] affects,” writes Lyotard, ⁸ and elsewhere: “To understand, to be intelligent, is not our overriding passion. We hope rather to be set in motion.” ⁹

MS You guys use analog hardware as much as digital tools in your sets. Is the difference, then, not so crucial for you?

ER Yes, we have integrated both into our setup. [Looking at TR] You tend more toward hardware and I usually work digitally with programs, but I would say it goes hand and hand for us.

GS Could this combination of analog and digital tools be understood as emblematic for your project at large? I.e. analog techno mixed with a digital, updated form of breakbeat?

ER I’m not sure. For the tracks that I produce as Tessela I often use samples. In this case I work digitally — I can’t achieve the results I want as well with a drum computer. When we work together, though, we tend to produce around the structure of 4/4 time. The machines we use are perfectly suited to this approach, and often we don’t end up needing to edit drum loops much at all. At the moment the whole thing is also mostly a live project: until now we’ve only released one track. ¹⁰ So for the time being we’re mostly concerned with producing music that works in live performance.

TR We use a kind of modular setup with various components. We can combine our different drum kits and acid lines as needed. We can come up with new ideas even as everything develops. We have a starting point and an ending point. In between we just yell things out to each other: “Do that, do this. Stop that!”

The eventfulness of the live moment — are there discontinuities and fractures to be identified (the proverbial breakbeat, so to speak)? In his essay “Collateral Damage,” ¹¹ Mark Fell elucidates outbursts and upheavals in the frames of closed systems. Within the corset of the drum kit an opportunity for creativity beyond self-imposed imitation appears: the possibility of the new in the search for the borders of the accepted.

GS I first heard your Boiler Room set and thought you would also probably DJ at Berghain together. What I found interesting was that the sounds of the sometimes Gabber-inspired MPIA3 or Truss tracks and the more hardcore-oriented Tessela productions were combined and set in a somewhat slower tempo reminiscent of house. There are many possibilities that open up there, even beyond the achievements of the current revivals of breakbeat and industrial techno.

ER For me the hardcore and jungle revival has already gone as far as it should go. Certain people produce tracks that sound as if they were released in 1994. Lately I try to take the hardcore influence back out of my music to an extent. In my newest productions there are still hints of it, but I try to make my beats sound different in order to keep the whole thing fresh and interesting.

Innovation, then, is as much a result of thinking ahead, rewriting, and combining as of interrupting and starting from scratch. The choice between options is based on an imperative of the new.

MS I don’t know how much you’ve seen of the rest of the festival program — the CTM Festival focuses this year on early avant-garde movements, among them the various trends in 1920’s Russia. The festival is attempting to bring deserved attention to people who in some cases have gone forgotten. Are older and experimental forms of electronic music important to you guys, or do your influences rather adhere strictly to the club and dance music genres?

TR I’m more focused on the club. I’m conscious of the significance of certain composers and movements, but my central reference point remains rave culture. I couldn’t trace my influences much further back in history than Kraftwerk. ¹²

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ER My music is club music through and through. When I make music, I make it for the dance floor, without other listening scenarios in mind. But one person who has influenced my production style is Trevor Wishart. ¹³ He makes really crazy shit, already for a quite a while and with very limited technology — songs out of the sound of a fly’s wing flapping and things like that.

TR Things like that are definitely inspiring. You realize that it’s possible to make entire sound worlds out of the simplest samples. At the BBC Radiophonic Workshop I saw an old video by Delia Derbyshire ¹⁴ about experimental tape loops. Of course it wasn’t intentional at the time, but from today’s perspective it almost sounds as if they were making functional club music.

GS Do you guys observe a trend towards more experimental music in clubs? Do you think that audiences are increasingly open in their mindsets?

ER Yeah — I mean just look at the program from this evening. ¹⁵ There is definitely openness for the experimental, even in the context of the functional, I think.

TR I think it’s difficult to bring avant-garde or experi­mental music into a club environment. The success of doing this depends a lot on the place — in Berlin there’s widespread interest. In London such things could also work, but already not to the same extent, and in a more segmented way. There is a very special public here tonight: there are people that come especially for the experimental acts. The crowd today is open-minded and ready to embrace things.

MS From an outside perspective it seems as though there’s been a renewed connection, even an active exchange, between England and Germany lately. Is that a new phenomenon, or did that always exist in your eyes?

TR There always were strong connections, mostly in techno. There have long been correlations, especially between London and Berlin. But in recent years it’s gotten even stronger, above all because of Berghain. When the whole minimal thing was at its peak, people here [in Berghain] were refining harder sounds. That influenced many people in London to come back to this sound aesthetic. ¹⁶

A break, a discontinuity, comes in from the exterior. Incidents which crack existing relationships from the outside can break these relationships apart and generate innovation — even if this innovation only refers to an already-bygone and perhaps even forgotten point of origin — in this case a raw, hard 4/4 time.

GS Last question: What do you have planned for the near future?

ER We’ve always made a lot of music together and it would definitely be a goal to collaborate on a release. But we’re both too busy to spend a lot of time in the studio together. As a result we’re staying focused on the live show, on giving it more kick. And on maybe finally organizing some flight cases for ourselves. [Laughs]

TR It’s nice not too have any pressure. In the coming months we’ll be playing six or seven live shows. We had thought that we should release a record together — usually that’s what generates gigs. But the gigs have been coming anyway until now.

Eight hours later, the two Russell brothers step foot onto the Berghain stage. Body continuity, affect music: they deliver a set that works perfectly on the dance floor. “Repetition is fundamental to music and its greatest asset,” writes Adam Harper. ¹⁷ A positioning in the right context, repetition as an aesthetic goal: continuity means bringing enthusiasm to music more than a quarter century after that music took root.