- Thu, 2012-02-09 14:36
Just finished a Skype chat with German producer, label owner, dancefloor smasher Boys Noize aka Alex.
Represented by an avatar of Bert from Bert and Ernie fame - (a very enjoyable visual accompaniment throughout the chat) - we began our conversation chatting about one of his latest projects, Handbraekes, a hook-up with Mr.Oizo which has so far spawned just one, bouncy four track EP, creatively titled #1 - listen on the Boys Noize website here
Before the interview I found a recent musicradar.com feature on his studio, basically a collection of nice studio photographs showing his impressive set-up, studio nerds take a look here
We chatted about the development of software built to emmulate those sounds and whether they could ever replace the real thing. An interesting thought, the answer probably comes down to how you want to create your music, with Alex telling us "I don't think you can make better music with analog stuff, it's really more subjective. For me it's always more fun to turn the nobs on the synth than clicking with the mouse. So, it's more a personal taste thing."
The full interview will be live on I Like Music in the next few days. But until then, I wanted to take a little dip into Kraftwerk. The seminal German electronic outfit have had a huge influence on many, many musicians, including Boys Noize; "They're a big time influence. I have to say, I'm a sucker for robot voices or all types of voices that are not sounding too human. That was a big part of their music as well. Also, their minimal approach. It's just fantastic to get emotions and interesting sounds with not a lot of things and they do this so good. They do it so well."
Searching about for Kraftwerk artwork, album sleeves and promo material paves the way towards some stark, minimal and bold images. It also led me to the image attached at the top of this article; the cassette packaging for the 1981 Kraftwerk single Pocket Calculator! Taken from their eigth studio album released the same year, Computer World, the cassette featured three tracks:
A Pocket Calculator (Long Version) 4:35
B1 Dentaku (Edit) 4:35
B2 Numbers 3:19
As we nose-dive even further into digital releases, I'm enjoying an opportunity to remember the cassette in all it's tape winding glory. Unfortunately, you cannot embed a tape into an post. Until this is somehow resolved, here's the track via YouTube
Following this, I started chatting with the rest of the team about Kraftwerk and before I knew it, was up in our record collection having an afternoon dig...
And here they are...
From left to right, top to bottom:
The Robots (1991)
Radioactivity (1991)
The Telephone Call (1986)
Musique Non Stop (1986)
Tour de France (1983)
Tour de France (remixed by Francois Kevorkian) (1983)*
Pocket Calculator (1981)
The Model (1978)
Robots (1978)
Showroom Dummies (1977)
Showroom Dummies (1977)
Neon Lights (1978)
Trans-Europe Express (1977)
Radioactivity (1975)
Autobahn (1974)
* One was released in June, the other in August. Though they are completely different on both sides, both were issued with the same catalogue number...
