WIRES INTERVIEW

back to interviews

-Your one-sheet for Wires001 makes reference to J.G. Ballard material. What if any, are more examples of art or literature that influences the direction the label and its aesthetic?

JG Ballard has a unique vision of technology, human nature and dystopian futures. In particular his book Crash, explores technology and its relation to human desire. Its a very 'techno' book, very intense and dark.

 I would also say that alot of video installation art has had an impact on me, the very sparse and ritualistic aesthetics of Bruce Nauman's work. I love the way he uses language, and deconstructs words and meaning. i think the use of vocal samples in my music has some relation to this, its the process of abstracting very familiar things, things that are human and warping them into something more alien and animalistic.

-Wires002 sees the inception of Atlas, a product of you and Tommy Gillard, who has an 8 year gap in production material. What was the motivation to work with Tommy after all this time and what results are liable to be recognized from the collaboration?

Tommy is a very good old friend, we make alot of music together, alot of it is unreleased experimental stuff. The Atlas project is a part of an ongoing lifelong creative relationship we have, we have hours and hours of material we have recorded as Zov Zov, which we will also release. Atlas is a mixture of ideas exploring techno, house and disco, but also fusing that with more abstract elements, thats also what the label is about.

The club tracks we did came out great, one of them is a heavy tech-house thing, and the other is more rolling and techno in style. They are very reduced in style, iam always trying to distill the elements in the tracks down to the minimum, like an economy of sound.

With the two current Wires releases, it is obvious that there is an affinity for more than the typical EP aimed at the dance floor. Would you go into detail on the reasoning for this and can it be expected for future releases on the label? 

Wires is a reflection of my personality, and what inspires me. Iam into alot of different types of music, i especially love music that is hard to classify, stuff that surprises me, stuff that has personality to it. theres alot of really conservative techno music which does nothing but the bare minimum, just keeping peoples feet moving on the dancefloor, i want to be taken somewhere by music. iam always looking for something with a unique personality to it, there are great producers that have the guts to push them selves, people like Matthew Dear, Ricardo Villaobos, these are people that keep surprising me, and  also redefining the genre.

My plans for Wires are to bring together different things like dub, post-punk and industrial music, for me theres a common thread running through this music, i guess its a kind of minimalism. something that has an edge to it.. the next few releases will feature more Raudive, Matanuki(dark dub) and Zov Zov, which is a noise industrial project i do with Tommy.

-What is the reason for the fact that you felt compelled to release material separately from parent label, Meta when Meta records is described as, “…symbolic of Oliver's musical vision, a fusion of influences, striving to take music into new areas”?

For a period of time Meta was symbolic for me, but after putting a halt to the label, i took a break from producing for a while. when i resumed making techno, i wanted to surprise myself and work on ideas that werent  right for meta, so i worked with labels like klang, pokerflat and macro.
Now when i decided to start releasing on my label, it felt right to signify that with a brand new label. Wires represents where i am right now, for me Meta was the past, in the future i will be in yet a new phase. its about giving myself new creative challenges, rather than repeating the same thing over and over again.

Please take a moment to explain the complete vision for Wires and why you think important to include vinyl releases as well as well as digital, when it is widely known that a physical product this day in age will often not make a complete return and possibly stand as a loss.

As i said before, Wires is a label thats about a certain attitude, to push some boundaries and mix things up, thats inspiring and fun for me. i still think theres a market for vinyl, i dont think its especially djs that are buying it, its more general music lovers and collectors. its not going to make anyone rich, but its still relevant.

WIRES 3 -BY RAUDIVE -COMING SOON