Feature: Afternoon tea with Boys Noize

Feature: Afternoon tea with Boys Noize

10 February, 2009 | 2.39PM

• Written by: pollylavine
• Filed under: Music News: boys noize, boysnoize

Whether or not you’re on board with the breakneck indie/dance fusion that has gripped clubland in recent years, you will no doubt have been drowned, at some point, in a sea of Boys Noize. 

Beatportal’s Polly Lavin sat down in Berlin with Alex Ridha aka Boys Noize for a wide-ranging chat about punk attitudes, Chicago house and producers who are missing the point.

Afternoon tea with Boys Noize

As I quietly sit sipping a tea waiting for the indie dance phenomena that is Boys Noize, I am struck almost unexpectedly by the demeanour of a toweringly tall Alex Ridha. He greets me with a massive open smile and a soft hug. He comes across as happy with life at present and is conventionally down-to-earth; he seems, considering the attention and chaos that has surrounded Boys Noize in the last couple of years, to have taken the success in his casual stride.

Ridha was first exposed to youth clubs and nightclubs at the age of 11. Working in a record shop for six years under a zealous boss opened doors for him that led to his first proper performance as a DJ at the age of 16. “My first big gig came before a series of smaller ones,” he says. 

Did he feel the pressure at such a young age? “Not at all; maybe even it was the other way around. Everything was so welcoming I wasn’t even nervous about my first gig.” It’s this kind of cool confidence that seems ever present in his life currently.

What’s good about dance music right now?

The good thing is it’s always changing. I’ve been into dance music for over 10 years and I went through a lot of different styles. It always comes back to where it started from and then it starts over again because it gets boring.

Did you find a style? You say you went through a lot of different styles?

Not really. When I started in ‘96/’97 I was more about house and deep house, which now 10 years later is the new hot thing. The minimal guys play deep house now but I can’t do it. That’s what I started with and they were probably into techno 10 years ago. Though, it’s cool that Chicago house is being played again.

I look at myself more as a musician and I always like to surprise myself in a production way but also in DJing. Over the years what I really kept was my attitude in the music I play whether it’s not as noisy or techno sounding. Music I identify with has to have energy and that’s how I choose what to buy or what records to produce; it’s more of a personal thing that interests me.

What do you think is bad in dance music at the moment?

Well the sound you consider more Boys Noize is the sound we had to build. When I started the label it was totally outside of what was going on. It took a long time to build that scene just because we were not the sound that was cool at the time so we didn’t initially get the exposure and that was just four years ago. At the first Boys Noize party there was only 70 people in a small shithole in Berlin.

So you were bringing in the electro sound and the clash sound when the minimal techno sound was the hype?

Exactly. That was the peak time of minimal and I was the complete opposite. I wouldn’t say it was about clash it was more about the aggressive techno or the jacking techno sound. In the scene I actually thought there was no one that could play my sound. There were DJs who bought my records telling me, “Yes, I like them but I can’t play them because there is nothing else to mix it in with.”

What effect did Erol Alkan playing your sound have?

He was one of the guys who was supporting my label at an early stage. That sound obviously got really big. I think it’s a natural thing that something fresh is going on underneath the main sound then the kids find it, love it badly and it’s almost like they overproduce to feed the market and that’s when there is too much shit. It happens with all the genres. Having those stupid noisy records and basslines is something which is so annoying but at the same time it’s a motivation for me to go on and to try to do something else. Quality production will always survive and I think that is what people in the end appreciate. When the hype is there, the handful of guys/producers that are ahead already move onto something else.

What’s coming up for you in 2009?

I am focusing again on creating new music. I’m also writing music with friends like Erol Alkan and have a project in development with Gonzales. We’re writing songs for a new project that is not going to be for Gonzales or Boys Noize, it’s a brand new project and that’s exciting for me. I’m just trying to figure out and focus on what the next Boys Noize record should sound like. I might release an album before this with a different name...I don’t know.

Who are you watching for musically in 2009? Club-wise, labels etc?

Look out for Shadow Dancer - he’s wicked. He’s an industrial electronica producer. He’s been in the scene a long time and he produces more like Autechre / Warp Records kind of stuff and this is a sound that is becoming more dancefloor friendly. He’s my favourite producer currently. Also 2000 And One in Amsterdam interests me.

Label-wise Raster Noton from East Germany. It’s very intellectual electronic music, which is the German version of Warp Records. Club-wise if it really has to come down to one I would say it has to be the Boys Noize parties in Berlin. They are always off-location and never in a purpose built club.

Tell us about the sound of Boys Noize for 2009?

It’s not really about one particular sound; it’s more about quality in electronic music. All of them are really different to each other - like DIM is one of my oldest friends from Hamburg - he is producing like, real techno.

What is real techno?

Well for me, techno was always like punk music: harder. It has that punk attitude; a techno concert can be like a punk concert. Techno was there because house music wasn’t house music anymore - it just got harder and harder in the middle of the ‘90s.

Les Petits Pilous are like two wild boys from France and they are also quite noisy and are the new generation of the noisier sound. Strip Steve is doing more old school filter/disco house. I would compare him to the first generation of the French house, but not Daft Punk - their sound was not the newest when they put it out. There were already a lot of other things that had the same ideas like having electronic music with samples from the ‘70s or ‘80s. With Shadow Dancer, I found him on MySpace. It’s incredible.

So you surf MySpace a lot?

Yeah, I did a lot. Right now I feel like I have my crew and I can’t sign really anymore. Everyone is doing new records and I have to release them and focus on that.

Do you think we need more or less electronic producers on the scene at the moment?

I wouldn’t say either. I think we always need more surprising electronic music. I am happy with every student having a laptop at home and trying to produce electronic music - it’s cool. That’s what it is for but I mean, most of the producers orientate on the sound that is out right now and what is in fashion. So I think it’s more about trying to create something fresh.

So if you were to listen to say, 50 promos a week, how many out of the 50 would grab your attention?

Only one.

Are producers missing the ‘quality’ point then?

That’s how it is: there are only a handful of guys that are interesting to me. You get to know a lot of sounds and I have been through many styles over 10 years as well so I don’t get excited that easily. Your ear and knowledge develops. The viewpoint for a new kid who is just starting to DJ now will have a totally different point of view to mine.

If we are in a recession what effect is it having on clubbing?

Well, it starts with the onus on the clubs. They have to find the right balance between having more famous DJs that they have to pay a lot of money for, and that they just can’t afford.

Have you had to adapt any of your parties?

I heard of people introducing ‘Bring Your Own’ but I haven’t tried it.

Digital or physical distribution: where do you see yourself moving towards over the next three years?

Well it’s obvious there is no choice. My physical sales are down. My mp3 sales are not going up either but I keep pressing vinyl. It’s how I started and there will always be some music lovers.

Where is the better music coming from at the moment Europe or the USA?

Europe is always a step ahead. The USA seems to orientate on what is going on and two years later they come up with the sound that has already been and gone in Europe.

Is Ableton and other software killing the clear sound and identity that music from cities like Chicago and Detroit once had? Because it could be said the software is controlling the sound now rather than the artist.

I know for a fact that playing from a laptop, the sound is not as good as playing directly from vinyl or CDs because it’s converted through the software; you have another cable through a box and then into a mixer. The more ways you have, you are filtering some of the sound. There is no real art to that. Then you have new possibilities like having some extra effects or having those crazy mixes where you play a song for 30 secs or something but you just have to push a button to adjust the record. I mean DJing is super simple - it’s not like playing piano to me; I can adjust the record in two seconds.

10 years ago you could tell a record was from Chicago because of the rough sound. They just recorded like a Roland 909 and a 303 directly into a mixer and it sounded shit but that was the sound, so it was cool. Whereas everybody now is using Pro Tools or Ableton.

What do you think it’s going to take for identity to come back to the cities?

Yeah that’s a good question. You could probably say that Chicago, Detroit and Berlin have this rough feeling of recordings and it’s not as polished as the sounds coming out of LA or London. When you produce something that you use the more analogue production on, sometimes you cannot control the hi-hat so it sticks around and it’s really dirty or the snare is just way too loud but that’s the thing that makes the record interesting. To have this signal sound which just sticks out because it’s not mixed right or it’s just roughly combined with other stuff is the attitude in the music that came out from the guys over there (USA) back then.

Dancemania or Trax Records had this really rough idea. Even at the beginning of house music I really liked the idea of having a drum machine and then like, soulful vocals over it. It was beautiful. The mix and the roughness and the soul you could feel, which made it identifiable to Chicago. It was amazing.

How do you feel about real instruments vs electronic production?

Well, you can use a sample bank that holds 70,000 samples but does it really pick up the velocity of the sound that a real instrument provides? My album comes from machines. Real drum machines, real filters, real compression. It’s probably not as hi-fi as the digital sound, but it’s something more. It’s breathing and it has more warmth.

I wouldn’t say Ableton or Logic or Fruity Loops destroy that though. I have produced with Logic for 10 years and you can use all the digital plug-ins that push the sound crazy loud, but then I can really tell sometimes because there are quality differences between those sequences. Fruity Loops and Reason to me, are not really the best for sound quality. It’s very small sound-wise and not the best for me.

And finally, how do you separate creative and business time?

It has gotten hard for me because my studio, the office and living area is in one place. I am the typical self-employed musician. I get up earlier if I am not DJing - at 10am, and go to bed at 2am, so it is work, work, work!

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