Noir goes with everything

Noir goes with everything

7 August, 2009 | 5.34AM

• Written by: Terry Church
• Filed under: Music News: noir, noir music

If black goes with everything, then Noir aka René Kristensen could not have chosen a more appropriate name.

The Danish producer doesn’t care about genres, and his far reaching music covers the entire house and techno spectrum. Whether it’s soulful or techy, deep or dark, melodic or percussive, Noir is capable of producing it. His music knows no boundaries.

With his tracks consistently hitting the Beatport Top 10, we decided it was time to meet Noir and discuss his beginnings in dance music, his genre-dodging capabilities, and his respected record label Noir Music.

How have things been going?

I’ve had a pretty hard summer so far. I had to cancel my summer tour due to cancer in the family. My girlfriend’s mother was close to dying, however fortunately, after all the operations she has had recently they have given her the all clear.

It was scary. One week she was walking around just fine, the next week she couldn’t move a muscle in her body.

Lucky for me the promoters and the DJs involved were very understanding, even though I cancelled right at the last minute.

Did the illness make you think about things in your life?

I’m very close to my girlfriend’s family. They are probably more understanding about what I do as a DJ than my own parents, who are very traditional Danish and only understand Danish music.

It made me think about my health and how to treat your body right. I’ve started running and eating healthier. Because of all the hard touring that I do, and the long studio sessions, I sometimes forget to eat properly and will just drink coffee for hours and hours. That’s not healthy.

But in terms of making me think about my career, it didn’t change anything. I don’t doubt what I’m doing as I’ve been a DJ since 1996.

I’ve been interested in electronic music since the age of six or seven. Before I was old enough to get into clubs, I was watching videos of Kraftwerk and Depeche Mode, and then I got into Detroit techno, Chicago house, and acid house.

When did production begin for you?

It started in 2001. That’s when I got really serious about music production. I was a manager of a gym before that, but I chucked in the day job because I became obsessed with production. I wanted to dedicate my entire day to production. Making music and the production process swallowed me.

When did things start to take off?

My first big record was ‘All About House Music’, and that has become a big classic for me. I made that in 2005. It was my first proper signing from a label outside of Denmark and it gave me a lot of self-belief.

The track is about how back in the day, everyone wanted to be a DJ, get famous, and get laid. It was about underground house music culture. It came from the heart, and it was about how I felt about house music at that time. It’s a fun and optimistic record.

Your track ‘My MTV’ was released around the same time, and that was a big hit.

‘My MTV’ was made more for commercial purposes, than from the heart. I knew it would crossover and be successful. It got signed to Toolroom, who are one of the few labels in dance music who can take an underground hit over to the mainstream.

But when I DJ and people come up to me to talk about my music, they always say they love ‘All About House Music’, they never say they love ‘My MTV’, and that’s understandable.

So do you prefer making music from the heart?

I’m not chasing being famous or trying to make music that people will like necessarily. I did ‘My MTV’ to get some attention, but now I only make music for myself.

Like I did this track ‘The Off World’ in January, after a trip to Dusseldorf. I was reading Kraftwerk’s biography at the time, and they’re from that city. It’s very industrial, and it influenced me to make this dark and moody techno track. That was just for me.

And at the moment, I’m really into tribal and percussion, and am making a lot of tribal grooves.

You are certainly diverse. Your latest track ‘Disco.Nnected’ is disco, and you’ve got deep house, tech house, progressive, and electro house in your discography.

Maybe I’m ruining my chances of success by constantly changing my sound. I know I’ve lost a lot of fans who liked ‘My MTV’ but didn’t like what came afterwards.

Some people think it’s crazy to be so diverse.

But you know, some artists get inspired when they sit on the toilet, some get inspired by the sunset in Ibiza, and me, I’m the same way. I get inspired by anything and everything and that’s why my music is all over the place.

I made that disco track, simply because I had disco fever that day.

Do you think your diversity stems from your first club residency at Rendez Vous, where you played all sorts of music?

Maybe. Rendez Vous is a club in my hometown here, and I used to play 50% hip hop, r&b and funk, and 50% house. But that was ok, because house music back then was very gospel-based and black, so it mixed quite well with the early r&b stuff, which was called swing then.

I played at Rendez Vous every weekend. Then in 2006/2007 I started getting gigs outside of Denmark. 2008 was my crazy busy year.

You must have been quite cut off being based in northern Denmark?

For sure, Aalborg is pretty cut off. I’ve considered moving several times from this small and quiet city. It’s always rainy and grey here. But I really like my friends and family here.

With DJing, every weekend I’m surrounded by promoters and clubbers who only want to talk about house music. so it’s nice to get home to a quiet city. No one knows me here for being a DJ or producer, which is nice. One of the great things about this job, is that you can produce music from a bungalow in Thailand and still make an impact worldwide via the internet.

When did you realise that your music was having an impact in the rest of the world?

In 2006, I met Mark Knight for the first time at Miami’s Winter Music Conference. I went to the conference for the first time and went around introducing myself to all these important guys like Simon Dunmore from Defected and Michael Gray.

When I approached them, I could see they didn’t recognise my face because no one knew what I looked like. When I told them I was Noir, they were like ‘oh you’re Noir, the guy who’s No.1 everywhere at the moment?’, because just as WMC had began I had scored a No.1 on Beatport, DJdownload, and Traxsource at the same time.

Then when I went back in 2007, everyone recognised me because of my hairdo. I had this big mohawk, and people didn’t forget it. It was cool to see that change.

I even got handed loads of promos by up and coming kids as I had announced that I wanted to start my own label Noir Music, and that was a nice feeling, to know that aspiring producers wanted my help.

Is Noir Music about supporting up and coming talent?

There are always artists out there that are not being noticed. If you don’t have a name or you’re not on a big label you won’t really get noticed, so it’s hard to get new names out there, but I believe in the end quality will win. I hope anyway.

Like Deadmau5, he hit a vibe that people fell in love with and his quality shone through. Now he’s about to crossover into the mainstream, and he’s on radio stations everywhere.

Noir Music has been a slow success. Because I’m committed to only releasing quality, I’ve been able to build a profile slowly.

I write my own press releases for every release, and I only release music that I consider quality. When you do things that feel right from the start, you have a good chance of success.

House is one big circle. You can play these old house grooves now that we might have forgotten about. A few years ago, you couldn’t drop anything soulful or funky, as people would leave the dancefloor, but now you can drop full on vocal tracks.

How do you ensure that Noir Music only puts out quality?

Every Noir Music release gets put out on vinyl, and when you do physical releases there’s always more quality control. You have to be sure that what you put out will sell, otherwise you can lose money.

Sometimes a track that I know is quality will go unnoticed, so I will re-release them to give them a second chance. Tracks that I love and feel should get a second chance go on my label’s ‘Dark Stars’ compilations.

Dark comes from Noir, which means black, and Stars, as in they deserve to shine.

Our new compilation ‘Ibiza Noire 09’ also has some tracks on it that I think should get noticed.

What’s your studio set up like?

My studio is pretty simple. I have a PC and Ableton Live and a midi keyboard, which is really important as I use it to play all of my melodies. Whatever melodies you hear on a Noir track I played by hand.

I use a lot of plug ins and soft synths. And I always play my tracks on the speakers in my living room. They are really loud in the mid range, and I think it’s important to test your track out on different systems. If it sounds good on my studio speakers and also on the large, less sophisticated speakers in my living room, then I know I’ve made a good track.

What do you think of the house scene at the moment?

I’m happy about the way music is developing right now. Producers are getting into more and more old skool vibes, and the sound is a lot less cold and less electronic. That’s great I think. I really like the house stuff coming out at the moment.

House is one big circle. You can play these old house grooves now that we might have forgotten about. A few years ago, you couldn’t drop anything soulful or funky, as people would leave the dancefloor, but now you can drop full on vocal tracks. And those old house records sound up to date and very cool again. House has got its funk back.

5 Essential Noir 2009 releases

Noir ‘Disco.Nnected’ (Studio 54 Mix) [Klimaks]

Disco is well and truly back, and Noir’s ‘Disco.Nnected’, which he made when he had “disco fever” is a perfect slab of late night filtered disco.

Loop-based but funky and fresh at the same time, the track is like a mish mash of house, techno, and disco, all rolled into one, not too dissimilar to the filtered-techy-disco grooves of Pitto.

Noir, Mikel Curcio ‘LaMusica’ [Noir Music]

‘LaMusica’ is a prime example of Noir’s shining ability to work percussion into rolling house grooves, a sound that Mannheim pioneers Gorge and Nick Curly would be proud of.

The track is featured on Noir’s new ‘Club.IbizaNOIRe’ compilation.

Noir ‘The Off World’ [Noir Music]

Noir’s melodic techno cut ‘The Off World’ proved that the Danish producer could do dark and haunting machine music despite being mainly known for house productions.

His flirtation with techno began in 2008 with ‘Planta 7.10’, a frenetic and moody bleepy cut that was featured on his ‘Hits From The Darkside’ EP, and his Popof-sounding techno track ‘Ragnarok’ was also popular.

Oandg Project ‘Bad Ass’ (Noir Remix) [Catwalk Records]

Unlike many of his contemporaries, Noir’s profile remains solid in all of the genre fields he’s associated with, and he is comfortable making pumping electro house as much as soulful deep house or techno.

His remix of Oandg Project ‘Bad Ass’ is a driving electro cut that will fill main rooms quicker than you can say “bassline”.

Nick Curly, Gorge ‘Donut’ (Noir Special Edit)

Noir’s Special Edit of Gorge and Nick Curly’s ‘Donut’ is dark and hypnotic house music, and yet more proof of Noir’s genre-hopping skills.

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