Mothership gets ‘Paranoid’: an interview

Mothership gets ‘Paranoid’: an interview

18 October, 2007 | 3.28PM

• Section: Music News
• Written by: dayvidday

Mothership Music, the techno label founded by tech-funk DJ and producer Claude VonStroke, has released its follow-up to the monumental ‘Viktor Casanova EP’ from Italoboyz.

This time, VonStroke looked to local lights to take the Mothership sound to a colder, more freaky place.

‘Paranoid EP’ came out this week and features the vocal stylings of Monty Luke and the music-making of Tasho Nicolopulos (AKA Tasho), with a remix from Berlin guru Todd Bodine.

Beatportal tracked the two players down and asked them about the release.

We talked to Tasho at his home in San Francisco, and caught Monty in Amsterdam, where he is covering the Amsterdam Dance Event for XLR8R Magazine.

What was the inspiration behind such a dark track? Musically, what style does it comes from? And lyrically, is it a statement on the times or just the bathroom lines — or what?

Monty Luke: The idea for the track was inspired by someone I used to throw parties with.

I’d had the line, “I think I’m paranoid” in my brain for a while.

I did a really crude demo of it, brought it to Tasho, and we fleshed it out from there.

Lyrically, it was really inspired by early west-coast hardcore punk (Black Flag and Wasted Youth, specifically).

Tasho: The influences for me were Green Velvet, John Tejada and James Holden.

I know you guys have been DJing and writing for a minute now, but why produce?

Monty Luke: It’s our debut production together as a unit; but I did a track called ‘What U Feel’ back in 2002 under the name Loopwreckas with a buddy of mine, and Tasho’s done several tracks and ran the Panhandle label several years back.

It’s fun, it’s a challenge and I felt like I had more to say than what a DJ set could really get across.

What do you like about working with the Tasho?

Monty Luke: We share similar tastes in terms of music and DJing.

Tasho has a deep background in music from playing in bands and stuff, and really knows his shit.

Man, all I do is come up with some ideas — but Tasho crafts the shit into actual music, y’know?

What do you think when a DJ like Laurent Garnier says, “Very good fucked up shit. Will play!” — other than, “Fuck yeah!”?

Monty Luke: It inspires me to make more “fucked up shit”!

Merci, Laurent!

Tasho:  It’s really inspiring that you can sit in your studio in San Francisco and connect with people in another part of the world, especially some one who’s inspired you, like Laurent Garnier.

Why did you join up with Mothership/Claude VonStroke?

Monty Luke:  Oh dude, Von Stroke is The Boss, plain and simple.

He’s the Damon Dash, the Irv Gotti of techno, yo.

We had ‘Paranoid’ lying about and I gave him a copy.

He liked it, said it was getting good reactions when he played it out.

He wanted it and we were like, “Um, OK”!

When I really look at the releases on Mothership so far (including the upcoming few I’ve heard), it kind of reminds of like when Relief Records started, with a bunch of different cats brought together on one label to serve some real hotness.

Tasho: I used to DJ every week with Justin Martin (of Dirty Bird) and it’s been really cool to watch those guys become so huge globally, because in addition to being such dope producers, they’re really good guys.

Von Stroke has an approach to techno that I really appreciate.

He has fun with it, and makes it fun for other people.

It’s party music, isn’t it?

–

Tasho DJs regularly around the Bay Area.

Catch Monty Luke’s (AKA ML Tronik) Bubble Metropolis column each month in XLR8R magazine and his podcast at www.XLR8R.com.

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