by RAF KATIGBAK

Jamie Lidell and Christian Vogel are the two techno mavericks behind Super_Collider. In 1999, amongst a flurry of new album releases in the then-burgeoning IDM scene, the Brighton duo’s Head On album rose out of obscurity into critical acclaim, not just for its deft programming, fucked-up sounds and twisted take on techno, but quite simply because it also had soul. Thanks to the raw, bluesy vocal talents of vocalist Lidell, Super_Collider injected a much needed dose of live funk (and a notable accessibility) into an experimental scene that often underlines the abstract, alienating many listeners. With Head On, Super_Collider managed to push the boundaries while at the same time shaking hips.

Now supporting their latest opus Raw Digits (a reference to both digital culture and working their fingers to the bone) on their own Rise Robots Rise label, armed with a full band including a bassist, drummer and visuals artist, Super_Collider is set to take on audiences at Montreal’s Elektra festival. The Mirror recently had a chance to catch up with the techno experimentalists (or “mentalists,” as they like to be called) over the phone from Berlin.

Mirror: You’re credited with trying to bring experimental music to the mainstream. Do you think heads are ready?

Christian Vogel: We both know that experimental music generally is pretty unaccepted on the whole, but ironically it’s completely necessary to the progress of all music. I mean, if people aren’t pushing edges forward, then what’s gonna happen?

Jamie Lidell: Historically, you can look at albums like Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On and say, well, if someone hadn’t taken a risk with that, if Marvin hadn’t gone against the grain there, we wouldn’t have all this music and all the other doors opened by that, for example.

M: So you guys are trying to open doors, then?

JL: We often play this game of trying to get people into a space where they wouldn’t normally go, either because they’ve got too many opinions or too many preconceived ideas of music or what something should be.

M: It’s been three years between albums. Have things changed a lot since Head On?

JL: They were both painful albums to make. Usually, it’s due to me being a stubborn cunt and not being satisfied. Basically, what distinguishes what we do from what a lot of others do is that we try and take it to the end. There was something I read recently from Brian Wilson which I’ll always remember. He said, “If you’re doing something, take it to the end. Don’t just do something and go, ‘Oh it’s done.’” Obviously, he went completely loopy. I don’t intend to do that. But it’s because we take it to that end point.

M: It must be tough knowing when a song is finished.

JL: A lot of people have said that inside the album, there are these sort of micro moments which, in a way, are mini questions and mini answers. There’s a lot of kind of minute resolves going on throughout the music. When you have that kind of approach, which is quite anal in a lot of ways, it’ll be a slow and painful process. But I think in days gone by, the craft of making music was an extremely hardcore endeavour involving a lot of musicians and a lot of organization. We have computers and all these simple devices to make things happen. Compared to that kind of organization, it’s nothing. But it takes a different level of concentration for two people than it might an orchestra of 30. So when you have to try to create tone colours as rich as 30 could make without at the same time sampling other people’s material or using any stock or preset sounds, then you have to really dig for quality. It’s still a lot of sifting for gold and there’s a lot you have to chuck out. It’s still the work of 30 people but it’s two and a computer.

We’re with the band

M: What do you think of the current state of techno and the rash of bedroom and laptop musicians?

CV: I think techno music’s gone a bit kind of crap really. Right now I don’t really know if electronic music can be confined inside computers and bedrooms and DJs anymore. It’s just suffocating in there. I’m glad that we’ve got Super_Collider as a band, it’s really rewarding. It makes me feel like there’s definitely a place to be with electronic music and it’s a good place.

M: How has playing in a band changed your approach to composing music?

JL: It gives you a lot more freedom to think of yourself in a smaller role rather than trying to excel in all tasks. I think this is one of the really dangerous things with computers and the upsurge of electronic music. It means whereas in the past you’d have real good songwriters working together with engineers, producers, musicians and so on, now everyone thinks they have to be a master of all these traits. It’s a hopeless task. It’s really only for a select few, people like the Prince and Stevie Wonder.

M: [to Lidell] Is that something you realized after your own solo album Muddlin’ Gear on Warp? That you can’t do it all?

JL: In the beginning, I think you have a certain cockiness when you’re young and you think you can do it all. Then as you grow older and you place what you’ve done musically against all the body of work that’s ever been made, it humbles you hugely. And then you think, I’m nothing, again.

M: That must be tough.

JL: Although it’s distressing, I think it’s a good place to be at because it means you can grow. Personally I think that’s where I’m at. Working with the band helps me to realize that. If I could just be a really good singer, would that be less than being a kind of pretty good singer and pretty good programmer and pretty good whatever? It’s hard to value that up. Basically, the bottom line is I just like singing more than I do sitting in front of a computer.

Busting the black box

M: Tell me about the Super_Collider band.

JL: Now we’ve got such a strong visual element, with our guy who’s basically doing visuals as a performer on stage instead of being a strange entity who’s contributing visuals from a black box that you don’t see. He’s sitting there with all the video. The thing that I got frustrated with in dance music is that it’s all black-box bullshit! All these drum machines and computers that are just sort of there on stage as entities are just bloody bland. They’re bland to look at and they’re bland performance devices.

M: But don’t you guys use computers and drum machines too?

JL: We do have that kind of technology, so we’re not about to say computers are bad or that you can’t use this or that. We’re not about to close doors, but at the same time, by virtue of the fact that we’ve got so many people contributing to the live experience now, it’s just more of a fruit cocktail. You don’t just have like one flavour now. Now, you can look at the bass player and he’s a big old guy wearing all kinds of nutty things and I’m changing costumes. We get the fun side, which is a little bit of the cabaret, in there. But at the same time the moods are unfamiliar to that setting and context.

M: What do you think about getting hit with the “putting the soul back in techno” tag?

CV: Yeah, I think we did put something back into electronic music, but I wouldn’t say it was soul necessarily. I’m not sure what it is. In a lot of techno, what people might think is soul or deep comes down to some kind of sustained drone of a 7th chord pad over a kind of rolling rhythm. That gets classed as sort of deep, especially if it’s got some kind of echo-y vocal. We just work hard at doing different stuff and hopefully that’ll inspire artists to try something different. Otherwise the whole thing is gonna disappear into a badly sampled 909 hi-hat for all eternity. And we don’t want that, do we? :

With DJ Frigid and the Best of
Chris Cunningham presentation at
Usine C on Saturday, Nov. 9, 9pm, $20

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