by SCOTT C

You remember our man A-Trak. He swept the world with his prodigious DJing talents and made Montreal proud to foster a new generation of turntablists. Well, now he’s our last hope against some marvels of German engineering that seem to think (or not) that they have something to prove. A-Trak vs. the Juke-Bots of Robot Labs should attract some attention at the Elektra festival this week, but don’t expect any fisticuffs to break out at the event, because this battle will be fought with the technical merits of the participants set front and centre stage. The Mirror spoke to A-Trak about what he’s been up to, and his strategy for one of the most difficult battles he’s ever had to prepare for.

Mirror: What the hell is going on, man? What are you up to these days?

A-Trak: I’ve been working on some solo stuff, school, travelling and some different things for my live show just recently.

M: What, adding, like, a sitar player?

A: (laughs) When I play a club gig, I mix, then do a routine and go back to mixing. Two extremes. I’m trying to come up with ways to make it all blend together. The routines are so technical that it’s a slap in the face after I’ve been mixing. A slap in the face can be good too, though.

M: So you’re trying to find a way to keep people dancing while slapping them in the face at the same time?

A: (laughing) Something like that.

M: Where’s the Obscure Disorder LP, man?

A: It’s in the works.

M: Are you stalling for time?

A: No. We’re just recording song after song and sitting on them, and them coming back with a better understanding of what we need to do better.

M: Trying to concentrate on quality?

A: Yeah, basically. If it was just a matter of putting together 12 songs and putting out a CD, we could have done that a long time ago. We’re also trying to nail down better distribution, because you can’t really half-step on that end either. It’s just about making sure that Audio Research is really ready to put out an album properly.

More than meets the eye

M: How did this A-Trak vs. the robots business come about?

A: Well, I’m actually doing two shows at the Elektra Festival. I’m doing a show with Naut Humon, the founder of Asphodel Records, a guy I’ve known for a while. I always knew that he was into some weird stuff, but at the same time I’d never really worked with him on anything.

M: That’s the really weird, impy guy in Scratch, right?

A: I think he’s in that movie. Anyways, he approached me at the end of the summer to do this festival in Montreal. I don’t fully understand exactly what he does, but I agreed. Then the organizers of the festival were like, why don’t you play at the big headliner as well, with these crazy German robots?

M: And you of course said, “Sure!”

A: (laughing) I accepted because I felt like trying something new, y’know? They showed me a video of them and it seemed kind of cool.

M: You think you could make some friends?

A: With the robots? Nah. When I heard “robots,” I had some, friendly humanoid thing in mind—

M: Like C-3P0?

A: Yeah! Like “dee-doo-dee-doo, hello, A-Trak,” but really all it is, is this big mechanical arm, kind of like what you see in an assembly line at a car plant. I think there’s two or three of them and they each have a turntable, and the arm picks up records and puts them on the table and that’s the whole deal, really.

M: Amazing.

A: They also kind of move the records around. Not to talk trash about the robots or anything, but when they first approached me, they said these robots scratched, but don’t come out expecting to see Q-Bert patterns. It’s pretty basic what they do. We’ll probably play together at some point, though. I’ve got to kick ass for humanity this time, though.

M: I’m kind of hoping it gets scratch-battle ugly up there, because who knows what the robots will do when the pressure is on. I know how it goes—I used to watch Transformers.

A: I thought it would be kind of cool to approach it like a battle, and walk up there with some robot disses, calling them out, but I’ll save that for my imagination. :

At Usine C with Robot Labs, Naut Humon,
Granular Synthesis and more tonight,
Thursday, Nov. 14, 9pm, $15, and vs. Robot Labs,
with Saeed & Palash and Miche & Sultan
plus various VJs on Saturday, Nov. 16, 10pm, $15

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