The First Criteria _ Interview With Reaktivate Records / RKT
Ok.. so now, we have some random-ish quickfire questions to close. Thanks a lot for everything Lads!
If you could go back to the day after RKT01 was released, what advice would you give yourselves?
Gustavo: Play on Euromillions and gather a fortune. Change the game in Techno.
Nuno: I wasn´t with the label yet. As a fan I´d probably tell them to not make the artwork look so much like something by a black metal band, ahah.
Gustavo: I was in a deep time of my life, so I told my girlfriend to do dark, chaotic artwork ahah! Even my track names as Quantic Spectroscopy from the time are easy found… with names like Bleed from Left Eye and STD names ahahah!
Pedro: Nothing. What we planned is working the way we want it to work
Ivo: I’m very happy with the result since the first one, so no need to change anything.
Which statement do you agree with most? ‘It’s nice to be important’ – or – ‘It’s important to be nice’? and why?
Gustavo: It’s important to be nice. Do you like a cunt being a cunt with you? I don’t.
Nuno: You can probably guess what I think about that from the answers before. I treat people as I would like to be treated, I put respect for people and their art above everything else and I see this as passion to be shared with others, how can you share what you love if you act like an asshole?
Pedro: It’s important to be nice. I find it important so other people can treat us well. I’m not a nice person to people I don’t fucking care about and people that I fucking hate.
Ivo: “It’s important to be nice”. That’s all!
Desert Island Disks. What 3 Albums would you bring to keep us entertained?
Gustavo: NIN Best Of. Dave Clarke World Service CD1. Marilyn Manson Mechanical Animals. And by mistake I would had NIN Hesitation Marks in the same case as the Best of, so that will count only as 3.
Nuno: Joy Division ‘Closer’, Ministry ‘The Mind Is A Terrible Thing To Taste’, Donato Dozzy ‘K’.
‘Closer’ has a lot of personal meaning, I even have ‘Heart and Soul’, the title of one of the tracks, tattooed across my back. To me it´s the ultimate display of how you can create beauty out of even the bleakest and hardest situations. Ian Curtis was basically telling the world he was gonna top himself and yet this is such a poetic and beautiful record and at least for me it reinforces the will to make the most out of life.
The Ministry album was decisive for my musical growth as it destroyed any remaining resistance I might have towards music with synthesized beats, samples and loads of electronic effects, and it led me to explore bands and artists with more and more electronics and less “real” instruments, so indirectly that got me to embrace techno later on. Al Jourgensen is a total hero to me and I love every Ministry album but this one is the perfect blend of metal and electronics and it´s got the ultimate “fuck it all” tune, ‘So What?’.
Dozzy´s ‘K’ is just the most stunning ambient/deep-techno album ever, it´s full of light and shade, it makes you sway, groove, think and travel, and Donato is my fav DJ and I´m really lucky to know him and to have spent some time with him, and he´s just a great human being. Undoubtedly my biggest inspiration.
Pedro: For sure:
“Sleep-Dopesmoker”
“Kyuss-Welcome to Sky Valley”
“Electric Wizard: Dopethrone”
My 3 favorite albums. They completely changed my life for me they’re the 3 best albums in the world i don’t know how these kind of albums can be compared to the fucking shit of “The Beatles”. The shit band that did nothing to music than the massification of shit music.
Ivo: Jeff Mills – Waveform Transmission Vol. 1, Plastikman – Recycled Plastik, Dave Clarke – World Service. These 3 are very inspiring for me, besides those, I only really listen Techno. My sets will give you a good ideas as to what I’m into.
What is success?
Nuno: Success, to me, is just having enough money to take care of myself and my son and have some money left to buy records and go see some bands and DJs once in a while, and not having to compromise myself or do anything that I don´t feel confortable with, to achieve that. I´m a simple guy with simple pleasures.
Pedro: Success is nothing if you don’t do the things you do for love. You can be successful like a fucking CEO with no love for anyone who just works in that area just because he wants money. Or you can be successful like Donato Dozzy who just did what he loves…MUSIC. He just enjoy things the way he wants and you can see that by after all this years he has never changed. He always did the same style of music even with the difficulty of being successful and being known in our scene.
Gustavo: Success? Being happy. Traveling the world to meet my music friends and show my work. Having the gear I need to keep on doing music and of course. Putting RKT on the World Map as a fine label for Techno. The rest…. I don’t need much in life, maybe only be able to eat regional portuguese dishes like “Tripas”, “Rojões”, “Cozido à Portuguesa” and Bacalhau ahaha! Of course in 10 years this won’t be my idea anymore, since I’ll be married and with kids but ok 😛
Now that you are on the other side of the fence.. how will you stop yourselves becoming what you dislike about ‘The Dinosaurs’? haha
Gustavo: Please browse subsekt and look for a guy known as a flame war initiator… But mainly, I’ll prevent it by not selling out. Keep it real and honest. Maybe perhaps like Adam X, Surgeon… Or Regis are good examples.
Nuno: What do you mean with disliking dinosaurs? I AM a dinosaur! That’s really hurtful… But seriously, trust me mate, I´ve worked for big multinationals for more than 15 years now… if I haven´t stopped loving this “crazy music for druggies”, as people at work call it, yet, and I haven´t turned into a middle-aged SUV-driving douchebag either, then I don´t think I will ever be a real dinosaur. Unless I can be a Velociraptor, those are cool.
Pedro: I just won’t.
Gustavo: Pedro will be a sell out trust me… Doing Kizomba Music for living!
The track you wished you released?
Gustavo: I still dream of the day Trent will do something for us on RKT as a special collab 😛
Nuno: Joey Beltram´s ‘Energy Flash’. I wouldn´t say it´s my fav techno track ever, but if I was forced to define techno in one track only, this would be it. No need to say more.
Pedro: For me it’s not a track but an album as i written earlier “Sleep-Dopesmoker”
They did what is for me the best album of all time. It’s fucking nonsense this album it’s so fucking strange that is the most beautiful thing ever did in music in my opinion even if they are my second favourite ever (the first one is Kyuss).
Ivo: I’m happy with all material released till now, but could be something like this
If Google did a tribute to 10 years of RKT – what would the Google logo be mutated into?
Ivo: RKT logo made by me! Hehehe
Pedro: Into the palm desert sunrise.(those who know…know)
Gustavo: Damn man… Can’t even imagine… but something cool as Pac Man videogame or Star Trek animated series… With us all partying like pacman 😀
Nuno: I want it to morph into a Space Invaders game except we´re the meanies coming down to Earth and at the bottom of the screen there will be Richie Hawtin´s head and he will be shooting headphones and CDJs at us, all soundtracked by our tunes, obviously.
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Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Reaktivate
Bandcamp: http://reaktivaterecords.bandcamp.com/
Soundcloud: http://soundcloud.com/reaktivate
Music production and history are my biggest passions in life.
Though people often say that Techno is faceless and should be about the music blah, blah, blah.. I believe in the need to document the people and stories behind it. Techno is a very small world in reality and I think it needs a proper resource.
I hope that everyone who is interested in Techno finds this blog accessible in terms of the way that it is written. I personally prefer to hear the artists voice as loud as the music and never enjoy synopsised and pasteurised versions of old conversation; the sort that's peppered with the occasional quote here and there.
