Knowledge _ Interview with Dadub

I don’t have too much more to ask you and I’m conscious that I’ve kept you a good while now, but would you mind talking a little about politics?

I don’t know whether you would describe yourselves as being politicised or not.. or maybe it’s just that you don’t like injustice, but I’ve certainly noticed that you seem to take an interest in both subjects.

Would  either of those things be a fair to say about you?

Giovanni: For me it’s not about being into politics as an intellectual interest. It’s more I find ourselves in a historic moment. Our lives are getting more fucked up from one day to the next. It’s about getting informed so that you can save your ass if things get worse. Most of the people don’t really care. Probably it’s because they are influenced and educated to that politics is something that is not related to real life. You just delegate that part to someone who will think for you. This is something I don’t like in general. I don’t like to say ok.

Some days ago I was talking to a German friend. I was saying that I didn’t understand why if there were no cars for kilometres around,  German people would still wait at a red light to cross the street. Coming from Italy, this is hard for us to understand because if the street is empty and there is a red light in front of me, I will just cross the street.

Daniele: It’s anthropological hahaha

Giovanni: So I told this friend that I didn’t understand how people can accept that other people are doing the thinking for them.

So what did she say?

Giovanni: Well, she said “Fuck – I never thought of it that way..”

Haha

Giovanni: This way of thinking is really dangerous as this way of thinking opens the way for a totalitarian system. You already have the seed in yourself. I you accept to give away a part of your free thinking, starting at the red traffic light, which is something very simple. Maybe it’s an over simplification, but I don’t understand why people don’t cross the fucking street hahaha.

Well, in Ireland, even if there were lights and cars on the road, we’d still cross the road regardless..

Daniele: Following the rules depends on the welfare state. If you get good welfare, you will be more likely to follow the rules. Coming from Italy, you are coming from the jungle. If you follow the rules, you are the stupid one. That’s because we get nothing, nothing, nothing. It makes us quite suspicious of the rules. So yeah, this is the reason why I was joking about it being anthropological haha.

But in terms of the politics.. all of us talk about love, respect and peace but in fact, everything is the complete opposite. Being informed, or at least conscious of what’s happening helps. I don’t want to be the opposite of what I am. My actions should reflect what I am thinking.

It’s the same with sound. If I have a synthesiser, I don’t see a synthesiser. I see a thing that must be sold by somebody else. I  wonder why the trend pushes that sound, or why maybe this machine is treated like THE machine. I’m not politicised, but it’s a matter of being conscious and knowing what’s going on. We don’t want to send certain messages in our music. It’s important for us that the audience are in a dimension far away, to be free to think a little bit about themselves.

When I think of movements, rebellion and change, I think of movements like punk. Even as a teenager, everyone was listening to Nirvana and Sonic Youth and as a result seemed to enter a counter culture of some sort.  I don’t know whether it’s to do with drugs or self-image, but is dance music built on hedonism or selfishness? Do people care?

Giovanni: What I see is that techno music is associated with recreation. People should have fun and not have to think about anything. People should come to the club and drink as much as possible so that the club owner can make lots of money. They should be as stupid as they want and as fucked up as they want. Techno music has the potential to make people feel an energy that is beyond the marketing and beyond the money. It’s the eternal energy that we have. I went to Berghain last Sunday and Ben Klock was playing. The club was full. There were about 600 people on the floor. There was such a pure energy coming out of the dancefloor that I was really moved. It’s not something that always happens.

I feel that techno producers or DJ’s can really liberate people. They can use the music, not as a way to make money, or make people forget but to remember who they really are and why they are in this fucking world.

They are not here to be slaves. They are not here to make someone else a lot of money while they cannot pay the rent. We have a lot of potential and the people who are at the top don’t want us to realise this. Techno music is a powerful way of remembering this. It accesses the most primitive and timeless power that we have inside. You don’t need words. You don’t need vocals. You don’t need to reference the hype of the month. It’s a kind of music that works in a physical way. It allows people to experience a mystical moment in their life.

Daniele: This feeling was common in the free party scene in the UK and France. There was a lot of repression by the police. Ok, there is all the shit related to drugs, but can you remember the Criminal Justice Bill in the UK in 1990’s? The politicians think about these issues more than the musicians think about the politicians.

Sure, of course.. Dance music is a way of reigniting instincts. I suppose many people get caught up in working a 9 to 5 and lose track of things.

Daniele: I don’t hide the fact that lots of ideas that I’ve had have come from when I was dancing. It’s like coming back to the past and finding treasure because you were caught up in bullshit, working and surviving. Such a powerful thing for your life. We love techno for this.

Giovanni: Politicians are usually just stupid..

Daniele: Puppets! Haha

Giovanni: Puppets haha.. But the people who can really decide and control most of our lives. They are really scared about the fact that if normal people remember of access some primitive energy that they have inside, that they can manipulate their lives and reality in ways that we are not supposed to use. We are not meant to do it, otherwise we’ll realise how fucked up the world is and how mentally conditioned we are. You are born and go to school for 20 years. By the time you finish school, you are totally mind conditioned and all your knowledge of the world is pre-programmed by someone else. You are not deciding he limits of your reality. They do this by telling you that history is this, this and this. Mathematics is blah, blah, blah..

If you can close your eyes and go inside yourself, you can have everything you want for life. You can say that you don’t give a shit about having €2000 a month as long as I can pay my rent. As long as I can eat and play my rent, then I want to do what I really like. They want you to be a slave so you can earn €2000 a month and buy a car. If you don’t do this, there is something wrong with you.

Maybe Berlin is a special place. You can see that you can live in different ways. If you come from a small town or from an expensive city, you cannot consider earning only what you need. I don’t care about having €50,000 in my bank account. Right now I have €10 in my bank account and I am not stressed. I don’t give a shit haha. I know I will get some more money with the mastering and the gigs. I’m totally fine. I prefer to spend my time every day in developing my knowledge of the world and the power that I have inside. I know that if I didn’t use this power, I wouldn’t be sitting here talking to you right now..

Hahaha

Daniele: hahaha

Giovanni: I would be in an office, fucking depressed. Earning €800 a month in Italy and considering myself a failed person.

Daniele: But a good slave hahaha

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You Are Eternity is out now on Stroboscopic Artefacts

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