Processed _ Interview With Mono.xID

I know you like punk and hip hop Patrick, but how did you get into Techno? Was it in your teenage years or did it come later?

Well, Techno was all around in the early 90’s in Germany so there was no way to escape from it in my teens. I hated Techno with a passion back then. It was the time where it was getting really commercial with all the Mayday Raves and Love Parade reached over 1 Million visitors. I was totally into Hip-Hop and skateboarding. I felt like the coolest guy on earth with baggy pants, Wu-Tang hoodie and a fat bag of izm ha ha. A good mate bought himself a pair of 1200’s and all the dudes we knew were taking their records to his flat and occupied his turntables to record mixtapes. During this time I fell in love with Djing and I tried to scratch and beat-juggling and all that (but I sucked hard on that). Then there was this girl (can’t even remember her name) with all this weird Techno records (old Harthouse, Tresor, Peacefrog, Mosquito, Sativae, Jakpot and so on). This was much better Techno to me than the shit on TV and radio but I still didn’t like it that much.

A couple of months later some friends took me to some illegal psy-trance rave somewhere in the woods and I was blown away by the whole atmosphere and the music (due to some proper acid trips i guess ha ha). There was a techno/acid techno stage as well and somehow it clicked with me on that night. The next day I was at my mates flat again (with a massive hangover) and I played around with this girl’s records. After some minutes I figured out the whole beatmatching trick and recorded my first Techno mixtape and there you go. Next stop Hardwax record store haha.

Have you moved with the trends in Techno over the last 15 years or so? What have you enjoyed or hated? Would you be able to talk a little about the directions that you have travelled in?

I lost interest in Techno when it went too schranzy, loopy and tribal with all that distorted bongo percussion loops. It was around the year 1999 or so when labels like Theory and Planet Rhythm got bigger and this kind of Techno wasn’t really my cup of tea anymore. So I skipped all this Tribal and loopy Techno plus Minimal Techno completely. I was fed up with electronic music in general apart from downbeat music like Tricky, Massive Attack, Sneaker Pimps and stuff like that. At the same time (I was around 20 years back then) I was getting more and more into Punkrock and Hardcore and lived in squats for a while. I really think that this was one of the best and most important time in my life as it made me the guy I am today. These years had a big influence on how I see the world, politics and our society in general. I found a lot of good friends and I still love Punkrock more than anything else as it is just really honest and simple music. I think the “Do it yourself” approach is very common in Punk, Techno or Hip-Hop. You don’t have to be a musical genius and you don’t need an exam from arts school if you know what I mean. Just get yourself a guitar, a synth or a microphone and fuckin’ do it.

I got back to electronic music in 2008 when i met DnB producer Dean Rodell who moved to Berlin at that time. I always liked Drum ‘n’ Bass and in this year I discovered the fusion of Techno and Drum ‘n’ Bass. Labels like Freak, Offkey, Penetration, Habit, Subsistenz, Obscene, Position Chrome. I was diggin’ this kind of harder, techy, cold and harsh Drum ‘n’ Bass and started to DJ again. This kind of sound was actually the beginning of my production career as I tried hard to produce Technoid Drum ‘n’ Bass. Dean showed me some basics and after a couple of months there was no way back. I found something I’ve always wanted to do. My own music.

I sucked badly on producing Drum ‘n’ Bass and I have nothing but respect for DnB producers as I think it is one of the most hardest electronic music to make. I was checking out some new Techno and really liked the direction Techno was taking and was hooked again. I made some Techno tracks and felt really comfortable within that genre and my approaches on DnB stopped more and more. Six years later, I’m here now and doing my first interview for one of the coolest page of the interweb haha.

Time files when you are having fun Man!

Fancy giving us a few techno / electronic tracks or artists that have stood the test of time for you?

Fook, that’s a hard one. I could mention most of early Joey Beltram stuff already haha. But yeah, I’ll do my best.

NEIL LANDSTRUMM – Boost Controller

First time i heard this track was on someone’s mixtape. I was like “what the fook is this?” I just loved the bleeps and the hard but groovy drum pattern. I guess I was one of Landstrumm’s biggest fanboys in the 90’s. I got all his early records and still play his old tracks today. There are always some young techno-hipsters coming to the booth and guess what they’re asking: “what the fook is this?”

JB3 (a.k.a. Joey Beltram) – Forklift (Luke Slater’s ‘Filtered’ Mix)

Luke’s remix of this classic just teared apart every dancefloor back then and still today. Joey’s “Close Grind” LP is one of the best Techno records ever in my opinion. Perfect example of how to drive a crowd crazy with just some drums and a synth sound. Techno in his most purest form. Period.

Der Dritte Raum – Trommelmaschine

I heard this track for the first time at my first Psy-Trance rave I talked about earlier. I’ll never forget this moment when I saw 2000 people went mad to this track somewhere in the deep woods. Instant goosebumps whenever I listen to that track.

Len Faki – BX3

Whenever, wherever someone’s playing this track, the crowd will smile and go nuts. I’m not a big fan of Len Faki’s tracks (though I respect him a lot) but with this track he created a modern classic. I read an interview and Len said that he had Berghain in mind and tried to catch the vibe of this club when he produced this track. I’d say he pretty much nailed it.

Great! Yeah.. Was going through a few records the other day and saw that Slater remix. Fucking classic. Insane.