D.I.M interview: Mind-bending distortion from Boys Noize Records

Who? Andreas Meid, 33, German electro-techno pioneer who makes a lot of noise.

Sounds like? Cranking your hearing aid up full and listening to Autechre through a blown-out speaker on an industrial building site.

There could be a number of explanations for why Andreas Meid’s breed of twisted electro-tech goes under the initials D.I.M. As an abbreviation, it could stand for ‘diminished chord’ as a reference to the dissonance within his music, or for ‘dimension’ perhaps as a nod towards the ethereal atmosphere it creates. But, in fact, these are no where near.


“The name comes from a painting by a good friend that had a spiral with a head and a hat, and the letters D.I.M on it”, he explains. The darkness of such a surreal image can clearly be heard in his tracks; the immaculately produced ‘Is You’, and the bordering on disturbing ‘Sysiphos’, have been storming dance-floors across Europe since 2007.

It’s not difficult to locate the source of the aggression within his music too. “At a young age, I was really into metal. The distortion and aggression of metal riffs and bass lines feature heavily within my music.”

Andreas grew up within a musical family with a father who exposed him to Motown at time when “you needed to hear music rather than search for it on the internet”. At nine, he learnt to play the piano and later moved onto the guitar, playing in a number of bands during his teens. His first concert experience, when he was 12, was a Happy Mondays gig in 1987, in Munich. “The venue was packed and the atmosphere was great. I remember seeing Sean Ryder come on stage with a joint and a beer, and thinking it was a little revolutionary considering the situation in Germany at this time.”

What has since followed is an obsession with wobbly synthesisers and grinding bass lines. He tells me, “I don’t have time for anything other than playing live and working in the studio. My hobby has become my career” - which doesn’t sound too dim to me.


Andrea’s Top 3 Metal Bands

Pull out quote: “At a young age, I was really into metal. The distortion and aggression of metal riffs and bass lines feature heavily within my music.”

Guns & Roses:

“I’m not sure if they count as metal, but their album ‘Appetite for Destruction’ is the greatest album ever made.”

Entombed:

“They’re a Swedish metal band. I like the aggression of the deep, huge guitars.”

Helmet:

“They’re a hardcore band from New York. I like them for the irregular drum rhythms.”


Words: Adam Saville

Words, Words, Words (2)... Giles Skerry on Barbers

"Literally hellish. The smell, the faces, the weather channel on TV, the car magazines, the endless chitchat, the coathook. The best thing is my feeling of superiority over the suckers without an appointment."

Words, Words, Words...

"It reminds me of an old story" he said. "It's about a man who said he could drum a beat; but it was not that his technique was wrong. It was that he had very small fingers. He tried to use his tiny fingers to beat the world. But when he failed, he made it his life to teach big-fingered people how to play the Bongos."

Words: Adam Saville

Cairo Diary #3: Birthday

Another extract from Adam Thomas' diary about his time in Egypt (the drunk)

It was Mohammed’s birthday and there was no school, so we smoked and gambled and drank spirits in the afternoon. Outside the heat swam in the air and people came and went from mosques and houses, mumbling. Their steps were busy and they carried sweetmeats and sugared almonds. Up in our three bathroom apartment the smoke from fine Cubans circled the poker table and we sprawled like lizards over the many couches, shirtless and full of food. In the corner the TV buzzed a Hollywood movie into our ears and the floor was scattered with pizza boxes and empty bottles. The bars were closed ofcourse and our friend who delivered the alcohol wasn’t allowed to do so today, but it didn’t matter; we had panic bought the day before, and there was enough to see us through. As the afternoon dripped into evening, the muezzins began the chorus of evening prayer. It rose up from the city like a cloud and rippled through every crack and crevice; filled every empty room and empty head; for a brief moment it replaced the dust and smoke and made the air hum with something else. We turned up the TV and closed the two sets of French windows that led on to the balcony. Not today. We were drunk.

Words:Adam Thomas

"Hyper Bass Fusion"

Young Upstart L-VIS 1990 has been at large, traumatising clubs in both Brighton and London, for almost two years; Adam Saville speaks to him with the onset of the release of his first E.P




It's 9:15pm on a Friday in Fabric and it’s almost empty. By my side is a bright-eyed 24-year old from Brighton with an Ace Ventura-style quiff and a multi-coloured shirt decorated with exotic fruits; his name is L-VIS 1990. He makes a type of bass-heavy dance music which he calls his “hyper bass sound”.

“I am from a Drum and Bass & breaks background”, he tells me. “A lot of the breaks DJs are only just getting into the electro thing. I was into it when it first started to emerge but now it’s completely tired.” What about bassline? “Bassline is on its own really, I don’t want to class myself within the bassline scene although I am a big fan. It is a really good scene full of energy, but most of the DJs are not really breaking out or crossing over on to the London club circuit. However, a new sound is emerging, and a new crew of DJs and producers is coming together to do something fresh and new”.

He tells me his club night Night Slugs, which was set up with Alex Bok Bok from Faggatronix, was set up because there was no night in London playing this bass-heavy sound. Prior to this, his club night in Brighton, So Loud, marked what he saw as an “official funeral” for the new rave of old. As he recalls, “we painted a banner in blood that read “New Rave R.I.P.”, that was the turning point for me, the return of bass.”

This reversion back to "bass" has produced a sound that fuses the aggression of bassline with the slickness of Ed Banger; it combines rave melodies, electro bleeps, jacking techno beats and the wobble of dubstep to create a sound that, as he asserts, is made “only for the dance-floor”.

“My sound has plucked all the goods bits that I have found in the last ten years of listening to dance music. I’ve put them all together – it’s like drum and bass, Detroit house, jacking ghetto house, grime, dubstep and garage all into one. What I want is for everyone to enjoy my sound. Whether you’re into dubstep, garage or electro, you can all get together and enjoy my sound.”

What L-VIS shrewdly avoids is sectioning his sound off; his music is not too dark or oppressive, but it certainly packs a punch. Plus it has a sense of humour; his sample of Al Green in ‘Stay Together’ is a cheeky nod towards the lack of girl-friendly elements that his music appears to be lacking.

“I’m not one for melody. I’m not musically trained – I make tunes that I think will go down well on the dance floor. Girl-friendly doesn’t have to be about female vocals or Spanish guitars. (Laughs) My music is girl-friendly in the sense that it is fun and that you can dance to it.” He’s not wrong. Three hours later, Room Three at Fabric is by no means short of girls, laughs and, of course, terrorising bass lines.

L-VIS 1990's E.P is out 21st July:

A1) Apple Bass
A2) Change the Game
B1) Mr Wobble
B2) Black Snax

Words: Adam Saville