At some point, club culture became something to watch as much as something to experience, and Amp//Xist isn’t entirely convinced that’s a good thing. Having spent his formative years immersed in London’s late-’80s warehouse parties and the techno scenes of ’90s Amsterdam, the producer has a few things to say about phones on dancefloors, superstar DJs and music made for social media algorithms.
With his new Shadow Jerk (Ya Body) EP out on Nearfield Records, we caught up with him for a wide-ranging conversation about the early days of rave, the enduring appeal of a dark room and a good sound system, and why, after nearly four decades, he’s still more interested in discovering new music than reliving the past.
You’ve been involved in dance music since the 1980s. What was the scene like when you first got involved, and what made you want to be part of it?
Hello Club Map, thanks for having me..
The scene was being born when I became aware of it, with the warehouse and acid party scene, and the import of the Balearic sound , so it was fast moving and evolving, growing.. Things were so quick to come and go before it settled a bit in the early 90’s. I was a bit young to experience the very first underground clubs in London , Shoom, Spectrum etc, but I was fully in the warehouse and rave scene in the late 80’s. So it’s maybe hard to visualise now, but absolutely nothing like it had happened. The media didn’t have a clue in their reporting, the police didn’t know how to handle it either. So the excitement and intrigue were bar none, and it felt special because not everyone knew it was happening. When I first moved into the clubs, Naked Lunch at the Driz ( one of the best ), SW1 , Heaven, Milk Bar, Gardening club, Maximus and the rest , in 89 – 90 , things were in full flow and amazing but still kind of exclusive to those plugged in. It was just bloody awesome actually. Nothing seems private or mysterious now, everything is visible and know or easy to know, so the mystery isn’t there ?
I feel I didn’t have any choice to be a part of it, I was taken up by it and carried off. The amazing new music that had never been heard and was impossible to stand still to , the incessant 4/4 kick on the dance floor in smoke and low light, the mad sounds ( to hear hear filtered synth lines back then was like outer space noise ) the community and connection with strangers, the feeling of being inside something unique and special, dare I say it the doves…
Can you remember the first club night or DJ set that really changed the way you thought about electronic music?
I don’t think anything did change how I felt, I felt as I feel now about it, from the moment I heard my first Detroit sounds in the local vinyl shop, where I would regularly hang out as a younger teen buying hip hop. I can’t really remember my first party or underground club night specifically ( I use the word underground deliberately ), hazy times and soooo many nights out.. So yeh I was all in from the get go. I had listened to electro and hip hop for some years already so I was totally into drum machines and weird noises, but the first dance floor whether it was in a hanger or a club , wow what a transcendent experience !!
Having seen club culture evolve over several decades, what do you think we’ve gained along the way, and what have we lost?
So i’ve not been that involved in actually going out for maybe 8 years now , I was busy drumming at festivals etc with live dance acts and dub bands etc… only occasional club outings. I’m actually off to ADE next week and am eager to get out and about, i’m kinda itching for a dance floor and new music and nice people, the smaller more intimate nights. So i’m guessing a bit , but i’m seeing scenes and DJ’s from countries that I never used to see , so it’s gained a more global happening. There are better sound systems and light shows or projections around now, very impressive ( a double edged sword, i’ll get to that ). We’ve got more variety of sounds being produced than ever, that is encouraging .
I think some mystery and privacy has been removed in the smartphone era, I don’t really like it , a lot of people don’t like it. So back to the lights and projections.. along with the ’stage‘..Certain venues or DJ’s ( certainly not all ) are putting on an audio visual spectacular, a show. not a dance floor, it’s a very different thing. A crowd all facing front focused with their eyes on a huge projection and a tiny person on a huge stage, jammed in with no room to freely express themselves other than pogo a bit, they are witnessing a fantastic audio visual spectacular for sure, and seemingly loving it, but they are not adventuring around a venue and a dance floor having a shamanic experience primarily with their ears and looking at each other, it’s almost like, in some quarters, we have to now differentiate between an awesome AV show, and a dance music experience. And the sea of phones …Grrr ! You’re not having a visceral experience of anything if you’re reducing it to a tiny rectangular brain shrinking device.. God I sound grumpy, i’m not honestly ! Is this just a generational difference ? I don’t think so, I see a lot of young people expressing the same. For me the smaller intimate darker venues are where it’s at.
As for music itself , there is a pushback against producing for the ‚app‘ and the hook.. it’s taking away something from what dance music should be. Fortunately there seems to be a lot of of people who are in the same corner with all of this. I’ll get off my soap box now..
Are there any DJs, producers or record labels from those early years that you think deserve more recognition today?
I don’t know… I see that people who are genuine fans of a genre are switched on to older stuff. Recognition happens when it needs to. Dance music was and , hopefully still, is the music of the future so we don’t want to look back constantly, I don’t listen to that much old music myself, i much rather to be delighted by new fresh sounds. And many of the older DJ’s and producers are still in action aren’t they, so they’ve moved along with the current.
Having said that, Boy’s own , a label and crew and zine that put on some amazing nights, they’re worth remembering from back when.
Dance music has always been closely connected to particular cities and local scenes. Were there any places or communities that had a particularly big influence on you?
Yeh so my area was primarily London town and the South East, I was born in London and then lived in Ashford in Kent. It was happening all over the U.K. obviously , i’d never say London was better or whatever, it’s just where I was born and lived. I left England at the end of 93 and went to Holland for 94 , so of course that became my new community. Parties were on the go constantly in Haarlem, Leiden and Amsterdam. That was amazing , I heard a lot of new music that I may not have heard so much of in the U.K., or not so easily. I globe trotted for a few years then returned and lived in Amsterdam itself in the late 90’s , which was maybe the most memorable time for me … it was crazy. and amazing. I squatted for a bit then moved into my mate Arjan’s tiny studio in De Pijp. Italian Luca also lived with us, all DJ’ing, mucking around with equipment. We had techno playing at home 24 hours a day 7 days a week, or we were at a party or club… so may parties in Amsterdam, Den Haag, Utrecht etc, and some fields . When sleep time did happen we’d have a mixtape on loop, until waking … that was our slumber noise, blinking techno music mate ! Het was zo gezellig in die studio man..
The new EP moves between quite different sides of techno. When you’re making music, how much do you think about how a track might work in a club?
Thank you for noticing that . My main focus is to make a track work for a dance floor and to create that shamanic , moving vibration, I want to try to feel , in my studio, how I felt ( and feel ) on the best dance floors. My tracks aren’t that tempo driven for techno, I suspect some techno heads would dispute the use of that word for my tracks. They maybe cross from techno to minimal tech house to progressive, i’m not trying to make a track of this or that genre, they materialise organically and flow like. Maybe i’m a bit mellower than I was in the late 90’s, I was into some pretty fast stuff then. I do feel like making some faster stuff now it has to be said, I just love that 124- 130 ish bpm at the moment . The two tracks on this E.P. are very different vibes but they both work the head and feet in the same way ultimately, albeit persuading a different emotional reaction from the listener.
There’s a strong emphasis on percussion throughout Shadow Jerk (Ya Body). Do you think modern electronic music has become too reliant on familiar drum patterns and sounds?
mmm….Man has been dancing to repetitive beats for 1000’s of years. The 4/4 is the core, it cannot be removed. and basic snare and hat patterns will always hit home so why change them. As for the embellishments, some rhythms just work and will always work, and you can play with a rhythm to keep it fresh, but that is where people can get adventurous. I do feel that by playing and recording my own stuff I can do something a bit different, that only I will have in a track. I have a track that I cannot wait for people to hear which might sound challenging at first to some ears, simply because I recorded some drum kit loops and proceeded to chop them up in some really random unexpected places, as in the start point of a little phrase, then throw the chop ups around in odd ‚wrong‘ places. It’s an unusual fresh sound even if I say so myself. It’s also got a sample of a professor talking about music and sound waves, it’s a really cool find. Maybe I need to put that out next actually…once i’ve cleared the sample
With so much music being released every week, do you think it’s harder for genuinely interesting artists to get noticed now, or has technology opened up more opportunities?
I do think it is hard to get noticed ,there is so much great interesting new music being released, but one has to remain committed and do the right actions with the right people in the right places. Personally I don’t want to rely on certain apps and reels to get my tracks recognised, these app’s can and do help people obviously, the tech does mean anyone can reach out globally from their own home and by themselves , but there is a downside, the content chase is wearing out a lot more people, producers reduced to doing comedy skits or silly dances , stressing out over when/what/how/why to post, or as I mentioned earlier making music just for a reel hook, what’s that about ? I just cannot do that. I’m in this for the long haul, even at my age , and I will endeavour to connect my music to the right people using time honoured methods. Nothing is guaranteed.
I have a pretty strong opinion on social media DJ’s getting booked because their follower count will sell tickets…seemingly it doesn’t make for a good dance floor experience, from what I read.
Finally, if you could bring back one thing from the club culture of the 1980s or 1990s, what would it be, and why?
I would bring back the darkly lit covert DJ booth in that dim corner over there, or up on that almost invisible bit of the balcony…and remove the ’smart‘ phones. That’s two things, sorry…
and then 