JESPER AUBIN . dj producer chef

50 is the magic number and our podcast number 50 is delivered by a very special magician. Ulf Eriksson’s magic lab is located in a basement below the southern part of Malmö. There he carefully selects ingredients for the future releases of his very own Kontra Musik. The praised label that claims itself being one big mess despite releasing quality material by Marcell Dettmann, Jonson / Alter, Mokira aka Tilliander, Agaric and Jason Fine over the last 6 years.

We caught up with Ulf for a few questions about this hour and a half journey into the depth of Kontra Musik:

1.Tell us about the tracks and the thoughts you put into this mix when putting it together?

Ulf Eriksson: The mix is sort of a presentation of the label from the first release to our latest one. I started of with some house tunes, moving on into a segment of weirder stuff to end with some deeper techno sounds. And of course, finally some goodbye house trax. Something like that. It is a actually very complicated to do a mix from only one label. Especially Kontra, because it has such a diverse output.

2. Kontra Musik is without a doubt a very special label. With artists ranging from Agaric to Mokira and Jonsson / Alter and a cross-genre sound. Do you have a certain philosophy about what tracks to sign and release?

Ulf Eriksson: Not really. I listen a lot. I try the tracks in different moods for instance. Electronic dance music very seldom move me at all. So it is very important that somethings catches my attention, that there is some kind of emotional response and that something unique about the music.

3. What is Kontra Musik’s master plan for 2012?

Right now the plan is to release more from the artists I already have signed to the label. Expect 12s from Mokira, Jonsson/Alter and Rivet. Also a remix EP from the Jonsson/Alter album is under production. I will do a limited  white label with Sweden’s best kept techno secret, Frak. Great stuff and totally unexpected for the label. Which of course is perfect. Predictability is a deadly sin in music. I got a crazy good demo from and English newcomer. Maybe I release that. The music will get weirder, I hope. Apart from that I guess some label showcases are coming up and a lot of dj:ing.

KONTRA-MUSIK MOODSWING MIX
1. Agaric – the Outside [KM002]
2. Jonsson/Alter – Olidan [KM019]
3. Jonsson/Alter – Djup House [KM022]
4. Jason Fine – Half (Anton Zap remix) [KM009]
5. Rivet – Metrist [KM023]
6. Jason Fine – Control Voltage (Oni Ayhun remix) [KM013]
7. Jason Fine – Human Need (Heinrich Mueller Celestial Sphere mix) [KM010]
8. Mokira – Time Track [KM018.1]
9. Mokira/Marcel Dettmann – Factory Report 1 [KM017]
10. Agaric – Playing Games [KM001] + Jason Fine – Inuit [KM008.2]
11. Scaff – SSM 440 [KM006]
12. Mokira – Time Track (Silent Servant remix) [KM018.1]
13. Agaric – Playing Games (Marcel Dettmann remix) [KM005]
14. One aka Tobias Von Hofsten – Deep Thought [KM003]
15. Jason Fine – Many to many (Ben Klock remix) [KM013]
16. Luke Hess – Believe and Receive (Shedsdeepanddubbydub remix) [KM007]
17. Jonsson/Alter – Orgelpunkten [KM019]
18. Jonsson/Alter – Tre Ackord [KM022]
19. Gunnar Jonsson – Massage Rutin 1 [KM014]

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Needless to say, the mixset is mastered by Andreas Tilliander.

by Dj Skyjacker of House Music With Love

According to Billboard 2011 report the vinyl hit a new record – a whopping  3.9 million sales in 2011. That’s 1.1 million more sales than the previous record, set in 2010. And trust me, we gonna see more and more of shiny 12″ wax being printed, destributed and spinned at the clubs in the year 2012.

There are three main reasons for this:

• In 2012 everybody and their mom is a dj.
• In 2012, Laptop Dj + vinyl Dj = True
• The lost generation of digital valuables and the return of physical medium

So let’s break it down.

In 2012 everybody and their mom is a dj.

The Dj’s status has changed dramatically during the last 10 year, turning the nerdy guy sweating over an overheated mixer in the darkest corner of the room into a rock-star like symbol (preferably with some tattoos, hipster apparel and a giant mask). The Dj has moved from that dark corner onto the scene, into the spotlight with the arms raised high above the head.

Thanks to the hard working Pr-people behind the likes of Felix Da Housecat, Swedish House Mafia, David Guetta and Avicii the DJ is the new one man pop-brand of our time. Who cares if you play with your equipment switched off as long as you have a few million fans on facebook.

And yes, since the Dj is hotter then ever, everybody wants to be one. And since everybody wants to be a Dj, the equipment producers has responded to the growing demand of dj gear by getting really busy innovating the Djing technology that has been very standard for so many years.

Ableton Live, Traktor, Serato and other dj software are all made to innovate the way the dj can mix and alternate the music itself, while making the actual mixing process as simple as possible. There is always one or other type of auto-sync fucntionality. So for those who spent hundreds of hours in their bedrooms practicing beatmatching skills on their turntables and cds back in the 80s and 90s – the news are – that the next generation of Djs can just download a bunch of mp3s and learn to dj on a laptop within a few hours. No matter what you think about the new type of djs, the new technology and the gadgets it brings is without a doubt despised by the old-school veterans.

And the “everybody is a dj”trend just keeps evolving. In almost any town, probably at the most mainstream club, you will today find some local semi-celebrity bloggers or hipsters djing by connecting 2 laptops to mixer, each laptop running a Spotify client. Just fade one track in and the other out and you got yourself a dancefloor.  Who cares that the sound quality is shit and the tracks are off beat as long as you mix them fast while you point your fingers at the sky and jump up and down a bit.

So since everybody and their moms can now dj, there is no doubt that veteran forces want to protect their turfs agains the never ending hordes of start-struck laptop and iPhone armed newbie disc jockey.

See it from the marcoeconomics perspective: If Thailand starts to produce cheap watches – the western world will put up trade barriers against those watches – both to keep the quality high and to protect the watches produced in the west from falling prices. If the supply of DJs greatly exceeds the demand, the clubs and influental members of the Dj tribe will no doubt find some barriers to put up.

One such barrier is the vinyl. No matter what, if you know how to beatmix properly on a pair of 1210s – you’ve been doing this for a very long time compared to a newly started laptop dj.  The club promoters (who also play vinyl) will no doubt be able to argue that the vinyl djs are more trustworthy to book since they’ve been on the scene much longer then the laptop generation. Basically, if we dare to look beyond the vinyl hype and the skills required to mix vinyls, it’s really all about the veteran Dj society guarding their turf against the kids showing up at the gig armed with the device below. Or a similar one.

When it comes to major gigs in major clubs like Berghain, Rex, La Terrrazza, Fabric, 2:35:1, Culture Box and Culture Hall you need to have a dozen of releases on reknown labels and a good agent. For the rest of DJ society it’s all about hustling our way into the gigs. Playing vinyl automatically differentiates you from the rest and heightens your chances to succeed, the same way as your networking and big mouth skills would.

The vinyl prestige does not seem to end in many years to come. Richie Hawtin got flamed severely on facebook a few months ago after questioning wherever the vinyl is not an outdated medium already.

In 2012 Laptop Dj + Vinyl Dj = true.

The coolest tech news is that the Traktor and Serrato technologies have been creating a secret passway to both the vinyl world and the much more comfortable world of mp3 djing. Providing the hardcore vinyl Djs the possibility to both drop some of their favorite original wax and play some new newly purchased or promo mp3 by bringing along a couple of time-coded vinyls. And a laptop, And a soundcard. And a bunch of cables. And a midi controller. Did you really think your record bag would become lighter?

Of course you might wanna leave the original 12″ at home and just go the club armed with two timecoded ones. lt will still look like you are playing proper vinyl, at least to an untrained-eye audience. And there are some new feature to come, that mostdefinitely will be cursed by the veteran generation.

Digital and unlimited a VS physical and tangible

Naturally, I saved the best part for last. This one is a deep and philosofical position that can be talked about forever. So I’ll try to keep it short.

When it comes to electronic music the amount digital tracks released every day is virtually countless. There are 700,000 electronic dance tracks on Beatport alone. And ten times more on more mainstream stores like iTunes that announced it’s 10 billionth mp3 purchase already in February 2010.

No doubt the mp3 compression cuts away a few frequencies too many, leaving the quality a bit lower than the original sound of the vinyl or wav cd. That can be easily heard by a trained ear and on a good system – like Function 1. If you have some friends with a Function 1 system lying around in the basement make sure to try it out by first playing a vinyl through it and then a 192kbps mp3 ;)

Beside the sound quality (99% of the clubcrowd won’t notice the difference) the vinyl gives the owner the priceless experience of look, feel and touch.Remember the first music record you bought? No matter if your age is 15 or 55 I bet it’s still either a cd or a vinyl. Remember the joy of tearing of the plastic and putting the record on? Crashlanding in the couch to explore the cover art and the booklet while the first sounds of your new audio-treasure filling up the room. That’s pure magic, a feeling not far away from the one of loosing your virginity.

Same goes to vinyl. Each cover-art tells a different tale, each record has a real life story to it – “I found this one in the hidden Techno Import shop in a side street in Paris”, “I first played this one on that awesome roof top party in Barcelona, where the needle woudn’t stop jumping”. Further on, the printing technology of today brings us 12″s in  all kind of cool different colors and even different shapes.

Furthermore owning physical vinyl automatically creates quite a different mindset to the general “all digital unlimited” 2012. Since creating a new mp3 track is a zero cost operation – the value of each single mp3 gets watered down to zero, and below zero when you start moving tracks by Gigabytes and clugging up your harddrive. That’s probably the main philosophy behind the music and movie piracy of the last decade - Everybody is aware that “stealing” somebody’s else music is a wrong thing to do, but since a single tracks can be duplicated by a single click – it suddenly feels more ok to down it for free from Pirate Bay, Torrenttech or similar – it’s not the same as breaking into a real life record store.

The “unlimited” nature of a digital releases is the sole reason for the hype surrounding the vinyl only ones. If you bought one of the 200 limited vinyls – you can be damn sure that there are at most 199 other djs in the world playing the same track as you do. Unless somebody made a digital rip.

Last but not least there are white labels. The records produced in a small amount (usually less than 300) – with no info stated on the label itself. It can contain anything from three tracks from a well known artist who prefers to be anonymous just for once to a bunch of amateur remixes using unlicensed parts of a Madonna tack. In any respected record store, you will find a white labels section full of mysterious vinyls. Some very good. And some very bad.

So to summarize the evolution of vinyl into 2012.

Since the amount of new digital tracks released every day is overhelming – the djs naturally are turning back to something that they can hang on to, something physical and tangible. Especially if the music is limited to vinyl only. The old-school veterans will keep whining about the vinyl being the one and only art of Djing. While the innovators will furthermore invest time and money into combining their analogue skills with the new digital ones brought by the laptops and midi-controllers. Limited edition vinyl is still the way to go if you want to release some really cool tracks. Especially if you haven’t cleared the sample license.

For all of you who read this far: Here is a bunch of vinyl only releases of 2011:

by Dj Skyjacker (aka Alex Esser) of We Manage With Love& House Music With Love

The X-mas and New Year holidays are over. We are back on track like a couple of polar bears waking up from a long sleep. So is the Paris based techno label Law Recordings. They open 2012 like a deck of cards pulling out a real jocker to strat the year.

Paul Peanuts 2 track Ep is a journey into a blippy, bouncy techno that gets better and better the longer you play the track. The B-side (Test01) is kind of straight forward in willing to make you dance like a chicken on acid. While the A-side takes a bit of experimental approach as it explores all the corners of the sound arrangement for a few minutes before it starts the journey into the night. 


Out on Law any day now.

Bonus:
A forgotten pieace of art, the “one from the old cr-8 mixtape” recorded live by Bawyer Hawks, the Law records boss back in Sevilla in 1998 :D

by Dj Skyjacker of House Music With Love

The fun loving producer duo EZLV out of the Montreal are kick-starting a new label named after the life loving Savannah animal. First out on Surricate is a Swede in exile – Simon Svensson living in US.

The original track start to finish got the kick that chews it’s way straight into your soul. The oldschool Detroit wibes take us on a deep journey straight into the Liquid Room where champagne glasses sparkle and the models hang out at the poolside nodding to this lovely deep track. Ezlv remix adds a bit of percussion and speed turning the stakes up while the night goes on. Finally the B-side – an even deeper and techier piece of art takes us straight to the early morning show at Panorama Bar.

Out sometime late january on Surricate.

Bonus:

by Dj Skyjacker of House Music With Love

1. Hardfloor – Acperience (Robert Babicz Remix)

The German techno veterans Hardfloor just celebrated their 20th birthday with a tripple vinyl collection. The Robert Babicz remix brings the 1993 Acid classic back to life in a totally new form. This is definitely the track of the year. Hardfloor

2. Noir & Haze – Around (Solomun Vox)

Nobody creates sexy deep house like Hamburg based producer Solomun. In the form of a slow latin inspired ”pasodoble” he interprets dansih producer Noir and Haze track ”Around” creating this beautifully sad peice of unforgetable house music. We are really looking forward to Noir’s full length album to be released soon. Noir Music. 

3. Jonsson / Alter – Acapellan

Raw acid bass line and ambient build up. Taken from the MOD album – proclaimed to be one of the best house albums of 2011 and nominated to far too many awards to list here. Acapellan demonstrates production skills without compromises. Kontra Musik

4. James Blake – Limit To Your Love ‘ DB Edit’

James Blake has been mesmerizing the last years summer festivals with his bass-fueled contemporary pop. It was just a matter of time that somebody would make a remix that sounds better then the original and release it. Out only on white label vinyl on KeineRechte

5. Clement Meyer – Unconditional Unknown

Techno straight from the dark side of Paris. Spooky vocals fit perfect on top of the slow and groovy bassline. Misoure Clement knows how to get me dancing. Get the Curse. 

6. Miguell Cambell – Something Special

The history is repeating itself. Disco influenced house with a soulfull synth and a repetitive vocal. The original deep 90-s Chicago sound is coming back to stay. But the groovy bassline is definetely something special making this track one of the best of the year. Hot Creations 

7 Ari Brikha – Pieces of Her

The incredible Iranian born Swedish techno producer Aril Birkah did it again! Of all the great music produced and released during 2011 nothing moves me or gives me better memories than the soft spooky, melancholic sounds of Pieces Of Her. This is “techno meets deephouse” at its very best. What people play. 

8. Dj Sodeyama – Miles (Nick Curly)

Progressive techno, with some dark yet funky tunes that even get all the girls go crazy on the dancefloor. Once it sinks in. It’s really all about the bass. Arpa records 

9. Maetrik –  Crush on Me

Maceo Plex’ US Crosstown Rebels might definitely be the house label of the year. But Maceo’s dark alter ego Maetrik keeps producing deep tight techno that would even make Sven Väth droll in envy. Cocoon 

10. Rampa – Meggy’s Desire

Keinemusik label founder Rampa brings us one of the great joys of 2011. This is really just a rythm pattern that reaches up to a vocal break but what a vocal! Raw, soulful and grabing you right at the heart. This is the type of breaker-track to use in the very centre of a DJ-set to freshen everybody up just before you kick in with those harder grooves again. KeineMusik again.

Top 10 tracks of 2011 according Dj Skyjacker, Dj Bacid, Bowyer Hawks and Jesper Aubin of House Music With Love / We Manage With Love who miraculously managed to agree without any further trash talk. 

There is a lot of great stuff coming out now that we are getting ready to wrap up this year, but i thought I would have another go at it with another forthcoming release. This time its a track from the Lower East producer/DJ, Cozzy D. With a good mix of dark and deep this track is quite fitting for the cold and dark months ahead. The release is set for January next year on the Mythical Mystery EP.

by Marphi of House Music With Love

Our Christmas spirit podcast is one lovely live set by the producer duo Jonsson/Alter. Praised for MOD – proclaimed as one of the best house albums of the 2011 and nominated (among other things) for The Best Dance by Swedish Radio P3. Jonsson/Alter is part of the Kontra Musik heritage (Resident Advisor label of the month) and we are especially proud to have them onboard of We Manage With Love.

The tape is a bit organic, a bit dubby submarine journey into the deeper shades of Swedish house staight from Berlin. Relax into your holiday.

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MOD review on LWE

MOD review in Sydsvenskan

by Dj Skyjacker of House Music With Love

Ive been quite fond of the work Volta Cab have been putting out lately, and this one is no exception. What makes this work for me is that relaxed vibe and as soon as the percussion starts everything just ties together to a nice and deep track.

There is not much info on a digital release yet, but a pressed version will be available next year.

Volta Cab – My House Is Your House (Forthcoming 12″ on Levitan) by Volta Cab

by Marphi of House Music With Love

Being a great producer doesn’t automatically make you a great Dj. In fact some of the most giftet studio prodigies with 10 albums released might have a hard time making the crowd come alive at the club. This is also true the other way around.

Skyler Mendoza might be a newcomer on the Chicago scene but is already earning titles as one of the best residents of the windy city.

No matter if he’s got a long producer career in front of him or will be spinning tracks at Chicagos sweatiest underground joints for a few more years, we are giving him thumbs up for a great mix and great mixing techniques. And hey, there are some rumors about a release on Trax in 2012.

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Hmwl-47-jesper-dahlback by House Music With Love

One of the founding fathers of the Stockholm techno phenomenon is off on a short Sweden tour. Bookings secured by We Manage With Love, Jesper will be warming up at Inferno in Stockholm tonight, only to continue off to west coast for Elektroklubben 5 års jubileum and Lounges in Gothenburg next weekend.

We are also happy to celebrate Jesper Dahlbäcks latest release on a small, yet fantastic Swedish label called Studio Barnhus run by Axel Boman and Kornel Kovacs. If you havn’t heard of them yet, you should definitely check it out.

Jesper Dahlbäck – Udda Katter by Studio Barnhus

by Dj Skyjacker of House Music With Love

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