Last week, XLR8R made its annual trek to Montreal for MUTEK, which this year teamed up with the organizers from Elektra to deliver a six-day festival called EM15. Our official review detailed the week’s high points, but during our down time, we also took the opportunity to speak with a couple of the festival’s artists. As it turned out, our first conversation was with Canadian techno veteran Richie Hawtin, who actually performed twice during his time at EM15. Our conversation was brief, but we still managed to touch upon Hawtin’s history with MUTEK, the challenge of bringing his ENTER. club night to a festival environment, and why he thinks that Canada has proven to be such a fertile place for techno.

XLR8R: Do you know how many times you’ve played MUTEK over the years?
Richie Hawtin: I don’t know. I did two Plastikman shows, I did a Narod Niki show, which was like a supergroup thing with Ricardo Villalobos, Daniel Bell, and the gang, and then I did another one by myself, and then this year… I’m either at five or six.

You play festivals all the time, but what makes MUTEK different or special for you?
It’s in Canada. [laughs] That’s pretty cool. I guess there’s an explosion of electronic music in North America now, so you can find more and more—I hope—smaller boutique festivals that are actually doing something interesting. But for the last 15 years, the main ones were really MUTEK, Movement, and Decibel. Moogfest is also coming up. (I’m sure I’m forgetting some things, and I’ll probably get raked over the coals for it.) Since the very early days, I had a connection with of course Canada and Montreal, coming up here and doing some radio shows in ’91, ’92, so we always felt that Canada and Quebec were supportive, of not only Plus 8 and our whole path, but also Quebec was very supportive of the arts. So it just made sense that something like MUTEK expanded from here, and I think it’s been instrumental in developing a deeper appreciation of electronic music in North America.

Photo by Caroline Hayeur

MUTEK always has an emphasis on technology, and a forward-thinking outlook, which seems to compliment your own approach. Is that part of the attraction for you as well?
For sure. I do a lot of gigs where I’m “DJ Richie Hawtin,” entertaining, and not everyone knows how or what I’m doing, but the technology, the instruments, and what I’m using and why I’m playing in a certain way is very important to me. So, [it ‘s great] to be at a festival where I can speak about that, or push the idea that electronic dance music isn’t just “boom boom boom” or something that happens in a dark room late at night. It’s much more diverse than that. There are artists really pushing the envelope of what music should or could be, and there are also artists who have gone so far away from it that it’s not even dance music anymore, but they come from that or are inspired by that. Last year, at the ENTER. shows in Ibiza, we had people like Demdike Stare and Carsten Nicolai, and to me, this is all part of the same continuum. It’s not for all of the electronic music fans out there, and I also understand that not all Richie Hawtin fans are as deep into electronic music as I am, but I hope by performing here at MUTEK, or doing weirder Plastikman shows, or this and that, that I can help to open up the world of electronic music to as many of my fans as possible, so they can go beyond me and find a Carl Craig, a Carsten Nicolai, or a Basic Channel and see how rich and diverse the scene is.

MUTEK has always supported Canadian artists, even as many of the country’s techno producers have relocated to Berlin over the years. Yet new Canadian electronic artists continue to pop up. What do you think it is about Canada and techno that keeps turning out new producers?
Let’s say you’re traveling and have an accent. [Someone will say,] “Oh, you’re American.” Canada is always second, like, “Oh, oh, Canadian.” “Oh, you’re from the West Coast? Where? LA?” “No, Vancouver.” “You’re from the East Coast? New York?” “No, Montreal.” In a way, Canada has always been isolated, and because of that, the government has always had an incredible amount of support for the arts, whether it was grants or special programs, especially in Quebec. In the Great White North, I think you just have to look inside yourself and try to create something new. Also, Canada has always been a country that welcomed foreigners—it welcomed me and my parents. Canada is a melting pot. What is a Canadian? There’s no true sense of what a Canadian is. It’s very individualistic, and I think that comes out through the electronic musicians and why it’s been such a cottage industry.

Photo by THIS IS HERD

Your show at EM15 has been billed as an ENTER. night. You’re about to start your third ENTER. season in Ibiza. How do you go about taking that very specific experience and translating it to a festival environment?
It’s difficult, and it’s something that can’t be translated exactly from Ibiza, but for each ENTER. international show, we look at and we try to create… first of all, it’s a musical experience, with production wrapped around it. It’s not as detailed or complicated as Ibiza, because of course there we have 13 or 14 weeks that we can really spend a lot of time on the whole experience. For the international shows, we look at where we’re going to play, whether it’s MUTEK or something like a EDC. We look at what kind of people are coming there and try to build a line-up that’s going to give them something different and expand or at least push the envelope of what they expect electronic music to be—and to celebrate what we love about electronic music. Here [at EM15], in the main room alone, we’ve got Marc Houle, Canadian, an old friend of mine and a Minus alumni, and TM404 and then me. There’s a connection between [TM404] and I with acidic sound and Marc and I. Marc is the king of this game right now with how he does his live performances. We feel that it all makes sense together and it gives that broader perspective of what we think electronic music is, at least what I think electronic music is.

Over the weekend, XLR8R made the trip to Barcelona for Primavera Sound, an indie-leaning festival which had nonetheless compiled an impressive roster of electronic talents for the 2014 edition of the annual event—most of which who took to the decks attached to a custom sound system specially put together for Primavera by British speaker designers Bowers & Wilkins. (Our full review of the festival can be read here.) On the festival’s opening night, budding London DJ/producer Fort Romeau laid down an exceptional set in the Bowers & Wilkins + Boiler Room tent, but before then, we convinced the Ghostly affiliate to sit down for a quick chat, during which he discussed why it pays to take risks as a DJ, his recent EP for the live at Robert Johnson label, and the complications he’s currently facing in crafting his debut LP.

XLR8R: Have you played in Barcelona before?
Fort Romeau: Yeah, I played at the Nitsa club in Barcelona late last year. It’s such a great club—it’s kind of like an old theater, just a really nice space. That’s how I got acquainted with the Nitsa guys, who then invited me to come out and play their night here at Primavera.

You’ll be DJing tonight, but have you done a live set before or thought about putting one together?
In the future I’d like to do some live sets, but it’s just one of those things that unless it’s done in the right way, it’s just DJing with a few more pieces of gear. I just don’t see it conceptually being different enough, and I just haven’t had the impetus or the time to really put something together that I think will be worthwhile.

You recently put out a somewhat under-the-radar EP with Live at Robert Johnson. How did that come about?
My agent is good friends with the Robert Johnson guys, so I actually met them through him. Eventually, one of the guys who runs the label side of things just hit me up out of the blue and asked if I wanted to put something together for the label, so I said, “Of course, you don’t even have to ask!” I had these three tracks that I had already finished, and they seemed like they would be a good fit, so I sent those over and he emailed me back just a few minutes later and was like “Yep,” and that was it. [laughs] It was very quick and easy.

Do you have any specific plans to release more new material this year?
Well, I’ve done a few remixes, one for Jacques Greene that just recently went up, and there are some more on the way. I was hoping to maybe finish an LP and have it out by the end of the year, but it’s looking more likely that it will have to come out next year. So, I’ll probably have another one or two 12″s out before the end of the year. There’s nothing too concrete at the moment though.

In terms of the LP, do you have a specific concept in mind or an idea of what you would like it to sound like?
Yeah, this is actually one of the reasons it has taken so long to do. I think it’s widely understood that dance-oriented artists traditionally can become stuck when it comes to long-players; there’s the age-old choice between making a collection of club tracks that is essentially a compilation but which you call an “album,” or deciding to try go down a certain conceptual path for 10 songs to see what happens. I’m more inclined to find a kind of conceptual and sonic framework for the album that lets it sit as its own body of work. It’s just really a case of me trying to find out what the themes are that I’d want to play with for a long-player, because I’m just not that interested in putting together 10 DJ/club-type tracks for an album.

So you are at the point now where you are kind of experimenting and waiting to find a sound or a theme that you think can work for as a whole LP, then you can start working towards that goal?
That’s right. I have some ideas about what kind of palettes I want to work with, but for me, the essential thing that interests me is the sound of the human voice. Even in tracks that seem predominantly instrumental, I always will derive at least 20 or 30 percent of the sounds from a vocal sound of some sort. I just find that if I don’t have that small snippet of the human voice, it feels like something is missing. It’s not like I need that in other people’s music, but for the music I make, that element—whether it’s a short phrase or a chopped-up thing—needs to be there. It’s getting that human, organic sound into the context of the track that interests me.

Is there anything in particular that you are looking forward to playing tonight on the custom soundsystem, or anything different you’d like to try in this festival environment?
There are a few little cheeky ones I’m going to play that will either sink or fly, so I’ll be interested to see how those go down. A few Italo-type things that may or may not work, but it sounds so good in there, I think playing them on vinyl will really help those tracks shine.

Do you find it fun or nerve-racking to play those sorts of songs that are personal favorites to you, but that you are really not sure how they will go over with a particular crowd?
Yeah, it’s part of the fun. There are tracks that I love to play which are a bit weird or whatever, and one night everyone will think it’s the craziest, coolest track they’ve ever heard, then the next night people will be like, “What on earth are you doing? You idiot, go home!” [laughs] But you do have to take those risks. It’s easy to fall into the trap of keeping your sets homogenized because it’s almost failsafe, but I think you have to put your own personality into it. Even if it doesn’t work, I always enjoy it, and that’s really the best you can do.