Long before Berlin’s Morr Music established itself as the Playmobil to Warp’s Lego, Scotland’s Isan was making pastel-colored, melody-driven electronic music of its own. Comprised of fellow gearheads Robin Saville and Antony Ryan, the duo has been swapping tapes since 1993 and releasing them under the Isan banner since 1997. If your synth had a preset labeled crayon shavings, it might sound like their gorgeous 1998 full-length debut Beautronics, which preceded the twee pop laptop bonanza by at least a few years. With five full-lengths, a few EPs, and a handful of twelves under their belts, not to mention a cushy standing as one of Morr’s cornerstone acts, the pair has since become regarded as the scene’s spiritual godfathers.

The keyboard enthusiasts first met in 1992 through Saville’s sister, who introduced them to each other thinking they’d have loads in common. “We both sat at a pub one evening talking about the bands we liked, the instruments we liked, and what we’d been trying to do with our own synthesizers,” says Ryan. “The synth was the thing that glued us together.” Although they flirted with the idea of putting out a record, it took them years to follow through. “We had some initial experimentation with bad techno,” laughs Ryan. “Isan was formed after we were living in separate towns as an excuse to stay in touch and keep on working together.”

Since then, they’ve sustained their partnership with the help of an unlikely third party: the Royal Mail. Unlike the majority of producing teams, Isan never works together. Instead, they employ a unique system whereby they send each other completely finished songs in the mail; if a member isn’t feeling a particular track, he has the right to veto it off a record. While only about 20% of the circulated material ends up on the cutting room floor, Saville says that the unique arrangement keeps them on their toes. “We’re too polite when we’re together,” he laughs. “We’re not able to tell the other one if something’s rubbish, but we can do it over the phone.”

While they don’t anticipate finishing their next album until next winter at the earliest, the pair has lots to keep them occupied. When he’s not tending to his recently launched label, Arable Records, Saville’s making ends meet as a landscape gardener; meanwhile, Ryan’s quit his day job in order to begin experimenting with a software-only setup under another name. In the meantime, now that they’ve finally started doing live shows, they’re both holding out hope that Isan will find its way to the other side of the Atlantic. “Nobody’s asked us,” says Saville. “But if there are any promoters reading this, we’d be absolutely delighted…”

Daddy Yankee stands in front of a weathered three-story block in the Villa Kennedy area of San Juan, inside the government housing project where he spent his teenage years. Boricuas–the term used by Puerto Ricans to describe their Taino Indian heritage–peer at him from behind brightly painted iron grills. Shoeless kids with long limbs and Bambi eyes zip across the streets staring coyly. Homeboys with immaculate cornrows cruise past, nodding appreciatively from beat-up Chevys. Friends of all ages lean out of trucks to holler “Yankee! Que pasa?” He’s had a whirlwind of a day, but everyone gets a warm handshake, friendly verbal exchange, and a 100-watt smile.

“The Yankee you see on the TV is the Yankee you see on the street,” he explains sincerely. “If you holla at me with respect, I’m gonna give you back respect.” A 30-something mami steps forward. “Hola baby,” he says. “I have a two-year-old son,” she gushes. “He sings along to ‘Gasolina’ when it comes on the radio. I tell him the man that sings it was a boy like him from these projects. He says when he grows up he wants to be like Daddy Yankee.”

Fueling the Fire
“Gasolina” is the jump-up track currently taking Yankee’s career to another level. Produced by Loony Toons, the now-global reggaeton anthem starts with a frenzied, galloping b-line that explodes into Yankee’s passionate rapping and roughneck crowd calls. The lyrics–which roughly translate to “Gas, the girls need more gas in their tanks”–are suggestive enough to appeal to hardcore reggaeton fans but subtle enough for mainstream radio.

Earlier in the day Yankee appeared on From Another Point Of View, a talk show on Puerto Rican radio station WKAQ, to discuss the “Gasolina” phenomenon. The middle-aged female presenter, visibly delighted by Yankee, reveals, “I boycotted reggaeton. I thought the culture was vulgar. But what Yankee is doing, this is different altogether.”

Further confirmation of Yankee’s acceptance by mainstream Puerto Rican culture is seen on the set of Que Suerte, a primetime television talk show. As the host introduces him, “Gasolina” blares out over the pseudo-lounge space. Cue a laughing Yankee flanked by the program’s in-house eye candy enthusiastically attempting the perreo, the doggy-style reggaeton dance middle-class Puerto Ricans ardently protested against just five years ago. “Unless you live in Puerto Rico, it’s hard to understand how crazy that was,” says Yankee enthusiastically after the taping. “It took 12 years, but finally we are accepted.”

Illegal Rhythms
Reggaeton is described by Puerto Ricans as “music from the streets.” Emerging in the early ’90s, the genre is the culturally hybridized child of Jamaican dancehall, Panamanian reggae en español, salsa, bomba, and Latin hip-hop. Panamanian artist El General is credited as being one of the first artists, going back to 1990, to flex a Jamaican/Hispanic style. However his flow is more akin to Spanish deejaying over a dub beat than the type of reggaeton that’s currently blowing up dancefloors and airwaves.

Daddy Yankee remembers the genre’s humble origins. “We used to sample hip-hop and dancehall beats but in like ’94, ’95 we started making our own beats using the “Dem Bow” drum pattern.” [Dem Bow” was a ’90s dancehall hit by Shabba Ranks, produced by Bobby Digital (Digital B)–Ed.]

He points excitedly at a grinning dude leaning up against a parked car. “See my man DJ Playero? He’s the godfather of reggaeton. He hooked up a home studio in that apartment just there. We had a four-track, a reel-to-reel, and a mic–real basic.” He snaps fingers with Playero then continues. “It was our hip-hop. The people instantly loved it. Playero made the first reggaeton mixtape. It was huge. Then they started playing it in the clubs, cars, and at home; it wasn’t allowed on the TV or radio.”

From its inception, reggaeton was met with widespread disapproval. The artists’ hardcore lyricism described the desperate situation in the barrios where hustling drugs is the standard occupation. Even the seemingly clean-cut Yankee says, “I lived in the hood so you know what kind of job I had. If it weren’t for music, I’d be in jail or dead.”

Like gangster rap, reggaeton mirrored what was popping in the hoods. The Puerto Rican government, unwilling to acknowledge the thug lifestyle that fed and clothed the vast majority of barrio people, came down on the music hard. Kids playing reggaeton in their cars would be stopped by the police and their CDs and tapes destroyed. The music couldn’t be sold in stores and the country’s radio stations formed a united “no reggaeton” music policy.

With no official outlet, reggaeton was kept underground until 1998 when DJ Coyote set up the country’s first 24-hour reggaeton station, The Mix 107.7FM. “Everyone expected it to fail,” Yankee explains, “but in three months The Mix was the number one station. They couldn’t ignore us any longer.”

The Pride of PR
As mainstream society (particularly upper class ladies) warmed to reggaeton, the artists serious about making music a career toned down their lyrics. Rather than become a parody, Yankee continued to make tracks that were real to the barrio lifestyle but with fino, Spanish for class.

“I represent the barrio with pride,” says Yankee. “Accolades from around the world mean so much but they are nothing compared to the love and support I’m shown from the barrio people. If it wasn’t for them, I wouldn’t be here today.”

Pride and responsibility to his people is the main inspiration behind Yankee’s music. The track “Salud Y Vida‚” for example, appeals to people to stop depending on drug money. “Over 50 of my childhood friends have died. Stop the fighting. It’s not worth it,” he urges in his punchy Creole Spanish. “I’d rather have one dollar in my pocket than one million and be a slave to drugs. Don’t envy wealth. The most important thing in life is health. Life is for living. You can’t live on drugs.” “Quentame” is similarly heartfelt. The antithesis of reggaeton’s idiosyncratic “shake your ass, girl” rhetoric, it’s a touching love song that asks, “If I don’t have you, what will I do? Tell me why we built our lives together and now you want to leave? Come to me.”

Both these tracks, and the seminal “Gasolina,” can be found on Barrio Fino, Yankee’s first recording with support from a major label. To date it has sold a staggering 1 million units across Puerto Rico and the US; this figure is set to rise as Yankee takes on Asia and Europe this summer. Prior to his deal with Universal, Yankee had already released four stellar albums independently on his El Cartel imprint: El Cartel de Yankee, El Cartel de Yankee II, El Cangri.com‚ and Los Home-runes. With only the most street level promotion and distribution each record sold in excess of 100,000 units. “I did everything myself: distribution, promotion, production. It was real business,” says Yankee proudly. “I was on my grind. I’m from the hood. It’s all I’ve known to do. Follow my own path and hustle my own shit.”

After a decade of operating street-style, the hustle has paid off. In February 2005 Yankee was the first Puerto Rican to win the Best Urban Album Award at the prestigious Lo Nuestro Latin Music awards ceremony. P.Diddy has approached him to be the face of his Sean John clothing line. He’s collaborated with US hip-hop honchos Fat Joe, Lil’ Jon, and N.O.R.E, who tapped his reggaeton expertise to create the globally-charted anthem “Oye Mi Canto.”

Street Dreams
“Reggaeton’s become so successful over 50 stations in the US are changing their formats to bilingual, half Spanish, half English,” says Yankee. “That’s how big it is.” Achievements closer to home include performing to 12,000 fans in Puerto Rico’s historic Roberto Clemente Coliseum and producing the track “Sabor A Melao” with salsa legend Andy Montane. “I was brought up with salsa,” says Yankee, once again flashing his dazzling schoolboy smile. “My father was a salsa drummer–he played congas. Salsa is our original street music so respect from those artists is very special to me.”

A little girl in a flower print dress hovers nearby clutching a tatty piece of paper. “Hey,” says Yankee softly, immediately squatting to become eye-level with the tiny autograph hunter. She smiles bashfully and the pair exchange quiet words in Spanish. Yankee scribbles a message. Bouncing with happiness, she skips back to her young mom waiting a few meters away with a stroller. Yankee, unmindful of his fresh denim suit and customized Daddy Yankee Air Force Ones, takes a seat on the dirty sidewalk.

“You know I used to play baseball,” says Yankee. “Then all of a sudden music became the most important thing in my life. Someone hired me for a show and paid me $50. When I got the money I felt like the richest man in the world. That’s when I said to myself, ‘I want to make a career of this.’”

He pauses to find the appropriate English words to express himself. “Truthfully, I’m just a street cat following a dream I’ve had since I was a kid. No matter what happens, I can never forget that.”

Five Important Reggaeton Albums
1. Don Omar The Last Don (Sellos Asociados)
2. Ivy Queen Real (Imperio Music)
3. Tego Calderon El Abayarde (White Lion)
4. Nicky Jamz Vida Escante (Pina)
5. Zion y Lennox Motivando A La Yal (White Lion)

Forget samba. Funk is the biggest music in the favelas (shanty towns) of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Not the James Brown sort of funk, something else. Call it funk carioca, favela funk, or simply funk, like the locals do.

This offspring of Miami bass, electro’s distant cousin, has been moving Rio’s youth for quite some time now. A world in itself–running independent of major labels and the media for years–funk attracts hundreds of thousands of people to balls happening all over town, sells thousands of records, and propels the biggest radio show in the country, which boasts 500,000 listeners per minute. It’s a complete culture that combines its own codes and dance styles with the clothing fads and slangs of the favelas, which often end up incorporated in the vocabulary of the whole city.

Up until the mid-’80s, Rio’s upper class and mass media were mostly unaware of the baile funk (funk ball) phenomenon, which was promoted by soundsystem crews like Furacão 2000, Cash Box, Curtisom, and Pipo’s. Since this music was happening in the suburbs–in the poorest neighborhoods–it wasn’t perceived as relevant or important. Things begun to change when anthropologist Hermano Vianna published the book O Mundo Funk Carioca (Rio’s Funk World), the first social study of these parties, and anthems such as DJ Marlboro’s 1988 “Melô da Mulher Feia” (“Ugly Woman Song”) began receiving enormous airplay.

Funk has recently received tremendous international hype, from the massive airplay that Tejo, Black Alien & Speed’s “Follow Me, Follow Me” received in Europe (after being featured in a Nissan TV spot) to tracks on Diplo’s Favela on Blast and Piracy Funds Terrorism mixtapes reaching the ears of American hipsters. But funk isn’t brand new, and in order to understand it we have to take a few steps back.

The Beginnings of Baile
Brazilian culture has an anthropophagic tradition; cultural influences from all over the world are always accepted, but once they find their way in, they never stay the same. That’s what happened with samba–it fed on everything from African rhythms to waltzes to tango before it reached what is now considered the classical form; the same goes for bossa nova, which combines samba and jazz.

Funk traces its origins to the mid-’70s, when black music parties (bailes black) began happening in the suburbs of Rio. “These parties played solely American soul music,” explains DJ Marlboro. Regarded as the godfather of favela funk, Marlboro produces a considerable amount of the tracks coming out, hosts the aforementioned radio show, and owns one of the biggest funk holdings, Big Mix, which also encompasses a label, a publishing company, a soundsystem, and a magazine. “There were other balls dedicated to rock, but by the end of the decade they went disco. When soul artists such as Kool & The Gang or The O’Jays brought a funk vibe to disco, the two bailes came together under one name: baile funk.”

Even though synthesized sounds (such as those of Kraftwerk’s “Numbers”) were already played at these parties, the real turning point was when Afrika Bambaataa’s “Planet Rock” hit the floor. The popularity of its electronically programmed beats set a whole new standard for the DJs to follow. “After 1982, with the rise of Miami bass, 2 Live Crew’s ‘We Want Some Pussy,’ Freestyle’s ‘Don’t Stop The Rock’ and ‘It’s Automatic,’ and J.J. Fad’s ‘Supersonic’ became a must,” recalls Marlboro. The bass-heavy sounds and electronic beats of these songs provided the blueprint for what was yet to come.

Favela Tech
Funk has always had its own distinct personality. Despite resembling the Miami sound, its hard-driving, booming reverberations seem rawer, dryer, and more metallic, the bass even more preeminent. The speakers you’ll find in Marlboro’s studio are not fancy–at first they may seem odd, cheap–but he’s not worried about how his music will sound on top-of-the-line stereos. From day one, funk has been intended for huge handmade speakers, spitting heavy bass as loud as possible.

Although Marlboro created his first tracks on a Boss DR 110, given to him by Vianna, newer drum machines (SP 1200, Roland’s TR 725 and 808) and MPCs have led to the sampling of samba and other styles. “The most amazing aspect about funk’s use of samples is that, most of the time, [the producers] don’t have a clue about the original track,” Vianna states. “I remember once commenting to Marlboro about a ‘Rock The Casbah’ sample, but he had never heard The Clash song before. They just take things off of sample records. It’s a favela strategy–just like they don’t choose the materials they will use to build their houses, whatever is at hand gets sucked into the music.”

More meaningful than the samples are the actual lyrics. Entirely in Portuguese and with melodies closer to Brazilian folkloric chants than American rap, they have crystallized funk as its own style, while giving the slums a fresh instrument to voice their message. Funk lyrics detail ghetto realities–the struggles, the violence, the sexuality–as well as calling for peace. “All I want is to be happy/walk calmly around the favela where I was born,” say Kátia and Julinho Rasta in “Rap da Felicidade.” Of course, not all funk lyrics are quite as, uh, uplifting. Even though most of the people making funk don’t speak English, they’ve inherited 2 Live Crew’s “booty rap” vibe and down dirty lyrical content–a fact that critics can’t seem to let go of.

Dancing With Danger
Rio is a city squeezed between the sea and the mountains–some of the biggest favelas are located right on Rio’s South Zone hills, where most of the upper class lives. This geographical situation means rich and poor are constantly sharing the same grounds. In 1992, a riot took place at Arpoador Beach and images of black youths running around and fighting were shown across the nation. Quickly the chaos was credited to the funkeiros, as baile goers are called.

“I have doubts about if what happened that day was really a fight,” says Vianna. “There’s a chance that maybe the crews were only reenacting the ‘theater of violence’ they do at the bailes, in the same way that punk rockers dance at concerts can be seen as violent by outsiders”.

“Notice I don’t say funkeiros,” he continues. “I say crews, groups of people from different areas. You can’t identify a funkeiro in the streets like you do with a punk rocker, for instance–unless you start calling every black, poor young kid funkeiro. Furthermore, the rivalry between these groups is a consequence of the rivalries between favelas, [which is] sometimes older than funk.”

“Society uses funk as a convenient label to unload their prejudice against the lower classes,” agrees Marlboro.

After the incident, baile funk was criminalized. Previously, bailes were held in clubs in the suburbs, where it was possible to regulate them. Suddenly, parties were forbidden, and no promoter could get a license to throw one. Promoters went to the only place they could go to get away from the officials’ eyes: the trafficker-dominated favelas.

Once funk got into the favelas, in the ’90s, everything changed. “Before, funk was like samba, the slum singing to the rest of the city, telling them about their issues. After, it became the slum singing for the slum,” recalls Marlboro.

Some of the music developed a relationship with crime. A sub-genre of funk arose, the proibidão (very prohibited). In this gangsta rap-style funk, funkeiros sing about the drug dealers, celebrating their crime organizations. Turbulent balls began to take place with a lot of fights and gunshots. It was funk’s darkest days. Mr. Catra, one of funk’s most controversial artists, used to make proibidão tracks. “We sung what the communities wanted to hear,” he explains. “Proibidão doesn’t talk only about the drug lords, it also addresses issues of corruption, the dissatisfaction of the poor people–it’s about reality.”

Although now legal again, bailes still happen mostly in the favelas, where you can’t do anything without the drug lords’ permission. At these parties, it’s not uncommon to see 16-year-old kids with AR-15 and AK-47 automatic rifles in front of gigantic walls made of subwoofers. Out of context, this has lead some to conclude that all funk is drug trafficking music or that bailes are violent. But this is an over-simplification. Just like hip-hop and dancehall, funk is ghetto music–and the ghetto is what’s violent, not the music or the parties.

So International
Funk had at least one chart anthem every year throughout the ’90s, but it usually retreated back to the favelas afterwards, where it continued to appeal to millions. This trend didn’t bother Marlboro. “The best moments are when funk isn’t in the media,” he says. “When it goes mainstream, in trying to appeal to a broader audience, it moves away from its roots.”

Nothing could be further from funk’s roots than the music going international, but that’s exactly what’s happening. In the last two years, Marlboro has traveled around the world, DJing from New York’s Central Park Summer Stage to Barcelona’s Sónar Festival, as well as Boston, France, and Slovenia, among many other locations. There’s one place missing, though. “I still haven’t got a chance to play in Miami” he says. “I’d love to–it would be like visiting my own personal Africa.”

Marlboro has an explanation for all this attention. “Brazil is known worldwide for its music; ever since the electronic music explosion, people abroad have been looking out for what was gonna come from here. First came some great mixtures between drum & bass and bossa nova, but still, this was based on the past of Brazilian music blended with the present European sound. When they heard funk, they recognized it as the original Brazilian electronic music, with a Brazilian soul.” Mr. Catra, who has played in Japan, Israel, and Europe, agrees. “When we substituted the foreign beats with our own groove, it became something that could only be made here.”

Big Ballin’
Foreign interest in funk has helped boost a revival in the genre, which reached an important milestone with Marlboro’s 2003 performance at one of the country’s most important concerts, the TIM Festival. The general public has been paying more attention to the cultural aspects of funk, and local artists like Apavoramento, Nego Moçambique, and Tetine are bringing their own sound to it.

Lately, a lot of funk balls have flourished in clubs in Rio’s and São Paulo’s richest neighborhoods. Trailing Marlboro around to his gigs, you could be calmly sipping a beer at a club at 1AM only to find yourself deep inside a favela at 4 a.m.. The man is an essential bridge between two worlds that desperately need to meet again to start healing the wounds of years of separation.

Meanwhile, Mr. Catra is leading the first live funk band. The sound is closer to the original ’70s funk, but spiced up with new elements absorbed in the last decades of the music. His open rehearsals happen at Vila Show, a club located in a red light district called Vila Mimosa. When funk meets fuck, the end result is one of the most hardcore nights in town. Outsiders blend in with the regular crowd of clients and prostitutes, all of them literally shaking their asses. “It’s a way of bringing culture to a neutral ground of a divided city, where you find all kinds of people,” says Catra. “Also, it helps to elevate the self-esteem of girls who have suffered a lot.”

Marlboro welcomes the newcomers, and doesn’t resent the fact that the international support is helping to change the way Brazilians look at his music. “Samba had to go through the same process,” he acknowledges. “Funk is finally being perceived as the cultural movement that it is and one of the reasons is that the style is reaching its maturity. We are seeing the boom of a genre now, not just some songs.”

Don’t call Maya Hayuk a perfectionist. “More like an imperfectionist,” she confesses, her keyboard guffawing each time a lithe finger touches down on a little square letter.

When Hayuk’s slender digits aren’t typing missives to the masses, or updating her comprehensive website, they’re painting psychedelic reflections of everyday life in eye-saturating color. Tempera-bright bongs, neon unicorns, profusely hairy people in hot tubs, and her signature tag–a hot pink donut–are just some of the images that have coated viewers’ visual cortexes in a cotton candy-like haze. Her recent work can be seen in ads for Absolut Raspberri, at art shows around the world, and on the barns of the American Northeast (she’s part of The Barnstormers collective).

But Hayuk–who comes to Brooklyn by way of Baltimore, then San Francisco–is not just handy with a brush. She’s also become known for her portraiture and photo essays; her shots of Dangermouse, El-P, The Faint, and Tracy & The Plastics have appeared in magazines around the globe. She recently curated her first gallery show, Alone In This Together, which rethinks democracy by collecting accessibly priced work from printmakers including Ben Woodward and Clare Rojas; in 2005, the show will be traveling to Austin, Montreal, and Portland, among other locales.

We were hoping Hayuk would make us a mixtape with the likes of Scratch Acid, Wire, and Blue Oyster Cult on it, but she was busy in San Francisco painting a hotel room. Instead, she sent us this window into her world with the disclaimer “It’s 6AM and I’m taking a break from painting, so it may read a little…uh, faded.” No problem.

XLR8R: How did you come up with your signature dripping donut logo?

I was splattering paint around and hit a wall in San Francisco with a can of pink latex paint. As it started to ooze, it looked like icing, so after it dried I added the outline and highlights.

The latest stuff of yours I’ve seen has lots of diamonds…and hairy people. What’s up with that?

My brother Kima sent me The Sims from his work at E.A. and I was fascinated with the crystal monitors of well-being that floated above the characters’ heads. I imagined that somewhere there’s a warehouse with a stockpile of these things sitting idle, waiting to be assigned to truly happy people. Those piles of happiness would then have a crystal happiness orb floating above them and there can even be an orb of happiness above that, and so on. Non-utilized happiness times infinity.

Hairy hairness is just fun to render. It’s really methodical and depending on the patterns, I can create shape and form to flatness. The renderings on skin I think of as grain, like wood, but applied to illustrate the physical traits of flesh as well as to illuminate the inner workings of a human’s character.

You seem to get so much done…What’s your secret?

I feel like I get about one tenth of what I have continuously growing on the back burner. I make piles and lists, hold very strange hours, continuously re-prioritize, and am generally doing several things at once all over different areas of my apartment. My studio’s my living room, which has grown like ivy into my kitchen. I have a separate room that’s my office and photography epicenter. It’s all punctuated with a bedroom void of anything but a bed. It’s pretty perfect and I’ll go for days without seeing the light of day, which I can’t say is exactly healthy.

What did you like to draw when you were little?

Lots and lots of people with too many fingers, princesses in poofy dresses, and tiny villages. Drawing was one of the only “games” I wanted to play with my friends, aside from “dress up,” “school,” “wizards,” and “porno photographer.” Needless to say, I didn’t maintain many friendships and became kind of a hermit.

What’s the best advice you’ve ever received?

“Try this.”

Do you think of your work in terms of a series or just paint or draw whatever comes to mind?

Both. I paint what I want and it’s the next sentence from the last painting I made. Sometimes the continuity isn’t obvious right away, but it eventually sets in. Each craft and love cross-pollinates and informs the next. A song inspires a drawing, which inspires doing some research, and possibly writing an essay which inspires a photo series (or some combination thereof).

How do you think your punk rock background has influenced you as an artist and a person?

It made me want to truly forge my own freedom, evoke a chosen family, and define terms of “success.” I wasn’t angry enough to listen to hardcore alone at home, but going to shows made me want to document/photograph something so epic, even though everyone talked about how much better it was back in the day. It happens in all realms of culture, always. We wind up romanticizing pasts that we used to begrudge and it makes me want to always remain present. The important thing is that a global voice of dissent found ways to comment on the atrocities of humanity with a kind of utopic vision.

What band or artist was a big inspiration to you growing up?

I’m genetically encoded with the classical music and traditional Ukrainian folk my parents weaned me on. It was Pink Floyd that made me rethink everything I had previously assumed as “truth” or “reality.” My brother turned me on to all this Dungeons and Dragons-y prog rock, which only lead to harder things. He became a Deadhead-gone-raver and I turned into a New Wave/psychedelic head. We came back full circle to appreciating each other’s music when we both got into Can around the same time.

How do you approach your photography? Do you see it as related to your art or separate?

Photography is an art and it very much relates to my other interests, to everything I do. Thomas Campbell has had a huge impact on how I approach the overall vision of being an artist and not compartmentalizing my varying means of expression. I wouldn’t be able to be a painter if I wasn’t also a photographer and vice versa. When I am making a portrait of a musician, I am looking for what is already there in that personality during the quietest moment.

What three albums or songs do you have on heavy rotation right now?

I’ve been obsessively recording my record collection into the computer to make insanely eclectic mixes for trade with other music-obsessed friends, so that’s most of what I listen to. Aside from that, the three records I played today were: Genesis: The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway; Linda Perhacs: Parallelograms; and Prefuse 73: Surrounded By Silence (which has a great Linda Perhacs sample on it, coincidentally)

What were some of the most memorable moments of collaborating with Eva and Scott on the Savath & Savalas artwork and photos?

Getting a chance to just relax with Scott, who’s got this amazing disposition that’s equal parts spaz and tranquil monk. Eva is one of the most beautiful, strong women I have ever met and she would take me exploring through the haze and maze of Barcelona’s old city. Our ideas for the project would evolve out of retarded conversation and drunken binges, which is a great way to collaborate.

In the recession and strike-addled late ‘70s, UK art terrorist Genesis P-Orridge coined the phrase “industrial music for industrial people” to describe a new blues for the worker–music distilled from the numb monotony of the assembly line and the restless thoughts that make sleep impossible after work. However, it is doubtful that the average proletariat could relax to this stuff, with its soundtrack of drills, screeches, snaps, grinding gears, synths dripping blood, snippets of atrocities, and images of an androgynes in fascist garb dancing in the streets.

Nonetheless, Throbbing Gristle and fellow multimedia art terrorists Cabaret Voltaire kicked in the door (sometimes waving the 4/4), granting punk a truly apocalyptic scope well beyond the Sex Pistols’ declaration of “No Future.” Countless bands followed suit in the ‘80s and ‘90s, rising and falling before progressing (and, some argue, devolving) into goth disco and later digitized metal. Yet industrial’s fingerprints are still smudged on everything from laptop noise and breakcore to power electronics and Detroit techno. Given the recent crop of reissues from industrial mavericks, the time has come to provide a primer on the greats.

Cabaret Voltaire [1974-Present]
In their early ‘80s heyday, the Cabs were akin to a garage-funk band heard through a scrambled idiot box. Arisen from Sheffield’s factory yards, Cabaret Voltaire took the trance of dub, krautrock and James Brown, along with musique concrète’s distortions of reality, and built a conch for the Information Age. Farfisa organs and stone-age drum machines kept disjointed time, while tape loops of white noise and media whispers clashed with vocodered pleas. While Throbbing Gristle sprayed repellant in audience members’ faces, the Cabs hypnotized with their din. By the end of the Thatcher age, the band dwelled in electro-funk and Detroit techno. Member Richard K. Kirk further explored tribal house and techno in Sandoz and Sweet Exorcist, while Chris Watson became a field recording artist capable of making Icelandic glaciers sound positively Martian.
Influenced: A Guy Called Gerald, Meat Beat Manifesto, Autechre, Black Dog
Essential Listening: Red Mecca, 2×45, The Original Sound of Sheffield ‘78/’82

Throbbing Gristle [1975 – 1981]
There is something terribly malevolent about noiseniks donning Hawaiian shirts and country club wear on their record covers. Arguably the premier industrial rock band, Throbbing Gristle connected the dots between performance art, coal-blackened distortion, Martin Denny’s “exotica,” and synth pop so generic that factory stamps insure the quality. Frontman Genesis P-Orridge dunked his head into a vat of echo and sociopolitical perversion–from reciting a weak satellite broadcast of a burn victim’s account in “Hamburger Lady” to droning the sleep-deprived slave anthem “United.” Concerts involved tape-loop torture, snuff flick fantasias, and P-Orridge strangling himself with piano wire. These transgressors also happened to influence many techno and new wave artists with their synth pop number “Hot on the Heels of Love.” The so-called “Wreckers of Civilization” disbanded in 1981; afterwards its members explored acid techno and Chicago house with Psychic TV, and outer-limits noisescapes in Coil.
Influenced: Buck 65, Two Lone Swordsmen, Carl Craig, Nurse with Wound, Wolf Eyes, Crack:W.A.R.
Essential listening: 20 Jazz Funk Greats, 2nd Annual Report

Einstürzende Neubauten [1980 – Present]
These German post-punks made industrial music that truly deserved its name. Einstürzende Neubauten (“Collapsing New Buildings”)emulated the pockmarked streets of West Berlin. Utilizing scrap-metal, power drills, jackhammers, shopping carts, discarded furniture and factory detritus as percussion, these urban primitives made art out of the obsolete. Cynics can dismiss EN as predecessors to Broadway’s Stomp, but they were long the standard that industrial lived up to (until Ministry rang death metal’s factory whistle). The band still prevails– they recorded last year’s drone album Perpetuum Mobile under webcam surveillance and amid online visitors’ suggestions.
Influenced: Matmos, Nine Inch Nails, SPK, Ministry
Essential Listening: Kollaps, Kalte Sterne–Early Recordings, Strategies Against Architecture ’80-’83

Laibach [1979 – Present]
“We are fascists as much as Hitler was a painter,” proclaimed Laibach. This art-terrorist unit embodied the aesthetic of horror and pageantry in fascism. They named themselves after a Nazi German term for their native Slovenian village, even dressing the part as mock military officers as they concocted Wagnerian operas driven by steam-blasted guitars and industrial beats that landed like fists. Their subversion attracted state persecution in communist Yugoslavia, making them a cult favorite among Westerners curious about what madness lurked behind the Iron Curtain. Laibach caught even more attention with Let It Be, their 1988 song-by-song cover of The Beatles’ classic–comfort music turned into a rally around the war drum. The band remains alive and well, and has just released Anthems, which collects their touches on classics by Queen, the Rolling Stones, and Andrew Lloyd Webber.
(Unfortunately) Influenced: Rammstein
Essential Listening: Let it Be, Opus Dei

Ministry [1981- Present]
God knows what would have happened if Ministry had continued to ape Human League or Dead or Alive. Thankfully, frontman Al Jorgensen and co-conspirator Paul Barker shed their fey new wave skins when they heard the blood-oiled machine pulse of speed metal–and it’s doubtful that industrial rock would’ve made a connection with the American teenage wasteland if it wasn’t for them. Ministry is best remembered for “NWO,” which translated metal into a robot street riot of tape-looped guitars and samples of Bush Sr. declaring a “new world order.” The Chicago band’s late ‘80s work is still its best: synths, guitars, and piston-hammered beats bludgeon the music into a groove as Jorgensen’s barfly growl catalyzes trashy rock into anthem territory. Ministry rebounded in 2004 with a new album that revisited past glories, a remixed version of their death disco landmark, Twitch, and reissues of their fêted and loathed singles (released on Wax Trax).
Inspired: Every industrial/metal band after them
Essential Listening: Land of Rape and Honey, A Mind is a Terrible Thing to Taste, Side Trax, Psalm 69

Nitzer Ebb [1982- Present]
Alongside Front 242, Nitzer Ebb brought industrial to the warehouse dancefloor during the mid-‘80s. They combined S&M imagery with a metallic disco that now sounds thoroughly pasteurized and chlorinated. These Essex blokes often stripped everything down to Douglas McCarthy’s teeth-torn vocals, David Goody’s nightstalker synths, and Bob Harris’ Teutonic beats. Their 1986 debut, That Total Age, paved the way for Electronic Body Music or “EBM,” industrial’s sulking stepchild, slouching in the corner with clove in mouth. Nonetheless, Flood’s remix of “Join in the Chant” found common ground with Detroit techno and Chicago house DJs, and is now considered a major influence among many producers of said genres and its mutations. Nitzer Ebb then toured with Depeche Mode, had their tastes spoiled by synth pop, and later faded into obscurity until releasing Big Hit in ’95.
Inspired: Richie Hawtin, Sven Väth, DJ Hell, Panacea
Essential listening: That Total Age

Artists and DJs slip in their love letters to industrial.

A Guy Called Gerald
“I think that (Cabaret Voltaire’s “Hypnotized”) was one of the first remixes I did. They were from a Northern electronic sound–crossover indie rock with a clean electro sound. The track they gave me was really raw and even now I prefer remixing raw tracks. That first remix taught me a lot about how to handle a remix.”

Tim Sweeney
(“Beats in Space,” WNYU 89.1–New York, DFA)
“(I play) Throbbing Gristle, early Meat Beat Manifesto, Ministry, Front 242, Nitzer Ebb. They bring an electronic element to a harder, punk attitude. The electronic side brings me into it; they have some synth lines that are really nice. Throbbing Gristle’s “Hot on the Heels of Love” is a classic, and “Radio Babylon” by Meat Beat Manifesto. Ministry is such a funny group, their early work is not industrial–I can play that and then play the crossover industrial. For Front 242, [the anthem is] “Headhunter” and for Nitzer Ebb, it’s “Join in the Chant.” After the early ‘90s, (industrial) loses me. The recent stuff I’ve heard doesn’t click with me in the same way.

Arnaud Rebotini
(Black Strobe)
“(Industrial) has had a great?influence on my work at different points. Nitzer Ebb has a funky, brutal, and minimal side–for me, they were the real pioneers of techno. The Cabs made really dark pop songs and Neubauten had a really different way of thinking about music. For me, industrial means this scene in the ‘80s around TG, Nurse with Wound, the Cabs, or Neubauten. Most of the things I’ve heard recently sound like shit. I think that industrial is more in bands like Pan Sonic or Autechre.”

Jack Dangers
(Meat Beat Manifesto, Tino Corp.)
“To me, ‘industrial’ means Throbbing Gristle; it’s not this mass-marketed, commercial music which came on the scene in the late ‘80s. Bands like Test Department in the early ‘80s used a lot of sounds visually, [like] grinding metal or splashing water. But I remember Depeche Mode getting on the Test Department bandwagon and watering it down–bastardizing it. It was ’84 or ’85. I suppose that’s when what we know as industrial exploded from labels like Wax Trax.

[Ministry’s work] to me was wrong–it wasn’t industrial. To me the original groups were very anti-guitar; if they used a guitar it would be in a very abstract way. [Bands like Ministry] were using [the guitar] like a rock instrument and that was a clash that never really appealed to me.

“The very first Meat Beat Manifesto live show was supporting Nitzer Ebb in 1987 show at The Fridge in Brixton. We only did one song, (“I Got the Fear”) because we only knew one song. And then everyone got really pissed off. The promoter wasn’t going to pay us and he wasn’t going to pay them. They smashed their dressing room and we just went home (laughs).”

Rumors abound about Out Hud. That they have a drum machine named Phyllis. That they changed their name to !!! when they got signed to Warp Records. Whether it’s their perpetual instrument-swapping or certain associates’ membership in the seven-piece punk-dance outfit !!!, people just can’t seem to get their facts straight when talking about these New York-via-Cali dub ‘n’ dancefloor deconstructionists.

“It is hard, for some reason, for people to understand what’s going on with us,” concurs Phyllis Forbes, who is not a drum machine but a living, breathing 26-year-old woman who has handled keyboards/piano, bass, drums, and drum programming (among other duties) since co-founding the band in Sacramento back in 1996. “People must make up shit–they can’t have read us saying this stuff anywhere.”

The confusion should all be ending right about…now, especially since Out Hud’s second LP, Let Us Never Speak of It Again, is a bit of a coming out party for Forbes and cellist Molly Schnick, who together have assumed vocal duties within the group many people assumed was “!!!’s instrumental sister act.” (The lineup is rounded out by !!!-ers Justin Vandervolgen and Nic Offer; LCD Soundsystem guitarist and !!! member Tyler Pope recently departed the band).

“The first 7” record that we did back in 1998 had vocals on it and so did a lot of our early songs that we never recorded,” clarifies Schnick, the squeaky, high-pitched voice backing up Forbes on tracks like “It’s For You” and “The Stoked American.” “So we never really thought of ourselves as an instrumental band, even though maybe we were.”

“It wasn’t a conscious thing,” Forbes interjects. “I guess we just didn’t have anything to say.”

More Rawk, More Talk
With its cheeky, in-joke-derived song titles (“Old Nude,” “Dear Mr. Bush, There Are Over 100 Words For Shit and Only 1 For Music. Fuck You, Out Hud”) and somber, dark tones, it may not be too clear what Out Hud is saying on Let Us Never Speak of It Again. Whatever it is, it sounds damn sharp. Full of complex rhythms, richly layered sound textures, and flawlessly subtle transitions that lead toward unexpected heights, nearly every track teeters the brink between danceable and melancholy, funky, and sad. Buoyed by Justin Vandervolgen’s wholly underrated mixing skills–he also plays the role of dubmaster live, mixing the band’s instrumental output with the intensity of an Adrian Sherwood or Mad Professor–the girls’ vocals sound vibrant, upbeat, and very much a part of the music, providing a pop edge that builds significantly upon the dubby remoteness of 2002’s S.T.R.E.E.T.D.A.D.

“Listening to these new songs I do feel they are more accessible,” Schnick says. “You can sing along, and I like that. It is a darker record than we thought it would be. People have asked, ‘Do you want this to be a dance record?’ We didn’t have an agenda going into it. There is more behind it than just, like, ‘Dance!’”

It would be misleading to say that there aren’t distinctive traces of New Order, Dub Syndicate, and even the Tom Tom Club in the Out Hud mix, but unlike most of the other bands working their way out of, or into, the post-punk tag these days, there is little looking backward on Let Us Never Speak of It Again.

“I was really psyched when all of the tasteful, progressive tech-house stuff started coming out, even though our music sounds nothing like that,” Vandervolgen admits. “It is much easier for people to get into an aesthetic that has already been established. Everyone is always wanting to be able to say, ‘It sounds like this’ because it makes things easier. But I would be psyched if somebody told me this sounds like a lot of things but not really like anything.”

The Band That Stays Together, Plays Together
Over coffee at a Williamsburg pastry shop, Forbes and Schnick reveal a habit of finishing each other’s sentences—which makes sense seeing as they’ve known each other since elementary school. Out Hud is the women’s third band together, and they’ve been playing together consistently since the age of 13, when they started Raooul, a short-lived, three-chord punk band that nonetheless managed to put a 7” EP out on the influential Lookout! Records. During the course of the interview, Forbes, who briefly dated Offer nearly a decade ago, reveals a “bombshell” that might prove an online description of Out Hud as a “post-punk Fleetwood Mac” to be at least somewhat true: she’s begun dating Vandervolgen, her best friend of nearly a decade.

For some reason, though, it doesn’t seem likely that this newfound love will erode the band’s internal vibe, which is still very much typified by humor and a punk rock approach to things. Forbes willingly gives an example of the band’s California hijinks, which have only intensified over the years. “Once we made up a love triangle between me, Molly, and Nic to get onto the Mark Wahlberg Show,” Forbes recalls. “Not Marky Mark, but the Temptation Island guy–he had a talk show. Punks used to always go on talk shows and make up lies. They put us up in a real nice hotel and flew us out from California.”

Perhaps the secret to the subtle warmth that permeates Out Hud’s recordings from that first 7” through to Let Us Never Speak of It Again is their closeness—dating back to their Sacramento days most of the members have lived together in the same apartment, which tends to also be the place where they practice. With Offer, Vandervolgen, and Forbes currently residing in a remote neighborhood near the Brooklyn Navy Yard and South Williamsburg’s Hasidic Jewish enclave–and Schnick living nearby–the music never seems to stop in Out Hud-land.

“We practice every day almost,” Schnick says. “It definitely helps us to be able to hear the same things, and we influence each other with what we are listening to. Justin is a really awesome DJ, and he’ll just be downstairs playing stuff. You get to absorb all this good music all the time. And the good thing about the Hasids is that, for some reason, they are always up so late so we can practice super late.”

One of Out Hud’s pious neighbors even made their album–in the haunting intro to “The Song So Good They Named It Thrice.” “There was this three year-old just kid singing on his balcony one day,” Schnick recalls. “Justin thought it was amazing, and had to record it. I’m into them–they are so mysterious.”

Having a competent sound engineer with quality recording equipment also enabled the group to complete their album at home after a trip to National Recording Studio in Washington, DC wasn’t as fruitful as they might have hoped.

“I feel like this album was written five times,” says Forbes, who made many of the demos that morphed, in some degree or another, into the songs on Let Us Never Speak of It Again. “We went in to record it and that is one thing. Once Justin gets his hand on it, it has another life. Then once we hear that, we’re like ‘Wait, now I have another idea; I am going to put some other parts on it.’ We are always going back and forth.”

You may not be able to tell from mainstream media’s bling saturation, but hip-hop was not birthed in the back of a Hummer. It was borne out of urban collapse and draconian cutbacks that reduced much of the Bronx to rubble. In that atmosphere DJs, MCs, b-boys, taggers, and gangbangers raged against the callousness of Carter and Reagan and turned it into a worldwide phenomenon.

Most of this probably floats beneath the dysfunctional radar of today’s hip-hop community, but Solesides cofounder and hip-hop chronicler Jeff Chang is about to put an end to that with Can’t Stop Won’t Stop: A History of the Hip-Hop Generation (hardcover; St. Martins, $27.95). “Like many of my generation,” Chang confides, “I’ve hungered for stories that ring true. Hip-hop is full of those stories, so the book was just a way to say something deeper about who we are, what we want, and where we might go.”

Chang’s book digs deep into hip-hop’s NYC roots and traces the genre’s progress from soundsystem parties through high-art appropriations, race riots, gang clashes, and cross-country beefs in the name of lending the hip-hop nation some much-needed perspective.

“There’s a desire in our generation to circulate these hidden histories to keep hip-hop moving forward,” says Chang. “Before hip-hop was globally consumed, it was a lived local culture. The hip-hop beamed today into houses and stores is just a sliver of the lived experience, although it sometimes seems that those passive acts–listening, watching, and purchasing–have come to stand in for the whole. I hope the grassroots is able to take back control of hip-hop, and in the process take control of its own destiny.”