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Chris Liebing has been dominating the techno circuit for many years now and just finished and released his first album entitled "Evolution” worldwide in September after 2 years of sample gathering, travelling and playing just about everywhere there is in the world, from the world famous “Love Parade” event in Berlin to remote parts of Northern Canada!
He’s just scored a new residency in America (amongst others at home in Europe) and continues to run his very upfront and successful labels CLAU and CLRetry respectively which have artists such as Marco Carola and Steve Rachmad scoring hits for both amongst many other respected producers. Chris took the time to chat by phone “studio to studio” with the UK HKClubbing office about his album “Evolution”, people watching, Final Scratch and upcoming releases from future unknown remixers.
Al: For your first album “Evolution”, it seemed to me that there are a lot of outside influences worked into the album. Is this what you were trying to get across to potential listeners?
CL: Basically that’s what came out. For me it makes sense but it doesn’t necessarily have to make sense for a lot of other people. I think that’s normal if you do something like that.
Al: So basically it just culminated from people watching? The main stay of your ideas for the album?
CL: Watching the news and everything yeah.
Al: So quite a lot of ideas from general life fitting into your writing.
CL yeah if you just keep your eyes open whilst you’re travelling and watching television in the right way then you get a lot of ideas I guess.
Al: The one track American Madness I perceived it as meaning “mad Americans” but I’m not really too sure on that thesis!
CL: the original title of that came not because of the idea of mad Americans, The original idea that came behind it was because we used a sample from Madness “our house”
Al: Oh yeah! Good English group!
CL: Yeah? This backwards horn, if you listen quite closely you might just hear that. The bassline of the whole record, when you only hear the bassline it reminds you of a slow version of “Kim Wilde’s” “Kids in America”.
Al: Oh right!
CL: putting the American and the Madness gave me the title of the track “American Madness” and I was just like “oh yeah”, thinking that the Americans are quite mad in the world, so maybe I have like give that as a title to that track and for me it has two meanings to that. The first meaning is very simple and putting together the two words of basically the sounds which reminded me of them.
Al: Chris, where have you been touring around with the album? Have you been playing live or are you aiming to take it out live?
CL: No not really live. I’ve always been a DJ, but with the new equipment and new software, I might be thinking about that in the future but so far, touring wise, I’ve only been DJing and over the summer I’ve been to south America, brazil, Columbia. I’ve been to North America and to a lot of major cities on the East Coast and to Canada. I’ve also been to Japan and that was basically the summer and my normal stuff around Europe you know basically like Spain and Eastern Europe, wherever. Next week it’s already off to the States in spite of my American madness track!
Al: Well maybe they could perceive the track as a bit of a novelty, almost like “this techno guy’s written this track about us and we are mad!”
CL: The people who come to the party love it! These people come out to the party. I’m rather talking about the politics of Americans you know, and I think that most people come to the parties and share the same opinion about their own country probably, but I already noticed that I’d better not show that record to any customs officers you know! Not if I don’t want to get into any trouble! (laughs). In the states is a good example, its really interesting because I’ve never really wanted to travel there, because the parties were always a bit like, you wouldn’t know what to expect and all has been good and there’s a nice little techno scene developing.
Al: I deal a lot with New York’s Gotham Grooves. I don’t know whether you’ve heard of them?
CL: I’ve heard of them but I’m not really sure what they do.
Al: They do very good tracks, that’s what they do. I get quite a lot through them all the time.
CL: Is it New York based?
Al: Well I can send details back over to you.
CL: Yeah, because I have spoken to a few people in New York and I don’t know, for some reason, Gotham Grooves seems totally familiar to me but sometimes im a bit, er, my memory plays tricks on me.
Al: Too many people, too many faces! Great bunch of lads and the tracks they produce are second to none.
CL: Yeah, good!
Al: Quite housey tracks, quite techno. Their whole point is to get good techno going in the states.
CL: Yeah, I wonder if they’re from New York?
Al: Yes they are.
CL: For example, next week I’m going to Philadelphia to a small club where Josh Wink also plays regularly which is really nice, there’s only like 50 people but these people are really up for it and even Miami, I’m going to Miami again, there’s a club that’s been opened only for techno music now, which you wouldn’t expect at all its just like “wow whats going on!” and, er, New York at the Arc I’m basically starting a new residency there to play 3 or 4 times a year and this is all with new techno music which I think is totally surprising because I was just like (laughs) “does anybody know this music in the states” and they seem to be quite up for it.
Al: Yes they do definitely. If you go up to Canada, up to Vancouver
CL: Oh Canada, totally, Canada all the time! Like Montreal Quebeq city and stuff like this yeah, the Canadians were already up for this a long time ago.
Al: I mean, I’ve been out there a couple of times to play and they do love it, they don’t get many techno DJs out there internationally, so its always something different.
CL: I even went to Halifax 5 times! (laughs)
Al: How was that?
CL: Oh, Halifax is in Canada, its in novascotia and er its very far off, very far off!
Al: Very remote!
CL: I didn’t even know that they knew electronic music up there, I don’t know what area in Europe you would compare it to but its like, totally far off. It’s like playing in Northern Norway! (laughs) very interesting, nice people and totally up for partying.
Al: They probably don’t see many international djs up there so people are probably welcome there all the time. Where are you heading off to next, are you still promoting the album, and how much longer will you continue to promote the album for?
CL: I’m doing it for as long as I enjoy it. I didn’t really plan a tour for the album. I didn’t really do that because I feel like I’m touring internationally all the time. I didn’t feel comfortable putting up a poster saying like “this is now a big tour” you know because it’s been a bit tour for the last 5 years already! (laughs) and, erm, because I released the album before the summer in Germany and now basically in the rest of the world. So for me, I’m just very happy with my first album and love to go out and play these tracks to the people as well as loads of other tracks in my set. I kind of see it as loose, not totally album tour promotion thing, it’s just me being on the road anyway and trying to get people in to listen to what I’m doing
Al: So basically you’ve dubplated the tracks already and tested them out on the crowds.
CL: Oh I have a lot, I’m using final scratch already for two years now already and basically everything I’m producing I’m road testing for at least two months or three months even before it comes out. Using final scratch actually quite improved my production work because I’m more confident in my sound and what I’m doing because I’m able to test it quite quicker and do changes even sometimes on the road and things like that, so this all added up to, for me, feeling more comfortable in my productions. That’s already helped me a lot with my album. Some of the tracks on the album I’ve already played one and a half years ago.
Al: Do you find it helps when you’re mixing a new track in through final scratch and that it tells you where you should change parts of the track.
CL: Yeah it totally does, the sound, if I like the sound and if it goes well with other tracks I do like to play and, er, if it fits well into my own set and I do feel comfortable myself by playing it with stuff like this and ive had it a lot of times that I have maybe a track which I wasn’t too sure of ,you know, you get out of your studio and you think like you’ve listened to it all day and, mm, I don’t know how it is, and then at the weekend you just drop it into your set and the weekend after maybe and you think like wow! And, erm, using final scratch and that happened quite a lot of times to me even. That I was always thinking that I could judge very well what I was doing, I was always thinking that I can judge if a track works or not. But since using final scratch it taught me that I was wrong quite a lot of times where I thought “uh I don’t know” and then I played them out like two or three times on weekends and It was just kind of like “wow that really is a track that has something” and I wonder how many tracks I threw in the bin before I was using final scratch which were kind of cool and I didn’t like, and therefore released tracks which in the end I didn’t feel comfortable with because also it goes the other way round. I do have tracks where I think “wow that’s great I love it” and then I play it out 2 or three times and I get totally bored with it and I’m just like “no that’s not a good track” so I don’t release it. So that’s the good thing about final scratch it just gives me more confidence about what I’m releasing.
Al: Basically with the tracks that you’re road testing, were there any other additional tracks that may have made it onto the album?
CL: Actually not many, because I’m not kind of a producer that produces 10 tracks a week and then takes the best out of them, when I’m working on a tracks and I enjoy it, I keep on working, if I’m at the point where I just don’t get anywhere and don’t enjoy it then I usually don’t really carry on with the track and start off with a new one, so there’s not really a lot of stuff, basically when I finish a track in the studio I basically kind of release it, there’s not a lot of tracks that are just lying around, there are some of course which I just told you before but not a lot. Next to album there were 2 tracks which finally came out on my other label CLAU, number 8, these were 2 tracks, they were into the same way as the album’s thinking, they were kind of tracks that went into the way of “Disorder and Chaos” on the album and in the end I decided to put “Disorder and Chaos” on the album and the other two tracks I didn’t use for that spot, I just edited it a bit differently and released them as a 12 inch, just not related to the album at all you know.
Al: I’ve also noticed with the 12” you have released on CLRetry that none of your own productions are on there, is this a label that’s clearly aimed at remixes?
CL: All remixes which were released on Clretry. The originals were released somewhere else on CLR basically, so all the originals have been already release I just like the idea that friend artists, if you want to call it that way, friends or artists I really admire, to ask them and to wonder how would it sound if this guy is using the sounds of that track, it doesn’t necessarily need to be my own track but just something I have release you know and to see what the outcome of if a guy I really like his productions does a remix of some other good productions which are right again not necessarily have to be my own productions, but so far most of them have been. I’m basically working remixes for Steve Rachmad’s CLR 10 12” and, erm, there’s going to be a CLR 11 of Hardcell and stuff like that, so there’s going to be much more remixes of other people remixing artists which are just released as well.
Al: So its pretty much the remixes are shared between all of the community and it just depends on the artists you like and respect.
CL: Yeah if I need a track and I just think like wow this could be something for this guy to remix because you know because the sounds would kind of fit like for example right now I asked Christian Wunsch.
Al: Yeah I do.
CL: You know the Spanish guy? He’s dong things which kind of do sound like, for example,”Disorder and Chaos”, so I asked him to remix that track and I think, erm, sometimes if fits really well if you ask someone who’s sound comes close to it anyway, and sometimes it can be really fun to ask someone if it’s totaly different to what they normally do. I don’t know, it’s always a decision that comes out of my stomach not really out of my brain! (laughs).
Al: So what’s next now you’ve got your first album out of the way? Are you going to start work on another album?
CL: Yeah I really enjoyed the work on my first album. I didn’t really know it would be so much fun to get together a bigger picture and idea of what you bring across, so I think that next February I’m going to hit the studio big time again, like, for more time and longer in order to do a new album. Until that time, I’m going to keep on working on “Stigmata - the next chapter” which we’re currently sitting on right here now.
Al: Yeah, with Andrew wooden.
CL: For the “Evolution” album there will be remixes coming out and the first remix will be by Christian smith and John Selway for the “Golden Age” track and the German producer called Alex Bau, he’s one of the guys from “Basic Implant”, he’s done a really nice remix so that will be the first remix edition of the album. So there’s always enough to do, always a lot to do. I’m working on a “Stigmata” compilation right now as well to round up the first chapter of “Stigmata” and, er, what is there really right now? There’s so much I can’t think of it at the moment!! Yeah basically next CLR 11 and number 12 and I’m just enjoying doing new stuff, I never hold onto old stuff too long I just go onto new stuff already.
Al: You basically release it and almost forget about it and on with the next one!
CL: Yeah go on with the next one.
Al: I know Alex Bau’s work and releases very well.
CL: You do? Great! But for the album I’m going to do, I don’t want to call it a remix contest, but for anyone who wants to do a remix of the track for the album, basically I will tell the people, whoever wants to do a remix can tell me and then they get the samples of the original track and I will release the best remixes then. I want to give a lot of new artists and unknown people a chance to maybe have a platform to release something if they’re doing something. I’m going to release it on CLR so they’ll reach a bit more people than what they usually produce for.
Al: Thanks for taking the time to speak to hkclubbing.com Chris, good luck with your upcoming gigs and releases.
CL: No problem, thank you!
Details of the remix competition can be found here:
www.cl-rec.com
Interview By: Barry Hinselwood
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