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D.A.V.E. turns down the acid
Unveils new live set tomorrow
Credits Ableton software ability
BEN RAYNER
POP MUSIC CRITIC
It could be argued that the post-millennial dropoff in electronic music's commercial fortunes is attributable not so much to dwindling interest in the tunes as to the original, aging rave-era audience's dwindling interest in youthful hedonism.
Anyone with an abiding interest in harder sounds, in particular, has likely watched the members of their crew willing to put up with, say, a thorough Adam X beatdown or three days of intense Goa trance in a field somewhere diminish in number over the years. Once you've crested 30, in fact, some friends simply shake their heads and take it as a form of madness.
Encouraging, then, to see folks like keeping it real, as they say, while their contemporaries ease off the throttle with age.
One of the lynchpins of London's late-'90s free-party scene along with the infamous Liberator DJs (Chris, Aaron and Julian) — whose Stay Up Forever label name rather nicely embodies the ethos of the movement — and likeminded DJ/producers such as Guy McAffer and DDR, Cullen has in recent years moved away from the scorching acid-techno lunacy he used to churn out of a studio dubbed "the Punishment Farm." But only so far.
"We started off making the stuff that we were doing for a bit of a laugh, really," says the amiable Cullen, 35, from his digs in Kent. "It was more of a punk-rock thing.
"I think when I started to DJ, it began to change the way I do music. I was looking for music that I wanted to play in my sets rather than just making tracks off on my own ... I love so many different genres and styles that I don't really want everything I do to be 155-bpm acid techno."
Ironically, while Cullen has largely divested himself of the screeching 303 lines and towering, filthy basslines of his old 12-inches for labels like S.U.F. and Smitten in favour of a sleeker, more mechanistic brand of hard, funky techno, acid — albeit of the much tamer, "house" variety — has been busy making a comeback.
He's sticking to his guns, though, and vows there's "not a lot of acid" to be found in the brand-new D.A.V.E. the Drummer live set he will unveil for the first time in North America at System tomorrow night for fine local record shop 2 the Beat's second-anniversary party.
The live P.A., which should reflect Cullen's affinity for "proper, rave-y techno," is one of his first experiments with the performance software Ableton Live, a program that has lately been winning many fans in the electronic-music community.
"It's a really amazing program, and it's enabled me to really mess the tracks around, totally remix them and make them sound as good as they were on the records," he says.
"There are new tracks in there, but I think any trainspotters will probably know almost all of them. I'm not putting anything that I've never played before in there. I generally don't in my live sets, just because I can't be too sure if it's gonna go down all right. I'd rather test it out on a piece of vinyl than play it in a live set and have it go down really badly. So I tend to put in things that are a bit more tried and tested.
"Plus, when I'm DJ-ing, I don't play all the hits. So when I'm playing live, I try to throw in the more well-known stuff. When you're playing live, I think you should. People tend to come along expecting you to play certain things and I think it would be disappointing if I was to just go into a minimal loop for a half hour. People would probably get pissed off."
With his scattered recordings still primarily found in the collections of DJs and vinyl addicts, Cullen has been entertaining the idea of making a proper, full-length artist album "for years." The current, hit-and-miss climate for electronic releases, however, means it's not easy finding a label willing to pony up the cash that would allow him to relax his DJ-ing schedule — he's popular all over Europe and huge in South America — and withdraw into the studio for an extended stretch.
Still, an Ableton-abetted mix disc collecting tracks from his Hydraulix and Apex labels could be in the offing this year.
"It's kind of a cheat using Ableton, I know, because you don't even have to match the records," laughs Cullen. "I mean, the point of DJ-ing is to match your records. You might as well go and have a fag. But I'm trying to be really sneaky about what tracks are coming in and out and I'm trying things like layering several different versions of one track at the same time."
There will be little time for creativity, contemplation or rest this weekend, that much is certain. Cullen's System date is a one-off, a friendly gesture to his friends at 2 the Beat who've crowned him the store's bestselling artist.
"I've got a nasty weekend," he says. "I'm coming over on Thursday and I'm gonna see Brian (Bobroff) from 2 the Beat and all them, then I'm playing Friday night and very, very first thing Saturday morning I'm flying back to London because I'm playing Saturday night. Three times. Actually, my last gig is on Sunday afternoon. I'm playing 2 till 4, so I have to stay awake. It's this 24-hour thing. I'm playing three different areas, but all in the same venue.
"At the end of the day, I do love it. I grew up doing this, so I can't really do anything else. But I'm 35 now. It's definitely taking its toll. I can't party like I used to. At some point, I have to grab a shower and a cup of tea."
