Cari Lekebusch intreview (2000)

To the global techno-buying public CARI LEKEBUSCH needs little introduction - having been spearheading the Swedish electronic music revolution since the early nineties. Although notoriously quiet in press interviews, Overload's roving Belgian correspondent JOHN OSSELAER soon got the European techno don talking…

O.M. Cari, in your biography it says that you have been collecting records from the age of ten. What were the artists and bands you were into at that early age ?

C.L. At the age of ten we were in the early Eighties. I started with the records my mother was collecting; like everybody else it started there. I found some records that I really liked. I found some old stuff from groups like Kraftwerk. Around 11-12 years old I started to realise that I liked synthetic sounds and synthesizer sounds better than, for example, orthodox guitar sounds. I started collecting records that had that new feeling to them. In the Eighties a lot of those records came out, all the way up to Africa Bambata they listened to Kraftwerk and stuff like that. There are so many groups and records, too many to be mentioned. We had a record store in Stockholm at the time which had really good access to an American distributor so we had all the early stuff from New York, Chicago and Detroit. I started to buy all that stuff. That was around 1985-1986, then came Chicago house, the Trax history, acid house and so on. Around the same time I started buying my first equipment. I had some friends with synthesizers so we started to mess around a bit. It was fun.

O.M. Did you do this all by yourself or did you have some friends who helped you ?

C.L. I guess like everybody else I had some people around me. I had a friend in the 4th, 5th and 6th grade and he had some stuff at home. He was pretty smart because he built his own synthesizers already at the age of ten. I was pretty impressed by that. We were playing around with all that and thought: 'This is mad fun !' I guess in a way he helped realise that I had to buy myself one of those toys. I started to collect money. The prices were huge. I could never imagine that one day I would own one of these things because it's so expensive, especially in Sweden. I guess if you have really rich parents you can ask them, but that wasn't the case. I started working in an amusements park to collect money and bought my first synthesizers.

O.M. I've heard that you also organised a couple of parties…

C.L. I had my own club in the late eighties, like '89-'90. I think we did most parties in '89, at least ten. That went of pretty good, we had something started there. There were some other promotors in Stockholm, all around the age of 18 to 20. We all started doing parties and people attended those parties because we were playing a new kind of sound.

O.M. Before the emergence of the school of Stockholm, almost no one had heard about the Swedish electronic music scene. What was the techno scene when you became involved in it?

C.L. We were the pioneers in Stockholm, nobody had done something like that before us. There were some people who were into house, a group called Swemix. They were the pioneers on the commercial market. They have done productions for the Backstreet Boys and remixed artists like Whitney Houston. They were the first to start with house music in Stockholm. They inspired us too, but they were in a totally different market. I guess the techno community in Sweden nowadays has some reckognition, but before that nothing because there wasn't anything going on. Everything was very underground and still is. You can't just say : 'I wanna go to a technoparty tonight' because there won't be one. Sometimes there are parties in Stockholm, but here (Belgium) you have great parties almost every weekend.

O.M. There is a strong connection between you and Adam Beyer and also Joel Mull, Jesper Dahlbeck. How did you guys hook up? What made you bond this strongly?

C.L. Since Stockholm is a pretty small cityand the scene for techno isn't too big we all bump into eachother sooner or later. We met at a party of a mutual friend. Adam was playing some of his own tracks on the stereo. I was like: 'What is this all about ?' He came up to me and said it was his own stuff and I answered that I was doing the same thing. He knew me because he had already seen me play. Immediately we had something in common. He was already friends with Joel Mull and others. So I met all those guys. They are a couple of years younger then me and they went to the same school. It's really a small group of people in Stockholm that produce.

O.M. Is that also the reason why a lot of the guys from Stockholm have a very similar style ?

C.L. Yes. We listen to the same stuff, we have been working in the same record store called Planet Rhythm. One of the owners, Glenn Wilson, had the record label Planet Rhythm. He was releasing a lot of our tracks on that label which was good for us because back then we didn't have any recognition internationally. When one of the guys had done some tracks they came to me and we listened to it. I was doing the pre-mastering for some of their stuff as well. I took their tracks and put them through my compressor and computer. In that way I coloured those tracks a bit and that brought us more together soundwise. It's good because otherwise we wouldn't have this recognition. If it just would have been me I probably wouldn't live here anymore. I would probably do what Robert Leiner did and move to Ghent or something like that.

O.M. How important has Glenn Wilson (Planet Rhythm) been in the development of your career ?

C.L. Glenn moved to Stockholm to start the record store and he was inspiring to a lot of kids. A lot of them came to the store to buy our records and similar stuff. He did more for the Swedish technoscene than anyone can imagine. With his label he tried to pull in a lot of new people. He made business and you have to make business to make something out of it otherwise I wouldn't be sitting here in the first place. At the end of the day I have to pay my bills or I get trouble from my landlord.

O.M. Another fact is the pretty high rate of releases. What pushes you to work so intensely ?

C.L. It's just cold and dark for the better part of the year so you'd be in the studio. You get a lot of studiotime and peace and quiet. I used to produce massive loads of tracks, but nowadays I release only the really good ones. Out of a hundred tracks I maybe do ten really good ones, but I release fifty anyway [laughs loud]. I think it's important not only to release this popchartmentality-material where everything has to be just perfect. I think it's more important to adapt a different attitude to releasing tracks. You should be able to release some tracks that probably won't work on the dancefloor, but you know they work together well with something else. You get that one or two odd tracks on an ep just to try and make something new. You can't do something totally new every time you release something. Sometimes you have to take a couple of steps backwards in order to get a couple of steps ahead for the next release. That's a bit my philosophy. It's like Kung Fu. I practise it every day because if you don't you are not going to get any better and it's the same with studio techniques. There are so many techniques that are hidden ; you just have to find them. You can combine your computer with your synthesizers, your drummachines, you can change it all around. You can leave all the orthodox ways behind and if you do, you just do a lot of tracks because you want to record all the different moments.

O.M. How do you go about the production of a track ? Do you have certain patterns you fall into ?

C.L. I have my formulas and patterns of course. When I don't have a good idea to start with I always have a pattern that I start with. That can be anything ; I can start working with my reel tape for example, making weird loops and playing them backwards whatever. Then you've got Cubase on the computer and hard disc recording systems and you can use that in different ways. I kinda like to loop stuff on my drummachines. You put them on tapes, then in the computer back on forth untill you have some nice structures. It doesn't matter where you start, you've got to have certain ingredients otherwise you won't be satisfied by the end of the day.

O.M. You have released on a very large number of different labels before focusing on your own labels. Why did you choose for this approach?

C.L. I tried to keep myself independent. I think that is very important because I don't want to find myself in a situation where I have to do music for someone else. That is why I signed contracts with different small labels because I believe it to be a good way to get to know a lot of people and to get to know the business. I was still very young then. Nowadays I just release on my own labels and I do a little remixing here and there. By the time you have your own house you want to pay your own bills. I'm totally independent, I own most of my tracks. If you have a massive contract with a major label you can get into sticky situations.

O.M. Have you ever moved from one country to another in order to work for certain labels?

C.L. No, I've been staying in California for a while and in several other places. When I was young I was living on Tenerife in the Canary Island. Basically I've always been living in Stockholm. The last eight years I have been travelling all around the place. It doesn't matter where you are because you can't escape from yourself. I stick around in Sweden. The weather isn't really nice there, but I've got my friends there and if you want to work it's very good to live in Stockholm because of all the peace and quiet. If I would move to London I would get very inspired by the music, but I can access that music anywhere. I think nowadays with the internet and everything it doesn't matter where you live. My friend Alexi Delano sends me an e-mail, he attaches some beats, some samples in super resolution, I put them in my sampler, make a track and send it back to him. We can basically work together without being in the same room.

O.M. At the moment you run several labels. Can you give us a brief explanation for each of them ?

C.L. I've got the Hybrid Productions label which is now called H-Productions after a legal twist with a Japanese label called Awex Inc. who have a British group called Hybrid. H-Productions is techno-oriented. I also have Djupt for deeper tracks, Djupt means 'deeper' in Swedish. Mostly I'm concentrating on Hybrid, but I'm gonna do some more deeper stuff for Djupt and I have a number of producers lined up for that label. I have some other small projects like e.g. KGB which is a project with some other friends. We have made two records so far. The first one was only 300 and the second 1000 copies. It's basically techno, but we try to explore some new frequencies. I also have a hip hop label called Grundtakt that has two releases so far. Those are things I want to develop in the future. I have to take care of a little distribution setup for that as well since it's a totally different channel for releasing hip hop.

O.M. Hybrid has expanded over the years to include a design company as well. What can you tell us about the activities of the design company ?

C.L. We are doing lots of art and we've done some exhibitions in Stockholm. I've always been into that stuff. I have some friends who are still doing graffitti. I've got this new sleeve coming up which one of my friends has designed. I do the computer bits on top of that. I've done lots of record sleeves. There's the videoproject as well. It will be released together with a track, but doesn't necessarily form one whole with the music. It's more fantasy. I want to do this really well because if you do something you have to do it good and not because someone else has also done it. I have different friends who all do some kind of artform so I thought : 'Why not put all these people together,' since I am in the middle of it.

O.M. Do you draw yourself ? Those drawings on your website for example, who has done those ?

C.L. That's me. I have a friend who helps me with the coding. When it comes to the music, sounds and the visual things I like to do it myself. I think more artists should do that instead of getting somebody to make them a record sleeve and video for 50.000$. Maybe they can't even draw. It doesn't matter, let them draw anyway. It may look horrible, but it doesn't if you think of it. If the artist has done it himself it' more interesting, it relates more to the music.

O.M. While your colleague Adam Beyer is more focused on the dry drumloops you have always incorporated samples, sounds, gimicks etc. in your productions. What inspires you when you are constructing tracks ? Where do you get the ideas for sounds, samples, breaks etc. ?

C.L. Everywhere but in the musical style similar to mine. I can listen to other music, see a movie and get crazy ideas from it. I can see a painting and get an idea for a sample. I always have some drumloops lying around somewhere and then I get started quickly. When you have an idea it doesn't matter what you do, but it is important to get started quickly. Getting started is the most difficult part. By the time you are in the middle of it you know it's gonna be delivered.

O.M. How busy is your dj-schedule?

C.L. I used to have a really heavy schedule. Nowadays I'm getting a bit older. I've done the world around a couple of times. Now I want to spend some more time in the studio since that is the thing that got me started in the first place. It is more important to make music than to play music. It kinda goes hand in hand because when you go out and play records you get feedback. It charges you up so much that you go in the studio and do three tracks the next day. I've talked to some other dj's and it seems to be the way it works.

O.M. When you come home after an exhausting weekend, what is the first thing you are looking forward to when you get of the plane ?

C.L. My girlfriend [laughs]. Actually the first thing is the fresh air. By the time I get off the airplane and go to take a taxi or bus the air is so fresh and kinda cold. You have been in a hot, sticky place and you get back home in the fresh air. It's the first thing I think about. I'm used to it.

O.M. This year you had to cancel some gigs due to a broken arm from snowboarding. Is that one of your favorite hobbies and are you any good at it ?

C.L. I love it. I guess you have to living in Sweden. I've never been skiing. I started snowboarding when it in my mid-twenties. Most of my friends went skiing with their parents, but I had no access to that. I've done it for about three, four seasons now and I recommend it to everybody. If you don't make big jumps I don't think you can really break anything. I was practising some jumps and I had no protection on. If I would have had proctection on I wouldn't have broken my arm.

O.M. If someone stole all your equipment, what pieces of gear would you miss most?

C.L. Defenitely my recording gear because some of it is really hard to get hold of. The synths, samplers and sounds you can get new ones. The most important things are all the master DAT's. All my music, all my soundlibraries, all my loops are on reel-to-reel tapes. I have this really nice old reel-to-reel tape. If somebody would steal that it's impossible to find another one. I hope it's never going to happen. It happened to Adam actually. His studio got burglared in the early days. Had had a studio with Joel Mull and Jesper Dahlbäck. The burglars took almost everything. They knew what to take, they knew the 303 was very expensive so they took it, together with some drummachines.

O.M. Where do you see yourself in ten years ? What would you like to be doing then ?

C.L. I hope I'll be able to do some more events here and there. Hopefully I'll be able to do some music for films, that would be interesting. Maybe work some more with vocalists. More listening music also. Nowadays I'm mostly doing dance music, but it's also fun to make listening music or to work with vocalists.

O.M. What is on your label's release schedules for the coming weeks, months ?

C.L. I've got the 'Exotic EP' coming up. It won't be untill december I guess. I'm working on this project with some friends : Joel, Adam etc. Everybody is doing one track and we'll probably have a triple pack and a special sleeve. We're gonna do a homepage with some exclusive tracks and some weird stuff as always. Secret missions on the internet. I don't know if you have been to my homepage. You have to punch in codewords to access secret areas and stuff. It's very chaotic, you have to spend hours to understand what is going on. Sometimes it bounces you back, sometimes it's totally closed. I like that. Normally you go to a homepage and it's like : 'Here we are, blah, blah, blah, us, us, us, me, me, me, I, I, I, here's everything you need to know.' It's so boring. It's much more fun if you have to do some research yourself and you have to look for something. Today everything is based on quantity rather than quality. Everything is easy access, too much information. It's too much, you don't need that much anyway. I think in the future people are going to do more research to find quality.

O.M. What other things do you have up you have up your sleeve ?

C.L. A lot of travelling because I have to keep up my schedule. I have some touring in Australia and Asia. A North American tour next year and probably by the end of the summer South America. I want to do the world one more time.

O.M. And the videothing, when is it going to be out ?

C.L. I'm working on it right now. We've got three hours worth of material so I can make a movie out of this [laughs]. I want to put this together very carefully. It's my first video and I don't want to look like a fool. It has got to look good. If I can't release it before Christmas I'll do it afterwards. Usually I never release any records in that period either. Nobody is going to give a shit anyway. They have done too much shopping already. Don't you just hate Christmas ? I do!

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