MaximalMinimal

We’ve just recieved an exclusive promo mix for MaximalMinimal from a new fresh Italian duo, composed by NT89, Bob Rifo’s protege, and Kill Phil, as well as some remixes. These guys started their DJ project not a long time ago and are already making remixes for Congorock, Blatta & inesha, 3 Is A Crowd, and many other big italian producers, which is simply amazing. They are a duo we think is to be closely followed in the next months, since they have some monster original productions coming up, as well as insane remixes. These guys are making actively evolve the current trends of electro.

Here’s their promo mix : Get Down Mix

Tracklist:

1) Rock It Out Rob Threezy remix
2) The Party Rico Tubbs
3) Party People Hijack
4) Off To The Boy Dbag Congorock Remix Radio Edit
5) I Wish Skee-Lo Josh David Remix
6) Crabby Lazy Ants
7) Never Fuck Romanthony Congorock Remix
 I Hold The Crown Redman Gigi Barocco Remix
9) Mustang Lazy Ants
10) Stepoff B&I and Congorock Lazy Ants remix
11) Raven Proxy Crookers remix
12) Money N.A.S.A The Count Of Monte Cristal Dungeon Remix
13) What is a dj 3isCrowd Lazy Ants remix
14) Introducin Aniki Kelevra Remix
15) All leather Hma screams loudernow remix
16) Can You Feel It Cls Laidback Luke Riddim Remix
17) Rockerman Foamo Lee mortimer remix
18) Bad Man Horror Theme A1 Bassline Mustard Pimp Remix
19) Get Dwn Jack Beats

And here are some of their remixes:

Blatta & Inesha Feat. Congorock – Step Off! (Lazy Ants Remix)

3 Is A Crowd – What Is A DJ ( Lazy Ants Remix)

Fare Soldi – Pagagheddon (Lazy Ants Remix)

Lazy Ants’ Myspace and Twitter

MaximalMinimal had the opportunity to meet The Bloody Beetroots at one of their gigs in Baltimore, in the United States. They let us have a small interview with them. If there is something you have to know about The Bloody Beetroots, aka Bob Rifo and Tommy Tea, it’s that they are very calm and gentle without their Spiderman masks. This mask actually has superpowers, just like the ones like in the movie The Mask (you know, that movie where there’s a guy with a green face that goes fucking crazy everywhere). Once they wear their disguise, they just go insane and destroy everything in their way. You could compare seeing them live to seeing Metallica live in 1983.

MaximalMinimal: Why do you guys [Bob Rifo and Tommy Tea] play together, since it is only you, Bob Rifo, who produces the music?

Bob Rifo: I had a side-project that was a complementary DJ set to this punk-rock band I created, called Bob Rifo’s Gang. Tommy was part of this DJ set. I decided to stop this band I had going on due to collective alcoholism in the band. And since I was producing electro music before starting my punk-rock project, I decided to start making some electro again, and in about 3 months, all the tracks I had composed were all over chat rooms and blogs, I continued walking on this path, which led me to The Bloody Beetroots project.

MM: What is your music becoming these days? Where do you think it will go in the years to come?

BR: The style in our music will always stay the same, but if you listen closely, none of it sounds the same. There is an evolution in the way I produce my music, in our original tracks, as well as in our various remixes. You never know towards what you will go when you produce. If you are up to date in this special music scene, you follow the different musical trends and try to make them evolve yourself. And this evolution never stops.

MM: What were you thinking of when you composed Bluto Fucks Popeye?

BR: I just wanted to destroy this myth about the opposition between the Good and the Evil, where the Good always wins over the Bad, whereas in this case, Popeye gets screwed!

MM: A lot of people find it strange that you use Windows? What are your reasons? And what programs do you use to produce music?

BR: There aren’t any reasons, contrary to what people think. I started producing with an old Atari computer connected to an Akai controller. I later on mounted Cubase on that old computer. Then over the years I got a PC on which I also installed Cubase. But in the end it’s a matter of habits…once you started with something you get used to it, so there is no reason to change it. After all the goal is to make good music.

MM: Are there any emerging artists you recommend to our readers?

BR: A producer whom I strongly recommend, even though he is a little bit known, is Jackson and his Computer Band. This guy is really underestimated. His music is really one step ahead of things, and he shouldn’t be forgotten. He should really be rediscovered. Then if we want to talk about the new emerging electro scene, there’s a bunch of dudes you might have heard about, like Gigi Barocco, Congorock, Blatta & Inesha, Cécile, His Majesty Andre…

MM: Is there a secret in your music?

BR: There is no secret, its just to make music.

MM: Is there a goal?

BR: To preserve music.

(To listen to a little track that goes along with Sir Bob Cornelius Rifo’s powerful and dramatic last sentence Click Here!)

Thanks the Bob and Tommy for the interview! WE LOVE THE BLOODT BEETROOTS!

The Bloody Beetroots Myspace

The Bloody Beetroots on Beatport

The time has come! The Bloody Beetroots have finally announced the release of their killer Warp EP on March 24. The song Warp in this album has been destroying dance floors lately, and is more anticipated than Tupac’s return from the dead! Keep this release date in mind because it is something you absolutely don’t want to miss. This is THE badass song of 2009 for now!

The Bloody Beetroots MySpace

It is just midnight, and SPA’s Pets Dance EP is now available on CD and digital on Tuesday 24 February, three weeks after its vinyl release. New sensation of Steve Aoki’s Dim Mak Records, SPA responds cleverly, among other things,  to the clichés and reviews carried about him.

Maximalminimal: Hello SPA, go for those who do not know yet.

SPA: SPA started in August 2007. Initially we were two, with a common desire to make music. The instinctive and transcendental aspect of electronic music in general and the first tracks produced in particular, has naturally led to this connection music / animality. We have a time worn masks to illustrate this artistic bias, this is no longer the case. We have been two: B1 my old sidekick and co-founder of the project, who was responsible over the stage, and me who was dealing mostly with writing and production, I continued alone to focus the project on the inside to allow it to get a true meaning and a real future.

MM: At the time when you were two, I have read some reviews with you as a “spare masked duo” after the Daft Punk or even the Bloody Beetroots … what makes you unique?

SPA: A gap between musical consistency and the visual aspect of SPA has emerged. The tracks can afford to be cheap, it goes rather well with the sonic violence, and let’s say that the instinct does not always bother with perfectionism by definition, and the music remains the primary goal of the project. So the tracks are the basis. The visual appearance is expected to expand this basis. The problem with masks, particularly with animal ones, is that they focus much more attention on them than they should, at the risk of jeopardizing the music itself. I found myself at this precise situation where the visual consistancy and sound seemed less and less obvious, and where to address them I would have had to provide labor and time, which I believe should be invested in the music .

The only basis which seems relevant is the instinctive approach to music that guides the construction of my tracks. The current visual aspect is a balance between basic codes that influence it. It’s very minimalistic, just like Dumbo and Pets Dance. Dumbo has  three instruments. For visuals there is only  red, black and white, it will remain the color code because it illustrates the atmosphere of my music, violent simple direct, without  sophistication pomposity effects. I want to stay on a visual world that accompanies the music simply yet efficiently, everything from the teaser till the page is built up on elementary blocks that echo the sampling or the appearance of digital electronic music. This is for the basis, then the codes are there in the teaser to launch signals. I like the idea of being able to identify an artist with a sound, although most often it is a building of sound that identifies an artist. It is in this purpose that I produced this specific sound on the teaser, which is more guttural and organic than synthetic.

MM: Where does the idea of coupling masks of animals and Shutter Shades come from?

SPA: It’s quite anecdotal and it is one of the things I now want to avoid: associate approximation to nonsense for an outcome worthy of the crappest sci-fi movies.

MM: How did your meet with Steve Aoki and Dim Mak Records?
SPA: This happened in early 2008. Steve Aoki fell on Pets Dance while Busy P was mixing it, after Gaspard Augé had given him the track.

MM: This label has signed the most musically violent artists of the current electronic scene, do you think this condition a little more your  sound?

SPA: I pretend to believe that some labels still choose their artists because they think they will give them something more than the fact of chubbying their ranks.

Steve signed SPA because he liked the sound I guess, he heard several tracks made at different times and had to say that by extrapolating this suited him, and that it was worthwhile to try a thing together.

MM: Your EP “Pet’s Dance” is coming out now when the song is traded on the blogs for quite a while. Why wait so long?

SPA: The label has a fairly busy schedule and releasing a record is not, in my view, to take a track and swinging on a payload platform or put remixes on blogs. I’m pretty committed to vinyl, and the fact that Pets Dance is released on vinyl is a real satisfaction to me. Dumbo brings something else than Pets Dance and so do the remixes. When you add all those elements that justifies to wait a bit before releasing a record in order to fully assume it.

MM: How did you feel to get remixed by guys that have influenced and were on the scene at the very beginning (Steve Aoki & Bloody Beetroots)?

SPA: It is better to forget these stories of scenes, and concentrate on the musical continuum, which is meaningful. Then you can see the remix on different ways. I think the remixes on the single are complementary to each other and expand the scope of the record. Whether Les Petits Pilous, The Bloody Beetroots and Cécile, Steve Aoki, I think everyone loved doing that, and I thank them for that.

MM: “SPA’s music is being compared to a psycho-active substance” … This is the first impression given by your songs. Do you yourself take psychotropic substances?

SPA: This is the act of producing music that is psychoactive. You can spend days on a track that has no potential/future and do something acceptable spawn in 5 minutes, but the state in which you find yourself in both cases is not trivial, it’s pretty crazy.

MM: What material (harware / software) do you use to compose?

SPA: To compose, Live and Reason exclusively, because I do not know how to use anything else.

MM: What is your best memory live?

SPA: A set in London a year ago, we mixed in between bands and at the end the whole audience came to see us, it was pretty crazy.

MM: What are your listening to (songs, artists, …) at the moment? And what are your long time  influences?

SPA: I recently mixed with Art Whiplash, who has interesting ideas,  Royksopp, the last Oizo single “Pourriture” is very good, his best since Nazis, and finally Chateau Marmont that should soon explode. For the long time references Smith’n'Hack, Material, IF, Dopplereffekt, Zongamin  & Flesh Records, Down Low Music, Zoot Woman – Living in magazine (Paper faces remix), BWH, BBC Radiophonic Workshop, Dennis Wilson, etc ….

MM: Don’t you think that the movement of saturated music and violent compressors is about to falter and that the movement comes to an end, at least in France? How do you perceive the future?

SPA: As I said earlier, this vision restricted to a scene comes a little depressing. I saturated a lot of music and remixes where the main argument is the saturation, for sure. Beside, some labels are stuck on post punk or minimal. Some copy and others create, whatever the musical genre . I prefer to judge on the basis of an art project than on the mere membership in a particular chapel. The future is necessarily exciting.

SPA thank you for responding so fully to our questions. The Pet’s Dance EP is available as of this morning at your favorite stores or download platforms.

Tracklist :

1. SPA – Pets Dance
2. SPA – Dumbo
3. SPA – Pets Dance (The Bloody Beetroots Remix)
4. SPA – Pets Dance (The Bloody Beetroots & Cecile Remix)
5. SPA – Pets Dance (Steve Aoki Remix) (Courtesy to SPA)
6. SPA – Pets Dance (Les Petits Pillous Remix)

Bonus : SPA vs Amadou et Mariam (Art Whiplash Bootleg) (Courtesy to SPA)

SPA Myspace

If you have ever wondered what the word Dim Mak in Dim Mak Records means, you’re lucky MaximalMinimal is here, because we have brought you the answer! Dim Mak is a Chinese expression (点脉) meaning “The Poison Hand Touch Of Death”, an ancient Kunk-Fu Technique which allows you yo kill your opponent in one single touch. No wonder Steve Aoki named his record label after it. Everyone knows that Dim Mak’s DJ’s are the opposite of the “good guys” in the electro scene. The Bloody Beetroots, or S.P.A. are more like the “Dark Side” of electro music. So beware of the release of Warp by the italian killer duo, because this destructive song could neutralize you instantly.

Dim Mak’s Myspace

On the 30^th of January, the Social Club in Paris organized an event named Furie. It was the good opportunity for MaximalMinimal to interview Shinichi Osawa, one of the best (maybe The best) Japanese DJ. If there is one thing you have to know about Shinichi, it’s that he likes to destroy and kick everyone’s ass at parties. He spins an incredibly intense set, and everyone comes out of the club dizzy and stunned from how good and (very) loud the music was. Also, he enjoys champagne a lot, and wants to find a French girlfriend (or wife!). So all you french pretty women, prepare yourselves, because Mr. Osawa from Japan is coming to get you!

MaximalMinimal: First of all, how did you start your DJ career? Was the electro scene big in Japan back then?

Shinichi Osawa: I think it was in 2000 that I was first aware of being a professional.Back then, Rock, Electro, and Tech was all within House, so I guess there was more flexibility and freedom than now. The scene is getting bigger every year.

MM: What would you say influenced your first albums, and where do you think your music is going now, after “The One”?

SO: I’m influenced a lot by the same direction, same generation creators, of course. SOULWAX are very good friends of mine.
80s’ New Wave has always been my root. But in the process of making “The One,” I didn’t listen to my favorite early Y label, but I rather chose later pop bands like “Maximum Joy” (one of the song titles) and “The Drutti Column” by Factory. Not that they have direct influence on the sound, but this is an album that I made listening to them.

MM: You are now on Dim Mak Records, does this mean that you’re going to produce some very, very trashy loud music like the Bloody Beetroots, or explore a new style, which could soon be recognized as THE Shinichi Osawa style?

SO: I don’t know about Bloody Beetroots, but I always aim a unique sound. I want to create something that only comes from me.
There are lots of styles that I love as a DJ and as a listener, but there’s also a lot that I feel is not for me. To choose the right path is the most important thing.

MM: Would you consider yourself as a party DJ, or like a music producer exploring a lot of different sounds, like Mr. Oizo for example?

SO: I wish to be both. I don’t want to be a plain party DJ, but do my original play. But I’d rather quit than be a DJ that takes requests.
The crowd is always the best supporter and the ones that I should less betray!

MM: What is your favorite song in the world?

SO: KINGS OF CONVENIENCE / Failure (as of today)

MM: What is the band (or DJ, or anything else) you would most like to see live?

I want to travel time and see DNA live.

MM: If you could do something crazy, what would it be?

SO: Bet all my fortune and make a movie!

MM: Is there something politically incorrect you would like to say before we finish this interview?

SO: Speaking of my resident country Japan, I want the people involved in politics to be cut in half (physically). I think this can solve many issues.
Although I’m proud of the Japanese ethnic, I’m tired of committing to the Japanese society…is this a little off the track?

But we didn’t only get an interview from Shinichi. Him and his tour manager, Eri Imai, gave us the secret to make good sushi! Sushi lovers please do not make your rice too humid! Or else you will eat sloppy sushi. So do not put too much white vinegar and water in the rice once it is ready!

Be sure to check out Shinichi Osawa on Itunes, Beatport (especially the album The One +, filled with amazing remixes) and on his MySpace.

<!– @page { size: 21cm 29.7cm; margin: 2cm } P { margin-bottom: 0.21cm } –>

After the more than acclaimed release of their EP worried, and only a few weeks preceding the release of the actual album intited Manual for Successful rioting, the Birdy Nam Nam accepted to answer a few questions for us:

MaximalMinimal: Hi Birdy Nam Nam. So, you’re EP Worried came out a few days ago, and we’ve realised that you’re style has quite clearly evolved since you’re beginning, we reckon it’s become more « powerful » : what would you say are the influences that caused you to go down that road?

Birdy Nam Nam: Well, our first album was finished in february 2004 and out in october 2005. The 150 concerts that came after that clearly changed our aspirations. For one thing being on stage so much modified our style: we would in the end only play the strong tracks of the album and recreated some tracks for the live show (of course these were’nt as precise as the tracks for the studio album). So the new « powerful » style came in kind of naturally when we began recording for our new album.

MM: Some of you’re first original fan’s feel kind of « betrayed » by this change of directions, what would you say to them?

BNN: We did already mention in the interviews for the promotion of our first album that we would not re-create a « turntable only » album. We spoke of using software, drum kit’s, synthetisers, etc… and we indeed did. If ever we had remade an alum with in the same idea as the first, first of all I think it would’nt have been as good and secondly if it had been we would have received a hell of a lot of criticism. We do know we are bound to loose a part of our public and are very sorry for it, but on the other hand, we are excited about conquering a whole new one. Birdy Nam Nam is a dynamic group that is still searching for it’s true nature. Sometimes it’s tough for us but those are the rules of the game. Our point of vue towards this was well resumed by an fench rapper named Booba: « If you don’t like black shit then don’t fuckin’ listen to it… (translated from french ».

MM: Even you’re whole graphic universe seems to have changed. Who took care of all the (awesome) EP artwork?

BNN: Yeah, that’s very true, we just couldn’t stay with the previous modeling and stickers. We wanted a nice black & white that stood out in all the colourful artword nowadays.The album cover is a picture of us in black & white and we think it really makes the group stand out. The visual for the EP is from Will Sweeney, a buddy of our manager (Manu Barron). Everything he does is just crazy!!!

MM: How about a date of release for Manual of successful rioting?

BNN: 12^th of january 2009.

MM: We’ve heard quite a bit about nice collaborations for the album, can we have info about that?

BNN: Not much, but the entire album is produced by Yuksek except for one track that Justice produced.

MM: How did the work with Yuksek go?

BNN: Well, after having mixed and recorded the album in the beginning of 2009 we weren’t satisfied. We had concerts to do from april onwards and the live work really helped to reflect on what we’d done. We could’nt manage to make the thing sound like we wanted it to (we kind of suck behind a computer…) and emitted the idea of finishing the album with somebody else. In the end Yuksek’s name turned up quuite quick. He also was at Uwe’s, had done a remix of Trans-Boulogne express and his agenda allowed him to. All the work wen’t well, Yuksek work’s really well, really fast and has all the human and technical qualities required to a producer. He especially did some great mixing work, came up with some neat ideas and arrangements. We are presently really happy with the album.

MM: You are more and more renowned, a whole scene that did’nt necessarilly know you discovered you thanks to this new album, how do you feel about all that?

BNN: Thanks to our stage experience, we are used to having tough epectations. On the disc , it’s kind of new and that’s kind of the album’s purpose: to appeal to all of those who like our live and didn’t so much appreciate the previous album. We have not, thus doing, simplified our style for this. It’s still experi(mental) and adventureous, bold even, i think and hope that a public that thinks has lost us shall be quite nicely surprised when listening to the new album. Tracks like the trans-Boulogne express and Worried are quite unique in the album. The best is yet to come.

MM: You’re going to do lives one after the other in 2009, with an impressive number of dates. The last to will be in France at the Olympia, are you impatient to see how the french respond??

BNN: We are more impatient still for the release of our album release, for people to listen to our new style that we’ve been playing for a few months live.

MM: Thank’s a lot for everything.

BNN: Thanks to you, and long live you’re blog!

Denis (DJ NEED).

As an electronic music lover, you are inevitably influenced by street culture : graphic design, clothes, music, painting…

WAD MAGAZINE’s latest issue (WAD#39) should be a real bible for you then. It actually lists alphabetically almost every single actor of this world, including brands, graphic artists, mainstays, producers…from A Bathing Ape too Zoo York, including the Ray-Ban Wayfarer, Pedro Winter, all kind of sneakers, nu-rave and skateboard, everything here is explained, described and interpreted on more than 400 pages… for only a few euros.

This should become every hipster’s bedside book : WAD is a parisian magazine, but is completely bilingual and can be ordered on the internet

We have here a mix that comes from one of our pair bloggers BlueMaze. Finding and discovering his blog came to us as a nice surprise, it’s quite original and the latest article (a 1h long mix full of quality techno-minimal music) impressed us.

And for bonuses, BlueMaze is working on the creation of a video clip for the mix, which was enough to keep us excited !

Tracklisting :

Harada – Conscious Movement – microfon
Fahrenheit – Biosphere – basilic records
Guestroom 6 – Danser Med Ulvene – Ray Okpara’s Sight – Bloop Recordings
Samuel L And Martin H – The leap pt. 1 – KLAP KLAP
SLAM – CITY DESTROYER PART 2 – Paragraph
Ilario Naples & Paco Experience – Play The Music (Pierce’s Spastic Moog remix) – Maschine
Mochi – Ping – DBH Music
Mark Broom – Never Again (Mihalis Safras Remix) – Playmobil
Tommy Four Seven And James Kronier – Strix – SHOOTING ELVIS
Carola Pisaturo – Passione Extra – PIGNA
Jeik Aka Danny Rodriguez – Miniman – TOYS FOR BOYS
Rasmus HEDLUND – Tasureitten Jalkeen – Resopal Schallware Germany
Lützenkirchen – Broken Bullet – kat no craft
Alessio Mereu – Techno Children – Drehmoment
Daso – Tinnitus – Connaisseur recordings
Audiossey – Mikrochromknoedel – Boxer Recordings

Style : minimal techno – Length: 76′24” – Size : 105 Mo - Byterate : 192 kbps