We had to kick off our interview section with the principal artist on Offkey Music- Raiden aka Christopher Jarman, An artist whose career has already spanned ten years at the top of his game. As you can imagine there were a fair few questions that needed answering! There was no better candidate than Khanage to sit down with Raiden and really find out what happened to Technodnb, his debut album for Hardware, the future of the Offkey and Voodoo Music labels amongst alot of other topics, This is the first in a series of interviews by Khanage so watch this space as offkeymusic.eu brings exclusive news and information via our interview section.
You have begun working with Renegade Hardware after a short break & you will be releasing your debut LP with them - Talk us through this?
I’ve always wanted to make an LP but but I lacked the discipline and usually signed tracks to other labels. Clayton from Hardware has wanted an LP from me for years now and the time just seems right as I think I’m finally making music I like.
The work title of the LP is ‘Brutalist’ named after a style of modernist architecture that uses striking repetitive angular geometries with concrete. Brutalist buildings are infamously ugly, imposing buildings made worse by aging concrete. The city I grew up in was famous for having Europe’s most ugly building called the ‘Tricorn’ which was a source of inspiration for me growing up. Every time I looked at that building I felt somewhat inspired as it was a menacing structure that seemed like a bleak post apocalyptic future.
I want to make an LP that takes the same approach as Brutalist architecture but in a musical from. Brash reinforced concrete beats, arcane angles where the ugliness becomes beauty. Each track is themed on a famous example of Brutalist architecture such as the Trelick Tower in London. In my opinion this type of urban decay is very Drum and Bass and fits Renegade Hardware perfectly. I’m hoping to have the LP finished by the end of the summer ready for an autumn 2010 release.
Your breakthrough tune was ‘Fallin’ on Hardware and you have previously said the tune was written whilst you were struggling, yet you haven’t gone into much detail…care too share any more light?
At the time I had just finished my musical education and waited 2 years for an opportunity so I could make music my career. At the time I was unemployed, working for free at a local studio and pretty at much rock bottom on the verge of losing literally everything. I made a tune that pretty much captured how I was feeling while listening to a Dead Cant Dance record. I sampled the vocal and made a track. The result was Fallin’. An unfinished version was sat on my hardrive for around 3 months and I wasn’t even going to finish it as I was struggling with the arrangement. I played it to my good friend and he refused to leave until I finished it. I’m glad I did as a week later Clayton from Renegade Hardware called me, 4 weeks later I was playing at the End and touring!
Ok, lets get this out of the way - ‘Techno dnb’ To put a close on things, what happened from your point of view?
I just don’t relate to what so called techno d&b became. I’ve always had a techno influence in my sound due to my background and influences, its something that came natural and it was great to start a label purely for that aesthetic as I been making this style since my first release in 2000, its nothing new. The sound still had its roots very much in Drum & Bass with a Techno influence so it was very much open to interpretation and experimentation. There were no genre names and no rules.
Things started to change when a genre name was applied it to it mostly by forum heads, I was never comfortable with the music being named & tagged. The tracks started sounding the same as if a rule book was written. Progressively people took the sound harder and harder which turned into a competion in shock value so it became a parody of itself. Anything that didn’t fit the tight mould was shunned and it stopped evolving, everything it was against. I didn’t feel I had anything to add to that direction, it needed more musicality if anything.
In the meantime I loved the fact D&B was becoming more open to experimental deeper music and this had a big impact. Limitation is only what you make it!
This is a tricky one, but do you think the Offkey sound was received in a different way form how you intended it? And if so, what do you think was the reason for this?
Definitely the later stages. When you look at the back catalogue there quite a wide selection of music; Temper D’s Minimal Blink and Lethal & Khanage’s Jawbreaker are very different to Proket’s and the Sect’s output for example. There now seems to be a consensus that OffKey was only about harder shranz style which simply isn’t true. Some people only expected this from the label and certain fans were disappointed when they didn’t get it. The label had always covered a wide spectrum of techno inspired styles, when people started to only focus on the harder elements of course they would be disappointed!
Offkey is and always be a Drum & Bass label with a techno influence. For this reason I don’t think the sound of the label has changed very much, more the expectations of some of its listeners had changed. Alot of the newer releases are just an evolution of the sound that didn’t follow the ‘techno d&b’ trend. OffKey just evolved in a different direction to the bandwagon that was built up around the label. Music is too complex to just follow the crowd like a sheep, the reason I started the label was to do my own thing and I’m continuing to do that whether its innovating or retrospective.
What lessons have you learned from being a label boss rather than an artist on someone else’s label?
First of all you have to make decisions that not everyone is going to like. So you are the bad guy most of the time. The main thing I’ve learnt is to trust your gut instinct rather than influenced by what other people think is best for the label or what the current hype is, just follow your heart.
You recently started another label-‘Voodoo Music’- Give us the lowdown…
On a recent trip to South America I fell in love with the musical culture of percussion and rhythms. Around the same time I was very confused about OffKey and where it should go, I was on the brink of folding the whole label.
I realised the answer was to start a new label with a separate opposing identity so Voodoo was born. I think I needed something to balance the cold industrial music of OffKey and bring something more organic and warm to the table. Voodoo’ s ethos is deep, organic, percussive music that’s alive and colourful. Its heavily influenced by Exotica music and Dub Production.
I think both labels complement each other well, OffKey being the cold steel metropolis and Voodoo the warm tropical rainforest. The thing as a whole is like a planet with 2 climates. That sounds very pretentious, I better stop there!
You have been releasing music for about 10 years, can you pick out any integral moments in your career?
It’s impossible for me to pick one thing as there’s so many moments! Most of it is travelling and making friends all over the world.
We had a conversation recently about the importance of The End club, London - Firstly how did it feel playing there for Hardware and how important do you think the club was to the development of the hardware sound?
The End was the spiritual home of D&B for me. It was always my ambition to hear one of my tracks played at a Hardware Night at the End and its Thunder Ridge Sound System. I never thought it was possible that I would even play there! It’s actually a very intimidating place to play with everyone surrounding you, the world’s best D&B artists on the line up and the sheer raw power of the sound system alone is enough to crush you. If you liken bedroom djing to riding a small moped, playing on the end system is like driving a freight train.
I think what made Hardware special is the competion between artists. Everyone is trying to out do each other spending weeks before the event gathering and writing new material. You just cannot sleep on this event or you will be slayed! This pushes the bar really high for the label. I think the end had its own unique effect on the culture too; specific styles of music were made purely for that sound system and the room layout alone and this had an influence on d&b all over the world. Very influential!
If you weren’t a deejay or a music producer what do you think you would be?
My job before music was at the MOD designing weapon guidance systems for PSG missiles. I’m sure I wouldn’t be doing that as it was a very soul destroying job. I also studied a Rock/Jazz degree in Bass guitar and Music Technology at Uni.
I would like to think I would be a scientist of some kind. But I would have probably ended up in a string of dead end jobs, possibly alcohol addicted, living on my own in a bedsit, hating my existence and praying for nuclear holocaust everyday.
On the other hand I choose to make music for a living with no career prospects, no job security, being despised by people who think they can do better, wishing I chose a music that people actually like - thus leaving me ultimately jaded and bitter. That’s the positive side at least haha.
3 Fish to catch?
Tench
Carp
Pike
3 Favourite artists?
Les Baxter
Jeff Mills
The Who
3 Things you can live without on tour?
Good Book
PSP Loaded full of tv shows and Movies
Clean Clothes
3 Favourite Movies?
Jason and The Argonauts
Falling Down
The Day The Earth Stood Still
3 favourite beers from across the globe?
Medovar Honey Beer (Estonia)
Jupiler (Beligum)
Leffe Red (Belgium)
