Page 36 - Zone Magazine Issue 007

to adventure, thrills and history. I think anyone interested in the musical history of this fascinating city should watch B-Movie, as it shows not only how it used to look like, but how it sounded too. The things we created, paved the way for us to realise our ambitions in the 90s. I hope that people will be inspired by the film enough to also realise that you don’t need to go to a casting to be creative.
So its 1990 the Berlin wall has gone, the Punk / New wave era has died, there's a happy state of freedom across west and East Berlin. A new breed and culture surrounding electronic music was on the rise and the start of the "Love Parade". You started what became the legendary "MFS" Records. What was the motive and objective behind the label?
In the few months before the fall of the wall, I had been invited by the East German state owned record label AMIGA, to produce an album in East Berlin for their indie rock band “Die Vision”. As it later transpired, this would become the last album ever recorded in communist East Berlin and I would be the only westerner ever to have this privilege. Of course, during the recording of this album, I had been introduced to all the record label executives and A&Rs who were responsible for the production. When the wall came down, I suggested to them that they could now finally release real music and should embrace the latest form of new club music, techno. Having never been to a techno club they had no idea what I was talking about and said if you know so much about it, you do it. So i did. I decided to call my label MFS - Mastermined for Success, because I liked the idea of using the three letters of the dreaded STASI (MfS – or Ministerium fuer Staatssicherheit). I thought, Eastie kids will be able to terrorise their parents with it and imagined the horrified faces of the former communist party members when their kids came home wearing an MFS t-shirt or carrying an MFS record. It was the first indie label in East Germany. The idea was to provide a platform mainly for East Germans.
However, none of them had any equipment or money, so I had to fall back on my friends in West Berlin to start me off with my first couple of releases. The sound I really wanted to release on MFS was actually more of a trippier style of hypnotic trance inducing techno music (people call it chill-out today) but I also wanted to combine the feeling of emotion when on E with a more melodic style of music. At the start of the 90s, techno was all hard and banging with virtually no melody or riff at all. Most of my older friends just didn’t get it and all yearned for some kind of melodic hook-line. So I thought if I can combine the emotional tonalities of Wagner with techno and also make it hypnotic at the same time, then I can induce them to a E’d up trance- like state. I first presented this idea to Cosmic Baby and he came up with his own version of my suggestion and I just let him and eventually the others, go with the flow. I created the sub-line for my label MFS trance dance, which the media soon shortened to trance.
The label featured some of the best Trance & Techno names across Germany and beyond. The releases were frequent and quality driven. What was some of the key moments for you whilst running MFS?
At the start, I had so much animosity. The Berlin techno fraction hated the idea that I was releasing anything different to their hard techno music. They even tried to stop me from getting a distributor, but eventually, thanks to the intervention of the editor of FrontPage techno magazine who supported us, we eventually managed to secure a distribution deal. Another high point was releasing the first Trance compilation Transformed from Beyond. Of course, we had many highs, especially when our releases were well received.
Whilst running MFS also seemed to really get involved in the artists development. Paul van Dyke was one of the obvious examples, from a cabinet maker to international DJ status. How important was this for you? And does artist development really exist anymore?
For me, artist development was always important and in a way it still is. I wanted to make albums with my artists and create a catalogue of work. That requires not only dedication and patience from the label, but also loyalty from the artist and a willingness to take the rough with the smooth. I believed in all of my artists. I didn’t expect them all to create massive selling records, but I did expect them to make credible music. Not that major record labels are investing in artist development anymore, but in the commercial pop world there are other companies that exist only doing that.
Artist development doesn’t belong to a Techno label really. As for MFS, Having been in a band and on a label, I wanted to provide the artists on my label with the care and attention that I had always hoped for myself. So I ran my label just the same way as I would have liked to have had. Certainly, I was inspired by Factory and Mute but I wanted to provide something more. It was a lot of very hard work. I suggested musical ideas, designed their images, their record covers, their artist’s profiles, compiled and mastered their tracks, released their records and designed their adverts and managed their gigs and careers. All they had to do was be productive. It was a 24 hour a day job, because you are constantly thinking of ways to promote your artist and elevate them from obscurity to stardom. Paul van Dyk came to me as a carpenter’s assistant and begged me to help him to become a professional DJ. I told him I would if he promised he would try to be the best DJ in the world, as there were no prizes for second. I put a lot of focus on his career and because he had no idea about making music I first teamed him up with Cosmic Baby to create The Visons of Shiva, then afterwards with another of my artists, VOOV and Johnny Klimek, as they were also very competent producers. They managed to realise his musical ideas.
Towards the end of the 90's you seem to have become disillusioned with what was called the "Trance scene" and was quoted saying "It’s become like high St Trance music, music that you would listen to whilst buying shoes". Was this a period reminiscent of the late 80s as in the film " B-Movie: Lust & Sound in West-Berlin"?
Yes, in a sense it was. For me, trance had become a dirty word. It was no longer trance inducing. It was just hard and fast. It had become soulless and sexless. It was like music by numbers. The people making trance seemed to be using the same formula over and over again. To me, trance had become very tedious. It had become almost a parody of itself.
You started a new record label "Flesh Records" promoting a new Techno induced sound called "Wet & Hard" With DJ "Corvin Dalek" as the focal point. This new breed and sound was to promote a more sexual energy maybe lost in trance music. Can you tell us more about it and what you were aiming to achieve?
I thought, we are entering a new millennium and after ten years of techno & trance, it was about time kids started to dance to their own tune. Although very creative, minimal was also lacking in sexuality, so we offered the then clubbing public an alternative, something a little different, and something they could maybe develop? I created Wet&Hard with Hungarian DJ Corvin Dalek. I wanted to embrace the open sexuality of the Eastern European nations into Europe, by giving them a musical platform to play on. I just wanted to push the boundaries a bit and give people a way out, another option to
be creative in. After all, dancing is a sexual ritual.
This seemed like what was quite a successful period with lots of travelling involved, releases hitting the UK and features in such as "Ministry Of Sound". Radio 1 play was received but it all seemed to die down a few years into 2000. What happened or changed?
By mid 2007, Corvin, who was actually on the edge of international success, decided to hang up his headphones and stop DJing. It was a major blow and that’s when I decided to stop. He just couldn’t accept that what we had achieved musically and ideologically, had started to resonate around the world. It was very sad and frustrating for me. Again I had put all I had into his career, but he couldn’t take it.
Between 2011 and 2014 you stepped away from running record labels you were producing the concept albums “Collaborator" and "Five Point One". What prompted or inspired this change and can you tell us more about these projects?
I had been working on a theatre project with Joerg Buttgereit (Capt Berlin vs Hitler) and whilst in the studio with Micha Adam, I made a remix for a Blank & Jones track they had made with Bernard Sumner that I had set up. This resulted in the reworking all of Blank & Jones vocal- trance tracks into proper retro-modern songs. This album was called ReOrdered. They even created a label for it So 80s and from there I just got more and more work as a remixer. Being a fan of multi-channel mixes, I decided to remix all my remixes in 5.1 surround sound. Up until then the only music that was available in 5.1 was Pink Floyd, King Crimson or Depeche Mode. I thought it’s for all those who have surround systems at home. So I made the compilation Five Point One (hear it on www.5point1.org). That was the album that got me involved in B-Movie. Collaborator was a project that James Nice of Factory Benelux proposed to me. He thought it would be cool to release an album of mainly Bernard Sumner collaborations, with a few new remixes such as Sugarland by Marnie or Koishii & Hush and a couple of rare tracks.
Regarding your experiences, if you could do any of this again would you change anything?
No, not really, well... maybe a few things perhaps.
What else is going on to date with mark Reeder? What's next? Is the door open to make another film like a "B movie the sound of Trance & Techno 1990 to 2000?
I am currently doing a remix for New Order. The producers of B-Movie are thinking of doing a sequel from 1990-2000 or something like that. We will see...
Once again thank you for agreeing to the interview and congratulations on " B-Movie: Lust & Sound in West-Berlin"
Connect:
http://www.b-movie-der-film.de
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Mark_Reeder
Film Trailer:
https://vimeo.com/116847987
Words Lee softley and Mike Moggi Mannix
36 ZONE-MAGAZINE.IE