Israeli musician Iftah Gabbai and his German friend Olaf Hilgenfeld make up Skinnerbox, a live, improvised electronic outfit that make twisted music with strange machines. After building a cult following in Berlin’s underground party scene, and releasing a clutch of 12’s on labels such as Tonkind, the duo just released their surprisingly complex debut album on Doxa Records. Catching the ear with its off-kilter rhythms and mixture of organic and highly experimental electronics, King of Spades and Marmalades is a riot of sound and movement that puts a personal and unique spin on rhythmic electronic music. And, for those wondering what a “Skinner box” is, it’s a conditioning chamber used by influential behavioural psychologist B.F. Skinner in his famous animal trials.
I’ve really enjoyed listening to King of Spades and Marmalades – the album seems significantly different than your earlier 12”s.
Iftah Gabbai: I think it was obvious for us from the moment we decided to do an album that it should not just be dance floor oriented. With an album you can show your idea of “sound” and share what you think musically, and this is something important for us, because we don’t really come from a background in techno music. I mean we do, in a way -- we have been doing Skinnerbox as a techno act for four years, and we love to play live. But the moment we get in the studio, we know we will want to produce something that is more than just a single; we are too playful to stick to one genre or style, or stick to ideas of it having to be “dance music”. It was a conscious decision for us.
Olaf Hilgenfeld: An album is something that belongs together. We get into the studio, and have a lot of things we can do, and when we start messing around with the samples and stuff we end up with some weird stuff in the moment.
IG: I had a very blurred vision of how it would sound. I was not completely wrong, but there was so much stuff we had not planned.
OH: We hadn’t planned anything!
IG: What I mean is that the sound ended up pretty much how I wanted it to.
So you were quite improvisational when recording the album?
OH: The process was improvisation. You know, I start messing around with some keys, and he makes a rhythm at the same time – we start from scratch. He makes something, I make something and we just put these small parts together, and if we like it then we continue with it. We say let’s record this, record something else on top play around with it, add some sounds on top, change bits and it becomes something. Or it doesn’t!
IG: Sometimes we have a very abstract idea of sound. It’s hard to sometimes keep track of what you originally wanted. You know, you spend six hours in the studio, and you forget what you originally wanted, because you have been taken somewhere else.
OH: There were lots of opportunities to do things differently. For “King Of Diamonds”, we said ‘let’s start today with a 7/4 beat’. We started with the bassline, he did the rhythm, then it became this ‘thing’, and we liked it in the end. We were a bit scared in the beginning, but really you don’t even notice it.
But like you said, that was the point of doing the album – to be free of dancefloor restrictions?
IG: It’s very funny, because it became a really nice playful, very housey track!
How long did you work on the album?
Both: From start to finish, about three months. We spent some time working on things, and just thinking about a lot of things. It was seven days a week though, unlimited time spent on it, you know? Go in, and then go out when you can’t do anymore.
Tell me a little about your backgrounds. You aren’t both from Berlin, are you?
OH: I am as original as can be.
IG: I am from Israel. I came to Berlin eight years ago. I have always been doing music. I don’t know back then if music was the reason that I came, but it turned it out really quickly that it was why I stayed, and what I want to do.
How did the two of you meet?
OH: By chance at a party of a friend. Initially we get together because of a jam session that started at this party, all this ridiculous stuff you can find in a house, like pots and pans, a plastic keyboard, stuff like that. Not so trashy -- it was pretty good. Then a week later, we met to play some music together – that was the deal when we met at the party.
IG: I think it was actually on my birthday that we met up.
OH: Yes, it was your birthday. Another friend joined, and we recorded a two-hour jam session. We did like ten of these, and started to play live then.
And what kind of music were you making?
IG: Electro-acoustic, improvised, abstract. Sounds. Our first gigs together were like this: three hours of wanking around on stage, you know. Typical [Berlin-]Neukölln things.
What prompted you move away from that kind of music?
IG: I went to the Panoramabar. Hahaha!
OH: Wait a minute! I think first of all we had some developments. He had his laptop, and we tried to make music with that, and all of these other instruments, and I then we started playing in the park. I had this vision of just taking a car battery, the laptop and a mini-Moog, sitting at the canal, and playing electronic music. That became structured as more people came, and they wanted to dance.
IG: It was the spirit of the city back then. There were a lot of small party organisers who started then, who have become quite cool, like the Bar25 guys and Robert from Tonkind. We started with those people. It was always inside of us.
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