Pole - Interview

Heavy bass and very strange sounds are dominating a large part of today’s underground music scene. Whether it is dub-step originator Shackleton, Mercury Prize nominee Burial or Ricardo Villalobos, it seems that everyone wants a bit of the dark dub action. Electronic Beats thought then it was time to talk to arguably one of the pioneers of electronic dub music – Pole aka Stefan Betke.

I spent some time with Stephan to talk about genres, keeping on top of new music and how he translates the language of Pole into something club goers can connect with.

First off I asked him about the reasons behind re-releasing his first trilogy of albums;

Well first of all it was the 10-year anniversary of the Pole project. Secondly, the Blue and the Red albums have not been available for 6 years at least, and the Yellow one, the label stopped distributing it about 5 years ago. I really thought about it, and there were so many people asking me if I had copies of the album left, so I thought 10 years, what should I do? Revival tour? No, that doesn’t really work, as I make such different music now. So I thought a re-issue would be great and I got the rights back from Pias, so I was allowed to do that.

Was it pretty simple to get them back? Yeah, it was pretty easy. It was no big deal. I thought it was worth having the records again.

I was aware of your more recent work, but not so much these three albums, and having listened to them I was surprised at how contemporary they feel. Thank you! Haha!

What do you feel about that? Your music is not so easy to put a label on, and I guess you don’t really want to do that anyway? I think most artists of electronic or avant-garde music, or whatever, they don’t want or like names or a brand, or whatever, but it is often so difficult. As you very often have very different points of view, you think you make ‘this’ but most of the people outside of your own circle say, “nah its not electronic dub, its dub techno” or whatever, so every person has a different point of view. I think the people that listen to my music, they should decide what I make, because in the very end, I have a brand, and I can name it because it makes our lives easier to talk about it. I would say I make dubby electronic music, with a big line under dub! But, some other people may call click dub, or avant-garde or even something completely different, but you know I don’t really bother about it that much.

So it’s not actually that important to you - how people categorise your music? Not really no, so long as people can communicate about it and it works. Especially with these first three albums, they were so abstract because the beats were missing. You know if you have a four to the floor bass drum, you can at least say this has something to do with the dancefloor, or if you have a distorted guitar sound you can say it has some rock elements. In this case though, it was so abstract the only comparison you had was Berlin dub techno. That was the only niche where it would fit it.

The kind of stuff coming out on Hardwax? Yeah, this kind of context. Those were the only guys in the city who were dealing with this kind of dubby music and of course they did a totally different style. It was techno, which I didn’t do, but it was in the same context. I was going to the same clubs, hanging out with the same people. I was listening to techno so maybe on the Yellow one there was a small techno influence, but I never thought too much about it, I just made my music, and never thought about what it was. The best was when journalists came up with names for it! That was the ideal situation.

Let someone else to do the hard work?! Exactly! I remember one journalist said to me; “well the Scape label, and what you release is urban dub.” I was like, cool, now we have a name, a brand. We used that for a while, but then dropped it again, so you know…

Do you still listen to a lot of original dub music? There were some nice bits on your Resident Advisor podcast Yeah, I listen to a lot of reggae and dub. It’s not like I permanently listen to that, I listen to a lot of jazz, last year I was listening to a lot of rock music.

Really? - What kind of stuff? I was really impressed with people like TV On The Radio.

OK cool, they are really good! Yeah, it was amazing all these guitar sounds; I was really influenced by these kinds of guitar bands.

Do you like people like Battles? Yeah, I have actually played with them at a few festivals.

Your music is very abstract so I am really interested in what other types of music you listen to. There is obviously a big reggae and dub influence, but what else inspires you? Well I listen a to a lot of house and techno, as well as hip-hop. A lot of the Warp catalogue is really interesting right now. I have never been focused on one genre. I mean, I love deep bass sounds, and I love effect units, so it makes sense that when I produce my own music that I use the elements out of music that I like most, so a heavy bassline will always be in there, and there will always be a delay in the sounds somewhere. My latest work is not even that dubby like it used to be. I am very open. There are too many interesting genres, and too many really good projects and bands out there to not be interested in them.

Of course. Do you find it harder to find the music that you like, as there is so much new stuff coming out? Well, like you say, firstly there is the problem to listen to all of the new music coming out. I mean, who has the time? Secondly because of that, you miss a lot of the really good records that you might really like, and then you simply cannot find something in the stack of white labels!

Yeah, I sometimes worry I have missed something amazing, or I heard something great, and cannot find it again! Absolutely! I try to compensate this, by talking to friends more. I find people saying more, “did you find anything good last week, did you listen to any interesting or good new music?” and the answer is always the same; “not really, I’m not sure, I still have 50 records to listen to!” I mean, as a label owner, I get sent a lot of records, and of course now mp3s, at least 20 a day. Then I also go record shopping if I have the time, or I go on-line and listen to records. Sometimes I am simply lost, and it is a problem, for sure, but, it’s our business to find out way around it, to be more open minded to organise ourselves a bit better. It creates a kind of nervous life though!

Can you summarise how your sound is different to 10 years ago? I know that’s a pretty tough question! Yeah, it is! One element of the Pole project was to create a unique way of producing electronic music, and one part of that is that you have to go forward. You should not stop, just because you have one formula that works. I could of course have just done another Yellow album, and another, and probably it would have been successful, but it is not in my interest, it bores me personally if I just stay on the same step and don’t move forward. So, what I always try and do is keep certain elements in my music, and then change and develop other elements. Sometimes this doesn’t always work, like with the hip-hop record I tried.

The one with Fat John? Yeah, that was not the ideal record because now, having listened to it again, I think I stopped to early with it, the whole record. There was some really nice ideas, but not very well executed.

So, with the next album I stepped back; the Steingarden album, it was way more dry, much more concrete.

Less liquid sounding like the first trilogy? Yeah exactly, liquid is a good word. The next one will be even drier! It keeps me on track, and motivates me in the studio.

Do you produce every day? If I am here, yeah.

Do you treat it like a day job? I try to. Sometimes it doesn’t work so well, you cannot force yourself to have an idea, but I try to go to the studio every day and try. There are always things I can be doing in the studio; stuff for Scape, there is always lots to do so I am in the studio every day, even if I am not producing.

There was a big gap for you in 2004-2007, was there a reason for that? Well there was a big gap after the Yellow album as well, as I had spent so much time touring with it, so I just needed a break anyway. Then there were also some personal reasons, but then with this one it was maybe the same again, as I was touring a lot, and then I was in the studio. I was a bit scared that the same would happen with the next album, as with the Fat John one, so I just took a bit more time, just to be sure. It could have been finished a year earlier.

How do you feel about playing live? I am guessing you perform mainly in clubs, so do you tailor your set, because generally speaking your music is not really aimed at the dancefloor. My music has never been aimed at the dancefloor.

No, so that’s why I wonder how it fits into a club environment? The funny thing is in the old days; with the Yellow album, I was regularly booked into techno festivals in between Christian Vogel and Richie Hawtin for example! I don’t know why I was booked for those kind of gigs, but for whatever reason it worked. I mean of course I played for 45 minutes, not for like 3 hours. At that time, in the late 90s, people were much more open to these kind of breaks, but now that’s just not possible. It has to be four to floor all of the time.

You’re right, I wish people were still so open…. Well we have tried a couple of time, but people don’t like it. They get angry and leave the room!

So what I do, is I fake a little bit, fake the dance music. I give the feeling that you are hearing a four/four beat, but you are not, it is never there.

How do you do that? Haha! I don’t want to tell you; it’s my secret! The first time I did this was in Fabric in May this year, playing just before Kode-9 in the main room. I was scared if it would work, but it did, and it was great!

I am intrigued… I mean what I am doing live, I guess is influenced a little bit by dub-step, but it is a lot slower than dub-step, more of a house tempo but programmed in a way that works well on the dancefloor which makes me happy.

So I guess it is an extra challenge for you as an artist? Yeah as I am interested in different genres, why can’t I use elements from the dancefloor? I still want people to listen to my music, and if we don’t have ambient rooms anymore, then I have to see how I can introduce myself to the audience, using different types of production. I would never do a straight techno record, I would not prostitute myself or whatever, but I can still work around that, and stay within the language of Pole. I am allowed to jump around a bit.

So how did you come to work with Shackelton? Well of course I am following dub-step, and in this case it was pretty simple as I was lucky enough to get sent some of their records, I mean that was a long time ago though.

What the early Skull Disco stuff? Yeah, and some other bits, some of Pinch’s stuff, and I was playing these out on Radio Eins, mixing them with dub and reggae seven inches, and it worked really really well. So he [Shakleton] heard this, and got in touch asking if I was interested in doing a remix, which was funny as I was just putting together a remix project of my own. So I did one for him, and he did one for me.

You run a mastering studio as well. How does that work? Do you work with all kinds of music, or just what you are interested in? No, that is a normal company, so anyone can hire us. Of course because of my musical history, we have a lot of electronic artists, but we do punk records for example as well. We are just a normal mastering studio. I have for example a punk group from the south of Germany, who have come to us for years with quarter inch tape and these 2 or 3 minute tracks, which is you know, a bit different for me!

Pole’s first three albums – Red, Blue and Yello are available as a 3 in 1 digipack now.