One of electronic music's peerless innovators talks Skrillex, Ableton and clichés.

great read - thanks

Great interview. Looking forward to hearing Ghosts on a rig!

Greaty read, saw a great Slices feature with him before too - something of a genius by all accounts!

Nice photos!

I feel slightly jealous and need the delaurean. Early 90's scene and forward is bomb. I cannot recall any bad nights out back when warehouse parties were very underground oh and pre Skrillex of course. Nice read Todd.

Nice interview with a very clever man. I'm looking forward to getting to the Ghosts show too.

Excellent read! A lot of truth and interesting approaches.

This guy is a LEGEND! Respect Monolake/Robert! Thank you RA!

This man is nothing short of awesome.

One of the aspects of Robert's work that I really admire is his use of spatialization . I have not been able to experience Monolake Live Surround yet but I hope to catch a show soon .

Always fascianting to read what he's got to say - great interview.

Amazing interview, thanks!

I really feel this quote is important: " I see myself as a good sound designer and a lousy composer. Well, that's my own perception and I know that people might see it differently and some people obviously do because some buy my records."

...and it's quite 'normal' even I feel the same way!

Monolake project is amazing!! Great interview!!! I hope I can catch one of his gigs when I'll come to Europe again in June... It's really intriguing his creative process from his latest album. I love when he talks about how he is mixing better in his home with his new Strauss Elektroakustik monitors... well... if a 20 thousand dollars a piece monitor can not get the job done, I don't know what else could!

Great interview Todd and Robert.
The photo of Mr Henke in an Elmo shirt blew my mind after having a dream last night that I went to see "The Elmo Movie", a film for grownups that I guess I conjured up due to that recent Muppet movie for adults. The movie was playing at a nightclub and had offscreen visuals and a massively experimental soundtrack. Unique headspace segue as I read this article during breakfast.

"Evolution not revolution" INDEED... My friend who is a theologian was just writing about changes in theology and using the history of atonal music as a touchpoint. Alex Ross of the New Yorker wrote a book called The Rest is Just Noise, and discusses how Schoenberg and others sought to create new, modern, atonal music freed from Western convention, but could not get the dissonance and strange harmonics desired without using the Western structure as a frame to deviate from and evolve upon. Perfect support for Robert's idea of cliches as necessity. This helps explain how certain sounds are always recurring in techno, from design in the box sounds of the 808, 909, 606, 303 to the synth analog tones of kosmiche to the drum patterns of sped up vinyl 60's soul breaks developing drum and bass now haunting dubstep and its zombie plodding pace...

The gaps and holes really are most interesting.

If Mr Henke wants to dig deeper into the metaphysical basis of reality and how motion is the only real substance and all we take for solid and real is not fixed but just rapidly cycling I suggest Creative Evolution by Henri Bergson. He gets at the ancients greek ideas of dynamics and ties it to biological evolution and physics. Really gets to the heart of knowledge and our ability to anticipate and interact with each other on a daily basis.

Thanks for the inspiration!!! Love Monolake musics.

Great interview.

Wish more producers would take his approach. Why settle for the commercially established tools when you can make your own? Can you really call yourself a true techno producer without a real mastery over technology? If not you are letting others make decisions for you. I don't know why there aren't more artists with engineering backgrounds, since their creativity in real world problem solving is second to none.

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Great interview - here is a link to a video interview I was lucky enough to do with Robert a little bit back - http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLED0B4F73260727CD&feature=mh_lolz

amazing interview. inspiring

good read

thanks RA, much respect to Robert

Inspiring read & comments !! thanks

legendary interview.

"Making art is more important for
me than making commercial tools."
anything else?!

RESPECT

I saw him playing his famous "thunder" piece, moving over 4 speakers in an antique cinema, boo a blast honestly, 30 minutes mouth open !

Interesting piece; amazing musician.

Awesome article!

great read

Nice

Lovely read.

Rings true

Henke composes a real? interesting electronic music. Real artistic.



www.clubbingunlimited.com

Nice read!

One of the top men in electronic music nowadays. One of the few real masters... Always an inspiration... thanx for the interesting interview.