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Radio Slave: No sleep

Butcher!!! Here's 2 digging N the crates. Get up!! N Todd Burns..N 2 Crates, women, Detroit and Coney Island

Nice interview. Last two (2) questions and answers have been the center of disagreements across the internet. However, it is joy to know that his position is shared by many others in electronic music.

THE BUTCHER
www.detroitfightclub313.com
TIME 2 PARTY W/SYNTONICS (DJ CRYO and Barbie C) THIS DEMF WEEKEND........

I hope he'l record something under his rekid moniker again. "Next stop Chicago" was epic, and "Made in Menorca" is still one of my favourite albums.

Matt is great..i cant wait to see him again behind the mixingboard!

Can't believe that the Rekids crew can't make a living from selling records? Doesn't give much hope to people running smaller labels.

Good read though, such a consistent DJ and innovative label.

loved this interview..

steady slew of Dilla imitators is an understatement...

3/4 of the so called "wonky" stuff just bite Dilla and then keep biting themselves.. haha

respect 4 matt! no sleep!

great read.
echo what The Butcher said as well.
enjoyed the bit on 'classic mixing'...extended mixes, repeat of bangers in a night, etc. all about that. let the tracks do the talking rather than the software.
and RIP Dilla. his influence on music has been incredible.

good stuff, cheers!

great interview.

i love matt as a dj, producer and label-man.

his background in hip-hop and passion for quality is something i admire greatly.

like you say (the butcher) the subject of music consumption is very tense and hostile at times.

just to bring it back to another perspective on "old fashioned," many musicians in even more "old fashioned" times made their money from live shows and not production/recordings.

not sure what the answer is at this point, since we surely want to see labels like rekids survive and thrive.

anyway, again, i really enjoyed this interview.

One of the sharpest, most informative and enjoyable interviews I've read in a long time. Thanks Matt and Todd. His words on mixing were particularly interesting, and I'd love to hear a slow Japan set.

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hmmm very good read except the part on imitators. Im pretty sure "Koma Koma" & "Sundazed" are imitations of the current trendy sound. btw sundazed is the most horribly boring and awfully produced loop ive ever heard ..i don get why he'd release that crap because he has a slew of greatly produced tracks with the phattest basslines ive ever heard.

Interview was done by Ryan Keeling, btw. Great job, Ryan!

the pic certainly looks like he has not had much sleep.
going to read this soon

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Posted by b-ran
hmmm very good read except the part on imitators. Im pretty sure "Koma Koma" & "Sundazed" are imitations of the current trendy sound. btw sundazed is the most horribly boring and awfully produced loop ive ever heard ..i don get why he'd release that crap because he has a slew of greatly produced tracks with the phattest basslines ive ever heard.

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Koma Koma and Sundazed were produced sometime around the start of last year. They just happened to be released this year. I challenge you to hear sundazed on a crisp system and still tell me its badly produced. I thrash it everyweek and it fucking sounds amazing. As far as boring, be a little more inventive with your layering and all of a sudden it aint just a loop.

Sundazed is a wicked track, sounds amazing on a huge sound system..

With regards to the issue of not making money from producing or running a label - it's tough just now but perhaps it is what the industry needs. Many of these 'imitation' labels won't last long when they realise how much effort you have to put in for no return. Then our beloved genre will fall back into the hands of those who are truly passionate about their sound..

That was a very nice article. I agree with Matt in saying that music has become lists of data to some people.

yeah, i thought that was a great point too.


i think the way production has gone with advances in technology and increased access (since you don't need to shell out thousands of dollars necessarily anymore to produce) is great in many ways, but it sometimes seems that some of this has led to increased emphasis on being a good engineer rather than a good musician.

in fact, i was having the exact same discussion with someone more than once recently.

Much props to you Matt, you're a genius! And to those who discredit some of the tracks produced under the Radio Slave guise as being boring or "loopy" - just as Adrian has suggested, these are amazing on massive systems and when you start layering other tunes on top they become the building blocks and centerpieces for the entire night.

to me, dj tools and loopy tracks are more than fine if they have a real groove to it. some great songs in other genres are quite simple, but work. given his interest in guys like jay dee and hip-hop, this makes a lot of sense.

if a track is too complicated in hip-hop sometimes you lose the essense of what keeps you either nodding your head or dancing.

this is kind of the point about how producing seeming to be judged more and more now on the technical components of engineering that seems connected with the techie culture increasing its reach (quite naturally) into edm and other forms of electronic music. amazingly engineered songs can be great too, but why would you compare a classical piece to disco? the experience is totally different (not trying to say a more complex song cannot be danced to, either).

Matt rocks, keeping it completely fresh and layering so many genres, the warehouse party he played in Sydney a few months ago seemed to mesh some really funky / raw / almost hip hop vocals over a beautiful beat, all night..damn, can't wait to hear him again, much respect! Alks

great interview. some of the his remixes are serious pieces of work. especially Sponsored by destiny, awesome, i cant imagine what it must sound like in a club. never actually seen RadioSlave djing, must get on it.

www.ableton-live-warping.com

Wot no Lightworks?
Man...Next Stop Chicago is awesome. Blues/Disco/House/Soundstreamesque goodness.

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Posted by adrianmiles

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Posted by b-ran
hmmm very good read except the part on imitators. Im pretty sure "Koma Koma" & "Sundazed" are imitations of the current trendy sound. btw sundazed is the most horribly boring and awfully produced loop ive ever heard ..i don get why he'd release that crap because he has a slew of greatly produced tracks with the phattest basslines ive ever heard.

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Koma Koma and Sundazed were produced sometime around the start of last year. They just happened to be released this year. I challenge you to hear sundazed on a crisp system and still tell me its badly produced. I thrash it everyweek and it fucking sounds amazing. As far as boring, be a little more inventive with your layering and all of a sudden it aint just a loop.

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haha how do u "thrash" the most boring thing ive ever heard? maybe it works at 8am when everybody is fucked but ive heard it on a big system and i wasnt impressed but of course with his name attached everybody will buy it

Nice to see that people agree with his position about piracy...which is just theft at the end of the day. If artists, producers and djs can't make any money out of making music then eventually there will be no great music...just pale imitations on the real thing.

I heard someone on a radio phone-in say that they didn't care about the artists' whose tracks they ripped for free from pirate sites.

This kind of attitude is unbelieveable. Even when he was pressed to put himself in the position of someone who had toiled and crafted a great piece of music only to see it get 'stolen' he couldn't understand how that was wrong.

Unfortunately, Matt is right in that there is a generation out there who feel that they are entitled to the latest tracks for nothing and they then just become useless bits of data, as he said, in a list, that means nothing.

Yet to catch him djing, but I'm looking forward to catching him in Berlin this summer at some point.

All this talk of certain Radio Slave tracks being 'loopy' and 'boring' has been beaten to death; and frankly adds zero value to this discussion.

Look at his entire body of work and realize that he has had a huge impact on music...then go on the dance floor and loose your mind. If you still are not happy, do Mr. Edwards one better and produce better tracks than him...maybe then you will realize the amount of work that goes into producing tracks of such high quality.

Along the way don't forget to dance.

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Posted by DJAlexD
All this talk of certain Radio Slave tracks being 'loopy' and 'boring' has been beaten to death; and frankly adds zero value to this discussion.

Look at his entire body of work and realize that he has had a huge impact on music...then go on the dance floor and loose your mind. If you still are not happy, do Mr. Edwards one better and produce better tracks than him...maybe then you will realize the amount of work that goes into producing tracks of such high quality.

Along the way don't forget to dance.

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wow you don't get it. all im saying is that he shouldn't have released "sundazed" because compared to a lot of his stuff it just sucks. dont get your panties in a twist mr. radio slave defender..shit people can't have opinions anymore

Could he have done without releasing 'Sundazed', sure. Did it hurt that he released it, not at all.

B-ran, the glass is half-full. Cheers!

Very nice read.

One thing I respect about this man is his confidence in making club tracks that generally dont follow a generic style. He does push boundaries as far as the mechanics of his productions are concerned. Although as stated above recent tracks such as "Koma Koma" do follow trend, this is a trend I find quite refreshing.

I like the point about music that has now become just stacks of data. This is so true and I really do miss the whole atmosphere and social interaction you used to get at the record shop. I might go to my local shop and by some out of date records I downloaded from beatport about 2 years ago. (big shame really)

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Posted by harpomarx42
Wot no Lightworks?
Man...Next Stop Chicago is awesome. Blues/Disco/House/Soundstreamesque goodness.

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all his rekid productions are. other recommendations if you haven't heard em yet:
Chicken lips - Motion Sickness (rekid remix)
Mocky - Extended Vacation (rekid rmx)
Mr G - ECGED (rekid rmx) (also on the rekids comp)


slow, druggy, heavy stuff, .. please don't let the rekid monniker die mr. edwards

Nice interview RA, I'm a Radio Slave fan. His productions always have the groove that I like, for me he is one of the best producers at electronic escene.

Great interview, not sure on the 'playing the same record several times in a set' comment.... A little quality control never goes astray.

Good interview.

Anyone heard this Tokyo mix ?

I got my copy of the mix delivered yesterday, just listening through it now. It's not exactly dancefloor bombs all the way - starts nice and slowly, and builds through what I'd basically call a warm-up or bar set. It's very danceable and definitely great to listen to, but don't expect a peak-time mix.

There's some lovely soulful stuff on there; I was surprised by how housey it is. Closest mix I own to it is probably CD1 of Danny Howells' Miami GU. There's a similar sunniness to the whole thing that's great to listen to

@ howie :
no offend but what do u think it takes to release a single on vinyl?
with a good artwork and a mulitcolored imprint 300 copies are about 700 to 1000 pounds.
the better the quality the more u pay. and believe me mate rekids use to have a quite good quality
of their releases.
so this is only for the release and then u have to promote it as well...
at the very end you pay at least 2000 pounds...and u sell a record for roundabout 8p. at 300 copies.
sum it up and then you'll know how much they earn if they sell all the records...which they don't.
instead of grindhouse )

i know that they press even more copies then 300 but this was just an example to show u how it works.
i started running a label myself together with a friend. i can tell u it's hard work
but i think if u love music it's worth it!


best
hagen!

Rekids label-nacht at Berghain are always banging.....top!