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So, there are the new kids in the EDM scene and then there are the stalwarts. Producers and DJs that have been around for what feels like an eternity. Lighting up the techno scene with his productions and DJ-ing in Eastern Europe and across the globe for over 15 years UMEK is one of the stalwarts.

It's been 8 years since he released the debut album 'Neuro' and follow up 'Responding to Dynamic' is 10 tracks of full on room pummelling, volume infused techno. We grabbed some time to talk about throwing parties in the early days of the scene, his belief that aliens are amongst us and all things techno.

You were doing parties in the early 90s, at a time when communism still existed in parts of Eastern Europe. What risks did you take in those early days? How have things changed or have they changed at all?
When I got involved in doing parties it was already post-communist era. Slovenia declared independence in summer '91 and our transition was quite soft. We adopted a new political system fast and without rough cuts. People who used to work in police or administration remained in their position they only had to adapt to the new set of rules, system of human rights and limitations of their powers. But adapting to that did take some time. So it's not a surprise it was almost impossible to get permission to organize all night events in the early years of our democracy. We could do something 'till 2 am and they were more open to allow events around New Year and other festive occasions, when people are more tolerant to noise and partying. At that time it was still the police who were approving all the paper work, not the ministry of the internal affairs or a local community, as is usual in democratic states. So we were careful to obey the rules.

Nowadays we are part of the EU and the rules and standards for organizing this kind of events are more or less the same as in your country. And the government is quite tolerant to the scene. They only show power when something goes wrong because of the media spotlight, but that only happens once in a year or two.

Was it easy to set up the studio back then?
Easy? No, not at all. We didn't even know much about the basics of music production. We knew that electronic music should be done with computers and later we discovered there are some special machines to do that. 18 years ago I started producing music on four mono channels software called Screen Tracker. My first proper music machine was sampler Akai S900, which I bought from my colleagues Random Logic. I've earned the money to buy it by selling pirate tape cassettes (I didn't record them, just selling them for someone else) at the flea market. That was the place to get fresh music at the time. It's interesting that some of the leading people in our music industry and publishing who are now dealing with world's major record labels, started careers as music pirates. The music taste of the whole generation was practically defined through the listening to pirate tape cassettes. 

Techno was always seen as "a little bastard of dance music" as it never became really commercial and couldn't spin real media hype...Techno is one of the few genres that have stayed rigidly connected to their roots and have not evolved in a comparable way to other genres. Would you agree or disagree with this?
I agree. Techno was always seen as "a little bastard of dance music" as it never became really commercial and couldn't spin real media hype. Magazines are defining new genres all the time. They make hype of them and they make stars of deejays and other artists - but not with techno. Techno was always there but not interesting enough to make a mainstream thing out of it.

For example, minimal was THE genre of the last few years. It was everywhere it made its way into every single electronic dance genre. But now the circle is closing. The minimal hype is gone. And deejays and producers already moved forward into deep house and tech-house. The only real stars of the minimal scene will remain Sven and Richie and five new breed artists that will stay in this genre to develop it further as a part of underground, far away from the media spotlight. Carl Cox, Sven & Richie are the only superstars of techno music but they never really intended to be in the media spotlight. Richie and Sven never focused on raising their fan base to vote for them in the pools. They are actually very clever not to go too far to attract the attention of major labels. Because once you are in top 10 on the DJ list labels do notice you. And if they'd spotted three techno artists in there they'd smell the money and this would change the face of techno, as we know it. Luckily this genre doesn't have real mainstream mass appeal and that's what it makes it so special.

Your style is known as Slovenian techno. How does this sound differ from, say UK techno, if there is such a thing?
I think that right now Ljubljana or Slovenia doesn't really have its specific techno sound as other genres evolved too and we are now much more open to the World and global trends. But in the era of Absence Records we've definitely had our own vibe. We've all used FM synths, Yamaha and that kind of stuff. We were going to the same clubs, listening to the same favorite artists, exchanging ideas, knowledge and equipment, thinking similar, so it's not surprise we sounded similar. That sound was produced and defined by me, Random Logic, Savinto and some other artists from that era. The same happened in Detroit, New York or Berlin. My goal is to support fresh artists from ex-Yugoslavia territories as there are still some real gems hidden from the world. But we also release stuff from Italian, Ukrainian, Irish, Russian, French producers. But as we talk about specific sound I think our music policy is transparent: our story is mental dark techno of a bit slower pace.  

Techno tends to attract a lot of purists, should the genre remain elitist and maybe more boys led? Are you working with female producers, vocalists etc?
If something, I'm definitely not purist, at least not for the last few years. And especially in Slovenia there were strong debates among my supporters if it's right or wrong for me to take a step further, when I decided to slow the pace of my sets and modernize my own sound a bit. I used to be purist in the middle of 90s's when I was interested in only specific sounds and I wasn't prepared to do any compromise. But in the last five years I got interested in more technical, theoretical part of the music. I learned a lot about how sounds act on different platforms, how should it be developed to have specific characteristics. I put a lot of thought on the eternal question: what is more important, the idea or the quality of sound. Now, I believe that the answer is somewhere in between this two extremes and I am trying to find that point of the right balance in every production I make. Few years ago I decided to record some songs with live musicians and vocalists. I needed to do that after a decade stuck alone in the studio full of machines and producing only instrumental music. Now I've already moved away from that again and I believe that the time will come when I'll feel the need to do some more organic stuff again.

So, you don't have any female artists in your inner circle?
This is a problem. Electronic dance scene is one of the last male dominated territories. There are some good female deejays, but I get annoyed when I spot a deejayne who is selling more her good looks, not so rarely artificially enhanced good look, than artistic integrity. I don't have problem with beautiful women, I even don't have problem if she has fake boobs, especially if they suit her, and I understand that people enjoy their presence, but when any deejay, female or male, starts to cut corners with looks and other non artistic attributes on account of music and technical skills, I don't approve. Luckily there are always a lot of women on the dance floor with sexy bodies having fun to make this boys only club a bit more colorful.

The title of the album reflects my vision of how this record should work on different levels. From my point of view this is quite dark album...The album name Responding to Dynamics. What is the meaning of that title?
The title of the album reflects my vision of how this record should work on different levels. From my point of view this is quite dark album, I didn't incorporate any typical melodies. It's underground music for clubs. It's primal. It has balls. It lets your mind wander on its own. It doesn't give you some specific perspective on the story. So each listener is the one that dictates where the music will take him. I provide the content, the dynamo, engine of the whole experience - but it's on each individual listener to respond to this by creating his or hers own visualization, story and respond to it. Or on more primal, physical level: I provide the music and the audience responds to it by dancing. This is a dance record, inspired by what I've experienced in the clubs all over the world in the past and produced in the way to inspire the crowds on the dance floors at my future gigs.

You have moved from an analog production setup to a digital one. Can you talk us through what you've made your album on?
I've shifted from analogue to digital platform few years ago. I came to the point when I wanted to add something more to my performances on classic turntables, but I've hit the wall. I could still work with vinyl and use some additional hardware for the effects but the possibilities to do something new on that platform were very limited. Then I've tried to synchronize analogue decks and computer for some effects but that didn't work either. So I've decided to shift to the computers where the new possibilities of sound manipulation are developing with amazing pace on a weekly, even daily basis. So the shift was planed, as I believe you have to follow the latest in technology if you want to be in the forefront of techno scene. But it wasn't easy for me to take this step. I've put a lot of thinking into it and learned that this is the only way to do it if I wanted to stay in the game.

This album was done completely on the digital platform with soft-rhythm machines, soft-synths and soft-plug-ins. The range of tools on digital platforms is amazing. I'm buying new stuff all the time, which allows me to develop my sound constantly. I do have some favorite tools to work with and I combine them with others taking in account what sounds the best in a specific track. But that changes all the time. I did this album with specific synths, which will annoy me immensely in six or seven months. But there will be new machines that will take my creativity in totally different directions. When I buy a new machine it has to inspire me. It doesn't matter if its software or hardware, analogue or digital, new or old - it has to fuel my creativity.

You were accused of stealing vocals for the track Pravim Haos, which you released on Cocoon. What's your respond to this and IP protection in electronic music?
I'm not hiding the fact that I've taken the vocal part of Pravim Haos from the clip from an old Serbian documentary on the YouTube, cleared the sound and incorporate it in my track. Before I release it I did my best to get in contact with the owner of rights but this is a movie from the 60s or 70s and we couldn't even determine where to look for the author. This wasn't cold hearted stealing, I did my due diligence and have to decide to take the risk or throw away a really good track. I believe the creativity of this work is so big that it wouldn't be fair not to show it to the world because of the fact that we didn't manage to clear the sample. But if the rights owner ever gets in touch with me, and it's really not hard to find me, I'll be glad to give him every dime I've earned with sales of that track. In my defense I can say I know how it feels to be on the other side. Right now there are at least ten tracks out there, legally released, that are built on the parts of my collaboration with Beltek. But we didn't seek legal remedy or sue any of those artists and their labels, although what they did was much less creative than my work on Pravim Haos where I transferred a bright idea into a new world, from TV screen into music.

If I decide to sample someone's track I'd at least sent him e-mail and ask if I'm allowed to do that. But I never sue the infringers, as on the other hand I don't want to be sued if I ever do something like that by mistake. And now to the second part of your question: my look on valid IP system is a bit specific, especially on file sharing. I don't believe there's a need for such a strict protection that is in place right now. I'd be quite glad if we'd have the system that would protect us from the illegal downloading for the first six months after the digital release and after that all of my music can be free to download as much as people like. This way the paying customers, deejays, other music professionals and those who want to have a specific track in this "sheltered period" would have to pay for this exclusivity, and those who wait and just need it for their own use could download it a bit later. In my beliefs IP system should protect and fuel the creativity not block it as now already does on some segments of creative industries.

You said once bad tunes destroy music and that producers should be more careful what they release. You have already released over 500 tracks and remixes, so how have you kept the quality control with so many releases?
Looking back I'd definitely throw away some of the tracks rather than release them, especially some early works. But you always have to decide what to release and what to not release at this current moment with the experience and knowledge you have now not in ten or fifteen years. It's obvious the technical quality of my tracks now can't be compared to those ten years ago. I believe the creativity of the content was always quite good but I produced releases then with the knowledge and equipment that I possessed then. I am a very productive artist and I still spend almost every day I'm not on the road in the studio.

I'm not some kind of superstar DJ figure who just coordinates his studio crew. I do all the creative work on my own and I even do the final mix and mastering of most of the tracks. I've learned to spend more time fine-tuning the tracks, I've learned to put them aside and test their quality again after a while. I still make mistakes, but I try to present to the audience only my best works. The body of my unreleased works is much bigger than the body of released projects. I have more than 100 hours of unreleased original artist music. On one hand you have to do some selection but on the other hand this music does reflect time in which it was created and it could be and interesting historic document.

Is Eastern Europe just a new market? What are your thoughts on big brands from the UK etc. such as DJ Mag moving in to run events etc? What do the locals make of this?
I've already explained the specific situation of Slovenia, which is a small, locally developed and run market. And there's problem of the point of view. Do Poland and Bulgaria have something in common so that can be considered part of one market? In the figures regarding downloads the whole Eastern Europe doesn't appear to be market at all. But on the other hand western deejays can score a lot of additional gigs in this area. The problem of western brands, promoter and media is that they don't really focus on local talents. They sell and expose their own brands, their own stars and their own labels. Which is normal: they've invested for years to develop them and its normal they want to earn additional money by selling their brands on a new market.

It's been five years since the first ten eastern European countries became members of the EU but I still have problems to name five major artists from the Eastern Europe that would get coverage in the Mixmag, DJ mag, iDJ and this kind of music magazines. With Valentino we are artists from "ye olden days of techno" and have more in common with western than eastern music industry. Marko Nastic and Bobina are the only two names that have emerged in the last five years, maybe I can also name two Czech deejaynes, Lucca and Misa Salacova, and it seems Gramophonedzie could be another one. But at the same time I can name at least a dozen of artists from ex-Yugoslavia who are doing amazing music but are totally overlooked by the western media and promoters.Rockers are getting stoned, punks are getting stoned, & even grannies at the opera are getting stoned, so it's not surprise there are some drugs on the electronic dance scene too...

You openly talked about being offered cocaine in a Colombian club. Why do you think dance music has become sanitized to the point where DJs are afraid to talk about drugs, something that was heavily associated at the electronic scene?
You're right this is one of the electronic dance scene's greatest taboos. But that's a normal reaction, as press always makes a big story out of something quite harmless. In my country electronic dance scene rarely attracts the attention of mainstream media, only if there's something wrong, in case of fatalities, bouncers or drugs and they always cover it in a sensationalistic way. But drugs are all around us and every subculture has its own favorite drugs, especially in music. Rockers are getting stoned, punks are getting stoned, and even grannies at the opera are getting stoned, so it's not surprise there are some drugs on the electronic dance scene too.

You've said once that aliens are living among us. Which notable celebrities do you think they are?
I don't really picture them in a form of human beings. I've never imagine how would they look like, but I really believe they are among us somewhere. That's my feeling.

Why are you so fascinated with David Icke?
For those who are not familiar with this name: David Icke is the guru of conspiracy theories. Talking to him at lunch would probably be an amazing experience. I've read his stuff on the web and attended his lecture in London. It was amazing. He attracted a lot of very interesting people. He's amazing, bright and funny speaker. This is the best real life sci-fi I've experienced so far, based on immense quantity of facts and proves.

You've had some problems with your collective society Sazas recognizing techno as a credible genre like pop or rock music. Can you tell me a bit more about that? Is a techno music art in your opinion?
Yes, techno definitely is an art - at least as much as other music genres. The problem of most of the collective societies in the EU is that they are not operating transparently. Collective societies should only be taking care of one thing: gathering money and play lists from the users of music as defined by the treaties and laws and distributing it accordingly to those play lists with the least expense possible.

I don't mind if part of this money is available for the promotion of the organization's work, copyrights or available to young artists as a study subsidy or something like that, but we should not mix this system with the welfare system. In my view copyrights are a thing of economics: you use music - you pay for it; and the fee should reflect the economic value of music in entrepreneur's service to his customers.

To discriminate between genres with the argument that the artistic value of one genre is bigger than the other one is an anomaly of the system. That's another anomaly. But in the field of electronic dance music things are really not working well. CS's gather money from all club owners and promoters of big events, but never ask for the play lists. The vast majority of music played in the clubs and at the parties is electronic dance music and it's obvious who should benefit from that. But as they don't have play lists, they put all this money together with the money gathered from the radio stations and they divide it accordingly to radio play lists where electronic dance artists are obviously not so strong, especially the ones that are not radio friendly. To say it really clear and simple: they are giving my money, the money that my music earned, to Lady Gaga, Pussycat Dolls, Dolly Parton, authors of Crazy Frog and so on. And that's not fair. And this system works the same way in Austria, Germany, Italy and almost everywhere else in the world.

 You've had a visit by the president of state in your office recently. How did that go and how did it come about? Is it a bit of a statement when such a politician meets a techno artist?
I'm not politically active, I'm not a member of any party and I don't support left or right wing. The role of the president of state in Slovenia is similar. Politicians on hat position tend to be as much neutral as possible. Even if they are members of specific party they usually step out of daily politics and they perform this function from the ground of common morals.  I've met Dr. Danilo Türk even before he was elected to this function. He came to the Party With The Cause during his presidential campaign.

I can also say I've met the mayor of Ljubljana already couple of times. It's not that I'm craving for their attention and want to rub shoulders with the politicians but when I want to do some big electronic dance event in the city I need their support. If the price for it is that they come on stage and take a photo with me I can do that, at least if that's not some extremist politician. I could oppose to that but the consequence would be that I could never play anywhere else outside the clubs.

Back to the president: he's a very interesting person. We talked a lot at that party and he promised he is not going to forget to support electronic dance scene if he gets elected. After he was elected we've sent him a letter with best regards. Some year or two later he was guest of some TV show where he was asked if he know the difference between the electronic dance genres and he didn't really knew it so I've offered to give him an "executive drill". And he accepted my offer and come to our office where I've thought him the basics of deejaying and club culture. It was quite fun.

What artists do you think are overrated at the moment and which artists do you think are not getting enough attention?
I've already mentioned that western artists gain too much media attention on account of eastern ones that are almost totally overlooked. When they ask me who are the ones to watch for I usually name few really got deejays and producers from the ex-Yugoslavia territories: Vladimir Acic, Ian F, Beltek, Tomy DeClerque, F.Sonik, Andrew Technique, Sinisa Lukic. There's a whole new generation of great Italian artists, there are Tesla and Spartaque from Russia and Ukraine, Spektre, Worakls ... And what's the point of naming overrated artists? We all know who they are, so I don't think they need additional advertising.

And what's your final word of wisdom?
Be creative, use your brain and always respond to dynamics!

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