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Erlend Oye- I Wish There Was More Electro & Less Electroclash

Author: Jonty Skrufff
Monday, May 17, 2004
"I wish there was more electro out there and not so much electroclash; I mean real, intelligent, light, funky music with less vocals."

Sitting in the suite of his West London designer boutique hotel, Norwegian singer turned electro (clash) DJ Erlend Oye is conscious of the contradiction in his view.

"Funnily enough, I'm not so much into vocal dance music even though that's exactly what I'm doing myself because vocals is what I can do," he admits.

"I'm also still very much into melody because I don't do drugs. For me, melody is the one thing that can keep me going for hours and hours, it can give you an energy that you don't get from just instrumental music."

Still currently best known for being one half of indie balladeer Simon & Garfunkel types Kings Of Convenience, Oye is an unlikely though clever choice for K7's latest underground electro K7 mix CD, since he's also a rising star on the international alternative electro scene. Recently collaborating with tastemaker scenesters like Jarvis Cocker and Gigolo Records chief DJ Hell, he's also now regularly gigging as a DJ, taking the singing over records approach previously best represented by house DJ Sonique. It's a method he's applied directly to the DJ Kicks CD, dropping Smiths and Opus 3 acapellas over cuts from the likes of the Rapture, Avenue D and Morgan Geist.

"The CD mix is basically what I do when I DJ and yes, I'm a party DJ more than anything else," says Erlend.

"I'm not a downtempo DJ, which lots of people would imagine me to be. Kings Of Convenience is very much the kind of music you listen to when you come home and I like my DJing to be a total antidote to that."

And though he's soon to release a likely-to-be-huge new Kings Of Convenience album in June, he admits his solo DJing dates are increasingly important for future plans.

"That's exactly one of the reasons I'm doing the CD, because I want to be asked to play more as a DJ," he admits.

"And also because I find DJing is the best way I have to perform the electronic side of me. To perform with a laptop and instrumental versions is mega-fucking boring. I think more people who make electronic music should be DJs and they should play their own songs."


Skrufff (Jonty Skrufff): Is it true that when you were first offered the DJ Kicks CD at the beginning of the year, you didn't actually own two decks-

Erlend Oye: "I decided it was about time that I bought some decks because up until then, and I must say still today, I'm really a CD DJ. Principally because I come from an indie pop background where people play CDs though I feel slightly guilty about this. |I did start getting into the vinyl side of DJing but then the more I started singing, the more I went back to CD mixing because it takes up too much time working on the vinyl. To me, the whole vinyl thing, sure it can be sonically better as well as visually better, but I find it can also mean the people who use it can lose concentration from the whole party. They get so involved in listening to the next track, that they don't pay enough attention to what the current track is doing."

Skrufff: So you literally got offered the mix CD and went out and bought the decks-

Erlend Oye: "Yeah, because I thought 'I have to start being good at this now.' Though at the moment the decks are just gathering dust in my apartment because I haven't been home, so for the foreseeable future I'll still be a CD DJ. There is a sound benefit to vinyl, for sure, but the problem is that most of the time the clubs are so bad that nobody can hear the difference, and the music sounds crap anyway."

Skrufff: I understand you don't drink or do drugs, why not-

Erlend Oye: "I've started drinking since I moved to Berlin but I still haven't been drunk. I like really strong alcohol because it makes your throat feel nice. As for drugs, I've never really felt the need to take them. I guess people take drugs because it makes them feel something else. Sometim
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