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Swayzak: Britain Always Thinks Its Ahead When It's 5 Years Behind

Author: Jonty Skrufff (Skrufff.com)
Sunday, September 12, 2004
"With the exception of hip hop and garage, all the music that's being played in bars and clubs across Britain- whether you're talking minimal house, techno and electro- all comes from Germany. Berlin is great and it's also cheap. You can buy great spaces in Berlin for sixty thousand pounds whereas you couldn't get a car parking space in London for that."

Chatting down the line from his London studio, Swayzak's David 'Brun' Brown sounds as enthusiastic about Berlin as he's unenthusiastic about the UK.

"In Germany, there is a stronger link to electronic music and that's why we sell a lot more records over there," he continues. "To me, Britain always seemed to be a rock & roll country, all about white boys with guitars. And the techno and house music scenes were predominantly about taking drugs as opposed to music."

Despite his complaints, however, David insists he has no plans to copy the likes of Peaches, Chicks On Speed or Richie Hawtin by relocating to Berlin or even moving outside London.

"I know I sound a bit critical but I like living here because it's so multicultural," he points out.

"I don't know, what keeps you in a big city like London- I suppose you get used to it. I like the fact that I have many friends here and they're all from different places."

Comprising just a little though, he recently spent several months in rural France, locked away in a chateau with Swayzak partners James Taylor and third member (and former sound engineer) Kenny Paterson, working on new music. The fruit of their labour is new album Loops From the Bergerie, an enticing selection of song-based techno (as the label puts it). Or as David might prefer 'synth pop'.

"We've always taken influences from the 80' and we've always been into synth pop; synthesizers were the first instrument that attracted me to music," he admits.


Skrufff (Jonty Skrufff): Your new album was both recorded in France and is full of French references, why did you choose to make it there-

Swayzak: "James and I were both living in London until March of 2002, then James moved to France not long after we finished the album that came out that year (Dirty Dancing). When we had to record the next album I didn't really want to send files back and forward over the internet or via mail because I like to work on a more personal basis, where things can happen more instantaneously. So we decided that I would go to France for a month and we'd find a place to stay and we'd build a studio over there. That's what happened. I found a house on the outskirts of the town he was living in, which was pretty remote. It had no TV, no internet, telephone signal, nothing; so it was perfect for making music. It was part of a chateau, a building they call a 'bergerie', which means 'sheep house' literally; that's why the album is titled "Loops From The Bergerie."

Skrufff: And Swayzak are now officially a trio-

Swayzak: "Yes, we'd been working with another musician, Kenny in quite a few of our previous recordings, he'd helped us out a lot before, so I initially just asked him to come and work with us in France for the month on the production. After that, I invited him to come and play live with us and now he's part of the live show as well, so yes he's pretty much become part of the band now. We're also working with a vocalist and with a drummer, which gives us a whole new kind of line up for the live shows. We're working with drum machines, computers and samplers stuff. It makes a nice change."

Skrufff: When we last spoke you were right on the zeitgeist of the 80's electro revival coming along…

Swayzak: I've been into that sound for quite a while. It's quite interesting to see how it all became so very hip and then went totally un-hip, to becoming hip again. The media seems to be constantly fighting with the whole concept, but we've always taken influences from the 80's"

Skrufff: Felix da Housecat and other producers like Canada's Tiga disowned it as
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