In search of the simple, not shallow

North Sea Jazz festival 2010. For one night the Yukon stage is transformed into Hyperrhythm, bringing together four descendants of the beat generation, each with an individual style. After Mike Slott, Dorian Concept and Hudson Mohawke, the final part will be in the hands of Dimlite. His music feels superconcentrated, looking for new shapes, without losing the emotion. Unknown rhythm patterns, haunting voices, always relevant – the Swiss  musician was often ahead of his time, but never much on the forefront. The people who know, know. Before Dimlite goes on stage, we have a little chat. While his early releases from 2005 still sounds fresh, I ask what has changed recently.

Dimlite: So much has changed. The music itself has changed ofcourse. And I have changed, I guess. Hopefully, no certainly. I can’t even describe because it’s my own music, it’s very subjective and personal.

R: I wonder if the older things were more sampled?

D: Simple?

R: No sampled.

D: Yeah, the older things were more half/half. And now there is no sample at all anymore, but not for the reason I would hate samples. I did this one song recently, where I took a whole song from the sixties and I kind of extracted the vocal track of it and I made a beat underneath it and a couple of chords, very simple. I released it as an mp3, as a gift for people who bought a digital single, and it seems people like this song more than the stuff that is closer to my heart. That is I think partly because I uses portions of someone else’s music, which is kind of funny.

R: And maybe a little bit painful too…

D: No it’s not painful at all, it made me grin. My flatmate asked if he could release the song on vinyl. And I explained him I don’t want this to come out on a serious format because I don’t want to sample anymore, I don’t want to release music that contains others people music just out of principle. And he was like, ‘yeah, you do your own piece of shit compositions yourself ‘ [laughing] so yes that’s the conflict I’m facing now a lot of times when making music.
Still, I think I’m doing the right thing, I believe in what I do without samples. It’s not that I hate samples. I really fucking love it when say someone like the Gaslamp Killer takes whole portions or whole songs and rearranges it, and has someone sing on it. That’s so radical and middle fingery that I love it.

R: You also make music under the name Misel Quitno, what’s the main difference between Misel and Dimlite?

D: With Misel Quitno I’m less considerate, about….everything I consider when I produce as Dimlite. Where I take care of every detail and the continuation of the tracks and the message of the tracks. Misel Quitno is not trashy, but it’s very reduced and simple and I don’t care too much about if people are going to like it or if anything comes across like I wanted to come across. It’s much more careless and free spirited – like it should be I guess. And that has gone away from the Dimlite stuff, long ago.

R: It seems with Dimlite you really want to get to the core of things. Do you throw away a lot of music?

D: Kind of. Not throwing it away but I let it sit there and consider it not worthy and stuff. Let’s say this one bit, on the last EP that came out, that’s just one minute or so [Can't get used to those]. It was sort of a joke, and the people from the label told me they really wanted it on the EP. And I said ‘Nooo..I don’t even have the proper files anymore!’. It wasn’t meant to be a Dimlite track. It was a short thing I did in about 10 minutes. And that’s the kind of stuff I outsource on discs. But I can’t judge if it’s any good or not.

R: Actually I loved it from the first time I heard it, and wanted to listen to it over and over again. It reminds me a bit of the Rico Suave Bossa Nova on Dilla’s Welcome to Detroit album, which I repeated many times, although I knew it was probably just a joke in the studio…

D: Yeah yeah yeah, that’s true and I love small interludes. I guess it’s a kind of sadistic tendency in me that I love to reduce things to one minute or 1.30 although I realise longer might be cooler and more satisfying for the listener. But I myself LOVE things that leave you longing for more – why is it over yet? It stopped right where it had to stop.

R: You still use quite some vocals. When I saw you performing at Viral Radio in Trouw, I expected a guy behind a laptop, and then suddenly you started singing. And I really liked it.

D: You did?

R: Yeah I loved it. But I can imagine it takes some confidence to do that.

D: I worked with other vocalists, but often I use my voice as an instrument. I myself don’t really like it, but it’s what’s always right there when I’m working. When I need a vocal harmony or a bassline or a melody that I want to do by voice I can’t call up someone quick and ask to do exactly this for me that I have in mind. That would be weird from several perspectives. About the whole singing stuff, I’m really insecure. But while on stage I have to stop caring about it. And I listen to so much weird and obscure music that has bad vocalists, like you know, let’s say….you know Can?

R: Yes.

D: They first had the American guy for a bunch of albums and then they had Damo Suzuki, the Japanese vocalist. They say they picked him up on the street where he was busking. And he’s not a singer at all. He writes his lyrics, but it wasn’t any mindblowing unless you let it be mindblowing in its simplicity. He’s a bad singer and he always uses a lot of reverb on his voice, standing away from the microphone and putting sparse vocals on tracks. And I LOVE these kinds of things that are completely, you know, average. Or even bad sometimes but much more soulful. Than lets say Beyonce Knowles, who has a perfect voice and can sing over several octaves..

R: ..but who feels a bit like a robot.

D: Yes, she’s the opposite, to make a big contrast. And for that reason I can stand behind my vocals and my singing.

R: Do you actually like performing?

D: One half of me does. The difficult thing is going back and forth between my home and stages. I notice when I’m on a stage for a bunch of days in a row I loosen up and I get used to become a performer. But what makes it difficult is that I play on the weekends and I go home, where I record music. It’s two worlds to me.

R: What does your home look like?

D: Right now it’s just a room. A tiny room in my mates flat. And there’s a bed that I roll up during the day and unroll during the night [grinning] and my table with my music stuff on it. But we have a nice kitchen and a livingroom so it’s cool.

R: Is it quiet there?

D: No not really. There’s a construction site near my window, right now it’s really tough, because it’s hot and I wish I could open my window, but then I get all the ratatatat and rrrrrrr and tuutuutuu.

R: You said you’re very detailed about your music, but also when I saw your website, or video’s, or even the pictures and the typography I have the feeling everything is really connected. Are you responsible for the visual output yourself?

D: I do my own stuff, or I used to do my own stuff for years. Now I’m at a point where I don’t like what I do visually anymore, so at least for recordsleeves I’m giving it to other people to do. But yeah the website I did, and that Roo video I did. But I don’t find the time now, I focus more on the music.

R: When you make music do you see something?

D: Sometimes, usually it’s more concrete things than colors or shapes. What’s behind te music is more concrete like experiences, events, things that happened. But I don’t really see it, we see with eyes, music is more insidy stuff.

R: Where do you like to perform?

D: Places I always like to come is actually Holland, I really love Holland. I was here last week already. I almost wanted to write a corny entry on Facebook, I love the Dutch! [laughing out loud]. I really do.

R: How come?

D: I don’t know, it’s comfortable. People are nice. They are open and considerate. And it’s always refreshing. Being in Amsterdam with Yuri [Cinnaman] and Juha, it’s always connected to these people when I play here.

R: You also played at the Bimhuis.

D: Yes twice even. It was nice every time, and weird because people are seated there.

R: That makes it a different experience for you?

D: Yes it is. The audience is different I think. Not completely but there’s a part that comes out because it’s the Bimhuis, so you get to see 40/50 year old people in the audience and people who come out to see you because they know your music. And they’re al sitting down and stretching their chin and listening to the music instead of screaming ‘play some fucking house music! Play some hard stuff for the club!’. Some of those people might be in there, but they are not going to do that in the Bimhuis. It’s a different setting but it feels really good and comfortable too.

R: Do you feel connected to jazz music and the jazz tradition?

D: Yeah I do. I used to listen to much more jazz when I was younger, but what’s still there is the harmonic teachings of jazz music. Soloing in a jazz frame or jazz harmonies are much more exciting than a lot of other things that are worth exploring in music. Jazz has this raw emotional thing that I guess is always going to stick with me. Right now I’m trying to avoid it though, I listen to a lot of German repetitive Kraut music like Faust or Neu!. Can stands out from Krautrock a bit, it’s complex. It is repetitive but it isn’t like Faust or Embryo or Cluster, I fucking love Cluster. It is very simple, not shallow, it doesn’t go too deep in my opinion, but right now I discover that it goes deep in a different sector than I used to explore or like. So right now I’m moving to different places, but it mixes up with what I did before.

R: Do you have a project in mind that you didn’t do yet but wanted to do for a long time?

D: Not really. Well, silly things. With other people. Careless things. Right now I’m trying to do the Misel Quitno stuff and some more Dimlite.

R: Maybe collaborate with others?

D: Yeah I wish. Actually I just talked with Oliver [Dorian Concept] about doing a silly named project where we would just go in an inconsiderate manner and have fun and not take it too seriously. Which is very healthy I think. But we have to find the time and will to do it.

R: And a place.

D: We can do it over the internet. And we should involve Ross [Hudson Mohawke] too, I’m going to tell him about it.

——

Later this summer, interviews with Mike Slott and Hudson Mohawke. Make sure to see Dimlite at Appelsap this year.

Also check:

Dimlite’s website

Viral Radio