Blak Power
Oakland's Blaktroniks looks backward -- and forward -- with its
Afro-futurist brand of techno
BY PHILIP SHERBURNE
from 8/14 sf weekly
Blaktroniks
Details: will perform at the Elektric Soul festival on Sept. 29 on Treasure
Island
The event runs from noon to midnight and features Massive Attack's Daddy G,
Fila Brazillia's Steve Cobb, Mixmaster Morris, the Different Drummer Sound
System, and more
When Blaktroniks played recently in the former East Germany, a neo-Nazi
turned up at a show -- a not uncommon sight in the club scene there. The
guy didn't cause any trouble, but he did drink himself into a stupor and
pass out -- prompting the promoter and Blaktroniks' Eddie Smith and Badi
Malik, both African-American, to carry the skinhead to a nearby bus shelter
to sleep it off.
The gesture, while broad-minded, wasn't totally altruistic. "The skins have
[clubs] spooked over there," says Smith. "They're like Hell's Angels. So
even though he was messed up, we couldn't just dump him anywhere." The
incident provides a glimpse at the strange path of Blaktroniks' career --
one that winds through international waterways, black musical history, and
extensive laptop circuitry.
Plenty of Bay Area dance music artists have launched careers abroad -- call
it the "Big in Japan" syndrome -- and Blaktroniks is no exception, having
garnered fervent support internationally while capturing little attention
here at home. Active since 1996, the duo has put out four albums, three of
them self-released. The most recent, Seduction at 33 1/3, appeared this
April on Moving Records, a Heidelberg imprint set up by scene maven Magnus
Miller to issue Blaktroniks' output. (Miller chose the label's moniker
because, he says, "Blaktroniks' music is some of the most moving music we
know.") The German connection testifies to a flurry of interest in Europe:
The crew recently returned from a dozen dates in Germany and Austria, where
its recordings were championed by leading music magazines such as Spex and
De:Bug. The Teutonic exposure isn't surprising, given that the Blaktroniks
sound -- a fusion of grainy minimal techno, R&B, hip hop, spoken word, and
polyrhythmic funk -- exemplifies the kind of hybrid soul that German
audiences crave. Yet there's been virtually no English-language press
dedicated to the group, and many Bay Area electronic music insiders know
little about Blaktroniks beyond a fleeting recognition of the name.
Not surprisingly, Blaktroniks didn't intend to sell records in the Bay Area
at first. "When we sat in our office in '96, we decided that we were going
to take it straight [to Europe], and not try it here," Smith recalls. "It's
harder to bring it straight to the people here than to bring it straight to
the people there."
Having been introduced by mutual friends in the mid-'90s, the pair formed a
business plan based upon the frustrations they'd experienced in the music
world. Malik, a software engineer and Minneapolis transplant, recalls
presenting a project to artists and executives in L.A. and being told that
he needed "to learn a thing or two about melody."
"I realized that they had no clue what this type of music was about," he
says.
Smith, a barber by trade, had been experimenting with electronic music and
hip hop production since 1993. In that same period, he'd worked as a
choreographer, a role that helped him make plenty of insider connections --
and left him leery of the expectations of labels, promoters, and even
listeners. "Here in the States, or in San Francisco, it's better to push
yourself as a rapper and just do a rap album, or R&B, and fit into a
bracket, a stereotype, a box," he says. "But then you've got to compete
against everybody else that's the same way. And then you've got to sound
like somebody that people already like in order to succeed."
Blaktroniks' version of electronic music doesn't fit into this model. Early
albums such as 1997's Process of Illumination display elements of robotic
electro, steely techno, and rough-edged drum 'n' bass, with counterpoint
melodies that bend dance music's linear thrust. Like Illumination, 1997's
Return of the Afronaut also projects the group's mission through the twin
lenses of technology and black consciousness: The liner notes explain in
purposely skewed text that Blaktroniks is "the branch of physics that deals
with the behavior of free blaktrons, blaktrons being the darkest known
huemans, constituents of all huemans." The recent effort, Seduction at 33
1/3, pushes these musical ideas to new heights. Opening with "Fais Moi
Fremir," a fusion of smooth R&B and avant-garde glitch textures, the album
veers from the burnished-aluminum feel of underground dance music to the
brisk skip of hip hop. While the lush atmospherics of "Serenade" wouldn't
be out of place on KISS-FM, the convoluted rhythms of "Teknik Cleansing"
could daunt all but the most adventurous of dancers.
"Our albums kind of sound like compilation albums," admits Smith, "but we
produced every track on them."
With such a divergent sound, Blaktroniks felt it needed an alternative path
to the public, one rooted less in local presence than in what Smith calls
"telepresence," the process of using technology to bridge physical
distances. After placing samples on Malik's Web site (www.dykon.com), the
pair gained greater notoriety by posting clips on MP3.com. In 1999 Malik
received an e-mail from Magnus Miller, who runs several independent record
labels in Heidelberg. Excited about what he'd heard online -- "I was
completely flashed" is how he phrases it -- Miller proposed putting out
Blaktroniks' records. Before agreeing, though, Malik wanted to hear what
Miller had to offer.
"Magnus and I struck up this dialogue for a year and a half, two years,
just back and forth, talking about everything," says Malik. "Social issues,
political issues, musical influence, everything. So I started to form a
picture of what kind of person he was." As with all things related to the
project, the musicians were determined to proceed with caution. "Our music
is like our child," Smith explains. "And if you're going to put him in a
certain school, you want to know what are the qualifications of the
teachers."
Eventually Smith and Malik sent material to Miller -- new stuff, as well as
a 1991 solo cut Smith had recorded directly to cassette. When the first
single arrived in Oakland in 2000, the two knew they'd found the right
partner. Moving's silver sleeves and minimalist logo made a perfect fit for
Blaktroniks' own cool, digital aesthetic, and even the decade-old, lo-fi
track was mastered to jump off the vinyl. "As soon as we got the material
back," says Malik, "the first thing we did was to get on a plane, go over,
and start supporting it on tour."
Neither that visit nor Blaktroniks' second trip to Germany earlier this
year sold out venues, but both were important steps in the duo's search for
an audience. David Moufang, who records as Move D and runs the influential
German electronic music label Source, helped arrange the group's most
recent tour. "The Blaktroniks really rocked those venues in Germany," he
says, "regardless of the amount of people at the individual shows." As a
result, he notes, "they are certainly being watched and talked about by
some very trendy trainspotters!"
Some of the fuss has to do with Blaktroniks' live set, which has come a
long way since early gigs at S.F.'s Java on Ocean cafe. Local artist Jonah
Sharp, of the ambient techno act Spacetime Continuum and the label
Reflective Records, notes that the group is "one of the few electronic
bands around who actually do a truly engaging and live performance." During
shows Smith wears a headset microphone and engages the crowd by both
singing and acting as an MC in the traditional sense of the term, while
Malik sequesters himself behind the equipment and computers. "The rhythms
can be difficult to dance to, especially if it's [someone's] first
encounter with it," explains Malik. "So Edd's presence helps people
understand that they're supposed to be partying and having a good time --
not waiting to see if the guy with the laptop is going to set himself on
fire!"
Blaktroniks' live approach may be most valuable when espousing its
Afro-futurist message to black audiences unaccustomed to techno. "I think
the most important thing is actually being in front of them doing it," says
Malik. "I mean, to just go to a black club and spin the records, I don't
think people can get an idea of what's actually going on. But when Edd and
I have gone to black clubs or black events and performed, we've gotten a
great response."
"Nobody really points this out much," adds Malik, "but if you take a look
around at any techno music event, you don't see many black people there. We
want our peers, black youth, to accept this music and understand it and
accept it as black music. That's part of the reason for the name."
Unfortunately, Blaktroniks faces an uphill battle, much like the one that
Detroit's techno pioneers endured in the '80s, when they found favor with
white listeners in Europe but remained marginalized in the African-American
communities at home.
Still, Smith see Blaktroniks' "slow-growth" policy as a good thing. "I
think people like to discover things on their own. You know, instead of
[selling] 20 CDs to Amoeba, you send two or three. And let somebody
discover it and tell somebody else. And when they go to find it, if they
can't find it, then the search begins."
sfweekly.com | originally published: August 14, 2002
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off topic but dear to my heart..consider this a rider ;)
Hear This
Nina Hagen is the original disco diva
BY CHARLIE AMTER
Nina Hagen
Details: Sunday, Aug. 18
Blue Period opens at 8 p.m., and Jenny and Omar from "Fake" spin throughout
the night
Tickets are $18 advance, $20 at the door
626-1409
www.unspunrecords.com
Where: DNA Lounge, 375 11th St. (at Folsom), S.F.
VH1 would like viewers to believe that Celine Dion and Mariah Carey are
divas. But the original disco diva, Nina Hagen, could bitch-slap the fake
smiles off both of them any day of the week.
Berlin's reigning queen of the clubs has been around the proverbial block.
Since 1978 she has been releasing noisy, confounding disco and rock in both
German and English, as well as playing with everyone from Lene Lovich to
Giorgio Moroder to the Eurythmics' Dave Stewart. Lately, the 46-year-old
Hagen has been touring Europe, doing the occasional acting gig (on the
Sci-Fi Channel no less), and working on her autobiography (That's Why the
Lady's a Punk, due out in October).
The last time I saw Hagen, she enthralled the mixed crowd at New York's
now-defunct Life club with cabaretlike renditions of Nirvana and Frank
Sinatra songs. Of course, Hagen's own eccentric numbers are the stuff of
underground legend -- including her biggest U.S. hits, "Universal Radio"
and "New York, New York." The latter tune remains one of the best
disco/punk hybrids of all time, with Hagen's playful, awe-inspiring voice
going from a dirty, sensuous growl to a fascinatingly discordant operatic
falsetto in seconds flat. Quite simply, without Nina Hagen there would be
no Diamanda Galás, no PJ Harvey -- hell, no Björk! Hagen is doing only
eight U.S. dates, and chances are she won't be back this way for some time,
so don't miss out.
sfweekly.com | originally published: August 14, 2002
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