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Nice article on Cari in the Extended Play section of this week's EYE
Cari on -- Swedish techno icon brings his country’s sound overseas... BY Denise Benson
CARI LEKEBUSCH
with Jamie Kidd, Terence Kissner, Greg Gow, Numaro. Sat, Feb 21. Footwork, 425 Adelaide W.
http://www.eyeweekly.com/clubs/exte.../52382--cari-on
“Music is really physical to me,” says Swedish producer and DJ Cari Lekebusch, a man who came to techno and house via an obsession in the early ’80s with electro and hip-hop.
At the age of 10, Lekebusch was learning to breakdance and paint graffiti, soaking up the b-boy videos he and friends ordered from America using his mom’s fax machine. Even in the heavily rock-dominated Stockholm, the young aficionado found music by artists who influence him to this day, Herbie Hancock, Afrika Bambaataa, Egyptian Lover and Mantronix among them.
“The sounds were all very electronic and the energy in dance music attracted me,” Lekebusch recalls. “I was breakdancing to a lot to electro and Kraftwerk and early hip-hop, and we were messing around with whatever we could get our hands on — drum machines and other gadgets — to try and make intense drum and synthesizer sounds.”
Given that his father owned an electronics store, Lekebusch did have a leg up in assembling a makeshift studio as a teen. He experimented for years, making edits and eventually his own electro originals.
By the late ’80s, Lekebusch had developed a passion for techno and house and began crafting dancefloor tracks with crisp, driving beats and thick, pulsing grooves. He released a steady stream of techno, electro and “strange listening tracks” under a variety of aliases through the ’90s, many of them put out on his own labels, including Hybrid Sound Architectures (now known as Hybrid Productions).
Along the way, Lekebusch became an ambassador for techno in his homeland. For a small country, Sweden has given us an impressive list of techno greats, including Adam Beyer, Joel Mull and Jesper Dahlbäck.
“We have quite a few international people nowadays, but the scene here is very small and not very strong in the sense of having parties regularly,” Lekebusch clarifies. “All of the artists and all of the labels are pretty much abroad. Even if it’s a Swedish label, it’s likely distributed by a UK company or someone. Business wise, there’s nothing going on and no real infrastructure.
“Sometimes it’s been better, but we cannot be compared to cities like Berlin, Amsterdam or London and so on. The artists and labels are forced to go international to earn a living.”
This also accounts for the healthy amount of support and collaboration among many Swedish electronic music producers. Lekebusch and Mull co-produced the recent Cold Sweat EP for example, and Adam Beyer has released a number of Lekebusch productions on his famed Drumcode and Truesoul labels.
“I have some more things coming out soon on both Truesoul and Drumcode,” says Lekebusch. “Some [of this] stuff I’ve been working on for a long time. Adam is very picky nowadays, and only wants to put the best stuff out there. The last few releases on Drumcode are really outstanding.”
Lekebusch reveals that he has a slew of new material to come, with releases and remixes planned for labels also including Luke Slater’s Mote-Evolver, Tiga’s Turbo and his own Hybrid Productions. He’ll also follow Saturday’s gig in Toronto — his first here in eight years — with a two-week stay in New York where he’ll spend time in the studio with his friend and Swedish expat, Alexi Delano.
“That should spawn 10 to 20 tracks and maybe a few new pseudonyms as well,” laughs Lekebusch. “I haven’t released this much since maybe six or seven years ago.”
It’s an interesting time to be so prolific given the state of flux that the music industry finds itself in.
“Yes,” Lekebusch agrees, “But I also have a bit more time these days. All through the ’90s, I was so busy with all of the business things there were to take care of, plus all of the travelling, so there was less time to make music. Now, the business side has really changed with digital distribution being much easier and faster. Obviously you don’t make as much money as with vinyl during the ’90s, but it gives you more time to produce. I don’t feel as limited as I did in the ’90s and the beginning of the ’00s.
“It’s a more open layout or landscape somehow, and that makes it more fun to produce and mix different genres again. I think a lot of producers feel that way right now.”
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