Johannes Heil is a musician that has contributed extensively to electronic music. His discography features more labels than any other artist we can think of and to make it even more impressive every imprint carries weight. His hard work and uncompromising style has built him a reputation as one of the most talented Live performers in underground music.
Ahead of his debut show for The RRP alongside ND_Baumecker we decided to sit down and find out whats behind the headphones.
You will be performing a Live set for The Random Rave Project how do you usually prepare for a set? Does your preparation differ for a festival to a smaller intimate venue like The Cause?
I have a lot of preparation ahead of gigs. Usually, I collect all the single track audio files and a few midi files of the songs I think I want to play. I’ll then group everything into *buses to give me a better overview. There is a lot to do though as I also have to arrange my Native Instruments Machine. This involves extracting single hit drum sounds from the tracks then reprogramming or add phrases into the Elektron Analog Four. Finally before experimenting with all the content, I map my four Allen and Heath K2 controllers to various parameters of Ableton Live.
If the flow does not work for me at certain points, I look for another track to play. You cannot force things to work together, you have to let the music decide. Finally the creation of a basic arrangement takes place, which I listen to and refine until i am satisfied and confident enough to take it on stage. In order to make my sets transferable in different settings, I prepare various layouts. Shortly before I go live, I will decide on the musical direction.
*a bus is basically a path in which you can route one or more audio signals to a particular destination.
Would you describe yourself as confident DJs who plays in the moment, or are you in the ‘over thinkers’ department, often scrutinising/perfecting every detail of a set and rarely happy?
Well, first of all, you need to understand, that i am not a DJ. Preparing a show for me is a bit more difficult as I do not have the freedom to select music out of a pool of millions of songs. Therefore preparation is key to playing your own tunes live.
You need a find a way to make the most out of your own material, intertwine it. Time is the biggest restriction and making sure you get it done on time is hard. I set myself the goal of having all my tracks flow together and to progress in energetic and emotional terms. Sometimes this is hard to do as my tracks may strongly vary in key, tempo, energy etc. It is a challenge making all the So it takes quite a bit to get all the puzzle pieces fit. You have to listen to a lot of possible combinations, before you gain the insight into which is the most effective path to follow.
How do you handle things when something goes wrong in the middle of a set? What is the worse thing to happen to you whilst playing?
Shit happens! Life goes on. As long as the machines are running in sync, the usb hub works, it is only human failure. We are talking about minor issues. An overly loud snare, too much of reverb there. A “bit” of distortion, a missed cue, little hick ups. None of these compare to the worst of all scenarios: The power shuts down. Silence, darkness, film tear .
Have you had any incidents where people have felt the need to share a negative opinion of your set with you and did this faze you?
No and it would not faze me, opinion is okay, we all have some and just as Mick Jagger said, sometimes “I can’t get no satisfaction” and again this is not the end of the world.
How do you see the art of the DJ evolving and has it changed since you first started?
Again, I am not a DJ, I would also not call DJing art. However, what I do is not art either. If you look into the sky, walk through a forest this is art. We do not even come close to it, but at least we try. For me It is all about telling a story, manifesting a journey. To cook people and freak them out through the power of music.
I think the core does not change but if we talk about the surface, e.g the technology involved and that kind of stuff, it seems like this evolves over time. Then again that to a certain extent is illusory because it does not really matter at all which arrows you use to shoot into hearts, you hit or you do not.
What are you most proud of in your life to date?
Of nothing, pride is worthless. It creates a mental phantom surrounded by a cage made of memory. The phantom then calls this “my” achievement!
You will be playing after Nd_Baumecker at The Cause, do you know each other? Have you played on the same bill before?
If you say so, I believe it, but no, I have no clue, never met.
What makes the perfect set for you – what has to go right, what factors affect it (setting, crowd, your own mood, the technical set up, set time etc?)
The feeling of ecstasy, the moment when the person is gone and only that which happens remains. There are a few conditions that if they are present may lead to this feeling. It is not a guarantee though. Back in the days, it was a bit easier to find this feeling. You would just pop a pill.
Not many artists have contributed nearly as much as you in terms of musical production. You have released on your own labels Metatron and JH-Records as well as Cocoon Recordings, Break New Soil, Klang Elektronic and Len Fakis figure How hard is it not to repeat yourself in the studio and evolve with each release, but at the same time stay true to your own sound? Do you wrestle with this?
You are right, but you forgot to mention EXILE, Rekids, BPitch, Datapunk, Odd Even, I220, Kanzleramt, Uturn, Gigolo, Creation Rebel, Parotic, Fieber, Propaganda, Kobayashi, Weave, Art of Perception, Kurbel, Bush, Spielzeug, G-Series, Aras, Herzblut, Shit Happens, Unclear, blah, blah, blah.
History is self image and hard work to maintain. Even just thinking and writing about it, takes so much time and effort. I cannot see the value of it at all. It is as if you are having a mental wank onto the image of yourself. Building a tower of words trying to be someone, someone special, a monument of all the bullshit. This will inflate your ego now but will gives you a huge pain in the arse afterwards.
This and only this, is the reason, why one wrestles. It is pride and the image of ones self, the memory and glorification of a phantom, which is long gone and was never there. The only thing which holds one there, is the fear of death, to vanish.
I cannot repeat anything, since i always start from scratch, I do not use or create presets. There is no templates. No same sound is used twice. I tried. I have no certain method, and after I finished a track, I cannot remember how things happened anyway. This is sometimes frightening, but on the other hand, it gives me the freedom to stumble over all the magic and later call it “my” way.
Do you feel me?
THIS IS EXILE
BUY TICKETS
