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tai-kolade
25th February 2016

Interview: Ø (Phase)

Tai Kolade is most often in awe of ø when in the throes of his techno wizardry. Unfortunately, he finds the time to sit down with him in the groggy aftermath
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“Yeah… um what do you mean?”, he replies after my nonsensical first question. My previous night’s antics were clearly evident. Sitting across from me is Phase—Token records loyalist and techno magician. Despite my dislike of Peep Show, I couldn’t help but liken him to Super Hans—not that in that he is unhinged, but he does have a similar look and exudes the same sort of confidence that Super Hans does. Being a genuine fan of his, I felt nerves were maybe getting to me—on top of the lack of sleep so I fixed up, shook off my haziness and calmed myself. I finally found my form to articulate my first question properly; I ask him about his new album, and what exactly he meant when he called it ‘forward facing’?

“I only meant that in comparison to my previous album. It’s hard to say what exactly you put into something. I mean, I didn’t go into some deep concept exactly, but certainly in terms of where I was, what was going on in my life when I did the other album. I guess it also involves things I was going through in my own personal, psychological kind of growth and what not. This one I’m more looking at moving forwards at where my mind is.”

I felt a sense of togetherness dawn over me now, my confidence was building and my synapses were firing up. My newfound clarity allowed me to understand that Phase certainly had his own mantra with how he likes to do his stuff and what he aims to achieve. “When I started making records, trying to release them and get them out there, some of my main goals I wanted were for some DJs to play my records. It was really important to me. If so-and-so can played my records then I felt like I’d achieved something, like I’d earned their respect. If Jeff Mills or Derrick May was playing my record, it’s really important to me to reach that standard… It is subjective, music and art, and someone may say they don’t like it and another says they do, but you can’t let the person who said they don’t like it put you off. At the same time, there are certain people with credentials which you respect, and those are the sort of people you do want to like your records—of course you are going to take notice of them.”

I now unleashed on him my techno fanboy and revealed that tonight would be the third time I’ve seen him this year. Every time it had been somewhere dark and atmospheric. “I’ve said it before, it [techno] needs to be in quite a dark atmosphere, and that it doesn’t work so well in certain environments. The more moody and dark room you have the better… I played a place in the summer for example and it was the wrong venue because it was very light with white walls. Tech-house would have been fine in there, but the event wasn’t quite gelling properly and everyone was a bit frightened and around the edge of the dance floor. It was a really busy club but there was space because it was so light. Its really difficult to try and convey what you want to convey in the wrong space.” His passion for the right type of venue is evident, so I ask which venue is his favourite “I played last Saturday in Gare club in Porto, that’s one of my favourites. It’s underneath a railway (‘gare’ means railway or station I think in Portugese). It has a low ceiling and really nice vibe so I enjoy playing there, so yeah that’s one of my favourite places. Berghain is a favourite because they’ve just got everything right there just on a slightly bigger scale…

“Because of the way they run the door, and because it’s just set up right it works for that sort of music. It’s why it’s got the reputation it has. 2009 was the first time I played there and I didn’t really get what it was all about. But after a few times I stayed there longer after I finished playing and understood what it’s about, and how it’s more of a relaxed pace of partying. Traditionally wherever you go, everyone’s burnt out by 7-8 am.” He looks up at me with a knowing grin and chuckles, “I’m reminding you about last night aren’t I!” I share his laugh. Little does he know, I was actually up until 9.


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