Neil Landsrumm interview

What are your first impressions of the Czech Republic?

- Well I drove here in the dark, so I didn’t see very much, but I’m certainly enjoying it so far.  I’ve been to Bratislava before, but that’s in a different country now of course.

What kind of things have you heard about the Czech Republic?

- They make very good cars.  Skodas back in the day were very good cars, they have the Tatra.  They’re very good engineers.

And what about the scene?

- Well it seems pretty cool.

What sort of things do you play now?  Where do you feel the scene is moving right now and is your music adapting to it?

- I just really keep on doing what I’m doing.  I feel the older elements of dance music are now coming back, which is a good thing.

How did you get started in dance music?

- Buying records and just basically getting involved.  I always wanted to get involved in the production of music rather than the DJing side of it.  Yeah, the production side is interesting, I wouldn’t want to be doing anything else really.

Any producers out there at the moment that you think are not getting the recognition they deserve?

- I like a lot of the Grime music which is coming out of London actually.  So a lot of them.

Grimes actually picking up over here too. 

- And Berlin as well, which is weird.

Yeah, we’ve had people like Stormfield and Cursor Minor over, and they like to play out some grime and electro.

You mentioned that you’ve left New York back to Scotland.  What were your reasons for that?

- I wanted to basically come back home.

What was it like living in New York?

- Very interesting, I loved it there. I started doing video and graphics stuff when I was there. You know, in such a mix of cultures, it’s absolutely fascinating.

What about the music scene over there?  I’ve heard it’s getting tough to do any sort of gigs.

- As far as techno and electronic, then yeah probably, but I think New York’s a lot more conservative and that’s impacted on what’s happened to the music scene, so hip-hop dominates really and it’s difficult to break that.

Was there a clique with the other Techno DJs such as Adam X, Heather (Heart), Owen, Bones, and that lot?  Did you all stick together or was it a divided thing?

- No, people certainly came together for certain events and went to the central pulling points, events that pull that sort of crowd.

What sort of plans do you have for the future?  Any new tracks coming out?

- Yeah there’s quite a lot of new material coming out. There’s the new Scandinavia record, which is Scandinavia 22, by an excellent artist called Operator, then there’s four remixes of that, taken by myself and Tobias Schmidt, Si Begg, and Bill Youngman.  And we’ve got a couple of records coming out as well, and I’ve got a solo record on a Birmingham label.  A few other bits and pieces.

How do you feel your music will go down here, based on the fact the Czechs generally like their techno banging hard?

- If they’ve got open ears, which everybody should, then it should be all good.  It’s not going to be relentless hammering stuff.  But you never know.  People only know what they know, and until they get exposed to someone else, they don’t go, ‘Oh that’s good, I like that better.’  I think the key thing to electronic music is more variety in the night, something which didn’t happen in a lot of places, not only here.

So finally, anything to say to the Czech clubbers?

- Well, you’ve put me on the spot man…I dunno…look out for the new tracks.