'Interrupted Space' / DJ Ali [Interview
Al Gharib presents DJ Ali’s first solo EP release, Interrupted Space. Emerging through a love of death metal and old-style 90s techno, Interrupted Space hits the ground running and stops for no one.
German media critic Tilman Baumgrtel says he initially dismissed four-to-the-floor (where the bass drum plays on every beat) techno as music for “drug heads, precisely because of its repetitive nature”. But, what Baumgrtel realised while writing his book Schleifen (Loops) on sound loops, is that the beauty of this kind of music lies in “creating complexity out of something deceptively simple’”. With a four-to-the-floor style track, much of complexity arises in the slight modifications which effect the sound character, or timbre. When handled expertly, it can mean the subtle shift from something bland to something electrifying. Interrupted Spaces is a model example of beautifully constructed sound character if ever there was one.
After years of scouring the internet for rare samples and fine-tuning 909 percussions with music hardware, DJ Ali has crafted a unique assortment of sounds that are primed and ready to become the elements for hundreds of forthcoming techno tracks. Interrupted Spaces showcases DJ Ali’s flair for fashioning expressive sounds with an unparalleled raw and rave energy. Extraordinarily, Interrupted Spaces captures what it is like to be at one of DJ Ali’s live gigs perfectly—one can feel DJ Ali’s presence in every carefully considered sound.
Did you have fun making it ‘Interrupted Spaces’?
Oh yeah heaps of fun. I always have fun making anything. It always starts off as just a jam and then it forms into a song.
So what is the process? At some point when you are feeling in the zone do you just slap on the record button?
Yeah, usually I will be jammin’ and at some stage I will think this is starting to sound like a song and then yeah I will press the record and then with what I have made I will try to create a structure while recording—and sometimes if I’m lucky I will hit it in one take.
Is there anything that happens post recording on your equipment, do you run it through Ableton and muck around with it?
Usually the most I would ever do with my songs on Ableton is mix up the sound a little, because I record as one audio file. For example, the song ‘Forsaken’ was all recorded on the hardware and then those pads and that vocal sample I added on Ableton, but as for the rest of them it was all done straight through the hardware. And I chuck and EQ on it, just to fix the levels up a little, and then the mastering and that’s it. But lately I have been putting work into putting some postproduction on some songs and add a bit more on Ableton because I feel like it can provide more expression through music sometimes. But it varies.
It's terrific because ‘Interrupted Spaces’ really encapsulates what it is like to be at one of your live shows. Do you think you will stick with method of producing?
For DJ Ali and my techno, at the moment I feel like I have a pretty good flow with my hardware, but I would like to incorporate more postproduction with some songs. Sometimes I’ll jam on the hardware, and it will sound complete and perfect, and if I feel like it needs a bit more, I’ll try Ableton work.
What equipment are you using?
An Elektron: digitakt, Octatrack MkII, model cycles, mono machine MKII
Korg: ELECTRIBE A MKII, minilouge XD, a Yamaha AN200, and Eurorack synthesizers. The list goes on though, that’s just the hardware I mainly use. I started as a synth player/collector before I even made music, I just always loved the hardware. I started playing around with hardware and collecting it, and I started making music out of that—and I would play around for an hour and think, oh my, I could probably do a set one day. Fast forward a few years and here I am.
How long have you been doing it for?
I have been doing DJ Ali and techno music for about 4 or 5 years now. 2017 was when I first really started getting into producing songs.
How did you first get into the techno scene?
I would go to a lot of parties and was always listening to electronic music, old-school 90s techno, loved it for a while, but I never planned on making techno music. What really got me into it was getting synthesisers, and once I got drum machine that’s when it all changed, I was like wow I can make the music I like in my bedroom.
Have you been operating in this 150 BPM space from the get-go?
Initially, with my first release with Live from Earth Klub, Jabal, that was around 145 BPM. So, I have always been around that tempo range. I just love that old-school hard-hitting techno, that very Berlin school of techno, fast BPM, and very ravey. I was always drawn to it, I used to be into death metal too, and that was quite fast-paced music, so that all transferred onto my next chapter of music in my life.
There is definitely something pretty death metal about ‘Interrupted Space’, in that angry way?
Yeah there definitely is, the heavy kickdrums.
Maybe ‘angry’ isn’t the right adjective, how would you describe it?
Not turbo, but really hit the floor running. That’s how I feel. When I was making it, I was in a very ravey mood, very raw, hard techno. Whereas Jabal that was quite the angry release. That was a darker sound compared to this release. Even the Hard Dance release on Falling Apart, the track Elghany and BrknCell where certainly angry and hard hitting.
How are some inspirations or people you are listening to at the moment?
My favourite techno producers from the early 90s to now would probably be WJ Henze, Marco Bailey, DJ Rush, even OBI, Glen Wilson—I am very inspired by those old records. There are a lot of new artists who inspire me too though like, Blue Hour, there is this guy from Japan called Ryuji Takeuchi and I am obsessed with his sound—he is something else. Not much change, just hard-hitting from start to finish and very fun to deejay. Big vibe.
Do you ever deejay with CDJs too?
Up until this year I never knew how to deejay on CDJs, it has only been in the last couple of months that I have started missing around and deejaying at home practicing, because I have this urge to play my favourite techno songs while I am out. We will see how we go, maybe I will deejay someday.
Forgive my naivety but Is there such a thing as hybrid sets where people move between both?
Yeah definitely, the first person I saw do that was Chiara Kickdrum, I saw her use an Analog Rytm and a CDJ and I thought, wow that, that is a stunning set. But I don’t know if I will ever go hybrid. I will go one way or the other.
How was it doing this release by yourself?
It was good. It was an overdue release. I have always wanted to do a solo release like this, and I have planned many more as well. I’m excited to pump them out now—this year alone I have made a large number of songs and I am ready to pump them out.
The sounds that you have in ‘Interrupted Spaces’, does that all come from the equipment?
So, the majority of the sounds I make on my hardware, and then I make little sample packs for myself out of them, and I will run them into my Elektrons. And some of them have come from fishing for really unique samples online and through speaking with other artists and getting ideas. The majority of my sound is crafted all myself on the hardware though. I have a bass of sounds I’ll use, like I will always use 909 percussions or 909 drum machines, that’s the base and then the rest I will find the sample somewhere or make something on the hardware.
So, is it a process of fiddling around with the kick on the hardware, making it more muddy and so on, until it’s sounding how you want?
Sometimes, mainly I keep the kick as a clean 909 and then I will get a kick I have made myself and I will run that in reverse with the 909 and that’s how you create that big wobbly bass behind the kick—and sometimes that sounds like a whole new kickdrum. But I don’t put that much work into my kicks anymore, I have created a pretty good live reel and have my go-to’s now.
Did this album take a long time to put together, or if you’re in the flow can you put together a track in one sitting?
Yeah sometimes, I like to do one song per night, or something close to that. With some songs the turnaround is very quick and not at all with some other songs like ‘Warning’, that one took me ages. It varies, but my next EP is already done and ready to go, and I made that shortly after making ‘Interrupted Space’.
What is next instore for yourself and Al Gharib?
My next step is to release as much music as I can, and just really pump it out. As for when the lockdown is over, I really want to hit Europe up and do some shows there—I would love that to be honest, more than anything. It’s long overdue.
Stay up to date with DJ Ali on Instagram, SoundCloud, and Bandcamp.
Words by Jack Long (@patrick.di_henning)
Artwork - Kushagra (@kushlet)
Thank you for reading this article. Before you leave the page, we’d like you to take a moment to read this statement. We are asking our readers to take action and stand with the BIPOC community who fight and endure the oppression and injustice of racial inequality.
Here in ‘Australia’, Indigenous people are the most incarcerated population on Earth. Countless lives have been murdered by white police, white government policies and this country’s white history, institutionalised colonialism and ongoing racial oppression. Racial injustice continues today under the phoney, self-congratulatory politics of ‘Reconciliation’ and the notion that colonialism is something that must be denied and forgotten, an uncomfortable artefact of the past.
Feeling guilty is not enough. We must take action, pay the rent, educate ourselves and acknowledge that empathy and sorrow for past actions is insufficient if this does nothing to prevent our current reality from extending into the future.
Please consider making donations to the following organisations (the list is so small and the work to be done is so large, do your research to find more grassroots, Indigenous-lead community organisations):
Indigenous Social Justice Association - fighting to stop Indigenous deaths in custody
Firesticks Alliance - who campaign for Indigenous land management, cultural burning and looking after Country