„(S)eems like a man possessed“ - Dorian Concept in interview

In 2007, he made the YouTube clip titled Fooling Around With a MicroKORG, in which he showed everything that can be done with a miniature synthesizer. The video is still doing the rounds. Tastemakers like Gilles Peterson discovered him, and releases on Kindred Spirits, Ninja Tune, and finally Brainfeeder duly followed. 

All his releases sound really alive and uplifting, with a passion for detail and a seamless, playful switching between genres—from IDM, jazz, and funk to UK bass and hip hop. The latest proof of his great compositional talent can be heard on The Nature of Imitation (Brainfeeder). Shilla Strelka met up with the musician to talk about memory methods during live shows, his spatial understanding of music, and why it is important to develop his own signature style.

You are regarded as one Austria's most successful export acts. How did you make that leap? How did your international career start? 
 
Dorian Concept: I was sending off demos as early as my teens. At the time, this still meant mailing off CDs to various labels, but I heard nothing back in most cases. It was also the age of the tastemaker. Then people like Mary Ann Hobbs, Gilles Peterson, or Benji B started to play my music. Particularly if you're making instrumental electronic music, it's a real accolade if Gilles plays your stuff. I was also active on YouTube, so a new medium at the time, and brought out digital releases on netlabels. This was the transitional phase from physical to digital. I exploited the synergies between the old and new worlds. I uploaded my first YouTube video in 2007. This quickly took on a life of its own, and I ended up getting played on the radio in the UK. My first appearance was at the Gilles Peterson Worldwide Awards 2009. Then bookers started to contact me on Myspace, which was the first actual social media site.

So you had performed international gigs before you even released your first album?
 
I had already been touring for a year before my first album When Planets Explode (Kindred Spirits). It all started in January 2008, a good year before I first released anything. The contact with the label Kindred Spirits then came through DJ Cinnaman, who booked Flying Lotus, Hudson Mohawke, and me to work in Amsterdam. Everything developed in a really natural way.

Over the years, you have certainly developed as a musician. Each of your releases is underpinned by a different formal concept. Do you see your discography as a kind of continuous progression or are there definite shifts?
 
The process behind each release is different every time. But I like it when people think they recognize a signature style. My father recently told me about a piece of school work where I wrote how important it is to do your own thing. This sounds simple enough, but it can also be a real challenge. So I'm pleased if people can see some kind of coherence. For me, it was a case of different phases and different relationships every time.

You are in pretty close touch with other artists at your label. You have toured with Flying Lotus and collaborate with local acts like Cid Rim, The Clonious, or Zanshin. How important are interpersonal skills to your personal life and career? 
 
Very important. I also feel I would not have developed to the extent I have without working with friends or being close to other artists. I'm thrilled too that some hard-core fans are still around as well after 15 years. My audience has changed a lot over time, but it is nice to see that some people have been following me for ages. I believe these kinds of relationships are ultimately those that give life meaning.

Let's talk about your instruments. You are really enthusiastic about all kinds of digital keyboard instruments. Your studio has synths by Korg, Roland, and Yamaha and even a Wurlitzer. Do you use different instruments for each album or is the lineup similar each time?
 
Although I do use similar instruments on different albums, the actual way I use them can differ widely. The range of instruments can also vary. I like the challenge of working with equipment and computer programs that I've not yet really mastered. Otherwise, I tend to get bogged down pretty quickly. And I don't like to repeat myself either. Getting to grips with new equipment can open up new avenues and give me a chance to escape from the familiar. I like to make things complicated for myself.

You are able to filter all kinds of different sounds from your synths and imitate classical instruments in the process. The way you work is also reminiscent of a composer's in other ways. You merge countless voices together until you get an organic sound that is almost orchestral, at least that's what your latest album sounds like. How do you go about things? 

It is nice of you to talk about composition. Because electronic music in particular has to contend with the prejudice that it only really involves production. But I find the word production is always synonymous with the idea of industry. Many people do not understand the compositional possibilities that electronic music offers. Here too, a creative process is involved. 

On the one hand, I have what I have learned myself, which, although limited, is still somehow there. In other words, I already have scales in my head and a feeling for music theory. And I was lucky that my good friend Clemens Bacher, Cid Rim, is a musician too and has studied percussion. I have picked up some music theory through him on the side. Once I have played something, he has often told me that this or that thing was a shift, and this helped me learn at the at the same time. But I generally work on a more intuitive basis. I like working in tonal systems and often in 4/4 time. And I draw on dance music as a subculture. At the same time, I'm keen to free this music from the stigma that it only needs to be entertaining.

Given the complexity and tonal density of your tracks, I wonder whether the acoustic ornateness is a risk?

It's an interesting point. My parents had me take a test as a child to see what talents I had, and I did pretty much average across the board. The only area where I achieved a really high score was spatial perception, which is something I'm exceptionally good at. I also think this is why I never learned notes by reading them, but always imagined music in spatial terms. I have a very good feeling for how sounds are distributed in space. That is the way I perceive music. It is why I find the mixing of music so exciting as well. I have great confidence in my ability to use lots of elements, since I always know where I need to put them. And when I play live, I am always very careful about the volume I am working at. I always try to think about the room as well.

It might surprise a lot of people that you cannot read music. How do you work out your live sets? How much do you practice? 
 
You develop methods. When I was a child, I didn't want to learn to read music out of spite. Things worked out all the same though, because I watched my piano teacher's fingers and developed a feeling for the intervals. It was a classic case of learning by doing. I kept on repeating it until it sounded similar. It was more about imitation than understanding the content of individual notes. I imitated things and muddled my way through, and this developed into in a kind of system too. It's very hard for me to explain. The best way to describe it is that I now have my own little maps in my head, just like the way I used to follow my teacher's hands. Over these 15 years, a mind map has developed consisting of lots of folders and subfolders.

Your relationship with synths, the interaction with the equipment is very direct. You give people the feeling you become one with your instrument.


One YouTube comment on one of my videos said something quite interesting—"It doesn't seem like technical prowess, but seems like a man possessed." This is actually how it feels. Sometimes a clip is ready after one take, but other times I need 40 minutes to do it. And that can also happen with numbers I have been playing for years…

Despite working so intensively with keyboard instruments, you have never thought about recording a classical piano album. Instead, you stick with sounds that are often synthetic. Is this a case of the democratization of sounds?

Yes, Hudson Mohawke has influenced me in this respect. Around 2009 to 2011, when soft synths and software like virtual instruments came on the scene, and sounded really good, everyone was riding this wave. Everyone always wanted yet another plug-in to make their synth sound even better. And Hudson Mohawke just had a kind of 1980s/90s hardware sampler with trashy sounds and used to play his concerts with that. This all feels a bit ironic at first, but when you actually look at this music and get to know the people behind it, you realize these sounds help give the music its impact. I'm just not really the audiophile type. The nonconformist in me likes this sound. Dorian the Contrarian, you might say, or a contrarian concept.

http://www.dorianconcept.com
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