The Mag
Maintaining Balance: Agoria
It would be lazy to once again point out that DJs must go one step beyond if they are to stand apart and make a compilation worth hearing in 2010, because that's now a given. In order for an artist to do that, however, it helps if the label on which they are to release really gets behind them. Australia's EQ, and, in turn, their Balance series, is once such outlet doing just that.
The Balance series, now on its 16th instalment, gives artists a platform on which to do whatever they want and, so far, the results have been stunning. Recently there has been Joris Voorn's technical masterpiece, and Will Saul's wide-reaching overview of dub, disco, house and techno, and now comes something which sits in-between the two. Both technically astute and disparate in its sounds, Agoria's Balance 16 is a fully crafted listening experience which takes the listener on an emotional and colourful journey.
Soonnight's Chris Wan spoke to Frenchman Agoria about his influences, minimal prejudices, and the original and interesting way in which he assembled his track list for this mix.
So, you’ve got your new Balance mix coming out soon; could you tell us a little bit about why you decided to do another compilation and how it came about?
Well I made a long break not producing techno/electronic music during two years as I worked on the soundtrack of "Go Fast" and then I spent few months working on establish my own label InFiné, trying to develop it, searching new artists, helping them to reach their aim…
At the beginning of last year I asked myself if I wanted to start working on a new album or anything else. I wasn't sure I was ready to create new materials and honestly I was wondering if there was still a relevant reason to make a new mix CD. Every website get his own quality podcast, music is everywhere, I wasn't sure of the necessity of releasing again a mix CD. But I decided to try. I thought it was relevant to find my own personal and exclusive selection in a time when you can find any single track you look for in less than a minute. How could I excite the desire of the listener one more time with this excessive music offer? First I needed to find by myself the key to discover those tracks… but I guess we’ll speak later about this…
Your ‘At the Controls’ mix from 2007 received quite a bit of critical acclaim and was ranked as the 13th best compilation of the 00s by RA, plus the previous two Balance mixes by Joris Voorn and Will Saul were big successes. Did you feel any pressure in trying to recreate something as good or better?
When ATC went out I didn't receive so much good critics about my mix…. people were not so much into it, I remembered lot of comments saying it was just weird! It grew step by step months after the releasing, and in the end it became a classic mix. At the releasing it wasn't really acclaimed and the label went bankrupt, I really hope it won't happen to Balance! When I released "La Onziéme marche " all the feedbacks in a first time were really shitty and when "The Green Armchair " came out lot of people were surprised not to get a minimal techno album but a bunch of luxury music of different kind of style.
I remember some magazines writing how Agoria can't be into minimal!!! It was the trend of that time and I was saying in interviews that I didn't enjoy so much this music, because I couldn't find a soul in it. I love the beauty of minimalism but most of the time I don't think minimal has any quality of minimalism… Steve Reich "Four organs" for example is a masterpiece of minimalism. Plastikman's "Consumed" too. I might not be good releasing records at the right moment or I am really bad in communication ;) ! That's why I m not feeling pressure, I m much more curious and excited that stressed.
You mention that the mix is all about balance and that you’re trying to achieve a perfect equilibrium. Can you explain what you mean by that and how you achieve it?
I spent five months looking for materials; I wanted to experience again virgin fields. My desire to find music was a bit dead, we received so much tunes everyday by simple links on emails or promo accounts that I had the feeling I needed to find music by myself like when I was twenty spending my entire days in records shops. I wanted to experience again the happiness of finding music by accident. Nobody is buying records nowadays without having listened to them before. I do wish that the listener of both mixes will feel like entering in a record shop, letting himself to be guided by the sound of the shop.
I also asked a few friends to make me listen to 5 tunes each that I could have missed or I should known. I have obviously discovered massive albums that I didn't know like the album "666" from Aphrodite's child. And I finally organized a contest on Soundcloud to find newcomers that have never released any record before. So the selection has been inspired by lot of different influences and styles.
Then I asked EQ recordings to clear more than 120 tracks thinking that half of them will not accept to be part of the project and I have been surprised to see that almost everybody has accepted to appear on the mix. They have been so much efficient and quick! I had then so much material that the idea of finding The right Balance appeared like an evidence. This concept has been a great guide for me and helps me to innovate. My friend Francesco Tristano was right in saying to me that it’s the first time a mix CD isn't linear but circular. Sometimes the approach of music is really mathematic and obviously when it's a question of equilibrium you are forced to count… In Cd1 and Cd2 I start and finish with the same tracks, on CD 1 the climax is at the very middle of the mix, so that You can listen the mix on loop without any rupture, it s a circular one!
You do cover a wide variety of music on this mix similar to your At The Controls mix. How do you go about sourcing tracks from so many different genres? Are you always actively listening to all genres?
Definitely I love Music and my passion isn't only focus on 4/4 stuff. I guess you can see that when you listen to the artists I signed on InFiné. I would love that people buy records of InFiné without knowing what they gonna hear, if it will be pop, indie, techno or classical before buying the record. Just trusting our choice. I like the idea that people still want to feel surprised when they listen to an album. I like to imagine InFiné like a" grand cru" of wine. With lots of hope before tasting and hopefully a big smile after the first sip.
For this mix you also included a lot of exclusive material from some pretty fresh faces. Can you tell us a little bit about some of the exclusive new talent you’ve included on the mix?
I’m really proud of all the unreleased tunes. I can spend hours speaking of all those new artists! To name a few, Arandel is a new talent from my hometown Lyon and he's about to finish an amazing album, he recorded all the tracks on the note D# ( Mi bémol in french) with all the same elements on each track of the album. Kid A is a singer from the States and she got an amazing voice, I can't wait to work with her, I’ve always looked for a soul voice like her. Will she get a career as the one of the next Nina Simones? It's obviously too soon to say but she's really gifted. Justin Messina is a contemporary composer from New York and he delivers here an amazing track of techno. He's a close friend of Aufgang and I truly think that the second breath for electronic music will come from a new generation of classical artists that has grown surrounded by electronic music. He's one of them.
The Same won the competition to get their track featured on your mix out of over 1000 tracks. How was it judging that? Did their track stand out by far from all the rest?
I picked twenty tracks that I really liked. It has been difficult to choose the one I preferred. The Same delivered one of the best of them. I was looking for a dubby track for cd2 and their track was in that deep and dub mood with some fresh and distinctive sounds! Then I asked them to send me more tracks and I liked them all, it convinced me to choose them…we gonna release their track with few others exclusives on two eps in April. Check it out and let me know if you agree with my choice!
As well as the extensive music that features, you have given the mix a pretty complex structure with multiple layers and loops as well as persistent and recurring features. What was the idea behind this style?
To achieve the concept about Balance, I use all ways and tools to mix tunes together. So it can be complex in some moments of the mixes but I don't think it's the main thing. Sometimes I feel free to let entire tracks, sometimes I just spin few seconds, it all depends about the result I was looking for. For example on the second CD when I wanted to emphasize a growing with "libellules" I’ve added a track of Marc Antona + Avril + Gadi mizrahi before the climax of "french kiss", it came just after two minutes of temporization. Another example on the first CD, before going down on the second part of the cd, I thought it was useful to let the remix of Felix Laband by Todd Terje for four minutes alone cause it helped to catch the attention for the following. By this little frustration I could more easily turn down, something not so easy to do, it s much easier to go mental or to grow than to go down step by step without losing the attention of the listener.
With so much going on and so many possibilities how do you even begin creating a mix like this? What goes on in your mind, how do you know when to use little snippets or multi layer?
The elaboration of a mix CD is close to the writing of a synopsis for the cinema. You need to write a story then to visualize it like with a story board and finally to play it. The first time You play the whole selection helps you seeing if the flow is relevant and if the story is good. Then the technology permit You to rework step by step each part to find the best one, like a director with his actors, each mix depends of their way playing together. But choosing the flow with a concept in mind is the key point, the actors are always good when they get a good story to defend.
Can you tell what you used to put this mix together as there will be a lot of budding DJs out there dying to know? From here it sounds just too complicated for your normal decks and a mixer.
I use all the possible tools, the final sources come from the computer but all the mixes are recorded analogically from a Xone 92, I’ve planned the mix but nothing is sequenced. I couldn’t t spend one month correcting a mix with a pencil on a computer. I still need my hands to mix it.
Is it physically/mentally possible to mix like this live since there’s so much going on? Do your live sets come close to the complexity of this CD?
No it will never be like that on a weekend session in a club. The utility of the mix CD is to be totally different of a live mix. If you want to put on a mix CD the type of set you are doing the week end, it's without interest. You can find it on any website and on internet every day. I like the mix CDs reflecting what happens during parties when they are recorded live! Like the one of Jeff Mills recorded during nineties at Circle Room, one of the best ever as far as I remembered!
We’ve had similar intricately structured mixes from the likes of Hawtin, Joris Voorn, Henrik Schwarz, and even 2ManyDJs to name a few, do you think this style of mixing will be the future for mix compilations and eventually live DJing?
I m not sure I can be part of those superb technical mixes. I have the feeling I use some of their tools but the technologic exploit was not my aim. Sometimes technology doesn't help the mix, I’ve tried to be as technical as spontaneous, I spent more time looking for music than mixing it. If I spend too much time on a mix I would lose the naive aspect that is essential for me to be creative. Technology is the key if it helps you to be creative and spontaneous.
Talking of the future, what kind of talent will be coming out of France next? I mean we’ve already had the likes of Garnier, Daft Punk, Justice, Blackstrobe/Smagghe and of course yourself, who’s next?
I love Aufgang and I truly believe in them. From my hometown artists as different as Arandel, Spitzer, Manvoy de Saint Sadrill or Danger starts to appear on the map!
Despite all the great talent coming out of France we hardly hear about the French clubbing scene in the UK. Is it vibrant, is it growing? In terms of the rest of Europe London has Fabric; Berlin has its Berghain, Barcelona – Sonar and Belgium has I Love Techno. What do the French have?
We have an amazing festival that happens in May named Nuits Sonores. Not so many people outside of France knows the festival as it s not in Paris but in Lyon, but this is definitely the best electronic event of the year in my country, I m not really objective as I m one of the creator but trust me! Anyway the clubbing in France isn't as big as in England or Germany for few reasons: politics have killed the techno clubbing during nineties, we don't have any national dance radio, and main French acts (like Daft Punk, Justice, Ed banger crew, Kistune,…) are in fact closer of the rock scene/image industry than the techno/club underground one. We are just few French DJs playing all over the world every weekend a music that isn't mainstream: Laurent, The hacker, Oxia, Chloe, Djulz,…
Finally, what are the plans for the rest of the year, where will we be able to see you play out?
It will be difficult not to see me this year sorry! I’m gonna play in the states for WMC and for a tour in North America at the end of may, in Japan, China, Singapore, Australia… and obviously close to your house in Europe!
During this tour, I will try to finish my album for the end of the year!
Thanks for the good questions!
The Balance series, now on its 16th instalment, gives artists a platform on which to do whatever they want and, so far, the results have been stunning. Recently there has been Joris Voorn's technical masterpiece, and Will Saul's wide-reaching overview of dub, disco, house and techno, and now comes something which sits in-between the two. Both technically astute and disparate in its sounds, Agoria's Balance 16 is a fully crafted listening experience which takes the listener on an emotional and colourful journey.
Soonnight's Chris Wan spoke to Frenchman Agoria about his influences, minimal prejudices, and the original and interesting way in which he assembled his track list for this mix.
So, you’ve got your new Balance mix coming out soon; could you tell us a little bit about why you decided to do another compilation and how it came about?
Well I made a long break not producing techno/electronic music during two years as I worked on the soundtrack of "Go Fast" and then I spent few months working on establish my own label InFiné, trying to develop it, searching new artists, helping them to reach their aim…
At the beginning of last year I asked myself if I wanted to start working on a new album or anything else. I wasn't sure I was ready to create new materials and honestly I was wondering if there was still a relevant reason to make a new mix CD. Every website get his own quality podcast, music is everywhere, I wasn't sure of the necessity of releasing again a mix CD. But I decided to try. I thought it was relevant to find my own personal and exclusive selection in a time when you can find any single track you look for in less than a minute. How could I excite the desire of the listener one more time with this excessive music offer? First I needed to find by myself the key to discover those tracks… but I guess we’ll speak later about this…
Your ‘At the Controls’ mix from 2007 received quite a bit of critical acclaim and was ranked as the 13th best compilation of the 00s by RA, plus the previous two Balance mixes by Joris Voorn and Will Saul were big successes. Did you feel any pressure in trying to recreate something as good or better?
When ATC went out I didn't receive so much good critics about my mix…. people were not so much into it, I remembered lot of comments saying it was just weird! It grew step by step months after the releasing, and in the end it became a classic mix. At the releasing it wasn't really acclaimed and the label went bankrupt, I really hope it won't happen to Balance! When I released "La Onziéme marche " all the feedbacks in a first time were really shitty and when "The Green Armchair " came out lot of people were surprised not to get a minimal techno album but a bunch of luxury music of different kind of style.
I remember some magazines writing how Agoria can't be into minimal!!! It was the trend of that time and I was saying in interviews that I didn't enjoy so much this music, because I couldn't find a soul in it. I love the beauty of minimalism but most of the time I don't think minimal has any quality of minimalism… Steve Reich "Four organs" for example is a masterpiece of minimalism. Plastikman's "Consumed" too. I might not be good releasing records at the right moment or I am really bad in communication ;) ! That's why I m not feeling pressure, I m much more curious and excited that stressed.
You mention that the mix is all about balance and that you’re trying to achieve a perfect equilibrium. Can you explain what you mean by that and how you achieve it?
I spent five months looking for materials; I wanted to experience again virgin fields. My desire to find music was a bit dead, we received so much tunes everyday by simple links on emails or promo accounts that I had the feeling I needed to find music by myself like when I was twenty spending my entire days in records shops. I wanted to experience again the happiness of finding music by accident. Nobody is buying records nowadays without having listened to them before. I do wish that the listener of both mixes will feel like entering in a record shop, letting himself to be guided by the sound of the shop.
I also asked a few friends to make me listen to 5 tunes each that I could have missed or I should known. I have obviously discovered massive albums that I didn't know like the album "666" from Aphrodite's child. And I finally organized a contest on Soundcloud to find newcomers that have never released any record before. So the selection has been inspired by lot of different influences and styles.
Then I asked EQ recordings to clear more than 120 tracks thinking that half of them will not accept to be part of the project and I have been surprised to see that almost everybody has accepted to appear on the mix. They have been so much efficient and quick! I had then so much material that the idea of finding The right Balance appeared like an evidence. This concept has been a great guide for me and helps me to innovate. My friend Francesco Tristano was right in saying to me that it’s the first time a mix CD isn't linear but circular. Sometimes the approach of music is really mathematic and obviously when it's a question of equilibrium you are forced to count… In Cd1 and Cd2 I start and finish with the same tracks, on CD 1 the climax is at the very middle of the mix, so that You can listen the mix on loop without any rupture, it s a circular one!
You do cover a wide variety of music on this mix similar to your At The Controls mix. How do you go about sourcing tracks from so many different genres? Are you always actively listening to all genres?
Definitely I love Music and my passion isn't only focus on 4/4 stuff. I guess you can see that when you listen to the artists I signed on InFiné. I would love that people buy records of InFiné without knowing what they gonna hear, if it will be pop, indie, techno or classical before buying the record. Just trusting our choice. I like the idea that people still want to feel surprised when they listen to an album. I like to imagine InFiné like a" grand cru" of wine. With lots of hope before tasting and hopefully a big smile after the first sip.
For this mix you also included a lot of exclusive material from some pretty fresh faces. Can you tell us a little bit about some of the exclusive new talent you’ve included on the mix?
I’m really proud of all the unreleased tunes. I can spend hours speaking of all those new artists! To name a few, Arandel is a new talent from my hometown Lyon and he's about to finish an amazing album, he recorded all the tracks on the note D# ( Mi bémol in french) with all the same elements on each track of the album. Kid A is a singer from the States and she got an amazing voice, I can't wait to work with her, I’ve always looked for a soul voice like her. Will she get a career as the one of the next Nina Simones? It's obviously too soon to say but she's really gifted. Justin Messina is a contemporary composer from New York and he delivers here an amazing track of techno. He's a close friend of Aufgang and I truly think that the second breath for electronic music will come from a new generation of classical artists that has grown surrounded by electronic music. He's one of them.
The Same won the competition to get their track featured on your mix out of over 1000 tracks. How was it judging that? Did their track stand out by far from all the rest? I picked twenty tracks that I really liked. It has been difficult to choose the one I preferred. The Same delivered one of the best of them. I was looking for a dubby track for cd2 and their track was in that deep and dub mood with some fresh and distinctive sounds! Then I asked them to send me more tracks and I liked them all, it convinced me to choose them…we gonna release their track with few others exclusives on two eps in April. Check it out and let me know if you agree with my choice!
As well as the extensive music that features, you have given the mix a pretty complex structure with multiple layers and loops as well as persistent and recurring features. What was the idea behind this style?
To achieve the concept about Balance, I use all ways and tools to mix tunes together. So it can be complex in some moments of the mixes but I don't think it's the main thing. Sometimes I feel free to let entire tracks, sometimes I just spin few seconds, it all depends about the result I was looking for. For example on the second CD when I wanted to emphasize a growing with "libellules" I’ve added a track of Marc Antona + Avril + Gadi mizrahi before the climax of "french kiss", it came just after two minutes of temporization. Another example on the first CD, before going down on the second part of the cd, I thought it was useful to let the remix of Felix Laband by Todd Terje for four minutes alone cause it helped to catch the attention for the following. By this little frustration I could more easily turn down, something not so easy to do, it s much easier to go mental or to grow than to go down step by step without losing the attention of the listener.
With so much going on and so many possibilities how do you even begin creating a mix like this? What goes on in your mind, how do you know when to use little snippets or multi layer?
The elaboration of a mix CD is close to the writing of a synopsis for the cinema. You need to write a story then to visualize it like with a story board and finally to play it. The first time You play the whole selection helps you seeing if the flow is relevant and if the story is good. Then the technology permit You to rework step by step each part to find the best one, like a director with his actors, each mix depends of their way playing together. But choosing the flow with a concept in mind is the key point, the actors are always good when they get a good story to defend.
Can you tell what you used to put this mix together as there will be a lot of budding DJs out there dying to know? From here it sounds just too complicated for your normal decks and a mixer.
I use all the possible tools, the final sources come from the computer but all the mixes are recorded analogically from a Xone 92, I’ve planned the mix but nothing is sequenced. I couldn’t t spend one month correcting a mix with a pencil on a computer. I still need my hands to mix it.
Is it physically/mentally possible to mix like this live since there’s so much going on? Do your live sets come close to the complexity of this CD?
No it will never be like that on a weekend session in a club. The utility of the mix CD is to be totally different of a live mix. If you want to put on a mix CD the type of set you are doing the week end, it's without interest. You can find it on any website and on internet every day. I like the mix CDs reflecting what happens during parties when they are recorded live! Like the one of Jeff Mills recorded during nineties at Circle Room, one of the best ever as far as I remembered!
We’ve had similar intricately structured mixes from the likes of Hawtin, Joris Voorn, Henrik Schwarz, and even 2ManyDJs to name a few, do you think this style of mixing will be the future for mix compilations and eventually live DJing?
I m not sure I can be part of those superb technical mixes. I have the feeling I use some of their tools but the technologic exploit was not my aim. Sometimes technology doesn't help the mix, I’ve tried to be as technical as spontaneous, I spent more time looking for music than mixing it. If I spend too much time on a mix I would lose the naive aspect that is essential for me to be creative. Technology is the key if it helps you to be creative and spontaneous.
Talking of the future, what kind of talent will be coming out of France next? I mean we’ve already had the likes of Garnier, Daft Punk, Justice, Blackstrobe/Smagghe and of course yourself, who’s next?
I love Aufgang and I truly believe in them. From my hometown artists as different as Arandel, Spitzer, Manvoy de Saint Sadrill or Danger starts to appear on the map!
Despite all the great talent coming out of France we hardly hear about the French clubbing scene in the UK. Is it vibrant, is it growing? In terms of the rest of Europe London has Fabric; Berlin has its Berghain, Barcelona – Sonar and Belgium has I Love Techno. What do the French have?
We have an amazing festival that happens in May named Nuits Sonores. Not so many people outside of France knows the festival as it s not in Paris but in Lyon, but this is definitely the best electronic event of the year in my country, I m not really objective as I m one of the creator but trust me! Anyway the clubbing in France isn't as big as in England or Germany for few reasons: politics have killed the techno clubbing during nineties, we don't have any national dance radio, and main French acts (like Daft Punk, Justice, Ed banger crew, Kistune,…) are in fact closer of the rock scene/image industry than the techno/club underground one. We are just few French DJs playing all over the world every weekend a music that isn't mainstream: Laurent, The hacker, Oxia, Chloe, Djulz,…
Finally, what are the plans for the rest of the year, where will we be able to see you play out?
It will be difficult not to see me this year sorry! I’m gonna play in the states for WMC and for a tour in North America at the end of may, in Japan, China, Singapore, Australia… and obviously close to your house in Europe!
During this tour, I will try to finish my album for the end of the year!
Thanks for the good questions!