Following hot on the heels of DJ Godfather, Polish techno luminary Echoplex (Peter Sliwinski) serves up his take on the innovative Serato-mixed series For The Future Generation.
A long-standing DJ, composer, sound designer, producer and label owner, this is – unbelievably – Echoplex’s first ever proper DJ mix. Weaving together 85 tracks from the likes of Dan Curtin, DJ 3000, DJ Godfather, The Advent, Detroit Grand Pubahs and Echoplex himself – plus 40 unreleased and exclusive tracks from his own Soundlite label – he’s turned in a skillfully layered and passionately prepared stream of deep, lush techno sounds.
There are 85 tunes on your new mix – how many did you initially select?
I selected 1000 tracks for the first pick. 250 were then shortlisted and chosen to be used on the mix. The material was then remixed mostly in the studio to give more of my own feel into the music itself. As you can imagine, selecting the tracks was probably the hardest task, I had to record a mix of no more then 74 minutes, which seemed impossible at that stage. After twisting, remixing, re-cutting and reproducing of all the materials, I installed two full Serato Live systems, along with 3 Technics turntables and a Cycloops sampler and started to compose the mix.
What appealed to you about putting together a digital mix in this way, as opposed to a ‘traditional’ mix?
Don’t get me wrong, I love traditional way of mixing records. It’s a great pleasure to mix records and build up emotions, yet with some experience of studio work while making dubbings, voiceovers, remixes, post productions or masters, one really ends up wanting to go further then two records. After 14 years of DJing the need for experimentation and creation is far greater then that one of being a teenager hungry just to mix two records down. The idea, to quote one of my heroes (Captain Kirk) is to “go where no man has gone before”. By working in this way, as opposed to with traditional vinyl, I felt like I was composing a full on orchestra, with main parts and single noises moving in and out, instruments fading in and sound structures layering one on top of each other.
Many of the tracks are from your own label – where are you planning to take Soundlite in the future?
Most of the tracks will be presented on Soundlite in the near future. For now this label remains a strictly digital one with the aim of diversifying into vinyl some time soon. It is a sub-label of my main platform Soleil records.
Were you a Serato fan beforehand?
It took me over three years for me to finally start using the Serato system. I hesitated to even touch it and was really opposed to it until the moment I was forced to try it out due to limited luggage capabilities on a tour in Australia. Serato worked smoothly and enabled me to freely mix own my tunes into a vinyl set. Little by little I started using Serato on a larger scale.
You have a classical music background – what got you interested in electronic music?
After some time playing as well as performing choral and classical music I realized that I wanted to do more then just sing or play. I wanted to have full access to the composition itself, not only the notation side of things but also timbre, pitch, rhythm, melody, harmony and frequency. That’s when I discovered electronic music, which opened doors to my creations. What interests me with electronic music in general is the possibility of sharing feelings and emotions with the universe by the use of electronic means. Electronic equipment spells out sounds that are understood by all races, nations and people thus making us feel one step closer. Breaking the barriers and letting the expression all out.
You can download this album at a reduced rate thanks to Juno by clicking here.
