inthemix | Features | Echoplex: Well travelled techno

Having released on labels such as Nova Mute, Mosquito and Semi Automatic (amongst countless others), a person might be forgiven in thinking that Polish-born, Canadian resident Peter Swilinski is one of the finest producers on the planet. He recently took time out from his hectic touring schedule to sit down, have a think, and provide some deep and insightful answers to the questions put to him…

You have recently been working on a studio album. Which do you enjoy more, studio work or touring and playing?

I personally express a need to make all kinds of projects as long they are appealing to me and as long as I find them worth spending time on. Whether it’s an LP, EP, remix, compilation appearance or split work, I devote myself to it in a same way. Of course the creative process differs in each case, but it’s all very challenging and inspirational. I enjoy working in the studio as much as I enjoy touring around the world and performing. Sometimes, I prefer to spend a whole weekend in the studio surrounded by gear yet there comes a time where I miss being out and about and spreading my grooves all across the globe. I feel like studio work is a total experiment and performance can be considered as a real test of that experiment. I express a need to share what I create. Share the works with people, closed ones, friends, audience, listener or party freaks.

Tell us how it was for you to hold a residency at ‘Rewind’ in Warsaw, Poland?

As I prefer short residencies, this one lasted only few weeks. It was not the first residency of mine but perhaps it was one of the last ones. Unfortunately besides the pleasures related to being a resident, holding a residency in any club ties you up in series of demanding duties while taking away a lot of your already limited time. Therefore as I look at it from a perspective, it was definitely very enjoyable experience yet too time consuming for my taste.

Give us a brief time-line of your own personal musical tastes as they have progressed since you first started releasing your own music…

It is quite difficult to provide a brief time line. There were many musical stages in my life that where constantly alternating as the time progressed. I must refer to my childhood, as it played a vital role in my future career. While living in my homeland of Poland I first time got in contact with music while singing in a Gregorian Church Choir. The music I listened to was mostly choral, sung in 3 different languages. Shortly after, when in elementary class, I came across what turned out to be a sound of synthesizer. I remember that during one of my biology classes I heard some weird noises played on television set. It was some kind of instructional film on the human development. I was 7 years old. The noises were so strange and interesting in the same time that I got sucked into listening to it but not actually learning about the required subject of the lesson. When growing up in the 80s, I listened to records at home brought to me by my dad. Not knowing what it is, I heard the same sounds like the ones from the biology class, but this time it wasn’t noise it was so emotional and full of ear grabbing harmonies and melodies. I was very happy to hear the likes of Jackson, Bowie, Jarre, DM, OMD, Human League, Eurythmics, Vince Clarke to name the few. It was the sound of the synthesizer that made me forget about choral music. After leaving Poland in the mid 80s I moved to Italy. While living close to Rome I first experienced much funkier and soulful music. It was called Detroit techno. Besides the first releases of Detroit techno on labels Like Plus8, Transmat or Metroplex, I also enjoyed listening to Italo house things like Black Box, Technotronic, Brothers in Rhythm, all the hip house grooves and rave anthems. As soon as I moved to Canada I started to listen to local Detroit pirate radio stations that were playing Chicago, funk, electro and Detroit, and I started to sneak out to the Motor City at night and check Plastik Man, Larkin or Atkins in action. After moving in the 90s across Canada to the rainy West Coast city of Vancouver, I collided with breakbeats, ambient, electronica and deep house sounds of San Francisco and California. When I came back to Poland in 97 I first heard the so called new experimental sounds of Brighton, hard European techno, as well as the minimal and dubby sounds of Berlin. Now living in Warsaw I listen to all kind of sounds, preferably going back to those old records of Gary Numan, Orchestral Manouvers in the Dark and others. I realise that there comes a time where we go back to what is closest to us. We go back to our roots. Just like I came back to my homeland of Poland.

How did you come to find yourself in possession of your first piece of equipment?

I was very lucky and felt privileged to obtain my first musical instrument from my electronic music composition teacher. It was a Korg PS 3100 Modular Poly synthesizer. One day while sitting in a classroom in EMC in Port Moody, Canada, and I noticed a big Korg sign on what looked to be an old and huge wooden box. When I asked the teacher what is it, he simply said that it’s an old “useless and broken synthesizer”. With a help of few classmates I managed to bring the monster down from the shelf. I turned it on and, in fact, it didn’t make any sound but surprisingly all the lights were flashing up in front of my eyes. I offered to buy the so called “piece of furniture”. The teacher told me that he was not authorised to sell any equipment to students, yet he can give it away to me. I brought my old Toyota and loaded in the 120 pound machine. When I turned the synth on back at home it worked for the first time. Amazingly it turned out that the attack on all the four oscillators was twisted all the way, hence no sound was able to come out of it. I still have this piece in my collection. It is so unpredictable, the circuits and oscillators must warm up for many hours before all the keys are in tune, yet it sounds like nothing I have heard before. It creates all those freaky laser and robo like sounds. In fact the Korg PS 3100 Modular Poly Synth was used among others while making the sound design for the original Star Wars movie.

You’re often touted as part of the ‘3rd Generation of Detroit Techno Producers’. How does this sit with you?

3rd and last one, correct? Haha. If only I had answers to questions like: how many generations of Detroit techno were or are there? Which one can be considered as the first one? Was it Magic Juan? Or maybe The Wizzard Jeff? Or perhaps Derrick May? Not to forget about Saunderson, Inner City, UR or the Chicago heroes Knuckles, Farley Jackmaster Funk, Fingers Inc, DJ Pierre, Little Luie Vega, which all had big impact on the Detroit movement though not necessarily coming from Detroit City. Which one of them deserves to be called the one and only god father of Detroit techno? Maybe the name Detroit techno was only established as the music could have been easily reinvented, resampled and reshaped from the likes of Michael Jackson, James Brown, Afrikaa Baambaataa, Funkadelic, Kraftwerk or Parliament, who were all twisting knobs and pumping out grooves on the their 909s and 808s way ahead of time.

If the ‘First Generation of Detroit Techno Producers’ were inspired by the mechanical-decay of their city, growing up in Windsor have you also gained inspiration through what you have not only heard in Detroit (via your contemporaries), but experienced yourself?

My Windsor/Detroit/techno influences came much later. I feel that most of what was inspiring to me came from Europe. My interest in electronic music came from bands like Kraftwerk, Depeche Mode, Tangerine Dream and Jarre. I was also very much into minimal art of Phillip Glass, deepness of Tomita, goofiness of Thomas Dolby and chill space of Brian Eno. I was very lucky to hear all those artists. It was awfully hard to hear any music from outside of Poland during the 70s and 80s. When the electronic sounds of the new romantic era took over the world, Poland was very restricted while in the hands of the regime of Soviet Union and its Communist control. The access to music, information and technology was blocked and controlled by censors. For instance, it was forbidden to listen to radio from abroad, distribute, sell, manufacture or perform any music that was considered “dangerous” to the state. Things like electronic and jazz music were like a forbidden fruit. If you came into a possession of even one single release you were a very lucky person. The only way I could hear such sounds were through vinyl releases brought to me by my dad on his Western Europe business trips. All that music collected brings back memories and still inspires me to make new tunes.

You have worked and collaborated with so many other talented producers. With it being difficult enough as a producer to let go of something you’ve been working on and say ‘ok! it’s finished’, how do you ever manage to do this when you’re sharing the responsibility with someone else?

I still collaborate with very diversified artists, like piano players, vocalists, trumpet players. It is all very enjoyable as long there is some kind of common ground and interest established. It’s all a matter of a simple understanding and feeling between my collaborators. If we are able to develop a mutual understanding, as well as feed off each other, then we create a harmonious relationship based on trust. Even though we might have different visions of what the final product should sound like, we are able to compromise without the feeling of being less important in the group.

If I may say, my favourite of all of your releases is last year’s ‘I Am Deaf’ release on DEAF Recordings. Do you personally have a favourite release of your own?

There are few records of mine that I still like. They have proved to be somehow timeless as after years I can still enjoy listening to them as well as play them in my live sets. As a producer and artist I personally feel that all of those previously released records could have been done in a number of different ways. Perhaps also they could have been done better. With that being said it may sound strange but I think that my favourite release is still to come, it could be for instance the track I’m currently working on or the idea popping in my mind that I’m about to develop and build on.

You have worked on a number of film-scores, which film would you have jumped at the chance to score?

I would love to create the film score for Star Wars, not just the music itself but the actual sound design and all of the sound effects. Combining state of the art real audio recorders like Protools with original Moog, Korg, EMS, ARP and Buchla Modulars. Why? Apart from Star Wars being one of my inspiration to make electronic music, I also feel that such a project would cause a serious brainstorm, and generate some wicked ideas that would consequently lead to the creation of some unique and wild sounds.

Echoplex tours Australia in November, be sure to check him out.