The explosion in popularity of minimalist house and techno sounds can be traced back to just a handful of names. You can quote Richie Hawtin, Ricardo Villalobos and Luciano as the holy trinity all you like, but chances are there are just as many enthusiasts willing to name drop Loco Dice for his hand at pushing the genre.

Unlike his esteemed colleagues and friends, the man otherwise known as Yassine Ben Achour hasn’t had a background of continual involvement in the house and techno scenes, but instead traces his roots to the now well-developed European hip hop scene, and his earlier successes as a DJ opening for acts like Snoop Dogg, Ice Cube, Jamiroquai and Usher mirrors his seemingly unstoppable rise as an electronic artist. It’s a transition that could have potentially been filled with teething problems that a pallet load of Bonjela wouldn’t have been able to soothe, but it was made easy by the time Loco Dice spent managing Timo Maas, which not only taught him the ins and outs of being a superstar DJ, but also brought him into contact with producer extraordinaire Martin Buttrich who he would eventually become friends with.

“I met Martin the first time through Timo Maas,” Achour AKA Loco says wistfully. “I was doing [Timo’s] bookings here in Germany and traveling with him – that was the time I just changed from hip hop to electronic music, and I had the possibility to learn more about the job and everything and go deeper with a big superstar and see how it goes. Our relationship [he and Buttrich] from then to now has been the same – we saw each other as friends who have the same interests, there were a lot of things where a connection was and we got along from the first moment, [but] we never thought that we were going to be in the studio and produce something. Two, three years later we were in the studio and we did the first track together and it was like boom, like right away a big hit with Phat Dope Shit.”

Each consequent release from Loco Dice and Buttrich has been met with applause from most corners of the industry, whether it was released under the name of Loco Dice or Martin Buttrich, and the duo are still nearly inseparable and often bounce ideas back and forth between each another. But still, there’s been much speculation on the nature of the creative partnership, with many critics unfairly assuming that it leans heavily on Buttrich’s talent. But the pair both insist this is not the case: a Loco Dice release comes from a Loco Dice idea as much as a Martin Buttrich one comes from one of his own, and it’s for much more innocent reasons that the two continue to work together.

“We are not only friends, we are really like a big family and we know each other exactly – what the other thinks and what the other likes and doesn’t like so he’s more like a little brother to me,” Achour explains. “It’s a running system right now between me and Martin and we enjoy it so much, it’s not about the technical things; it’s about, for me [that] music always must come from the heart, I must love it, if I don’t like what I’m doing I will stop it right away – I didn’t change from doing hip hop to electronic music because I could be a superstar or something, I had all my achievement with hip hop already in Europe.”

“I do everything with love, and this is the thing with Martin we enjoy so much sitting together in the studio and we are celebrating the track, not really working [because] we are having so much fun. Doing something on my own is a little bit boring, that’s why I chose to have a partner and do it and yes, if somebody else will come or the time will come when I sit with someone else in the studio and do something, this could happen, why not?”

Throughout the interview, Loco rarely deviates from this concept of family and shared creativity that permeates almost everything he does – from the way he subtly weaves the intentions of a crowd in his DJ sets, to the refinement of his and Buttrich’s relatively young but successful label Desolat.

“I’m not an egoist person, I hate to be alone. I like to gather around with good people people I like and do something together, create something together – I believe in the group feeling. It’s a whole family thing, I don’t want to put my stamp on an artist or say only this kind of artist can release on our label – we are creating something together, each artist that we sign brings his identity [and] his style into the label to bring it more to the next level.”

“Desolat, when I created it with Martin, was a hobby and it’s still a hobby you know, we love the music that is on it and we stand one hundred percent behind the music – we will never ever release something because we made it for a joke or because it’s on the release plan or we are forced to do something. Even if we don’t have a track, we would say okay, or half a year we don’t release anything until we find the right thing. We want to see the label growing with different styles and not our own stamp.”

Loco Dice tours Australian this May:

Friday May 15th – The Likes of You, Melbourne
Saturday May 16th – The Likes of You, Sydney

To get you in the mood for Loco Dice’s debut Australian tour, check out this amazing clip of him performing at the Love Parade in 2007…