After a year-long hiatus, Perth based music maker Kriece is back on the radar in a big way, with a pile of new gear, a heaped helping of remixes and releases, and quite literally more new music than he knows what to do with. He recently took a few minutes out of his fertilizer-filled day to bring ITM up to speed on life in his world.

What’s the present situation with your DJing locally, do you play often in Perth?

Not for all of 2008, but now I’ll start doing the occasional gig – I will maybe target one gig a month or every couple of months, with some bits and pieces overseas. I almost did myself in touring in 2006 and 2007, and so have cut right back to spend more time at home.

To what extent do you think geography matters for electronic musicians? How has your career and/or your music been shaped by your residing in Perth?

Definitely. It’s quite funny, actually… for some reason a lot of people seem to think I live in the UK – so I will get a gig offer for the UK or Europe and then unfortunately have to point out I live in Perth, Australia. Maybe they think I live in Perth, Scotland?

You have an interesting collection of photos on your MySpace page – lots of audio production hardware, but then one of just a laptop and headphones. Do you use a lot of hardware in your productions?

Up until last year I was 100 per cent computer/softsynth based – however I felt that I needed a change of sound so I lashed out on analogue/outboard gear. The best thing I bought was an Anamod ATS-1 which is a tape simulator that apparently sounds as good as tape according to mastering gurus like Bob Katz. I didn’t get much change from $5k, but the sound is so dramatic that it’s definitely worth it – very rich and warm. I got a Moog Voyager also, but haven’t had as much success with that so far – the sound is undeniably fat and warm with a very ‘Moogy’ sound – however I have found it takes so much messing around to get things sounding right that it has affected my workflow. I am very impatient in the studio, and usually get a track done to pre-master stage in about 10 hours so this has been driving me nuts. I am going to sell it and I have ordered a Prophet 08 instead so hopefully have more success with that.

How are things going with your Kindred Sounds labels? What’s the reality of running a label in 2009? What role do you see labels like yours playing in today’s electronic music landscape?

The Kindred Sounds label group is ticking over nicely! Included in the stable are: Kindred Sounds, Arabica, Illegal Ninja Moves, Angry Monkey, Destroy the Ego and Spinifex. Kindred Sounds is still vinyl as well, however the sales are so shocking that I am weighing up the future for vinyl releases. I made a decision to invest in some big remixes over the last twelve months to give the labels a nice push. I got remixes from guys like Robert Babicz, Style of Eye, Martin Eyerer and Dave DK which have broadened the appeal of the labels.

One thing I have noticed recently running a label is that the whole free promo thing is getting out of hand. I am by no means an influential DJ, however I get inundated with unsolicited promo MP3s every day. I always shudder to think what someone like John Digweed or Sasha gets every day – it would literally be a full time job to download them all. It sounds a bit idealistic but I think the whole promo thing should be pared right back – fair enough, send them to influential DJs like Digweed, Sasha but that should be it. When it was all vinyl, the label had to consider the cost of sending each vinyl promo so needed to get genuine bang for buck when working out their promo list – however with the advent of mp3s it’s the same up front cost to send out either 10 or 1000 promos.

Your sound covers a lot of ground – how would you describe it? Do you think there’s much value in putting genres into boxes?

I think I have kinda stayed in the neighbourhood of ‘tech house’ right from the start. But I tend to get bored of a particular sound pretty quick, and so I try lots of different stuff in the studio which is why my music is reasonably diverse. I have had cracks at minimal, prog or electro-y stuff but I tend to find I am terrible at trying to force my music to sound a particular way. Whenever I try a real stylistic departure I find it eventually converges back to something that approximates ‘tech house’. Or it sounds contrived and I bin it.

Lastly, lets talk about your collaboration with Ram Dass. What first turned you on to him, and how did the collaboration come about?

When I got signed to 20:20 Vision, they signed me to an album deal and as part of the initial planning for that, I contacted Ram Dass through his website to see if I could sample some of his spoken word. I had been put onto his stuff by Sugar Ray and Phil Smart and was a real fan. Surprisingly, his manager responded right away and after sending some of my music to them they suggested a whole album set to Ram Dass’ old speeches from the 1960s. The whole story of him and Timothy Leary getting kicked out of Harvard for LSD experimentation was fascinating and made for some great material. I immersed myself in the album for months on end and become quite absorbed in it. There is a track on the album samples him chanting the Tibetan mantra Om Mani Padme Hum. After working on that track for a few days I couldn’t get that out of my head! After mixing the album in Los Angeles I went to hang out with him at his house in Hawaii which was really cool. The first time I have ever been genuinely starstruck.

If you’re in Sydney, you can catch Kriece doing his thing this Friday night at Loosekaboose, kicking off from 10pm at The Cross.