Voitax - Techno vision

We meet the Voitax crew/label, made up of several young producers who decided to join forces in Berlin, giving rise to a genuinely lively experience. A project set up a good five years ago, capable of blending different techno souls through a distinctive, out-of-the-ordinary visual identity, a consistently forward-looking outlook, and even a precise historical fidelity to the Detroit sound. We reached out to the heart of the label, whose evolution began with the concept born from the brilliant pen of Marcus Glahn, a media design artist from the Bauhaus University in Weimar. Answering our questions are Ben, Christoph and Martin (Ben is Paàl, the acclaimed DJ-producer). The three share the same position within the label, in that each of them is the boss and works as director, creator and visionary. Joining them is also graphic designer Rosmarie Weinlich, who offered some keys to reading her work. A wide-ranging exchange of views at the heart of one of the most vibrant models on the German and European electronic scene, a possible example of a new "commune" and an intriguing breeding ground for talent.

The label's first release dates back to 2013 with the Paàl & Ezuri duo's EP, and since then you've adopted a kind of "no-names policy" on all your records, pressing them without info and stamping the label's logo by hand, one at a time. On top of that there are the inlays that added extra value to the packaging. Is all this simply a fun way to build suspense and draw in curious listeners and industry insiders alike, or does this "policy" hide a much deeper meaning?

Many of us were regularly recording as DJs and were already producers. A clear sonic concept had already formed in our minds, even if we couldn't quite put it into words among ourselves yet. One of our friends, Marcus, was studying Media Design at the Bauhaus University in Weimar and had the brilliant idea of not printing any names on the covers. This got us thinking a lot (and still does today). Some people judge too quickly without considering the quality or innovation of the music itself. People come into the record store with their minds already made up about what's considered "cool" at that moment and what's "up-and-coming". Producers aren't able to push things in a different direction. Keeping the artist's name hidden means freeing the label from all that. Artists are free to explore and be bold. We could release music by famous and unknown people side by side. Marcus made his own move too: being a keen photographer, he took a portrait of every artist. All the photos were shot on black-and-white film and then processed by hand in a darkroom, with the aim of distorting the artists' faces beyond recognition.

Seeing the whole thing as a "one-united-crew" is an intriguing idea. What drove you to found a label that sets out to differentiate itself from others by acting as if it were itself a kind of single "producer", blending together and creating a single stylistic mood through a careful selection of tracks and more or less "similar" artists?

When we started out, we decided to provide a platform for like-minded producers and artists to grow together, whether newcomers or already established names. Naturally, new friendships formed along the way too. We've had happy moments, just as we've worked through difficult situations together. Voitax has become a family and we want to keep it that way. We're not some big, money-hungry commercial label whose only aim is to sell records of mindless bosh-bosh techno. We want to leave our mark by doing something unique, creating our own sound and having fun doing it. Today we're four very close friends and we run the label all together, and we've built all this on strong bonds of friendship with our artists; we want to involve them individually in the development of the platform we've created. We believe it's these friendships (rather than any strict guidelines about the style our releases should adhere to) that have shaped the Voitax sound. All of us regularly listen to and critique each other's works in progress and support one another as much as we can.

Bleaching Agent, Swarm Intelligence, Makaton, Mondkopf, Domenico Crisci, Cressida, Unhuman are just some of the names who have joined your project. While starting from similar premises tied to the wildest, darkest techno - which has been raging for years now in Berlin before spreading across the whole of the Old Continent - each of them still has their own clearly distinguishable trademark. How do you select your producers? What's the process behind it?

It's hard to answer. Honestly, we don't have any concrete "process" or "system" when it comes to choosing artists. All of us have been involved with music for a long time and each of us has fairly broad tastes. That means our world doesn't revolve around just one specific sound. There's so much good music out there beyond our studio, and if you keep an eye out for it, you inevitably end up coming across all kinds of artists with all sorts of musical backgrounds. In short, we usually end up deciding on a given production in a fairly random way. That said, of course in the end we know what we want to release on our label and what we don't. So we could say there's a kind of subconscious "mechanism" at play. In other words, we just know it when we hear it.

In my opinion, Domenico Crisci is definitely one of the biggest Italian talents around who hasn't moved abroad, at least as far as the more dystopian, alienated side of techno is concerned. Many Italian producers tend to move away from their homeland, and Berlin is on average the most popular destination. So: what do you think drives a young producer to move so far away from their native country? Looking at it from the outside, how would you assess the "electronic" health of our country? How fascinated are you by contemporary electronic productions coming out of Italy?

We've probably never actually assessed the "electronic health of a country," but we don't think "good music" is something you can pin down on a map. "Good music" is also a subjective term. There are definitely some excellent things coming out of Italy, and we know some hugely talented producers from your country who are still under the radar. That said, good things come from all kinds of places all over the world, so it's not necessarily something tied to the "scene" or the "popularity" of a particular genre. As for why people come to Berlin, that's hard to explain. It might have to do with how well-connected the city is, both geographically (thanks to low-cost airlines) and within the various electronic scenes, since so many labels are based here.

The artwork for your first, thrilling various-artists compilation was created by Rosmarie Barbara Weinlich, an artist who's earned acclaim far and wide: in Germany, Israel, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Poland and the United States. What's behind that image? Was it a very deliberate, targeted choice, with a clear connection to the label, or did it come together more by chance?

The idea came from one of our label members when we were starting to plan a concept for the tenth release. Rosmarie is an artist and also a good friend of the whole crew; she offered to draw an image that she chose specifically for the compilation. We wanted her to feel free to draw whatever came to mind, and in the end we were all really happy with the result. There was no intention of defining the image from the outset — she simply wanted to put it at the center of the release and asked each artist to produce a track that connected with it.

Rosmarie: As a free-spirited artist, it's simply exciting to take part in this experiment with Voitax, creating a piece that will serve as the basis for a musical interpretation. I'm well aware of the kind of sound we're dealing with, since I'm a fan of the label and draw aesthetic value from it. In my work, I constantly engage with the phenomenal and with decay (or the "decadent" streak). Within that, my interpretations of natural sciences in painting and art installations take on an increasingly interesting symbolic content. For this piece, I stayed true to my method and gave myself over to a thought process immersed in a dystopia lit by light. Through dark graphite and white paper, I managed to create a fairly stark contrast around the origins of the sound and hold it in place within the space. Silk, wilderness, inconclusiveness and the power of life are all tied into these drawings, embodied in the figure of a winged serpent: Phanon.

In your experience, what's the current state of health of the techno genre? What would you suggest to young artists approaching this style?

Generally speaking, the way music gets made these days has become quite innovative, and you have so many ways to craft your own unique sound — it opens up a lot of possibilities for young producers. That said, we live in an age where we're increasingly overloaded with everyone's output, not just in music but in every field. So in the end it becomes hard to tell what's good from what's bad. Beyond the fact that people simply have different tastes, you can still always sense a certain quality in music, no matter the genre. In our view, that comes from choosing to give productions the time they need and not putting yourself under pressure, rather than just chasing expectations that come from outside. In the end it's always about your own idea, and as long as you keep your focus on what you enjoy making, the result will always be authentic and timeless.

In this splendid and thorough collection, I'd like to highlight just how wide the spectrum really is — listening to the Nyarlathotep track, I get the sense that it intersects with elements of early-80s minimal wave, without ever sacrificing a thoroughly contemporary production. You've said this collection can be listened to from your living room too. Is that a provocation, or do you think the time has come to untether techno from a certain kind of live listening experience?

We feel there are tracks on this compilation that would work well on the dancefloor, and others that are best enjoyed on headphones. That said, we don't believe there's a single setting for every sound. We often listen to all kinds of electronic music at home, and as for our event series in Berlin, we sometimes weave in ambient sounds alongside more dancefloor-friendly material. We made that choice simply because we wanted to create a compilation that spanned multiple genres and settings.

In the middle section of the collection, I notice the three wildest, most explosive tracks — Cressida, Swarm Intelligence, Crisci himself and Unhuman. While the circle closes with the dark, slow-burning fascination of Second Spectre. Did you arrange the tracks this way on purpose? Or is it simply the result of chance?

As described on the gatefold cover of "Voitax X Compilation," we tried to create a journey that could somehow guide the listener through the whole compilation. We spent many hours listening to all the final tracks, then sat down with the aim of pinning down a definitive running order, one that would best tell the story we were trying to create. So, to answer your question: yes, we deliberately arranged the tracks in this order. In our view, all the tracks work perfectly together and build on each other nicely across the whole release.

What are your latest projects, and what's cooking for the future?

With the new year we've kicked off a new run of releases ("VOI011" – "VOI020"), opening the series with a truly unique record by Paal, "Fitz Roy", followed by Voitax's first full-length, produced by Irish artist Swarm Intelligence and titled "Against The Dying Light". Ahead of these releases came the compilation "Voitax X", with its decidedly cinematic sound, which is still doing quite well for itself. Coming soon is a special debut EP from Esker, a dear friend of ours and part of the collective, as well as a talented musician — we're thrilled to have her on board. We've got a lot of activities in the works, and each one develops and comes together organically. We're working on many projects with new artists who've crossed our path; we're always on the lookout for new producers, photographers, painters — artists of all kinds and disciplines, generally speaking. We've also been very busy with our label nights across Europe and Asia, specifically in South Korea and Japan. We want to keep moving forward together, as the true crew we are, and keep playing together as Voitax Showcase. Through the label nights, the goal is definitely to spread the diversity of our sound and share it with new fans. For every label night we put on, we bring in label artists on a rotating basis and find interesting promoters to help shape the direction of the event. Another exciting new development is our recently started collaboration with photography teacher Nina Röder, whose incredible photographic work will be used for the covers of our new run of releases. We're truly honored and thrilled to see her work on our label's covers. We exhibited her photos at a show during our tour in Asia, specifically in Seoul at a contemporary art gallery, and the exhibition also featured shots by Marcus Glahn as well as work by Rosmarie Weinlich.