DeWalta Interview: The Berlin Connection

Photo: DeWalta

A favourite of revered labels like Vakant, Cynosure and Indigo Raw, Heidelberg born producer and DJ DeWalta is well placed as one of the techno's most exciting producers.

He spent his youth in symphony orchestras and improvisational jazz groups before moving to Berlin at the age of 13, and later, after experimenting with electronic music, found his calling with techno. But in a city that lives and breathes electronic music, it's even more difficult to truly standout, and yet that's exactly what he's done.

The multi-instrumentalist's hip-hop, jazz and funk sketched into in his immaculately designed, left of centre minimal techno is an exciting, highly sought after take on the genre - it's hardly surprising his records are favourites of Club der Visionaere champions Sonja Moonear and the big Chilean himself, Ricardo Villalobos.

The intergalactic, soaring saxophone he plays in his hugely impressive live act alongside Canadian producer Mike Shannon (below) is a key indicator that Koch is an artist who thrives outside the box - his label Meander another indicator that his outlook on modern electronic music is refreshingly original and finely curated.

Ahead of his arrival in Birmingham for debut clubnight iRis at Amusement 13 on Saturday 20th August, we caught a few minutes with him to discuss Berlin, collaboration, and why being picky label owner is more important now than ever before.

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You moved to Berlin as a teenager and have been based there ever since. The city is known for being a hub for techno and it houses many world renowned clubs - how often do you play in the clubs of Berlin?

It has an amazing techno scene. I used to play in Berlin all the time, but then I had to slow things down a bit because when it’s your hometown, everyone knows you and it becomes like ‘Oh, DeWalta is playing again…’

I run my residency at CDV (Club der Visionaere) once a month this summer season again. Damn! Its been over 10 years now… And a few gigs here and there in Berlin, but that’s enough for my hometown.

The last couple of years you've played at many of the world’s biggest events like Sonar in Barcelona, Amnesia in Ibiza…Have these been big years for you or is this now the norm?

Last year was a big year for me, yeah, but this year has been even more intense. Things have been growing gradually and every year seems to be different and special in its own way.

The past five years I have been working hard in the studio producing and releasing across different labels, including my own label Meander, Vakant which I’ve worked with a lot over the past 8 years and Mike Shannon’s Cynosure label. Last year was very important in terms of making the first appearances on bigger stages and this year I've been continuing down that path. The seeds that I’ve been planting are growing. 

So what you’ve been working on is starting to develop?

Yes and the line ups also make more sense this year. Ricardo (Villalobos) has been a friend for years and he’s been inspirational for me over the past 15 years that I’ve been in Berlin. When I went out, Ricardo was the guy I would go to see and when I put out my first records he would play them and I´d freak out. At some point he invited me to the studio and we did some jamming or recording of instruments I play. It makes sense that I appear in line ups with him. I’ve also known Sonja Moonear for many years…

We do love Sonja Moonear.

She is fantastic and may be one of the best DJs I know right know. I’ve known her for a long time and she’s always been fantastic but now she’s more recognised, deservedly. There are so many artists who are extremely talented but no one really knows about them. Then you see them in the line ups and then you’re like ‘woah, who is this person?!’ 

For how long have you been playing with the likes of Sonja and Ricardo? 

There’ve been parties in Berlin at CDV with Sonja for many years. The first time I played with her was 2008 or 2009. She's also invited me to play for her legendary annual birthday party in Geneva. We invited her to one of our Meander label-parties in Berlin. She was not as well known 6 years ago as today and I was completely unknown. Sonja has been in the techno scene for a long time though. Ricardo is obviously a life figure and in the end a lot of DJ-careers stem from his ability to introduce new talent to the world.

The first time we heard of DeWalta was with Mike Shannon and it was actually down to Ricardo playing ‘Cruise Ship featuring Danuel Tate’ on the Amnesia Terrace (above). You both make a lot of music together and play live together – how did this musical relationship come about?

All of these Canadian artists moved over to Berlin. I met Mathew Jonson, Mike Shannon, Konrad Black or Guillaume and Coutu Dumonts, all very important musicians in our music scene. Mike and I instantly clicked and wanted to make music together. Mike was looking for new people; he is very gifted at finding people and building a work/life family around him who can work together, tour together and play together.

He invited me to work in the studio so we started making tracks and putting them out. Ricardo would be one of the first to listen to them – it makes sense that he played the track at Amnesia because of the connection we have. We always send our tracks over to Ricardo.

Let’s turn to performing - when you play by yourself is it always a DJ set rather than a live set?

I don’t play live by myself anymore. I used to; because of the records I released, people wanted me to perform the music that they knew from me. The first time I was invited to Japan, South America or the States they would always want to listen to DeWalta’s own music performed live by DeWalta.

It’s interesting because making music and performing music seems to be a different thing these days. Previously it was not as separated as today. Now everyone asks me if I am more of a producer or more of a DJ… I’m not sure if separating these things is very smart, but people know you for a reason and in my case, it was the records I made first.

This doesn’t mean I am not a good DJ; even if I was recognised as a producer, I still love DJing and have always loved it. I consider myself a DJ just as I consider myself a producer. It doesn’t have to be separate, because I’ve been playing records for as long as I’ve been listening to music.

I just wanted to stop playing solo live shows because I got bored of playing my own music. I wanted to play other people’s music and mix it up. I stopped playing live by myself and now Mike and I only do the live thing together, which is double the fun.

Do you both take individual roles when making music together?

Mike is very good at selecting and choosing takes. When you record in the studio you have the first take, the second take, the third take, and Mike would sit down and pay close attention to the magic that happened in each take. He would choose the good one and say ‘let’s make it around this part’.

So Mike takes on the more constructive role, picking the music apart?

Totally, he is more constructive when we work together and I’m more the performer maybe. I’m comfortable playing notes; playing the trumpet, the saxophone, the piano – we’re jamming. I also take on a big role in mixing down a finished song. Mike is great with arranging. He would sit down and say ‘this was a good moment’. I really respect him for his ability to arrange and select recordings I played.

However when it comes to engineering, my role has become important as well. I’ve been building my studio over the past two years, so I have a very nice studio now in Berlin where we mix everything down. He would come over and ask ‘hey can I lend your ears?’ and we sit down and listen to his music together.

Bouncing ideas and tracks off of each other is very important in our community in Berlin. You’re so into it you don’t know if it’s good or not and you need another set of ears to listen to it. We help each other on a constructive basis.

Can you tell us more about your Meander label?

It’s a very boutique, very selective label. We only release music we completely agree with and that’s also different to what else is coming out. Our market is very, very saturated and if I hear something that I think has a place or a niche in all of this, I give it a shot. I discuss it with Fabian, who is actually my best friend from high school. He is very important for the label, like the manager. I’m more the A&R guy so I meet a lot of people and I bring the music home and show it to him. There’s so much music in the world… 

It’s hard to keep up...

It is. We could technically put out 15 records a year but we want to find out what’s really important. For example, one of our latest records is from Konrad Black (listen to 'Silene Dust' below). We know him through the social life, but he’s an extremely gifted musician who hasn’t been putting out much music for a long time.

We hung out at an after party and he showed me something and asked what I thought. I signed it instantly, right there, that moment. Because he’s not so well known anymore as a producer in the scene (even though he was 10 years ago) you need to work around it and think of a way to deliver it in a way to the people that makes sense to them. He’s very good at that and it made complete sense that we put this out. Also we were flattered he chose Meander to release this strong record.

So you tend not to release many records on the label?

We do not release lots of records, only very chosen, very few records. Our maximum is four in a year. We started in 2007 and we’re now at number 16. There aren’t a lot of records but in my opinion they matter and funnily they also matter to DJs like Ricardo and many others! I don’t think that doing too much is good and I believe choosing and being picky is very important – it’s going to be even more important in the next 10/15 years. 

Is there anything in the pipeline for Meander?

We have a few things – a few months back we released more music from myself and Cristi Cons, another very gifted musician. Also there's a follow-up record from Chris Hreno (below), who released on Meander a few years back. There’s a lot of niche stuff that needs to be out there but it only makes sense if you give it the right space and the right attention.

What do you have in the pipeline in terms of productions?

Mike and I have a full length album which we released a few months ago, it actually sold out in just a couple of weeks. With Mike it’s very natural and it just came together. We are now working on new music and reshaping our live set.

I have also done some tracks under different names. I’ve been enjoying disappearing and hiding behind other aliases. For example, Seth Troxler is a good friend of mine, and we’ve been in touch for a long time and I’ve released some of my tracks on his and The Martinez Brothers’ label Tuskegee. That was under a different alias - “Kool D”.

DeWalta is one of the things I like doing but there’s more to it in the studio. I’m also working on ambient music and in the long term, I’d be interested in working on music for film – more than just the rave!

What tracks have you been playing a lot recently?

There’s this unknown track called '¡redream! – 11' which I’ve been playing for a long time. That’s one of the strongest tracks that’s been around and I play it pretty much every set. I also play Konrad Black’s Meander 16 and the Barac remix of that (above) which I find very strong and I like playing Ricardo’s productions. He gives me a few unreleased tracks every once in a while and his stuff is outstanding. The Apollonia album was also fantastic. 

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