Recloose Interview: 'Keeping people creative, keeps me creative'

Even if you’re not overly au fait with Recloose, you might well be familiar with the story of an enterprising young producer who once managed to slip an impressive demo tape into a sandwich destined for a peckish Carl Craig.

Matthew Chicoine was a jobbing DJ/restaurant server at Detroit’s Russell Street Deli in the nineties, but that unusual filling quickly propelled him to a position as one of the most in-demand and respected young DJs and producers out of the United States, armed with a studious understanding of the soulful, machine drive sound of his home city.

Then, after a prolific period of DJing and producing, clocking up releases on seminal labels such as Peacefrog, Playhouse, but predominantly Craig’s own Planet E, Recloose turned, well, recluse.

In reality, the producer was sharpening his skills as a lecturer teaching music technology in New Zealand, and focusing the rest of his energy on raising a family. Two years ago, a job offer working with artists for DJing tech company Serato brought him back to the United States, specifically, New York.

With a fresh as ever release on Aus Music recently under his belt, alongside a PHD paper into the history of Detroit’s musical culture, Chicoine remains as sharp and fascinating as ever, both in the studio and in conversation. Ahead of his return to London for DJ Mag Sessions at Egg London this weekend, he caught up with John Thorp to chat academia, appropriation and his ever-evolving sandwich mythology.

So, following thirteen years in New Zealand teaching and producing, you’re back in the United States at shall we say an er, interesting time…

A terrifying juncture, yeah.

Your wife is from New Zealand, and you have children. I know it’s been two years since you returned, but balancing that personal move with a new job, I’m surprised you’ve found the time to produce any music at all. Are you settled now?

It was a huge undertaking moving here with a family, that was pretty full on. To do all that and set my studio up took a long time. But I finally have it set up. My day job is amazing, but really demanding. The hours never cease and my days never end. I get calls and texts at all hours from people who need help and support. It’s Serato’s biggest market, and up until two weeks ago, I was the only person here looking after it.

In short, it’s been hard finding time to work on music, but, I’m making time. It’s super important, and it is who I am. And I think there’s still a smattering of people who would be interested in what I do, so for me it’s really important to continue, even if the output isn’t fast and furious, as long as I’m doing gigs, putting out a couple of records and staying relevant - staying inspired - then that’s the most important thing to me.

I’d argue it’s more of a smattering. It must have been heartening to see people so receptive to your return?

It’s definitely heartening and encouraging for sure. Nobody lives in a bubble, and people might say they make music for themselves, sure, but people need affirmation from their fans and their peers. And it’s always a wind in my sail when I see people care and like what I’m doing. 

What with your work with Serato, you really live, eat and breathe music. You are ultimately involved in the commercial side of it as a day job. Is that a help or a hindrance to your career, and are you able to separate your own process from your work or teaching?

My approach to my ‘career’ has always been finding ways to engage in endeavours that compliment one another, and try and feed into on another. So if I get bored, if I’m in the studio too much, I can move to programming my radio show or putting a mix together, DJing, record shopping… And that continued when I took the teaching gig.

That was an amazing experience and it forced me to upscale in a whole lot of areas that I hadn’t spent time in as a producer and a DJ. Then to be able to write curriculum, teach music history and come up with creative ways to pass on this knowledge to a great bunch of students, who I learned a lot from myself, it was a gear shift but it came back to music. 

Then, with Serato, it’s the same thing. As you mention, it’s a commercial endeavour. But my job is essentially about helping people forward their own creativity by showing them a really great product. So the fact that my current job hinges on keeping people creative, keeps me creative.

So it all feeds in, and I get to spend a lot of time with an array of artists, some of whom I’ve been listening to for twenty five or thirty years of my life, others whom I didn’t really know until I took this job. But I pick things up from everyone, so even if I’m not making a lot of music, I’m on the sideline taking notes. And even if I don’t capitalise on it, it’s something that can share with someone else. I think exchanging ideas is something all of us are doing all the time. It’s worked out really well.

You’ve been producing since 1997, but I suppose teaching kids who are new to music, you have to deconstruct your own processes or ego to do them the best service?

Having twenty years of experience under your belt, you know what has worked for you, and that the life lessons you have taken from your experience are universally applicable. But then there are other things that are very specific to me, and I can’t impose that on these people, they need to discover this thing for themselves. And as well, their own tastes are specific to themselves.

We play lots of music in the classroom, but we make sure it’s a diverse range of music. And sometimes, I’d have to listen to music that I didn’t particularly care for. There’s no room to thump your chest and say, “I was there from day one, and this is the way we do, this is real shit, this is bullshit!” You can’t do that. You have to be open minded, and lead them to water, and if they drink, great, and if not then that’s OK too.

In Berlin, I sometimes encounter kids who do beat their chest and have an imagined an idea of what is ‘the real shit’. I think we’re in this place now where younger people, younger producers, adopt that attitude themselves, even if they’re new to production. Perhaps it’s because there’s so much history and heritage available?

I think it depends on what circles you run in. In Berlin, for example, which is such a concentrated hotbed of electronic music. The subcultures within Berlin will be so potent, as you all have access to the vanguard of this culture and the history behind it, that might be the case.

I think if you were to step outside that, you’d find it’s different in other places. And I think it is interesting, just how I’ve seen a lot of different music circles, and often times how ignorant those music circles are to one and other. For example, the cats that are super into trap music, or the cats with a freestyle approach to DJing or battling.

They have no idea what the subculture looks like in Berlin, which is it’s own massive, valid, living, breathing culture. And they’re similar, they come from the same family tree, but there’s sometimes not a lot of knowledge between them.

You’ve written extensively on the cultural and musical history of Detroit. Your PHD paper was called The Detroit Way: Creative Exchange in Music Production, 1950-2000. I imagine that went pretty deep?

Yeah, so that was a large period of time. I purposely predated the advent of the internet, at least in a musical capacity, because that’s a whole other subject. I couldn’t do all of that. It was really a study of different scenes that overlapped, either laterally or in terms of traditions, as well as temporally through time.

Just for me, it was a great experience, as I was able to add a lot of detail to my own knowledge when it came to Detroit’s musical history. I think everyone’s vaguely aware that it’s pretty deep and there’s been a lot of great music to come out of the city. But this really allowed me to bring into focus how amazing that city is.

As somebody with a relationship with the city, how do you think it’s represented on an international scale? Do you think it’s represented accurately or mythologised?

Well, yeah, it’s definitely mythologised. Well, here’s the thing, Detroit’s been a city that’s been in battle with its reputation. In America, that’s usually a negative reputation. It’s represented as the murder capital, the most segregated city in America, at different times, it has all these titles. And there’s this continuing, racist and classist negative connotation that stretches back many decades.

On the flip side, there’s this musical history of the city, that kind of counteracts that and paints more of an accurate portrait of what’s going on in the city. Every famous piece of Detroit music culture, is mythologised to a certain degree. But that would be the same in any scene. If you want to talk about jungle music in London the early nineties, there will be certain things that are forgotten about, and certain things that are told fifty times over and amplified. 

In short, it is, but there’s a root to it all, and the things people don’t see are how it’s all connected. The problem is, stories get over-told. The story of me handing Carl Craig a demo on tape in a sandwich, I’ve told that story hundreds of times in interviews, but you remember it in a different way each time. But there’s more than a seed of truth in that. And it’s really important to understand the breadth of the city’s musical story.

Recently, there seems to have been a renewed set of discussions on the issue of cultural appropriation in music production, and some would argue that Detroit is a city that has suffered from that. As somebody who is a former resident of the city, and as somebody who was written about it from an academic perspective, how do you perceive it?

I mean that’s a large, large kettle of fish in itself. How do I even speak for that? The first thing I need to acknowledge is that I myself have appropriated the music of Detroit to a degree. I’m a white male who grew up in the outer suburbs of Detroit. I have a different perspective to my colleagues from the city. 

I have spoken to friends, Detroit natives, who are incensed by certain acts who have borrowed from Detroit in name or in style, without having even been to the city. The problem there is you talk about the mythologising of Detroit. People use that mythology to often times add validity to what they’re doing. And I think that’s dangerous, you know? I’m thinking of other people who didn’t grow up to Detroit but moved to Detroit, and learned a lot about the scene.

The Rhythm and Sound guys, they moved to Detroit in the early nineties and worked closely with Juan Atkins and what not. And also, Orlando Voorn, he’s not from Detroit but he’s got a very close connection to the city and the people of the city. I think that’s different.

Before you take something you only understand from afar, you need to go there and be accepted by that community, and then if you want to give a cultural nod to them either in your style, or a subtle allusion to them in your sound or your style, then that’s more acceptable.

I’m not taking issue with anybody at all, I’m just saying this is what I heard, and how I feel as well. But I’m right in the middle of that argument, you know? I’m both. I spent time in Detroit, tonnes of my friends are still there making music and that city has left an indelible mark on what I do.

But at the same time, I moved to New Zealand for thirteen years, and people say, “You didn’t stay true to Detroit, you left the city” Oh, but I did my thesis, and I studied it, but then, “That’s not that the same as living here.” So I am perhaps fodder for that criticism as well, so it’s not something I can't point my finger at myself about.

You don’t DJ as much as you did in your youth. I’ve read stories about people driving to see you play each end every weekend while you were at university. I know you’re around music all the time, but when you’re playing internationally and you’ve that ninety minutes or two hours to represent, do you find it easy to slip back into that mode?

Well, that totally depends on who’s brought me out and what the party is. I’ve been a lot choosier about what I take. Ten years ago when I was still doing music full time, I took a lot of gigs that maybe I shouldn’t. Playing for instance in more commercial venues, I know some DJs who I have mad respect for are comfortable being able to play to those crowds and can do it skilfully.

I don’t want to do that. But lately I’ve been playing gigs where people know who I am, and I’ve been playing with great DJs and I’m working with great promoters. So even though I’m not playing as much, I feel more confident than ever rolling in there. Every DJ has a shitty gig, but the ratio for me lately has been more great gigs to shitty gigs. 

And it’s not a product plug, but DJing with Serato, which isn’t common now most people rock a USB stick, has made me a better DJ. I use the tools that are in there, and I’m well familiar with them because I work for the company and demo all the time. But something as conceptual as key mixing is so easy, and I use it religiously now.

The foundation of house and techno is the mix, riding that mix, and being able to key match songs that I had no idea worked together. I can put Kraftwerk with James Brown, ride the mix, and not do a cheesy mash up, but put two songs together and make them sound more amazing, and do the majority of your set like that? That’s been revolutionary to me. And I like to think I’m an engaging DJ.

Sometimes I lose people because I maybe try too much stuff, but I’m not a DJ who’s going to sit and do smooth blends for two hours, because that’s not how I learned.

The releases since you’ve come back have been on European labels such as Delusions of Grandeur and Aus Music. Now that you’re back in New York, and as someone who was involved in the scene when you were younger, how does the US scene look to you now, and can we expect release on US labels?

I think the scene has evolved a lot since I was first DJing. I used to play the most random spots. In the nineties, occasionally I’d get flown out to San Francisco, or Chicago, or I’d go to Miami for Winter Music Conference. I didn’t get booked much in the States, and if I did, it’d be a random spot. Like once I played at an abandoned strip mall in Minneapolis.

My agent gets inquiries for cities I’ve never played before, which is encouraging. There’s a new generation of younger people who I think, like you alluded to, have embraced the history and understand the core spirit of the music. 

As far as US labels, I’ve been talking to Carl Craig about doing stuff on Planet E again. Absolutely nothing is locked in! But I did send him the last record and he was really into it, but we ended up going with Aus Music for that. But I’d love to do another record on Planet E, just for old times’ sake. And shit, if that works, let’s just do more. I’m actually playing in New York this weekend with them. It’s really great to play with that crew, back together for a new generation.

You haven’t rested on your laurels at all, but it seems to be a gift that keeps on giving to have that association with Planet E, right?

Oh, absolutely. I’m 41 now and you start to see all these turning points in your life where the road splits, and that you’ve taken an unconventional route but gotten somewhere really interesting. And the sandwich story is played out and corny, but it’s true. I gave Carl that tape on a sandwich.

Oh, it was a tape? I’d heard it was a CD! More mythology….

This was before CDs man! It was a demon on rye, it was a cassette. That moment, and that relationship I developed with Carl, has been great for my career. Just having that co-sign was the bet co-sign I could get. He was my favourite, you know? Him and Juan Atkins. I mean, I love everyone, new school, old school, they’re killing it. But of all of them, Carl was really the one. So I really did luck out in working with him.

Catch Recloose at Egg London for DJ Mag Sessions on Saturday 24th September. Tickets available below.

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