Kenneth Christiansen - Dub Techno - Event Recording

Name: Kenneth Christiansen
Profession: Labelowner (Echocord & Echocord Colour), co-owner of the club Culture Box, DJ
Current Releaase: Pattern Repeat, Gauge Tension EP on Echocord Colour

Seven years ago I already had the idea of an own record label in mind, when a guy came into the record store I was working for. It turned out he should be the final reason, why I founded the label Echocord, his name was Mikkel Metal. In that time I was a big fan of the Berlin scene around DIN Label, Basic Channel and
Rhythm&Sound and his sound was pretty similiar, but still he got a very unique style. I wanted to push Echocord in that dubby Techno Ambient direction, music that can be played in the club, but you can also listen to at home and now, seven years later, I must say it worked out pretty well. Of course also because of the good relationship I already had to the Kompakt people around Michael Mayer and Wolfgang Voigt. Now the label is a big thing for me, we have around 40 releases and I started another label, the Echocord Colour for more club orientated releases, which are about straight Dubstep or straight Techno.

About Music:
When Dubstep came up, I knew immediately, this will be a big theme for me: not that I play it so often in my DJ sets, but it helped a lot to open the listeners for Dub Techno. Artists, who always had big influence on me, are now about to come back, and form the forefront of a trend, which, I cannot deny, is pretty good for me and my label.
In the moment I see a lot of good things coming up from America , likewise Mike Huckaby, I know he has been around for many years, but his current releases fascinate me a lot. A must to name here is Luke Hess, whose album I released four months ago, it can be best described as Dub Techno with a lot of Detroit elements. And as far as I can say, he is about to push things way forward in 2010.
During my first trips to Berlin around 1991/92 for the Love Parade, I was listening to a lot of Detroit artists likewise Jeff Mills, Robert Hood and the Minimal Nation and I feel truely happy for them and that their sound gets popular again. The reasons might be found in the scene around Berghain and Ostgut Ton with the forefront of Marcel Dettmann and Ben Klock. They interprete Detroit in a completely new way and as they appreciate Dub a lot, I can see some interesting ways for cooperations.
For example in end of September I was playing at Fabric and they put all together:
they had Octave One and Juan Atkins playing there, Maurizio and an Echocord showcase at the same time.
The conglomeration of Detroit and Dub sound worked out so perfectly, it turned out to become a super good night. Then I played the Golden Pudel in Hamburg, which is actually my favourite club. Pudel is a tiny space, but always stuffed with open minded people. You can turn your set in a totally different direction and people stay on the dancefloor, listening and prying for the story in it. That’s what I aim for in my sets: to keep the audience curious and excited and the Pudel is just the perfect place for it.

About Culture Box:
I’ve benn running the Culture Box together with Loke Sander for five years now and try to focus to bring new talents from Denmark together with substantial music on an international level. Of course we had nearly all big names from Detroit, up to Germany’s heroes likewise Luciano and Ricardo Villalobos. Culture Box works fine with around 400 people, who enjoy the diversified booking and a good quality soundsystem. In the moment Copenhagen is not an easy-going place for this kind of music, but I hope we can survive.

About Pattern Repeat:
My newest project is called Pattern Repeat, I built it together with Dennis aka Resoe, the owner from Baum Records. Copenhagen is pretty small, everybody knows everybody and we got to know each other around ten or twelve years ago as we both worked in a record store called Loud Music, probably the best one Copenhagen ever had. The shop went pretty well for a period, but then Loud Music closed down, because most people started to order online, you know the story. One day, not too far away from now, Dennis invited me to his new studio, which he set up all on his own. I came there and was wow’ed immediately. So we sat down and did a track in only three hours, surprisingly good and we both had one thought: we just need to release this. While Dennis takes on the technical part, I am working on the creative composition. Dennis brought a full and deep sound to the project as he is a very good producer and engineer in all diverse kinds of music genres. Simple, but actually that’s all about it. Few weeks later we had the release on Echocord Colour. And in the moment we are already planning to do a new label for this, also called Pattern Repeat, on which the first release can be expected around January 2010.