Techno, Synth wave, New Wave WE FORFEIT
WE FORFEIT (Mix 7) :: YooDJ’s Special

Interview for YooDj's yoodjs.com/en/we-forfeit-speci...cial-for-yoodjs

WE FORFEIT – is a joint project of Robbie Geoghegan and Chris Robertson. Below is the story of their acquaintance and the formation of their musical views, and also what influenced it.

Hey,
first up, thanks for asking us to make a mix for ye; we’re delighted to do so and hope ye like what we’ve put together.

My name’s Robbie Geoghegan. I’m from the midlands in Ireland and yes Ireland has a midlands to any Birmingham folk furrowing their brows. I’m from a small town called Longford. I got into electronic music around the age of twelve or thirteen. My brother had the Ventolin remixes by Aphex Twin and I loved em and it grew from there. Since then I’ve been collecting records and have been lucky enough to live in a decent amount of different cities and pick up stuff in each of em. They all had something different musically, from forgotten disco in Vancouver to cracking nights out in Dublin, Belfast and Glasgow. I also learned a huge amount form the CBS, now IntergalacticFM and an amazing resource, and forums like robotsfororobts.

My family are pretty wordy, second name included in that, so I figured I’d do some music based writing in my early twenties and continue to do so. I’ve been writing for Igloo Mag for well over a decade now and really love working with Pietro and all the guys there, great team. It’s been a savage way to meet people and keep up to date with the weird and whacky world of machine music. Nowadays I continue to write for Igloo, a good decade on from when I started, and I also write copy for a number of labels, to name drop a few, such as Frigio here in Madrid, Bordello A Parigi in Amsterdam and Shipwrec also in The Netherlands. I love doing it.

Despite loving Glasgow the weather is a grind so I decided to pack up and move again. Records and turntables went back to Ireland and myself and my girlfriend moved to Madrid. It’s a brilliant spot. It’s a wee bit under the radar as everyone goes to Barcelona so ya avoid the Berlin effect of people just screaming to be heard. The people into music here, like Juanpablo from Frigio or Aitor who runs Femur, are super into it and real sound heads. After a year here I moved all my records over, like 300kg of em and now get a bit more time to practise.

I met Chris through a friend of my girlfirend’s and we hit it off immediately. It can be pretty hard to find folk into electronic music but Chris knows his stuff and also picks up different things to me which is great as we can bounce off each other. Like a year ago we started making the WE FORFEIT mixes. The setup is a bit sketchy with an aging DJM500 being my honed tool of choice but it gets the job done, more or less.

Bit by bit we’re getting more of a sense of what we want to do, which I guess is present a spread styles whilst trying to mix em together coherently. The mixes don’t necessarily have to be dancefloor based, the important thing really is that ya enjoy em on whatever personal level that might be. One thing we have stuck to is all mixes are done on vinyl and in one take. Anyone doing it knows it’s not that easy and we like the humanity of a slip here and there.

The mix is some tracks I like and thought went well together. I try not to stick to one style too much. Well that’s partially true. Sometimes it can be fun to limit yourself to something like techno and explore how broad it can be, other times I like to just fiddle about and see what comes of it. This 30 min bit from me is that, more an attempt to get in a spread of styles within a certain time.

The first track is by Richard H. Kirk and is the first track from his Number of Magic album from 1995. I got it as a promo from Warp when they used to give ya a white label or two when ya bought from em direct. The album is a weird mish mash of styles and is pretty demanding. I chose “Lost Souls On Funk” and knocked it up to 45. Next is a remix of Man Power by Pale Blue, Mike Simonetti and Elizebeth Wright, on Correspondent that plays into a sort of ghosty house track by Kiwisubzorus which came out on the excellent Fade to Dark compilation from Vielspaß in 2014. Jared Wilson follows with “Smartbar Acid” taken from his “Communing With Ghosts 12” on Dixon Avenue Basement Jams. I picked another track from Vielspaß as I really rate is as a label and think that if people heard more of it they’d support it more. The track is by Dramatis Personae and is the title track “Blasphemie”, a wonderfully dark piece of house that leans into wave. I went for Ian Martin next. He’s a fantastic producer and seems to be able to turn his hand to anything, moody atmospherics and blissed out ambient to terse electro and beyond. I picked something from a double EP he put out on Bio Rhythm, a label I pretty much buy everything from as it’s nearly all savage, entitled Sea of Visions. The track in here is the ultra-paranoid “The Surveillance Society”. Ian Martin just released on Das Ding’s Tear Apart Tapes and the last of the lot comes from the wave master himself. Das Ding is always great in my opinion and has managed to maintain his trademark sound whilst still sounding as fresh as when he first started in the 80s. The last track of my bit is “Try Out” from the Missing Tapes album on Minimal Wave.

Tracklist (1st part):

Richard H. Kirk :: Lost Souls On Funk (Warp) (45 rpm)

Man Power :: Boys Beware (Pale Blue Drum-A-Pella Remix) (Correspondent)

Kiwisubzorus :: Androspace (Vielspaß)

Jared Wilson :: Smartbar Acid (Dixon Avenue Basement Jams)

Dramatis Personae ‎:: Blasphemie (Vielspaß)

Ian Martin :: The Surveillance Society (Bio Rhythm)

Das Ding :: Try Out (Minimal Wave)

My name’s Chris Robertson and i was born and raised in the south of Glasgow, Scotland. My musical taste evolved through the well slightly cliched and well-trodden path of UK punk and American hardcore in my early teens through to the acerbic analogical noise of groups like Big Black and Scratch Acid. When I was 20 I discovered the illegal after-hours scene in Glasgow and bought a pair of technics 1210s from the owner of a shitty eurotrance club that was going into liquidation. I started buying records from local stores and after spending time in Berlin, I moved to Madrid to escape an ex girlfriend. I didn’t expect to spend long there but, by chance, I got caught up in the small but fertile scene here and became a regular at great club nights like analogical force and femur. It’s my home now and glad to be a small part of the scene here.
When making mixes I usually to dig through my record collection to find something to supplement whatever new records I’m listening to. This mix was different as I decided to use only tracks that had arrived as part of my most recent online buying binge. Given that the output of quality music tends to be higher at this time of year, it wasn’t difficult to put together a quick mix without having to fall back on dependable 90s bangers.

First up is rising young talent Melatonin Man with a track from his debut EP Cruise Control Love on Nous’klaer Audio. I’m particularly fond of the b-sides on this one with their apparent nods to 90s UK techno. James Shinra is up next with a track from his Supernova EP, a worthy follow-up to last year’s stunning Meteor on Madrid’s Analogical Force. Then it’s new label Eudemonia who have hit the ground running by getting Plant 43 to inaugurate their series of profit-sharing releases with Musicians Without Borders. It’s also some fine electro. Next up I chose one on Frustrated Funk. It seems like they’ve been around forever and their new releases are buy-on-sight for me. This one by /DL/MS/ was no different. Following, we have Aquarian Motion with a track from his North to South Mini-LP. There are 10 tracks on this beast, get it! My 30 minutes closes with Betonkust on 9300 records. This synthy wave track is a bit of an outlier on this 4-track EP of otherwise banging percussive techno and it’s nice to include something for the goth kids.

Tracklist (2nd part):

Melatonin Man :: To Allocate :: Nous Klaer Audio

James Shinra :: Runn :: Analogical Force

Plant 43 :: Edge Of The Wood :: Eudemonia

/DL/MS/ :: Flowers :: Frustrated Funk

Aquarian Motion :: Serenade :: Voodoo Gold Records

Betonkust :: Entertaining My Goth :: 9300 Records

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