Louisahhh!!! And Maelstrom – Influences

LOUISAHHH!!! – When the Grand Palais in Paris had a Bill Viola retrospective, I ended up going back twice because it was so good. The artist works with video in a way that meditates and questions time, data-structure, viewer emotional response. This was the first work presented in that show and it impacted me profoundly. Watching it changes how I feel; my internal compass is somehow reset by this work. Viola’s innovative ‘new media’ projections and presentations are also really interesting…I’m definitely taking notes from him for live performance concepts.

LOUISAHHH!!! – Henry Rollins is super annoying but I love how he talks about Iggy Pop here. I like this idea of the Jekyll and Hyde of the person and the persona and the no holds barred, helplessly punk rock tazmanian devil energy of this legendary performer. Can’t beat the master, but one can try.

LOUISAHHH!!! – I’m not that excited by fashion, generally, but Alexander Mcqueen’s posthumous ‘savage beauty’ show at the costume institute in New York’s metropolitan museum of art really blew my mind. It is so clear here that clothing just happened to be the medium for a full creative vision, exemplified not only in Mcqueen’s garments but more impressively in his insane fashion shows. In particular, violent robots spraying paint on models, a hologram of bescandaled Kate Moss billowing to the theme to Schindler’s List, fearless and grotesque aesthetic choices winding up strange and beautiful. This work is so inspiring in the idea that medium can be a platform for a much greater vision. As a record label, I believe RAAR strives for this.

LOUISAHHH!!! – I really enjoy the fearless presence that Abramovic brings, especially to her early work. Here, aggressively dismissing – or taking on – ‘art must be beautiful, artist must be beautiful’ by leaning into the message calls into question the definition of art, artist, beauty, ego, truth. This work is uncomfortable, which is why I like it.

LOUISAHHH!!! – This video is part of the Pompidou’s permanent collection and it feels like some sort of holy rave nostalgia, like getting dipped in someone else’s golden memory of wild youth. It resonates with how I feel about my own early days of nightlife, this work is really beautiful and innocent and magical.

MAELSTROM – Spiral Tribe were throwing illegal raves across Europe in the 90’s after Margaret Thatcher’s Criminal Justice Bill forced them out of the UK, and that’s how I first got exposed to Techno. In this video, circa 94, they were travelling across Germany and eastern Europe with a convoy of tank transporters howling a decomissioned MIG fighter plane and a sound system.

MAELSTROM – One of my main influences, I saw him live with his son once, and it took me to a place I had never been before. It’s similar to (good) techno in many ways as it involves some kind of altered state, hypnosis or trance. I was definitely not the same person after that show.

MAELSTROM – Techno used to be about the future, and now it seems it mainly reflects nostalgia for the past. Riojy Ikeda (also signed to Raster Noton) explores new frontiers in sound, shapes, lights and images. That’s the only way out of ‘retromania’. Exploring new forms is key. Super Symmetry has been developed with the CERN residency program, described as a “theoretical mathematical model” that explores the fringes of physics and sound, surveying the massive nature of particles.

MAELSTROM – This one has to be in my top 5 Boiler Room sets. Robert Hood aka Floorplan b2b with his Daughter Lyric Hood at Dekmantel festival. the energy is incredible. show this to anyone who thinks techno is always dark, moody and boring, it should prove him wrong.

MAELSTROM – I know a few DJs and producers who suffer from various forms of anxiety disorders, panic attacks, or depression. I’ve had these moments too. Most often, if you choose music or any other art form as a way to communicate with the world, it’s because you’re not very good with social interactions, so you spend most of your time locked up in this little studio room, totally on your own, trying to express all sorts of ideas or feelings through machines and cables. Then when you’re on tour, you suddenly have to dive into the open world: airports, hotels, promoters, crowds in a different city every night. Eventually you learn how to deal with it and enjoy the contrast between these very different aspects of your life. I know many will say it’s an enviable situation, but it’s nothing like the jet set lifestyle people have in mind when they picture what we do (It’s still something that is not very easy to understand for most people). This short film explores this subject way better than I do anyways.