Alan Oldham Gets Beyond Djax

Back in the mid 1990s in Melbourne when I used to buy most of my vinyl from my mates at Octave Records, the stand-out 12-inches on the shelves were the ones by Djax-Up-Beats, the Dutch label run by Saskia Slegers (aka Miss Djax).

A stand-out not just because the music sitting pretty on this wax – sourced from the likes of Mike Dearborn, Steve Poindexter, K. Alexi Shelby, Claude Young and Thomas Heckmann – was sensational, but because the actual record labels on each one of those 12-inch releases were even more gorgeous. Turns out they’d been lovingly designed by another essential musical contributor from Detroit, Alan Oldham (DJ T-1000), and he even took up the time to draw up a few thumping action-based comics for Djax as well.

Seventeen years on Oldham is still making essential tunes and in fact has a brand new LP on the cards. Funnily enough it’s called the Beyond Djax LP, it will be coming out in March 2011, and in the promo notes it’s listed as the companion CD to last year’s sold-out art show in Amsterdam.

“I had a gallery show late last year, at a venue in Amsterdam that also sells limited-edition toys,” Oldham related in an email interview I did with him this week.

“I was in the middle of a tour, so I was present for the opening, and it was attended by such friends as Dave Clarke, DJ Bone, DJ Kammy, Ritzi Lee, Shinedoe and other friends and art lovers who came in from Dresden, Paris, Berlin, and London. It was a very successful show. Ben Sims bought two pieces right off the wall! I was in A’dam for a week, so I painted new pieces to replace the ones that sold, and they sold too. There were only two or three pieces left over at the end of the show, which lasted a month. The CD digipak will contain pics from the opening! There’s also a hardcover art book to go with the event.”

On the new LP, ‘Theme From Vectra’ is cited as a score for Oldham’s comic-book, Vectra: Black Girl From The Future. That comic, like much of the man’s artwork, has a clear nod in the direction of Japanese manga.

“Well I was into anime and manga years ago, before they were so available in the United States,” he says.

“Although we had Speed Racer when I was a kid, anime didn’t really make an impact with me stylistically until Macross came to America as Robotech. Then, I met a girl in college named Reiko, who gave me a few original manga from Japan, which I still have in storage. That really opened my eyes. I then changed my superhero-type art style to a manga-inspired one, and created Johnny Gambit. It was one of the first American manga published in the USA, along with Reggie Byers’ Shuriken and Doug Rice’s Dynamo Joe. Wow, that was long time ago – before I got into electronic music.”

The track ‘Theme From Vectra’ is futurist electronic tech stuff that somehow captures the essence of the speed, style and colour of the comic.

You can read more of this interview over on a new blog thingy I'm doing for the Elektrax label on electronic music; it's called Techno How? ...get it? ;)

Black Tokyo

I have two disclaimers I need to unravel hereabouts in order to set the record straight about me and Aux 88. The first one is that I'm a huge fan of the Detroit duo, and have been for well over a decade.

Also known as Tommy Hamilton (aka Tom Tom) and Keith Tucker, they've released through respected labels like 430 West, Submerge, Metroplex, Direct Beat and Studio !K7.

Too many of their releases are absolute classics, like Aux Quadrant on Direct Beat, which hasn't left my record crate in about 15 years; I also really dig the self-titled Aux 88 album they put out through Soundscape over here in Japan five years ago - it's hot.

So it should come as no surprise that I've been keeping an eye on the Black Tokyo project they're finally releasing through Puzzlebox this week on November 22nd... along with nifty associated furniture.

Fortunately I haven't been anywhere near disappointed; this is superb stuff.

While the name of the album itself is a wee bit misleading - after all this has been engineered and produced by two Americans from Detroit rather than persons Japanese residing anywhere near Tokyo - they get away with this by calling themselves Arashi Hoshino and Shin Muramatsudo here; also on board for the ride are bona fide local musicians Akiko Murakat and Erika Tsuchiya, and the opening track 'Intro (Japenesse)' has a nice monologue in nihongo over lush strings.

There are also track title references to Japan like Kyoto Station, Winter in Japan, Tokyo Telacom, Tokyo Drive and, yes, Black Tokyo.

Musically speaking the album brings together that classic Detroit techno sound along with the more riotous electro sensibilities and basslines that Aux 88 are famous for.

The title track references classic Detroit by the likes of Derrick May and Carl Craig, wrapped around vocal riffs Kraftwerk would be proud to claim, while Tokyo Drive is a crisp, bouyant reconsideration of classic electro and Electronic Cinema continues this theme with some floating/spacious vocal work-outs.

Then Stance (Interlude) again takes up the baton of lush strings from the opening number.

But for me it's the second and eleventh tracks, Groove Theory and Dragon Fly, that stand out here as something subversive and definitely ones to drop on a late night, up-for-it floor in order to mess with some headz.


I'm also a little biased, which brings me slap-bang into that second disclaimer I alluded to above.

When I recently rather cheekily bounced the idea off them about doing a remix for one of my Little Nobody tracks, Hamilton and Tucker promptly agreed.

Even more jaw-dropping was Tucker's extra added bonus comment that "the original mix sounds hot.” (Zounds!)

That mix - called The Condimental Op - is being released along with the Aux 88 rejig and another one by Chicago pioneer K. Alexi Shelby (Transmat/Trax/Warp) on old skool vinyl at the end of November 2010 through IF? Records, via British distributor Prime Direct.

It's already being spun, charted and is gathering steam thanks to support from Laurent Garnier, Trevor Rockcliffe, Alan Oldham, Inigo Kennedy, Kirk Degiorgio, Steve Poindexter, Jerome Baker, Lenny Burden, Mike Dehnert, Dan Curtin and Anthony Shakir.

Dave Clarke's also spun the Aux 88 remix on his radio show White Noise - twice.