Introducing: Cari Lekebusch

Driving his techno movement full speed into the new decade is Swedish soundsmith Cari Lekebusch. Backed by musical heavyweights Adam Beyer, Joel Mull and Jerome Sydenham and carrying a weighty roster that dance their way through Cari’s powerful fabric promo mix, we discover show just how his H-Productions label is anything but ordinary. Returning to a flavour rooted in its’ 90’s start-up, the new series of H-Prod events will be making their debut at our disco next March. So, to give you a slice of his techno delights, this Saturday Cari will be taking charge of Room Two alongside Paul Kalkbrenner LIV. Before we completely lose it on the dancefloor, fabric caught up with the music master to find out more about the themes, artists and philosophy behind the H-Production events and label scheduled for 2011. Download: Cari Lekebusch - fabric Promo Mix H-Productions has established itself as one of the more forward-thinking, conceptually based labels in the last couple of years. What motivated the early beginnings & what motivates you now with the label? Thank you very much, it’s a good time to compare the beginnings of H-PRODUCTIONS with today’s being since the flavour returned toward the beginning of the label, trying to work towards uncut, raw and stripped down tracks especially for DJ’s and dancefloors but also with some excursions on album projects, surprises and hidden “Easter eggs”. It motivates me like crazy to see the clubs and events of 2010 and compare them with the early days. PA sound systems are something that have been improved greatly and to see new generations of clubbers is also inspiring, to watch how they react to new and older tracks. It’s all more refined somehow nowadays and it’s very refreshing to see evolution in a music genre. Tell us about the” H” in H-Productions and what it stands for? In the start the label’s name was Hybrid Productions – Sound Architectures, mostly named just Hybrid in all the record stores. During the 90s a band called Hybrid bought the registration of the name Hybrid Worldwide, and my label got stuck although I have proof of the name since 1986. It all ended with me having to change the name to H-Productions instead, it’s not possible for a Techno label to buy the rights for a name Worldwide, it takes gigantic sums of money. The actual meaning of Hybrid is something that derives out of several sources, a sort of combination or mixture. A quite fascinating term when you ponder it for a while. Everything is Hybrid kind of. How is your events and label schedule looking for 2011? We are thrilled with the news that the new series of H-prod events will be launching at our disco next March. There’s lots of stuff planned, but the closest right now are a single and an album from Tony Rohr, another single from Alexi Delano and one from Jesper Dahlbäck and Cari Lekebusch. The Advent & Industrialyzer have just finished their single and Cari and Joel Mull are in progress of making something after that. Plus some others that are secret at the moment. What’s the theme around the H-Prod events? A bit of a classic touch with classic producers with a maybe not so classic sound. We will do team ups like me and Joel back to back, me and Alexi back 2 back as well as total takeovers where we all jam together combining some live elements with DJs, they’ll also be quite exclusive events as well with only in a few selected places and there will be lots of H-PROD tracks. We’re also planning to use some visuals for example to do video projections. Tell us a bit more about the H-Prod family and how they will be contributing to the new project in 2011? We’ll try to make it a bit more closer knit now that we have our management Bigfoot taking care of things that I couldn’t do by myself before, like coordinating the H-Prod events with myself and the other artists’ individual booking agents. It will be great to finally be able to set loose all kinds of ideas, the club events are a good example. Production-wise we will try to get some of the involved producers to create some music together and also to get some special guests remixes, for example, on the label from time to time. Label compilations and DJ sets from the artists is another example of something that we haven’t been able to utilize yet, the label’s back catalog is huge and there’s lots of history, so I think it will be a nice chain of things to do. Name five essential H-Production releases which sum up the H-Prod musical philosophy and general direction of the label, both past and present. Hard to take it down to five, but I guess I would pick a variety of flavors that have appeared. This is tricky, the catalogue is so big! 1. Jesper Dahlback – MOGGL (HPX45) 2010 2. Alexi Delano & Cari Lekebusch – Revelation (HPX32) 2009 3. Psychological Engineer Ron Maney – Hypnotic Tones (HYB014) 1995 4. Cari Lekebusch aka Ph. Rhythm Dr. – Underground Poetry (HYB024) 1995 5. Cari Lekebusch – Reverted (HP1204) 1997 Can you tell us a little bit more about your fabric promo mix and the inspiration behind it? As I’ve been in Fabric quite a few times in the past I kind of know what type of tracks and sounds I’d like to hear in that system. They have a very good sound system there and I think the club is classic and always inspiring to me every time I’ve been there. I’ve also had the fortune to play alongside many artists that I respect greatly there but I’m not stuck on one idea that I have for the night, I usually have a few in my back pocket and if I feel one idea line is not right I just try another. In the mix is a bit of inspiration derived from my gigs at Berghain in Berlin since I played at the Drumcode event there two weeks ago. Fabric and Berghain are two of my favourite clubs no doubt so it felt nice to kind of search for their similarities, they both give me chills down my back, the sound is almost holy! As far as the tracks go, I’ve used some new ones from H-PRODUCTIONS like the new single from Tony Rohr. I also play a heck of a load of Drumcode releases always, so I had to drop plenty from there and there are some tweaked out tracks from Luke Slater’s Mote Evolver label. I also play tracks from Joseph Capriati, Jerome Sydenham, Adam Beyer, Alan Fitzpatrick and his label 8 sided dice. Cari Lekebusch - fabric Promo Mix Tracklist: Tony Rohr – Sleestak – H-Productions Chris Liebing – Auf Und Ab – Drumcell & Audio Injection Remix Jerome Sydenham – Amp – Drumcode On/Off – Sticky Fingers – 8 Sided Dice Kaiserdisco – Legal Weapon Sasha Carassi – Spectogram – Drumcode Markantonio – Sade – Analytic Trail Bodyscrub – Forget About It – Steve Parker Remix Loud Neighbour – New Hop – Joseph Capriati Remix Dub Dummies – Mantra – Phil Kieran Remix – ISL Lucy – Happiness Is A Prison – Mote Egyptian Empire – The Horn Track – Mays & Patrique Bootleg Christian Smith – The Price Of Freedom Gary Beck – Yes – Bek Audio Tony Rohr – Oddmekanix – H-Productions + add untitled loops & fx by Cari Lekebusch