Introducing: Lucy, his album with Speedy J and his label, Stroboscopic Artefacts

Stroboscopic Artefacts is a label that has grasped the imagination of those who long for something that goes beyond the dancefloor, but, when employed by the right person, goes beyond the power of your usual 4/4. It’s music made with a deeply considered approach; one that is positively encouraged by the label’s founder, Lucy - an Italian born academic turned techno aficionado - who has a lot to do with the label’s incredibly accomplished 5 year legacy. There’s a lot of anticipation riding on Lucy’s journey to Room Two this coming Saturday as he prepares to join Terry Francis and Luke Slater in the booth and despite the fact that this won’t be his first time in Farringdon we’ve never had the label curator represented like this, here on our site. Time then for us to get to know him better... I thought we'd start from where you started out in Italy, what was going on there for you musically that made you want to get involved DJing? Actually I really started out first as a producer then started DJing later on. I began producing when I was about 15 with some synths and a computer and then I was around 18 I started organising parties on the beach because I was from a town called Palermo on the seaside, it had some amazing places and landscape to take advantage of. It was really about illegal raves there because the local policies weren’t very tolerant to the party scene. I just had so much fun playing music to people. Then I ended up moving to Siena in Tuscany for university, a beautiful town, where we kept on organising parties then when I moved to Paris a bit later, I started playing clubs. What were you studying at university, was it music based? No, I’ve never studied music. It was kind of a dream of mine but I’ve never had any academic education for music. I just did it for myself basically from being interested in classical stuff to jazz, anything you can think of really. My taste in music has always been really wide ranging. I enjoy high quality stuff whatever the trend may be - if there’s a strong message then I usually like it. I started out studying literature in Siena then I went onto specialize in Cognitive Science in Paris. It got to the point where I had to make a choice because my gigs and music were doing better and better, getting bigger and bigger so I didn’t have time to do both music and university. Music became something I could make a life for myself with and I chose music. That's a great position for you to be in, I read somewhere you were an author as well is that again something separate you were doing at uni and with your music? It was not that separate really, with the kind of studies I was involved with I was very interested in what I was studying, it really was my passion and it still is my passion because even if the universities were not offering that kind of subjects anymore I was still cultivate my own interest. So writing for me was very important but when music has such a big place I felt it was a strong enough medium of expression that was enough for me. I was trying to focus as much as I could on one project and directing all my energies to that one task and that’s enough for me. So when I started making music a lot I felt I had nothing to write about because I was already writing about it in another language. Do you feel that some of the ideas that you read about in your other disciplines play their part in the music you produce as well then? Absolutely, yes. Everything is always connected. If you imagine something that touches your entire life then of course it’s going to be part of you. Often I start from something I’ve read, a beautiful movie and then I get into a certain kind of mode – not a specific idea – but more of a state of the soul and then at that point I feel pushed to go into the studio to say something that’s in my mind. Again it’s about languages that can deeply communicate with each other. To talk about your label Stroboscopic Artefacts it seems like there's a very strong idea and aesthetic behind the label especially when it comes to the curation of your series, Stellate or Monad. When you're looking to curate those what do you have certain ideas about what them to be and put across? First of all I’d like to say there is not just one idea behind SA. It’s really not the kind of label that is reduced to DJ tools for me and SA. Club music is hugely important still but this doesn’t have to be DJ tools. You could say that the things that are very important to me and to us as a label is that kind of language again. When I approach an artist or an artist approaches me what I’m talking about with the concept series Stellate or when we’re discussing an artists upcoming album and we listen to the previews what we discuss is not about a specific idea, it’s more about what I’m looking for it’s a specific approach to the way you express yourself. I really believe in a more mental kind of approach and attitude to music rather than a specific idea because ideas in music go so fast, they come and go every year. So I don’t believe in seeing it that way, I believe much more if it has a more serious and deep approach then I’m pretty sure whatever they do is going to be amazing. So it’s a lot to do with having a different approach than just making something for the dancefloor then? Exactly. For me it’s very important to find people who are ready to challenge the dancefloor. The best DJ’s I’ve seen in my life are the ones that touched me deeply and left something in me for a long time, they were the people who managed to understand the dancefloor on one hand and on the other gave them what they wanted but what they didn’t know they wanted. This kind of challenge for me is the most interesting thing about going to see a DJ I think. Who would you pick out as DJ's who've done that for you? It’s hard to name someone because there are so many. But I’d say one example was a show from when I was about 17 when I saw Amon Tobin. He wasn’t that well known at the time in the town he was playing in, nobody really knew him apart from me and a few friends so there was a huge stage and just 35 people in front of it. But it was really immense actually, so I still remember it as one of the craziest extreme musical experiences of my life. More recently some Sunday morning/ afternoon in Berghain I saw Robert Hood and his Floorplan show – it was just totally at another level. You've just done your album with Speedy J together how did that come about? Actually it came about in a pretty faultless and simple way – that’s the coolest thing about this project. A couple of years ago I was invited by Speedy J and his Electric Deluxe team to play at one of their events in Amsterdam. I didn’t know Joachim (Speedy J) personally before but of course he was one of my major heroes because I grew up with the early Warp records stuff. Joachim then said I should stay for a few days after in the Netherlands and go to his studio to have some fun, there wasn’t really a special project in mind at that time. After the first session of about 8 hours we realised there was a massive potential in what we were doing because everything was coming out so fast. We weren’t acting under constraints of any kind – we were just there to make music which is amazing and we really enjoyed what we were doing and really liked what was coming out songwise so we realised this was more than just an EP and decided to go on and make an album together. What do you think that Speedy J’s influence did to your sound, what did he bring to the table that made the production different from your usual style? To be honest, I don't know how to answer this question because I have to say things were so faultless that it wasn’t really like that. With Joachim it was really a very natural and spontaneous process working together. I was really feeling we were doing this thing together and I can’t really separate my individual self from the output. That’s interesting to hear because sometimes producers can say well this person is what they do is they cut up the loops in a certain way or push themselves to do things in a different way… Well, also, the nature of the album and the way we were producing was very unconventional. It was not like ‘OK let’s find the high end’ it was more like ‘let’s find some space’ which is a very relative concept but in those moments we were understanding each other perfectly. So what sort of equipment and gear you used to produce the album on? What we used was very hybrid materials. For some of the first recordings we used a lot of very old vintage analogue machines, one was particularly important to me the first time I got to use it was in Joachim’s studio, the EMS Synthi AKS which is a crazy beast that I think was made in ’67 or something. We also used the Roland System 100 and these kind of machines, then we were also working with some material in Ableton and using a lot of sampling and manipulation. The basic important part was the original sounds first and then there was a lot of digital manipulation of the sounds, that’s how we worked it. And to move onto your visit to Farringdon at the weekend, when was the last time you played? Last time I played for WetYourSelf! Everytime I’ve played at fabric it’s been amazing and I guess Room Two where I’m playing this Saturday is really my place in the club so I’m really looking forward because it’s always great. I always feel like, "I've played fabric! wow cool!" I hope it's going to be like wunderbar.