The Hacker � �From computer world to tuning cars�

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23 Jan, 2005

We meet Michel Amato aka The Hacker in the Pias office in Brussels where he is to promote his latest album �Reves mecaniques� released on his very own label Goodlife which has been active since 1998. From his start in the hardcore techno to the massive success he found with Miss Kittin, Michel Amato has become one of today�s most talented and innovative French artists. High time to catch up with his work� (By Bernard Van Isacker)

SL. What did this solo experience teach you?

M. The less is the better, I don�t think that my music is minimal music but when I make a track I usually take off everything that is too much. I hate layering, it�s better to keep that what really makes the track. I listened a lot to Kraftwerk�s �Computerworld� when making this album and that�s really the perfect or even the best album in electronic music ever made. It all sounds very simple but it is very hard to achieve this simplicity. I spend hours on the reverb, echo, delay effects. Because I had the sound in my head and I didn�t got to actually create it. And then I got this old tape echo and suddenly that was it! These old effects bring this kind of original warmth into the material.

SL. When listening to your latest album �Reves mecaniques� I had sometimes the impression of listening to Nitzer Ebb anno 2004, especially on the track �Radiation�, where the vocals of Douglas would have well fit.

M. (Smiles) Well, I have to admit indeed that Nitzer Ebb, but also others like Front 242 and Depeche Mode have really been of an important influence on my musical output. It�s audible on �Radiation� but also on �Village of the damned�. What I tried to do with this album in order to create a similar but yet different sound was mixing ebm, newwave and electropop from the eighties or even new beat with Detroit techno. Techno is a completely different scene but there is a connection. Producers in Detroit have always been very much into Nitzer Ebb and related European music.

SL. Why is it that bands such as VNV Nation, Covenant and related do not transgress to the techno scene? Likewise, it often happens that techno artists don�t get into the electro/ebm scene either?

M. I think this is mainly because these are two different scenes. There is like the techno scene and the new ebm, future pop scene. I like Covenant a lot for example, I want to create this kind of bridge between both scenes but it is not easy. People like Terence Fixmer and David Caretta try to do the same. Fact is that both scenes have narrow-minded people that do not want to hear about bands with or without a singer. The ebm scene is not really into DJ�s, they think it�s music for people that tune their cars!

SL. Caroline Herve told me a while back that when you were together with her in the studio to work on �Soundtrack of now�, a track for her solo album, that you literally took over things. Tobi Neumann was no longer the boss so to speak.

M. (Laughs) Well, rest assured, I�m not someone who declares himself to be the boss. I really like to collaborate, you know! It�s just that I really had an idea what I wanted to do when I arrived in that Berlin studio. Also, I have a totally different way of producing than Tobi has, he likes to work with computers including the latest plug ins, all stuff that I never use. But he also had old equipment like old drum machines so I just picked out all what I wanted while he was saying �are you really sure you want to use this because I have everything in the computer!� Finally it was interesting for everybody, I could work in a professional studio and for him, well, we have to ask him! You can indeed say that my way of working is more �artisanal��

(�)

To read the complete interview, be sure to buy Side-Line issue 50!

Side-Line issue 50 at Side-Line shop
The Hacker CD's at music non stop

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