the fucking roof, everyone wanted it because BERLIN TRILOGY it was so different. Then came the second In this final part of an Visions Of Shiva single, ‘How Much Can You Take?’, which was even bigger for us, and then interview with film-maker and I asked Paul van Dyk to do a remix for Humate’s label supremo Mark Reeder, ‘Love Stimulation’ as I wanted to give Paul the opportunity to try remixing. That single was legend of Berlin, we take it massive too, and it catapulted Paul into the through the ‘90s to now... stratosphere. “As the decade evolved, trance started to ‘IN 1991, Dimitri Hegemann said, ‘I’ve found become more and more unimaginative and this amazing place, Tresor, it’s an old bank very repetitive — it was almost like music vault of a former department store in the by numbers. You had to have that particular middle of the death strip [the no-mans-land sounding bass drum, that certain synth sound between the Berlin Wall]’. I was thinking of and a colossal snare roll, and I got bored. There something like from a James Bond film, a was no innovation, it was cheesy and treading shiny, steely, gleaming bank vault, but when I over the same old ground. By the end of the saw it it was this horrible, musty, stinking old ‘90s, techno had started to go all minimal and vault full of rusty safety deposit boxes.” intellectual and trance had become tedious. What’s more, both trance and techno were You must’ve made some money out of your losing their dancefloor sexuality. MFS night and label… “I wondered, why are all these people going “Cash was never my motivation, making new out? It’s not just to take drugs — it’s because music was. The techno scene was still quite of the sexual ritual of going out and dancing this project.” small and fresh. I started MFS (Masterminded together. Both minimal techno and trance “I’ve been taking photos since 1985,” Matt For Success) in 1990 really as a platform were missing that most important element, says. “It’s very much a diary of opposition…”. for Eastie kids. Back then, the toughness of so I decided to start something new with a It’s an immensely well-crafted, beautiful index on techno was measured in how many ks were Hungarian DJ called Corvin Dalek. I had met the underground rave scene around the Kill The in the word tekno. Tekkkno was really hard. him a few years before at a Paul van Dyk party Bill period of the ‘90s — a rare insight to times None of my UK mates really got it. They were that he promoted in the Czech Republic and when people rarely took cameras out, and life was still into rave — Happy Mondays, Stone Roses, when Corvin moved to Berlin, I suggested largely undocumented. “I chose the paper, made Inspiral Carpets. I thought, ‘How can I get we create a new style of Eastern European- the pictures, lived the times…” says Matt on the them into techno?’ influenced music that was both techy, tribal book’s DiY ethos. “I also wanted to release music that mirrored and driving, but equally oozing in sexuality. We As well as buying the Exist To Resist book, you can that emotional up and down feeling of the called it ‘Wet & Hard’. also support the project with hoodies, tees, and a reunification of Germany, combined with visit to the exhibition. Pictures speak thousands euphoria on E, where everyone was unified on That sound resonates and ricochets around of words, but wise ones go a long way. Here are a the dancefloor — all of us dancing on the same Berghain now, no? And then the Kit Kat Klub few from Dominic Butler of the Stanton Warriors: mental plane. I thought it might be interesting that pushed a bit harder… “When I was at school, dance music was in effect to combine techno with emotional chord “Corvin was like a god at the Kit Kat Klub. illegal — in so far as mainstream radio didn’t changes like you’d find in Wagner or Mahler We travelled around the world, doing these play it, the tabloids said it was drug music, and and add repetitive, hypnotic, trance-inducing Wet&Hard parties, and he was on the brink of clubs didn’t really do parties. So we went into the sequences and a hookline. I proposed this idea becoming huge, but soon became disillusioned middle of nowhere to get our musical fix. Playing to Cosmic Baby, who interpreted it in his own and eventually hung up his headphones. at raves like Castle Morton cemented my love for way. I called it hypnotic-trance, but the music “It was about this time that I got asked to this culture, no matter how much the powers- magazines simply dropped the 'hypnotic' bit.” do an ‘80s-style remix for Blank & Jones. I that-be tried to stop us. Exist To Resist perfectly thought, ‘OK, just this once’, but then came encapsulates this life-changing moment in time Tell us about Visions Of Shiva and Paul van the Pet Shop Boys and they liked what I’d done in an honest and informative way.” Dyk… and asked me to do something similar for them •Order your copy of Exist To Resist for £35 from “That first Visions Of Shiva single went through — and that’s roughly what I still do now." youthclubarchive.com/store DJMAG.COM 105 DJ576.Reg-OffTheFloor.indd 105 16/11/2017 15:58.