Metalism is a full length album release from two of techno’s most revered artists and DJs – Speedy J and Chris Liebing.Metalism is a full length album release from two of techno’s most revered artists and DJs – Speedy J and Chris Liebing. Combining the pairs mastery of subversive electronics and peak time techno, Collabs 3000 is a smouldering collision of taught techno rhthyms and sonic abstraction and as the title suggests, robust metallic beats.
The collabs series was established by longtime novamute artist Speedy J (aka Jochem Paap) in order to release a series of 12”s as collaborations with other artists. The first two saw a joining of forces with Adam Beyer and then Literon whilst the third and fourth 12”s witnessed Speedy hooking up with German DJ and producer, Chris Liebing and more recently as Collabs 400 he has teamed up with French producer George Issikidis (previously of The Micronauts fame).
Speedy’s career spans even further back, though he first came to prominence through his work on Richie Hawtin’s fledgling Plus 8 label in the early 1990s. Indeed, he was the first oversees producer to grace the imprint. Since then he’s been responsible for an expansive catalogue of work that has transcended genre pigeonholes and numerous ground-breaking albums on Warp ‘Ginger’ (1992) and G-Spot (1995) before moving over to current label home novamute for 1997s incredible ‘Public Energy No.1’, 1999s ‘A Shocking Hobby’ and 2002s ‘Loudboxer’ as well as an extensive live touring CV that has seen him tear up clubs and festivals the world over.
It’s no overstatement to say that Chris Liebing is one of the biggest stars of european techno. From early beginnings working for seminal label, Eye-Q, Chris worked his way through the ranks, juggling a busy career in production, DJing and club promotion. It was in the mid-nineties when his status was secured, with a prestigious DJ residency at the Omen club in Frankfurt and the foundation of his ’Fine Audio Recordings’ label which put him firmly on the map with successful releases such as Audio 07 and Audio 11. His popularity grew at an alarming rate, bringing further opportunities which have seen him take a residency at Privilege Ibiza alongside Mauro Piccotto and a bi-monthly residency at Avalon NYC and DJ magazine’s yearly top 100 DJ poll made him the highest chart climber in their history (from No. 88 in 2003 to No. 23 in 2004) whilst he has consolidated his stable of labels under the ’CLR’ banner.
Whilst Chris and Speedy J had already crossed paths when Chris asked Speedy to remix CLR 07 (released as CLRetry 02) it was in fact during the CLRetry tour in June that year that the pair started to form a stronger understanding of each other and their collaborative power. ”I played after Speedy,” recalls Liebing, “and I basically started by mixing into the end of his live set. You could call that the very first step of the collabs live session. A day later in Chemnitz (Germany) I believe we even did that again, but even a bit more extensive.”
However, when both played at St. Andrews Hall during the DEMF in Detroit that summer the pair blurred the lines between live and DJ as they fused Ableton live, final scratch and software technology to create a fully integrated set and the duo’s first live Collabs session. „The focus of our show is collaboration and improvisation,“ state the pair. „The way we perform totally blurs the boundaries between DJing and playing live. For the music we draw from a huge collection of custom loops, tracks and sound which were generated during our studio sessions over the last two years and there will also be use of other people's music (the last remaining element of DJing in our show). However, everything can be manipulated, morphed, re-arranged and treated on the fly.“
Both have well over a decade of experience in DJing and playinglive and although both disciplines are still considered as two different ways to perform by many, they noticed that the performance setups that they used to DJ (Chris) and playing live (Jochem) became virtually the same over the past few years. „After our first Collabs sessions were performed on our individual systems we realized that it was time to let go of the idea of being strapped into these two disciplines. So we spent some time rethinking our setups and put together a complex hi-tech performance system for the tour consisting of laptops, controllers, samplers and many effects so we decidedto leave out the turntables. Our performance system will allow us do anything that can be done on a traditional DJ setup, plus many many things more.“
The pair see this best showcased live in longer sets where they can jam and improvise for a longer period whilst still keeping the energy of the crowd maintained. „Musically the focus will be on the sound we have worked on for the Collabs album. It will be highly danceable and energetic, much like the sets the audience knows from us as individual performers, but it will be much more dynamic, varied and adventurous. Where long sets by single performers can get boring at parts, our experience is that a Collabs show keeps the crowd’s attention throughout the entire set.“
Enthused by their newfound ideas, Chris hooked up at Jochem’s Rotterdam studio that December and the pair started working on material for Speedy J’s Collabs series. The resultant gamut of tracks now leads us to this Collabs 3000 long player. From brutal tough drums and more obvious dancefloor bound techno to more experimental and quirky meanderings, Collabs 3000 showcases two of the world’s most recognized forces in techno hitting the top of their game.
www.novamute.com /
www.speedyj.com /
www.cl-rec.com
COLLABS 3000 TOUR DATES
Fri 30-Sep-05 Melbourne The Metro Australia
Sat 1-Oct-05 Sydney City Hotel Australia
Sun 2-Oct-05 Adelaide Earth Nightclub Australia
ues 11-Oct-05 Caracas Casa Siclia Venezuela
Wed 12-Oct-05 Bogota El Pasha Colomba
Fri 21-Oct-05 Athens EJEKT EVENTS Greece
Sat 22-Oct-05 Lahr Audio Love @ Universal Dog Germany
Fri 28-Oct-05 Amsterdam Speakerplay @ Hotel Areana Holland
Sat 29-Oct-05 Fraga Hucesa Winter Desert Festival Headline
Mon 31-Oct-05 Dusseldorf Tor 3 Germany
Sat 5-Nov-05 Vienna Gazometer Austria
Fri 11-Nov-05 Budapest Deadcode @ Events Hall Hungary
Sat 12-Nov-05 Gent I love Techno
Sat 17-Dec-05 Amsterdam Innercity - 3 stages Holland
More info:
www.novamute.com (source: Persbericht) 
