[acid-jazz] Interview :: DJ Klock - Daily Yomiuri

From: Wesley (wesleyc_at_cox.net)
Date: 2003-06-29 05:29:44

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    Interview :: DJ Klock - Daily Yomiuri

    interview with hip-hop DJ Klock (half of Cacoy), who's getting high
    praise from DJ Krush. it also mentions DJ Klock "collaborated [with DJ
    Krush] on a special box set that was released in conjunction with Nike
    in 2001." anyone have this box set?
    -Wesley

    --
    source: Daily Yomiuri
    PLAY BUTTON
    Complacency-bustin' beats
    By SUZANNAH TARTAN
    Despite the slowly growing hype around DJ Klock, he arrives at for the 
    interview, not with a label rep, but with his wife, Yuki. At the office 
    of his small record company, Clockwise, he even answers the phone.
     
    His music provides the same sort of surprise too. As his work with new 
    DJ unit Whahakha attests, his deft use of the mixer and turntables is 
    flawless. But though his skills may come from hip-hop and he may have 
    released his solo album on a techno label, his beats have more in common 
    with free jazz than either genre.
    And then there is Cacoy, his odd little side project with two members of 
    psychedelic group The Tenniscoats. Their new album, "Human Is Music," 
    sits somewhere between Young Marble Giant's stripped-down electro pop 
    and Yann Tierson's carnivalesque film scores.
    "I want to tamper with complacency," says Klock, waiting backstage at 
    Tokyo's Liquid Room before guesting on a friend's set. "For example, the 
    sound of a CD is made up of two tracks: a left channel and a right 
    channel. I started thinking about what would happen if I manipulated 
    only one channel because we take the stereo system for granted."
    Sounds like a true sound-geek talking, but Klock's approach has more in 
    common with avant-garde theories of performance than mere 
    knob-twiddling. In the 1920s, playwright Bertolt Brecht urged actors to 
    never let the audience get too comfortable, to continually remind them 
    that they are in fact watching a performance. Brecht called it the 
    "alienation effect."
    Klock's music gives the listener a similar jolt. Much beat-driven music 
    quickly becomes the soundtrack for some other activity, whether it's 
    dancing or washing the dishes. Klock never allows that. Just when his 
    beats threaten to hit a comfortable groove, they stutter, twist or 
    splinter, re-establishing themselves at the forefront of the listener's 
    consciousness.
    "The idea of manipulating what we take for granted, if you take it to 
    its logical absurdity, makes one think about human nature itself," says 
    Klock. "For example, what happened to Japan after it lost the war: 
    questions about progress and how progress occurred. Are people in 
    control of progress or a slave to it?"
    And this sort of insight is a second jolt: Klock actually has something 
    to say beyond the silly platitudes that litter most interviews with 
    Japanese musicians. This is partly because of his willful detachment. 
    Klock, 29, still lives, records and runs his small indie label from 
    Ibaraki.
    Could it could also be his law school education?
    "No, I was a terrible student," says Klock with a laugh. "It's from 
    talking with my wife. She has studied all sorts of interesting things."
    Klock's willingness to discuss, or even admit to, the intellectual as 
    well as musical roots of his music may also explain his close connection 
    with DJ Krush, another notably thoughtful musician. The duo collaborated 
    on a special box set that was released in conjunction with Nike in 2001, 
    and Klock is frequently lauded by Krush as one of the best of Japan's 
    new generation of DJs.
    The accolades from Krush are surprising because, on first listen, their 
    style is quite different. Klock's beats are spacious, sinewy and 
    challenging. Krush still adheres to a hip-hop aesthetic; his choice of 
    materials may be adventurous, but his music remains populist, and beats 
    steady and fat.
    "I do really love hip-hop," says Klock, "and the music I make has a 
    hip-hop background in that I've internalized it. The way [this 
    influence] comes out is not distinctly hip-hop. [Hip-hop] ultimately 
    belongs to someone else, to African-Americans. But the tools I use are 
    the same."
    If discovering hip-hop was an epiphany for Krush, transforming the 
    street punk into a turntable artist, then hearing Krush was an equally 
    formative experience for Klock.
    "Having listened to music all my life, I started questioning why 
    Japanese culture hadn't developed in terms of popular culture. I began 
    to wonder, 'Could The Beatles ever have come from Japan?' Then I 
    discovered Krush.
    "Japan has a real culture of negativity and cynicism caused, among other 
    reasons, by Japan losing the war. But out of this, you get a figure like 
    Krush, a real artist . . . because of his honesty. And that honesty has 
    become valued, has some currency and validity outside of Japan."
    Does Klock have similar aspirations? Certainly in the material sense: He 
    toured Europe last year and there has been interest in releasing Cacoy's 
    music overseas. But one senses greater ambition.
    Aside from enka, DJ Klock observes, Japan doesn't really have an 
    indigenous popular music culture. Could his goal be to pioneer a new 
    made-in-Japan genre? Klock becomes uncharacteristically sheepish.
    "Yeah, it would be OK to say that."
    For information about upcoming DJ Klock gigs, see his Web site: 
    www.clockwise-rec.com
    http://www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/getarticle.pl5?fm20030622st.htm
    -- 
    The Eclectic Sounds of Japan
    [Sound :: Lounge] http://groups.yahoo.com/group/SoundLounge