Photo by Sam Rockman
Perc is a prominent DJ, producer, live performer, and the head of the mighty Perc Trax. Both Ali and his label exemplify institutions that have shaped the sets and even the minds of several generations of DJs and producers across various styles. We are fortunate to call him a friend, so the decision who to start our interview series with was made instantly.
VOID+1: Hello Ali, thank you for agreeing to this interview. How are you doing and what have you been up to lately? Are there any music-related news you can share that we might not already be aware of?
PERC: Hi there, I’m good. I’ve been busy touring around Europe and Asia in support of my album plus some festival appearances as well. When I’ve had some time at home I’ve been working on some remixes, I’ve finished four recently in quite different styles and I’m also working on some new original tracks of my own. The remixes will start coming out soon, but you’ll have to wait until next year for a new Perc EP from me.
Your latest album, “The Cut Off”, was released in March 2024. Could you give us some specifics about the idea behind it? Did anything peculiar or anecdotal happen during the process, or was it a smooth ride in honing your craft?
The general feeling behind the album was just about focussing a bit more on myself and pulling away a little from the wider techno scene. It was distracting for me and taking energy away from my own music making and DJ set preparation. The pre-production for the album started with a few days at a studio in north London that was packed with classic old analogue synths and some really crunchy early digital effects. I recorded a palette of sounds at this studio which would be exclusive to the new album, then at home I started to write demos using these sounds that eventually become ‘The Cut Off’. One thing that was strange was that this was the second album in a row where I had worked extensively with a live drummer and none of the drum recordings have made it to the final album. So I guess I’ll leave that idea for now.
Do you follow a particular schedule or method in your production approach, or is it more spontaneous? You’re on the road all the time, so there must be a lot of effort involved in balancing the much-needed rest from the weekend with your studio endeavours.
I’ve never had much luck making music on a laptop whilst travelling. For some reason it just doesn’t work for me. The ideas do not flow and the tracks sound bad when transferred to my main studio computer at home. Because of this I just try to maximise the results I get from the studio time I have when I am at home. A day when I am not gigging is generally administration, label and DJ stuff in the morning and production work in the afternoon and evening, but every day is different depending on what needs to be done and when the next Perc Trax release is due out.
You’ve been touring for a long time. Do you have any travel-hacks or tips for newcomers that can make their journey easier?
Not really, I’m still trying to work out the best way to travel comfortably, especially on longer trips. I always pack in the same way. The same items always in the same position in my DJ bag and I have a set of checks that I always do before I leave the house. No exact travel hacks though. Arrive early (but not too early) at the airport, stay hydrated and try to not let the whole experience stress you out.
What is your favourite movie of all time, and do you have a particular movie genre you are drawn to? “The Wicker” Man was mentioned among others in the press text for your 2011 album “Wicker & Steel”. Do movies still influence your productions?
I like weird folk horror stuff which ‘The Wicker Man’ is a great early example of that, but I go through phases with what I watch. For my ‘Bitter Music’ album that came out in 2017 I was influenced a lot by ‘2001:A Space Odyssey’ and especially its soundtrack. Those huge cluster chords on the Ligeti compositions were a big influence on the choir parts and synth pads on tracks like ‘The Thought That Counts’ and ‘Look What Your Love Has Done To Me’, this continues to this day with ‘Heartbeat Popper’ from ‘The Cut Off’.
There’s been been growing dissatisfaction among many artists in the scene over the past few years. However, it seems that these concerns are rarely addressed openly, except in private backstage conversations or through occasional, poorly worded online rants, which often do seemingly more harm than good and end up feeding the very “algorithm” they complain about negatively. Do you think it’s important to address these issues more directly? Are there any online or in-person behaviours from your peers that you would like to see more or less of for the potential improvement of our scene?
For someone that has been in the scene for a while it’s hard to speak about these issues without becoming a real life version of the ‘shouting at clouds’ meme. What I have noticed recently is that when older artists moan about the scene, they always see the time when they were playing their biggest gigs, making the most money and getting the most attention as when they thought the techno scene was at its best, which obviously is not always true. And for some older artists where interest in their music and DJ-ing has dropped off a little, the best way they can get attention online is to post a slightly controversial rant about the current techno scene.
This kind of post has become its own sub genre of social media post in itself, but whilst it does well with the artist’s older fans online, it alienates younger techno fans, who are the people that actually pay to go to club and festival events and it gives a bad impression to younger promoters than might want to book the artist.
My main point is that when the focus of a music genre moves from the musical to the visual then that genre’s future is at risk. If you follow an artist and click like on all their press shots and selfies but don’t click like when they announce an new EP or album, then you are part of the problem. Sadly artists who are just in the scene to make money or get fame see this and realise that it’s not worth spending time and money learning to produce when a fraction of that time and money could be spent putting together a photo shoot that could get them far more likes and attention and possibly lead to more gigs.
How do you personally see the current state of the scene? If you could wave a magic wand and change one specific scene/community related thing, what would it be?
The return of music being the main emphasis of the techno scene and a reduction in some of the performative elements of DJ-ing which are very common these days.
I like to see a DJ move and feel the music. No one wants to see a DJ standing there totally still behind the decks, but I also hate to see DJs climbing on the decks, shouting on the mic or leaving the booth to dance around the stage. It shows a lack of focus and that they are prioritising creating content instead of delivering the best possible musical experience for the people that paid good money to hear them DJ.
Photo by Almira Kho
Perc Trax is one of the leading techno labels of the last two decades. Do you have any particular direction or strategy in mind for the future of the label?
It’s a strange time for Perc Trax right now. The label clearly doesn’t fit in with really tough hardcore and psy-trance influenced techno which is popular now, but it also doesn’t align with the deeper, loopier 90’s influenced retro techno that has been coming back for the last year or so. So for now Perc Trax will just do its own thing and if other people like it then that’s a bonus. If this means a small drop in sales for a year or two that is fine for me. At least I know the label has kept true to what I love.
I hate it when I really get into a label and then suddenly it changes to a different type of techno to try to chase sales and relevancy, it really puts me off, just as does when a DJ completely changes sound from one weekend to the next. Change should be natural and evolutionary, not done suddenly to make money.
Please share your current top 5 tracks that you can’t resist playing in your sets?
1) Bad Boy Pete – Tekno Tempest
2) Million – MA2
3) Krismix – Pill’s Of The 90’s (Acerbic Remix)
4) Delta 9 – Hate Tank (Perc Remix)
5) Ganez The Terrible – Progress
What does your day off, or let’s say non-music related day, look like? Do you have any hobbies we don’t know about?
I generally don’t really have days off. I’m either travelling or working or both, so I don’t really have time to get deep into an activity or hobby outside of music. That might sound a bit weird or boring, but being an active part of the techno scene is all I’ve wanted to be, so every day I am grateful for what I do.
What’s next for You and Perc Trax respectively? Is there any info on your upcoming projects and/or releases that can be shared at this moment in time?
This year hasn’t been that busy for Perc Trax with just ‘The Cut Off’, an EP by Keepsakes and the Million remix of my old track ‘Fire In Negative’ coming out. Next year is looking busier with remixes of tracks from my album on the way plus a new Perc EP and hopefully some original tracks from Perc Trax new boy Million finally being released. Outside of Perc Trax, I have the remixes coming out soon that I mentioned earlier in this interview. Remixes for Selective Response, Player and Delta 9 have already been announced with one more being kept secret right now and there might even be a return to Void+1 for me in some shape or form 🙂
Bonus question by Scalameriya: I don’t remember whether I ever told you this, but I think I can recall the exact moment I became familiar with your name. It was through a Myspace video where Chris Liebing was playing your track “Up” from Kompakt Extra. The video was recorded with an old phone or camera, and the recording quality was horrible (I thought there was an airplane passing by while someone was filming), but the crowd was going absolutely crazy, so I looked up the track ID and realized the “airplane” was a part of the track. From that moment, I heard that track in seemingly every set for at least a year, as often as two other tracks from that era: Dubfire’s “Ribcage” and Rekorder 10. Was its success as noticeable for you personally, and is there a story about how you made and signed it?
‘Up’ was a very important track for me. It was an online collaboration with Canadian producer Thor Kell who went by the name ‘Fractal’. It was Thor that made the original rising tone sound, which I heard and I then asked if I could make it into a full track.
Before we made it I was sending demos to a lot of the big techno labels of the time and no one was replying to me or showing any interest in my tracks. Then I sent ‘Up’ to the same labels and immediately three labels wanted to sign it, which did prove that they were listening to demos! In the end ‘Up’ was signed to Kompakt because they wanted to release the track immediately, the other two labels that were interested wanted ‘Up’ to be the lead track of an EP, so I’d still have to write another 2 or 3 tracks for the release.
Kompakt at the time did very little DJ promotion for their releases. They just sent out vinyl copies to record shops and waited to see what happened. So with ‘Up’ nothing happened when it came out as very few people knew me, but then it slowly began to build across the summer of 2007. People would text me on a Saturday night saying they had heard it at a festival somewhere and this started to happen more and more frequently. It just grew and grew and I went from playing at small London after parties to playing my first international gigs in Ireland, France and Germany. By the end of the year I had quit my day job and was doing my best to be a full time DJ, producer and label owner. The first thing I did was try to make EPs for the labels that didn’t get ‘Up’, which I managed to do thankfully.
This was a time before social media when releasing on a few big labels was a number one way to raise your profile and get booked for events. I released records on Drumcode, CLR, Kompakt and Josh Wink’s Ovum in a short space of that time and that was the profile boost I really needed at the time.
It was great to release ‘Up’ and it really changed my life, the copies and clones of it that followed were annoying but I just had to ignore them and move onto my next releases. In terms of big moments that really changed my career, ‘Up’ is definitely one of them, along with the release of my albums and the success of ‘Look What Your Love Has Done To Me’.
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