Work Experience: if you could pick three dream collaborations from any period in time, who would you choose?
Such is the teaser we tackled Icicle with this week. And what better timing? His Rinse 19 mix, released last week, expands his now trademark frosty sonic spectrum with open-eared panache… Rolling from industrial standard tech to dubstep to raffish, snappy D&B with gritty glee, if anyone’s got a few strange dream collabos, it’s Icicle.
“What’s the point of playing one specific genre? Play with everything and see what happens!” he grins. Much, quite possibly, to the purists’ chagrin. “It all started with the album. There was some dubstep on there and I really wanted that to develop that. I really want people to like my sound and not be specific to one genre. I’m definitely not moving away from drum & bass – expanding can only make things better. It’s such a great time for electronic music.”
With a guarantee he’s not about to forget his 170-flavoured roots, and a killer DJ mix to boot, Icicle’s broadband vision is a fine example of how exciting D&B, bass and electronica can be when manipulated in the right hands. Mind you, if he could make his dream collaborations happen, the madness he’d be manipulating would teeter so far over the edge of music’s experimental edges it would be dangerous…
Rinse 19 is out now. Listen and download here. Look out for the stunning new four track BCN EP on Shogun Audio later this month!
Miles Davis
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FEPFH-gz3wE
“Probably the coolest person to ever make music! I’ve been listening to him most of my life and to be able to meet him would have been amazing. He’s a genius, he intrigues me and his musical history speaks for itself. That kind of moody, blue music that he does would lend itself to electronic music so well. Would he like our music if he was born 50 years later? Probably not! I think he’s the type of man who’d look down on you and go ‘are you crazy? I am a God, you are not worthy of me!’ But that makes the idea even more attractive for me! Kind Of Blue is one of my favourite albums, it’s pretty accessible… He’s done some weird shit as well!”
Stockhausen
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g5Xxe97H20k&feature=fvst
“This is a bit of a nerdy one to be honest but when I think about who I could actually learn something from, he would definitely be my dream collaborator. He was a very contemporary composer who just threw every single rule possible out of the window! He was also one of the first people to experiment with electronic instruments and made some really crazy atonal noises. He set a benchmark and was a real pioneer. He made a lot of remarks about electronic before he died saying techno producers were very lazy and just made simple music that misses the potential of electronic instruments. Try him out, he’s very challenging but worth getting to know… All you’ll get is weird orchestral soundscapes but he’s had a big influence.”
Kraftwerk
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-G28iyPtz0
“To make a tune with these guys would be wicked! I consider them to be the very first people of techno. Maybe not the first, they weren’t the first people to make synth pop, but definitely ones to really embrace techno’s potential with their self-made instruments and very repetitive grooves. They’re responsible for a lot! To make a techno-type tune with them would be amazing.”