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Music

On the Road with Gerd Janson, the DJ's DJ Behind Rush Hour's 'Musik for Autobahns II'

"Music that sounds good in a car, while you are driving to a club."
Photo by Ben Price.

Gerd Janson is the rare Renaissance man in modern electronic music. He runs Germany's top-shelf Running Back label alongside Thorsten Scheu, writes for music magazines like Groove and Spex, and is a DJ's DJ, equally adept at rocking Output at peak hour as he was keeping trainspotters craning their necks at Trouw (RIP). Janson is also part of Red Bull Music Academy's braintrust, one half of the duo Tuff City Kids, and, when he finds the time, a curator of killer compilations. Back in 2007, he put out two volumes of Computer Incarnations for World Peace, which mixed together Sylvester, former Frank Zappa violinist Jean-Luc Ponty, Swiss Balearic master Lexx, and a dreamteam collaboration between Todd Terje and Prins Thomas.

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Three years ago, Janson pulled together a new set of tracks for Amsterdam's Rush Hour label. Entitled Musik for Autobahns: Industrial Ambient & Electrifying New Age, it boasted a roster featuring the likes of Motor City Drum Ensemble, Âme, Willie Burns, Tensanke, and Osborne, to name a few. Pulling from leading luminaries in Berlin and Amsterdam, as well as the American underground, MfA was a heady modern electronic music compilation that connected the dots between old-school German kosmische, modern Detroit techno, slo-mo chug, and smoky house music.

Now, Janson is back with a second installment, subtitled "Ambient Race Car Music." Janson has outdone himself here, overhauling most of the guests from the first volume so as to showcase some well-known dance music talents doing a-typical work. There are relative newcomers like Conga Radio, AKSK, and Shan, as well as dubstep heavyweight Joy Orbison, the UK's Leon Vynnehall, and Ireland's Bicep. We reached out to Janson, and asked him what led to this fast and furious sequel.

What was response like to the first edition of Musik for Autobahns?
Maybe not overwhelming, but I think it was quite positive. Or at least decent enough to have the lovely people at Rush Hour asking me for a second try.

Was there a different intent this time? This one is tagged "Ambient Race Car Music."
The intent was the same: music that sounds good in a car, while you are driving to a club. It was quite a common thing to do in the Germany of the 1990s. I don't know if the kids are still up for such road trips. But adding "Ambient Race Car Music" is just in consideration of the circumstance that we needed a new subtitle.

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Do you ever give artists musical parameters to keep in mind? Or is it more about music that works well for driving?
I explain the idea and sent them the first volume. But then, it's usually just duck and cover and hope for the best until the artists come back with results. There was neither an urge to have an "indie" edge nor a specific vision that it had to be more dance-oriented. It just fell into place, and I had to ask (mostly) different people to keep it interesting.

I feel like these are rather a-typical productions for the artists in question. For example, I would have been be hard pressed to identify the Joy Orbison track as Joy Orbison. What makes artists give you such unexpected tracks?
I guess my winning smile and witty charms do the job here. But to be honest, it's rather an unconscious process. I just think of people that I like, explain the concept, and tell them that it doesn't have to be a dance-floor type of track. I guess I just got lucky. But you are right with the Joy Orbison track—even I have to rub my eyes again and again.

Which track was the biggest surprise when it arrived?
In order to not mention Joy Orbison again and definitely without favoring one kid over the other, I'd put my bet on the Bicep contribution, "Carmine." The guys showed a diversity, playfulness, and wittiness here that I really didn't expect. But come to think of it, they are such dedicated nerds, and they seem to put as much time and the effort into their studio work as they used to put into their record collections. It reminded me of an analog John Carpenter jam and the like.

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I think the only holdover from the first installment is Diego Herrera, aka Suzanne Kraft. His track—credited to AKSK—is by far the most pop thing on the comp, right down to the vocals. What do you make of his evolution from the Green Flash EP—which Running Back put out back in 2011—to this?
It's pretty FM radio, isn't it? He actually played it for me while I was in the passenger seat of his dad's car, driving around Los Angeles. It sounded great in the car, and I immediately begged him for it with the second volume in mind. In general, he succeeded in the difficult transition from sample-based [work] to the ways and means of a "real" musician—and he does so quite convincingly.

How did you come across Conga Radio? What about their track makes it work as the lead-off?
It's a project of Jex Opolis, whose work on Good Timin I admire and who also is responsible for one of the next Running Back releases as Jex. It's the lead because the necessities of vinyl demand that tracks meant to be louder in volume and meant to get some club play have to be first. It's physics!

Orlando Voorn's discography goes back to the mid 90s, and he's a mainstay of Dutch dance music. Was it a dream to finally have him contribute to the series?
I am a big fan of the Format series and the Basic Bastard stuff, his KMS singles, and pretty much everything else he's done. That one happened to be played by Antal (from Rush Hour and Kindred Spirits labels) when we were both in NYC as guests of Tim Sweeney's Beats In Space radio show. We talked about a second volume of MfA, and the cut was called "Turn Left Here", so voilà, a great track and thematically about the road.

Is "Rainbow Road" an actual road, per the Leon Vynehall track?
It is! Leon's working title had "BAB 5" in brackets, which is also the highway I use almost every other day.

Tracklist:
01. Conga Radio - 168 North
02. Leon Vynehall - Midnight On Rainbow Road
03. Joy Orbison - A213
04. AKSK - Breaking
05. Shan - Awakening
06. Bicep - Carmine
07. Fort Romeau - Seleno
08. Orson Wells - Orbiting Jupiters
09. Disco Nihilist - Melancholy
10. Lauer - Autofahrn

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