Although the amount of hot talent from the UK is definitely on the up at the moment, there’s no doubt that North America and continental Europe have always dominated the techno scene. There have, however, always been a few leading lights from our shores who have been flying the flag proudly on a global scale for many a year.
It’s not all about your Carl Coxes or your Dave Clarkes though – some people fly a little bit more under the radar, but are no less respected or accomplished. One such Brit-tech stalwart is Ben Sims, otherwise known as ‘3 Deck Master’ or ‘The Human Ableton’, due to his immense prowess with working on multiple decks. Under the Frequency moniker with Surgeon, he gets busy on no less than 7 decks, FX units and laptops, he’s been involved with the running of 9 labels, DJs all over the world and runs his immense Split parties occasionally.
“I grew up being exposed to various music, mostly Trojan style reggae/ska and Elvis as that’s what my parents liked, but it was the breakdance/electro explosion in the early ‘80s that really hooked me” Sims recalls of his introduction to dance music. Before he was even 10 years old, he was already watching legendary local DJs from the Essex area and was soon getting hooked on the pirates. “I used to listen to a lot of mix shows on London pirate stations, plus get tapes sent over from USA of shows from Red Alert, Marley Marl or park jams from Afrika Bambaataa or Jazzy Jay. I was just obsessed with anyone that really manipulated the music and wanted to be like them.” That word manipulated sums up concisely his approach to mixing and desire to fuck about with the constraints of techno music – with his maverick approach to multi-deck mixing a cruder precedent to the techniques of today used by the likes of Richie Hawtin to take this formulaic, rigid music and expand its boundaries. Cruder - but more skillful in that you haven't got a computer putting everything at the same tempo for you.
Since 1998, his label Theory has served as a home turf for his own studio output, plus for other luminaries of the scene like Mark Broom and Mr. G “Theory was started mainly to just release the kind of techno co-founder Tony Dax and myself liked and wanted to buy or play ourselves. I've been running it solo since about the 5th release but the concept is the same - if I like it and I'd play it, I release it. My own productions are pretty much just me making music for my sets, DJ tools for me to play with and if other people like them, then cool - but really they are for my box.” He describes his sound as “hardgroove funk based house edged sample driven party music” and with a lot of studio time undertaken recently, he’s ready to unleash a whole load of new material.
Asking him his thoughts on the techno scene in the UK currently, it seems that he still makes a clear distinction between what some might refer to as “proper”, traditional techno, and the more vogueish contemporary sounds of recent years: “The scene seems pretty healthy – there’s lots of new people trying their hand at putting nights on. Techno has never been fashionable and it's never been easy to run a successful night in the UK but there's still enough people who like the music and want to hear it.” Unlike some of the aforementioned UK techno giants however, he still loves the smaller parties as well as the mega events like I Love Techno and Sonar that he frequently plays. “To be honest I enjoy all kinds, sizes of events…if I do loads of big festivals through the summer I crave intimate parties and getting close to the crowd, but it works the other way too, you need a balance of both to keep interested.”
Once again, his attitude towards his final years as a DJ is refreshing in a world of false-retirements and 50+ year old DJs. “I’ll still be DJing or mixing music in some way because that’s just a part of me now” he clarifies, “but whether I’ll still be doing it at the international level I’m at now is anyone's guess. We've all got a shelf life and I’d rather get a normal job than end up in the bargain bin if you know what I mean. Music will always be a huge part of my life - it might not always be my job too though. I’m totally OK with that.” But thankfully for us, that ain’t gonna be any time soon. After all, you can take the DJ out of the techno, but you can’t take the techno out of the DJ…
Ben Sims plays at Closer @ Hidden in London on Friday 21st November. Click here for more details.
He also plays at Atomic Jam vs Split @ Que Club in Birmingham on Saturday 22n November.