Ataxia interview – “Automotive, automation, automobile, motion, motive, automatic…”
We meet the Detroit techno artists and pave the way for a new kind of musical sociology
Ted Krisko and Rickers aka Ataxia are a pair of upstart old-school punks who witnessed the popularisation of techno first-hand, transitioning out from the wider Michigan band scene, and into the more metropolised world of Detroit techno, after cementing their friendship at a prototypical Richie Hawtin live show. Their first ever LP Out Of Step – which features blistering collabs with Andres, DJ Minx and Mr. Joshooa – is something of a catalyst for sparking a very special kind of conversation about Detroit, and techno. Industry, class struggle, religion and sci-fi are but to name a few of the ideas we discussed with Krisko on our scheduled Zoom call.
As we connect, Ted sits before me representing Ataxia, while Rickers is absent. The latter member doesn’t do interviews. “He’s not very PR.” As much as they can be, Ataxia are punk to a T.
Before we launch into our unexpected philosophical dialectic, Ted calls attention to his studio’s maximized efficiency, its optimized utility – two concepts that underlie our conversation from then on. “Everything is synced up. My whole setup is based on just being able to trust the spacebar and to have everything locked in sequence.” Krisko appears before me, on screen, a central figure in what could be described as a very intimate battle-station and arguable ‘spaceship’ filled to the brim with tape emulators, rack modules, synths, stands. There’s a homely symmetry to the space. If we’re speaking in terms of techno and sci-fi, then Ted’s studio is more of an (extremely well-fitted) escape pod, not the main flight control room. Everything is reachable from a central, seated position.
“I want it all to be quick. There’s luxury studios you see all over Instagram with big bay windows and huge bits of gear all spaced apart with metres between them, and that’s fucking amazing, if you’re rich. But I learned that after following Richie Hawtin – one thing for home was being physically close to the gear. Being able to reach it. My friends make fun of me. They’re like, look at everything you’ve got crammed into this shoebox.” We note that Krisko, despite always wanting to make music on the fly, is not an albatross. Nor is he a Hindu goddess – he only has two arms, and between them, there isn’t much wingspan. If we wants to ensure a fluent, in-real-time music creation process, then it’ll require a reachable and intimate space.
In the background is a central monitor, displaying an empty Ableton project, but Krisko is quick to point out that his DAW of choice is effectively just a tape emulator to him – even then, it competes ferociously with other hardware emulators in his employ, such as the Handsome Audio Zulu, which he holds up to the screen with zeal. Speaking of the Zulu, Ted lyricises: “there’s a little bit of .db loss, which is native to cassette already. I think that natural human element – being what governs the physical automation you’re committing to on the fly – is us. We’re the X factor. We’re the natural part, not AI algorithms, they can’t do that. You’re the person. As complex as computers are, there’s still a natural human error, and this what makes this music ours.”
This reminds me. A wise sage known as Hegel once said that only an internal contradiction within us living beings – an inexplicable paradox between consciousness and materiality – can allow anything at all to be put into motion. We’re struck with reminders of yin and yang, the unmoved mover – an Underground Resistance. Ted makes a fascinating point about the human person as the central element to the music. No matter how much machinery or gear is involved, it is the non-machinic conscious person, the paradox factor, that drives the action of the music. Suck it, AI.
This propels Ted and I into pondering the historical significance of Detroit for making such propulsive music. We get etymological with it, rather quickly. Why is it called Motor City? Motown? Why is motion built into the very nickname of Detroit itself? Is Detroit a mecca for automation, or human-machine contradiction, in as much as its music makes the utmost use of automotive processes?
The link is there, and it’s embedded in an industrious work ethic that is unique to Detroit, for a mixture of social-historical reasons. “There’s unique mood in Detroit,” says Ted, “from the tough, hard-as-nails muscle that goes into the industries, to what it feels like to really work your ass off, and then having that ebb and flow to rest. In Motown, a lot of the phrasing is two chords. One thing, the other thing. It’s push, pull, push, pull… a continuous tension. A tension between fantasy and real, work and play. It’s a place with intentions that are truly anchored in work ethic. It’s a place of incredible design and work ethic, Detroit.”
The first track on Out Of Step is called ‘Detroit Gospel’, a whirling, phased-out, techno-soul heater reminiscent of something between a Kerri Chandler mood piece and an old school post-punk oddball sifted from cassette. I ask Ted what the Detroit Gospel is to him.
“I’m in ministry. I clothe, shelter and care for our people out in the street. It’s a very tough place to be homeless or near-homeless. I’m not the only one in the dance community helping people – Mr. Joshooa is the booker and manager at our resident club TV Lounge, and the owner Tree has a nonprofit called Love Only, doing the same thing. With the sample in the track ‘Life Is Good’ saying “life is good”… Detroit is a place where people look after one another in a very special and loving way, but it’s also a tough place. Maybe that’s not as digestible for a lot of people, because it’s a very rough go at being a human being right now. But there is an optimism in Detroit. Whoever you meet will meet you with some type of smile. Now, Ataxia is not a religious band; Rickers doesn’t share the same views as me. We’re not a mouthpiece for any political, social or religious movement. But the energy on that track, it is Detroit Gospel music to me. That spiritual, positive Motown-influenced grand boulevard jam, man. You heard the cut after we put it onto tape, which really gelled the bass of a really fuzzy, warm sound…”
He goes on: “Thinking about some of the naming conventions behind some of this stuff… the essences of Motown and Motor City… I really started thinking, just, like, wow. Automotive, automation, automobile, motion, motive, automatic… it’s crazy to think that one place could be responsible for connecting the dots on these massive 10,000 foot view concepts.”
Ted touches on something deeper here. Why, for example, did Underground Resistance name themselves as such? It’s a tense, frictional name. This bred movement; it has revolutionary appeal, and revolutionary art movements are in turn rooted in the kinds class struggles that occur in Detroit. In turn, what is class struggle rooted in? Work. Work, combined with a Protestant work ethic, is what makes Detroit apt for techno. It’s not just because a small cohort of Belleville Threes or Richie Hawtins happened to do some cool stuff there. No, it was because Henry Ford, arguably one of the first ever true industrial captains, invented the strenuous 5-day workweek in factories, and which we still follow in the office; it was the metallic din of Detroit car factory toil that spawned the repetitive industrial bang of the 4×4 kick drum; and it was Christianity’s presence in the city that provided the ethic of (factory) work as a calling, a path to Godliness. It’s no wonder we tend to describe hard-working techno musicians as “industrious”, and it’s no wonder that Manchester, a similar working-class city, gave birth to one Factory Records.
“That’s very core to the essence of techno,” agrees Krisko. “But one of the less touched-on aspects is the reverb. If you listen to Sheet One, the cavernous echo and the reverb in it is mimicking the actual venues where the music was taking place, which was cavernous warehouses. Big halls, big rooms. But those were the same places that in many cases were abandoned automobile factories, right? The actual energy that is emitting from the pulses of the music is mimicking both where it’s happening in real time, and where the sounds that influenced the music itself were happening in the first place. It’s a crazy synchronicity.”
Speaking of the automobile industry and its beginnings in Detroit, Ted stresses the importance of not falling into the trap of thinking of music as a vehicle (get it?) to ‘something greater’. He has an inner zen, not champing at the bit for PR or press. An inner isness.
The same can’t be said for young Ataxia, though. Krisko and Rickers were once hungry. In the 1990s, when they were in their mid-teens, both artists were juggling event promotions first independently and then later as interns for the events company Paxahau, whilst also frequenting and working in retail music chains across Michigan. Before they’d even clocked onto techno, Ataxia were “hybrid punk ravers”. Oh, and before their nascent Richie Hawtin obsession, they naturally played in bands. Krisko tells of his early days in a local Detroit favourite known as The Transfer – and that, compared to techno, his love for hardcore punk came with a back-breaking labour-power tradeoff:
“Back then The Transfer gigged quite a lot, but the finances of being in a band is really an upside-down pyramid scheme, an out-of-pocket career. If you’re hell-bent, go for it, but it’s not going to be what pays your bills at all. Rock bands are expensive. At that time I also became the drummer in a punk band with Rickers called Georgia Moon. It had a grungey Nirvana punk vibe. We made it happen, but being in two bands…. fuck, it got so brutal that we had to move with the changing tide. In 2009, 2010 – the punk and emo and hardcore explosion – the people who rode that wave were then all in their 20s, and probably looking for a party. So there was already a migration of bodies from the punk scene (which wasn’t getting younger) to techno. I had bigger ambitions, too. Then there was the lugging around gear, going up and down stairs, flight cases, fucking up my back and gear, all for very little money.”
Then came the real moment of kinship, and a serious tack-change. “I was at St. Andrew’s Hall for a show Richie Hawtin was putting on called Contakt (2008). It was a live show with Ableton and Traktor all synced up, engineered live on the fly. But it was also still a band show. Wven in punk, drum machines and synths had started wiggling their way in, so I was curious. And as I told you before, you always go to a Richie party if you’re from Detroit. At the Contakt show, which was mindblowing, I go up to the balcony to get a better look. And standing there 6 feet tall with his fucking mohawk was Rickers himself.”
Despite playing in bands together, something about the Contakt show cast a different light over their still-burgeoning friendship. “We convened at the next band practice. And I just look at Rickers and go, “fuck this rock n’ roll bullshit.” The imagery of that crew, black, sleek, minimal clothes, but still with a little bit of goth thrown in… they really had this invitational idea, of like, “hey, jump over here, the water of technology world is pretty cool.” And I was like, we don’t have to be hauling these drums around anymore, for peanuts. Let’s try electronic music.”
Krisko regales the story of how, once upon a time, he’d charge an average of $500 for a single Ataxia live show (much to the chagrin of his fellow promoters and now-friends), purely based on live electronic music being a much-hypable emerging industry, ‘the future’.
“The question was, should I keep doing this grind that is exhausting and not all it’s cracked up to be? And that’s not from a youth culture perspective. Punk forever! But techno was almost like, more punk. This is actually you, really doing it yourself. Actual DIY… nothing was on anyone else’s terms, we weren’t subjected to the same structures or hierarchies.”
And so came the deus ex machina that was live electronic music. For Ataxia, it would inevitably streamline their live shows, act as a boon for cash, and revolutionize their creative process. But the reality was that only some of this played out. We are reminded of the Jevons paradox, which is loosely defined as when technological progress in an industry increases the rate of demand for, and use of, its products. The result is an increase in expectations, which over time leads to the many of the same curses as before.
“Now the Ataxia live show feels like a band (again).” Despite electronic music’s promises, Krisko is still crossing his fingers: “will my shit break? Can I do my show if this shit breaks? What happens if this piece of tech doesn’t work?” I cringe, because I just duplicated a third of my studio. What about the redundancies? My Reverb bill is out-fucking-landish. If I just have one of the thing that I need, I don’t have another one.”
Don’t get it twisted though; Ataxia wouldn’t go back. In Krisko’s own words, “the toys help,” disproving the entirely black-and-white picture of Jevons’ thesis. Furthermore, this sort of postmodern corrosion of the border between ‘DJ’ and ‘band’ is promising for the pair. Krisko speaks happily about the relative ease of inheriting a band: “At the end, when we’re done, this is something we can hand off to other people, and be like, you’re in the band now, and we’re out. You can’t do that with a DJ career, but you can inherit a band. You think when Keith Richards kicks it, the Rolling Stones are done?” Definitely not. That brand is almost certainly getting milked.
But what about the Ataxia brand? Well, Krisko and Rickers are deep lovers of punk, and hope to pass down said spirit, even if their music doesn’t sound like ‘punk’ the spiky-haired rock band genre. “I look at an electro group like ADULT, and I would say ADULT is punk. Punk in a sort of very Detroit, iconic, legacy-punk sort of way.”
Though they’re well aware of punk as an ethos and not just an image, they still know their stuff. The Clash, Never Mind The Bollocks, Suicide Machines, Fugazi; these are but a few of the many punk cornerstones that spring to mind for Krisko. That being said, there’s also a plethora of other precipice genres and artists being fed into Ataxia’s music: Aphex Twin, Brian Eno, and the hardcore band Quicksand are further cited. Krisko expounds his love for sci-fi, and reminds me of just how important a select few films were for influencing electronic music:
“I took a major deep dive recently into the legacy of the sci-fi movie genre, because those movies – Alien, Blade Runner, Close Encounters Of The Third Kind – had a big influence on the early electronic artists. I wanted some esoteric influence that tapped into a wellspring of conceptual fantasy, and I think so much translates.”
He provides solid, hard evidence of the link: “If you look at that picture of Jodie Foster in Contact, there’s a piece that they’re using called an Eventide rack unit, a reverb-echo unit that the movie studio put in there to look like spaceship shit. I don’t know if was an H9000 or H3000, but the point remains – even the movies themselves were borrowing from the very thing that was being fed crazy space saga influences.”
I am reminded of the fact that the crew-members in Star Trek live in a post-scarcity communist society; their replicator technology allows them to magic up a sandwich, or a cup of tea, or a laser-blaster, out of what is essentially thin air. It’s sort of like 3D printing but for, you know, sensible people with enough energy to harness warp-drives – not libertarian dreamers who want to make guns out of smelly polymer plastic. The natural result of this is that the Star Trekkers have essentially mitigated civil war and/or the potential for mutiny. Without internal strife, all that remains is the endless capacity to explore space; true freedom.
Then, I am reminded that electronic music in pop culture, even when it doesn’t accompany a sci-fi story, is almost invariably used to connote the future. Then it clicks. Nevermind, for a minute, the fact that the Richie Hawtin live show and the Jodie Foster movie essentially had the same name. Much in the same way that Ataxia were aiming for a kind of post-scarcity when they migrated to an electronic band setup (a scarcity of health, finances and tensile strength in the lower back, that is) – contemporary film and TV is willing music technology to become an archetypal symbol of future post-scarcity. A cyberpunk anarchy. Though this idea is not without its pitfalls – and trust me, there are plenty of pitfalls – the very fact that Ataxia weren’t completely Jevonsed goes some of the way to cement the point.
Krisko exclaims: “Man, the next EP was gonna be called Motel Jacuzzi, but maybe we could do a ‘Post-Scarcity’ EP first!”
A future post-scarce society almost certainly relies on community. Fittingly, then, Out Of Step is hardly an isolated affair, with collaborations with DJ Minx, Andres and Mr. Joshooa in tow. Krisko drives home the point of the personal importance of collaboration to him – he simply would not be the same artist without it. Much in the same way that Marx and Engels were a duo, Ridley Scott and H.R. Giger were a duo, Krisko and Rickers are also a duo. As a pair, they embody that internal daoist tension, which also lends to further collaborations outside their sphere of influence, as Life And Death founder DJ Tennis had willed.
Andres, who appears on the track ‘Pine Island’, is a longtime friend of Krisko’s – we get a privileged glimpse of the artist’s production process. “A lot of his production is coming straight off an MPC.” Meanwhile, DJ and vocalist Minx appears on ‘Maxia’ – on many occasions she’s completed the Ataxia live set, turning it into a trifecta. “With Minx we’d played as a trio over the years. Her music is so attention-grabbing. Getting that vocal out of her too, on the deep house tip, her syrupy voice saying ‘feel the rhythm’, just really gave me that eyes-closed, front-left, sunday afternoon energy.”
The eclectic sound palette of the album lends to this community spirit. There’s a lot of phase effects and jazzy wonkiness (‘Number Streets’) on there, not to mention nods to the lo-fi sound of b-boy breaks. Even a few dubstep wobbles show up on the track ‘WM’. Krisko continues, hammering home the importance of having first-hand connections to the inspirations behind your music. Krisko treats Out Of Step as a historical primary source, not an example of spectacular genre tourism: “I hung out with a breakdance crew in Detroit, and witnessed breakdance crews firsthand at raves. It isn’t just, “hey, I found out about UK garage recently and here I am chopping up breakbeats and throwing in some wobbles.”
He concludes: “Lending your talents isn’t something to take lightly. Even if they’re just sharing a moment of their legacy with us, this project, this time and place, if there’s any message that the overall collaborative spirit says about the album, it’s that we all need each other.” This much is true. No matter how much technological or industrial progress gets poured in as efficient bells and whistles for the optimization of music-making (any action for that matter – the car industry should be taking notes) it is the conscious human mind, united with other human minds, that really makes music tick. That’s what Ataxia are getting at.
Jude Iago James