Monolake interview: “we all were just friends doing stuff together”
Monolake’s Robert Henke on Basic Channel, Ableton and capturing Hong Kong for Hongkong
A quarter of a century, two young computer science students who’d met, didn’t get on and then, eventually, did, got to know Mark Ernestus and Moritz von Oswald and released their debut album, Hongkong, under the soon-to-become legendary Basic Channel umbrella. One would go on to make 12 albums (and counting) as Monolake, helping to forge and redfine the sound of dub techno. The other became the CEO of Ableton, using his experience with Monolake to shape the project.
Robert Henke of Monolake, takes a return trip to Hongkong – which has just been reissued through Field Music – and recalls how those early days shaped what was to come.
How did Monolake got together and what did you get up to before the arrival of Hongkong?
Gerhard and I knew each other from Munich via a common friend but did not really get along with each other. We independently moved to Berlin and met at the Technical University where we both started to study computer science and somehow discovered that our personalities are somehow an interesting match, a great mix of challenge and coherence. We occasionally met to jam together, exploring what we could do with computers and music.
Only a handful of acts ever contributed to the Chain Reaction label, which obviously became legendary very quickly, let alone released an album on it. How did it come about and how thrilled were you?
It all did happen very organic, the scene was small, and we just got to know Mark Ernestus and Moritz von Oswald, and when they started their new label, we got asked it we have anything that could fit it. We were of course super happy but at the same time, it did not feel that special, we all were just friends ‘doing stuff together’. The scene was very informal and DIY.
What are your memories of the Berlin electronic and techno scene while you were making the album – what clubs did you regularly visit, who did you see DJing?
The very first techno club i experienced was the old Tresor – loud bass, strobes, fog, sweaty people, it was totally insane. It was possible to run into a lot of artists that later became very famous, Jeff Mills, Richie Hawtin, and so on, but I would say the most important DJ for me was a lady with shaved head playing very hard but complex techno, and who was working as the main record buyer for the legendary Hardwax Record shop, Susanne Kirchmayr aka Electric Indigo. We got married last year 🙂
You were both studying computer science when you made Hongkong, how did that affect the music you made – I’m talking partly at terms of technical breakthroughs but also the frame of mind?
We tried to combine grooves and repetitive beats with elements that we borrowed from the vast field of academic computer music.
That mix shaped our idea of sound a lot. And due to our studies we had access to the Electronic Studio of the Technical University, where we secretly at night were editing down our sessions using their – at this time still super expensive – Pro Tools setup. And of course studying computer science brought us in touch with more exotic tools for sound generation, and taught us how to program our own things.
The title comes from a trip to Hong Kong in 1996 to attend the annual International Computer Music Conference, and while you were you made extensive field recordings. What kind of places did you turn to?
Sonic Hong Kong for me was mainly: crickets, air conditions, the subway, the ocean, and Cantonese TV commercials in the hotel. All that is present on the album. I was just always carrying a small portable DAT recorder with me, and when ever something sounded interesting, I pressed record.
Your press release says: “Their early forays into computer-based music production were enabled by the use of the Max/MSP programming environment, forming a backdrop to the landmark work they would undertake in developing the Ableton Live DAW.” Talk us through that process if you can and why ultimately that led to the split of the original line up.
We wrote our own tools out of necessity, our idea was improvising with computers, and our model was that of a lot of linked sequencers and drum computers. Most of that was done in Max, and later also in Reaktor, for which Gerhard wrote the first sampling/granular modules. And there Gerhard met Bernd Roggendorf and they decided to found their own company which I joined after some initial hesitation. I was worried that I would not find time to make music anymore , which was true for Gerhard, who is still Ableton’s CEO. I was forced to rethink what ‘Monolake’ could be, and this was hard, I missed Gerhard’s input a lot. But I somehow managed, I am also pretty determined and stubborn.
You’ve made 12 albums in total, which can be a significant number – what made you want to revisit the first? Is there a feeling of coming full circle or is it full steam ahead?
The impulse came from the label – Field Records – they did approach me, and I thought it would indeed be nice to revisit this first release. When I was remastering it, it felt like a great mental time travel. It was quite a trip to scrutinise my own work like this.
There must be loads of details you re-discovered when having a really careful listen to the LP after all this time… Any memories it brought back?
A lot. Every track has its very own story. Here are some:
One of the smaller clubs we frequently were hanging out at was Friseur der Botschaft, a former barber shop in between ruins right at the center of east Berlin. Friends of ours provided the PA for a party and asked us if we would want to perform a live set. We never did this before and thought it would be fun to try. We decided what parts of the studio to take with us, assembled a rack of gear that included a Waldorf Microwave and my ASR 10 rack sampler, and since we wanted it to be simple settled for a TR-505 as the only MIDI sequencer. Gerhard programmed some basic patterns as a starting point and that was all the preparation. And then at night some magic did happen. There are a lot more stories to tell about that concert, we were performing more or less behind the bar and Gerhard was asked during the concert to provide a beer, which he simply handled over without stopping to operate the Juno, completely focused on his work. We recorded the set with a small portable DAT recorder and when listening to it afterwards we knew that there is great material. Lantau and Macao are basically the last twenty minutes of that very fist gig, recorded on July 27, 1996.
The media started to become more and more interested in what was going on in Berlin, and one day we got approached by a team from the cultural TV channel ‘Arte’ if they could film our working process in the studio. Which was my bedroom is living room is kitchen with toilet outside typical run down east Berlin habitat at that time. I cleaned it up a bit and started to prepare ‘something’ that could run when they do the filming. The came, did their job, Gerhard and me played with what we prepared and when they left we decided to jam a bit more with it since there was a nice atmosphere in that material. And this is how ‘Arte’ was born. It was probably the first track that featured my newly acquired Sequential Prophet VS synthesiser prominently. Back in those days every new instrument was a window into a new sonic world, and source of new inspiration.
In Winter 1996 we did our first concert tour, four gigs in Switzerland, together with friends from the Chain Reaction label. We played at a small bar in the village of Thun, and whilst most of our improvised set, which we did record, was pretty lame, one part stood out, a very static sequence that mainly came to life because I was constantly playing with the filters and effects on the mixer. As usual, we tried to make sense out of the recording via editing that single stereo track. Gerhard was not convinced by the piece, he found it too simple. We tried a lot of edits and got more and more complex and nothing worked out. At the end we started again and only cut out a few bars at one point and that’s it. Occam’s razor.
Anything else we should know about the Monolake world – what’s next for you?
I am working on a new album, and at the moment i think it is going to be good 🙂
Ben Willmott