deFocus
Clear was one of the most respected imprints for electro-funk and emotive electronica during the nineties, releasing material by Plaid, Jedi Knights, Dr Rockit, Metamatics and Morgan Geist, among others. Then silence.
Two years on and Clair 'Clear' Poulton has set up deFocus for 'beautiful Detroit influenced-electronica'. "This is the first time that the whole A&R of the label has been totally my personal taste in music," she writes via email. "I know that sounds self-indulgent, but I believe that I can only expect people to buy the records that I myself would buy." She elaborates further on her listening habits: "I obviously have the Black Dog, Plaid, B12, Likemind, Reload, Stasis thing going on, but also old house and garage and early Detroit techno like Carl Craig and Model 500." She also mentions hip hop, classical and Jeff Mills. The label's agenda simply reflects her passion for meticulous and melodic electronics.
"There has been a lack in good old fashioned beautiful music in the past few years, as people are going more and more up their IDM arses! Music isn't meant to be clever it's meant to make you feel something and that's what I hope deFocus will do." deFocus is inevitably attracting interest due to the Clear connection, yet Clair admits that she doesn't really feel there is a tangible link because "Clear was a different story." Clear was often a platform for established artists to experiment with their music under new pseudonyms. Many have gone on to become household names. deFocus, by contrast, "has started the other way round, working with new artists, mainly because the old ones aren't doing anything good." She sees the label "carrying on from where Likemind left off," the seminal electronica label that released truly timeless music by Red Cell, Stasis and Neuron.
Future:
deFocus will have releases by B12 and Stasis by the end of the year. Sadly, The Stasis project will be Steve Pickton's last ever electronic project, having made headway with the bare bones of hip hop.
Present:
"There has been a lack in good old fashioned beautiful music in the past few years, as people are going more and more up their IDM arses! Music isn't meant to be clever it's meant to make you feel something and that's what I hope deFocus will do." deFocus is inevitably attracting interest due to the Clear connection, yet Clair admits that she doesn't really feel there is a tangible link because "Clear was a different story." Clear was often a platform for established artists to experiment with their music under new pseudonyms. Many have gone on to become household names. deFocus, by contrast, "has started the other way round, working with new artists, mainly because the old ones aren't doing anything good." She sees the label "carrying on from where Likemind left off," the seminal electronica label that released truly timeless music by Red Cell, Stasis and Neuron.
Future:
deFocus will have releases by B12 and Stasis by the end of the year. Sadly, The Stasis project will be Steve Pickton's last ever electronic project, having made headway with the bare bones of hip hop.
Present:
deFocus have releases by two new artists: Plus One and Lackluster. The label's first album release is by 21-year-old Esa Ruoho [aka Lackluster] from Finland. I met Esa at The Pool, a stylish bar in Shoreditch where deFocus will soon start their weekly sessions.
Unlike the extroverted rock star attitude of fellow Fin Jimi Tenor, Esa begrudges having press shots taken and doesn't want to be interviewed because "everything has been said by someone else". "I don't need to voice my opinion about my own tracks," he tells me. What do you listen to then? "The usual. It would be easier if you took a photo of my CD collection. "Esa wasn't being deliberately difficult. He has recently gone from being another anonymous net-musician, to acquiring an album deal and being bigged-up by Andrew Weatherall and Laurent Garnier. He honestly cannot understand what all the fuss is about. He even felt it necessary to date every track on the album because he feels he can do better. The entire album was constructed on Fast Tracker, a basic sampler-based software sequencer, and he has only just been able to afford his first keyboard.
Like most people making music for personal satisfaction with no regard for commercial constraints, 'don't give up your day job' is part and parcel. However, unlike most, if Esa quit the 9-to-5 he'd find himself behind bars. He is currently working for Finland's Civil Service as an alternative to military conscription. "I have the option of going to jail if I quit the civil service. If I had a laptop I could go there and just do tracks." It wasn't lost in the translation. Would you consider doing that? "I don't have money for a laptop, but I could do that. It would be interesting."
Much of his album material was written on his computer at work. What is it like living the seemingly eternal darkness of winter in Finland with sometimes just one hour a day? "I'm not the best person to describe it. It's just depressing." What is the demo scene like? "It's been going for fifteen years, just a bunch of people doing music videos and tracks, just trying to get the most out of their machines." That's definitely what you do, I counter. "No. I haven't been trying," he replies, with unrealised modesty. He describes his music as melancholic, and I ask whether he feels National Service and the seemingly perpetual darkness of winter influence his sound? "I don't think about it. Whatever comes, comes..." A recurring theme of our conversation centres around the nature of music reviews. The Lackluster sound has been likened to Boards of Canada and 'the ambient side of Autechre', to Esa's irritation. "I don't know why it is required to compare things, I've been compared to Skam stuff, Autechre... You don't have to describe a track you should just listen to it."
For five years he made tracks for himself, putting the results on a series of websites. This is how Clair came across his music. He now feels like the pressures on. He has made the recent transition from isolated obscurity, thinking about nothing other than channeling "whatever comes," and now finds himself thinking about "the whole record label thing."
"I don't want to get addicted to people's comments about my music. I shouldn't really care what other people think. I'm closing myself away because I don't want to have it affect me. I would really like to have the capability of programming myself to think about specific things and block other things out. I'm doing an automatic job of blocking every decent review out. I think they don't know what they're talking about, but it is really difficult when people like Andrew Weatherall like my music. The only reaction I can give is that the whole world has gone mad. If people paid less attention to subjective criticism there would be a greater range of interesting, expressive and honest music to listen to."
He leaves me with a lasting image: "I was looking at this comic book, The Beginners Guide to Zen. It showed a guy playing an Eastern instrument and this other guy said 'Okay, I've listened to it but what's the meaning?' So he played the track again."
Unlike the extroverted rock star attitude of fellow Fin Jimi Tenor, Esa begrudges having press shots taken and doesn't want to be interviewed because "everything has been said by someone else". "I don't need to voice my opinion about my own tracks," he tells me. What do you listen to then? "The usual. It would be easier if you took a photo of my CD collection. "Esa wasn't being deliberately difficult. He has recently gone from being another anonymous net-musician, to acquiring an album deal and being bigged-up by Andrew Weatherall and Laurent Garnier. He honestly cannot understand what all the fuss is about. He even felt it necessary to date every track on the album because he feels he can do better. The entire album was constructed on Fast Tracker, a basic sampler-based software sequencer, and he has only just been able to afford his first keyboard.
Like most people making music for personal satisfaction with no regard for commercial constraints, 'don't give up your day job' is part and parcel. However, unlike most, if Esa quit the 9-to-5 he'd find himself behind bars. He is currently working for Finland's Civil Service as an alternative to military conscription. "I have the option of going to jail if I quit the civil service. If I had a laptop I could go there and just do tracks." It wasn't lost in the translation. Would you consider doing that? "I don't have money for a laptop, but I could do that. It would be interesting."
Much of his album material was written on his computer at work. What is it like living the seemingly eternal darkness of winter in Finland with sometimes just one hour a day? "I'm not the best person to describe it. It's just depressing." What is the demo scene like? "It's been going for fifteen years, just a bunch of people doing music videos and tracks, just trying to get the most out of their machines." That's definitely what you do, I counter. "No. I haven't been trying," he replies, with unrealised modesty. He describes his music as melancholic, and I ask whether he feels National Service and the seemingly perpetual darkness of winter influence his sound? "I don't think about it. Whatever comes, comes..." A recurring theme of our conversation centres around the nature of music reviews. The Lackluster sound has been likened to Boards of Canada and 'the ambient side of Autechre', to Esa's irritation. "I don't know why it is required to compare things, I've been compared to Skam stuff, Autechre... You don't have to describe a track you should just listen to it."
For five years he made tracks for himself, putting the results on a series of websites. This is how Clair came across his music. He now feels like the pressures on. He has made the recent transition from isolated obscurity, thinking about nothing other than channeling "whatever comes," and now finds himself thinking about "the whole record label thing."
"I don't want to get addicted to people's comments about my music. I shouldn't really care what other people think. I'm closing myself away because I don't want to have it affect me. I would really like to have the capability of programming myself to think about specific things and block other things out. I'm doing an automatic job of blocking every decent review out. I think they don't know what they're talking about, but it is really difficult when people like Andrew Weatherall like my music. The only reaction I can give is that the whole world has gone mad. If people paid less attention to subjective criticism there would be a greater range of interesting, expressive and honest music to listen to."
He leaves me with a lasting image: "I was looking at this comic book, The Beginners Guide to Zen. It showed a guy playing an Eastern instrument and this other guy said 'Okay, I've listened to it but what's the meaning?' So he played the track again."
