martes 01 septiembre de 2009, 09:59
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| Camea and Tim Xavier, the techno couple (Beatportal - September 2009)
some of techno’s biggest record labels. She is one of the most respected DJs on the minimal scene. Both run influential labels and produce underground music for dark nightclubs.
Together, they’re like a mini techno factory, an unconventional couple who share a passion for bleep-ridden beats, and a love for each other.
“Both of us are career minded, so we can co-exist quite happily,” says Camea Hoffman, the boss of Clink [l], who has been together with Tim Xavier for five years.
“We’re both obsessed with techno, and that’s great because we get to talk about it as much as we want,” continues Tim. “We’ll go to lunch and she’ll say, ‘so I read this thing on RA today’ and I’ll know exactly what she means. It’s not the kind of conversation you can have with just anyone.
“Although we try not to talk about music too much - after 8pm we’re not supposed to talk about music anyway.”
Camea [a] and Tim Xavier [a] are like any other normal couple, except they have a unique understanding of each other’s careers and needs because they are both globetrotting DJs. “We’ll sometimes argue about who will take the dog for a walk, and it’ll be settled by who has got the later flight to a gig,” says Tim, with a grin.
We are sitting in their studio in Kreuzberg, Berlin, a large white walled room with two sound-proofed booths. Camea’s area is a small, fully enclosed space, with just enough room for a mixing desk and a window to the leafy outside world.
Xavier’s space is large and full of curious equipment. In the corner sits a Scully vinyl cutting lathe, a clunky and archaic-looking machine with a microscope, that Xavier uses to cut acetate master plates for vinyl records.
There’s a rack of outboard sound equipment, mainly compressors and EQs, and a solitary turntable, as well as shelves full of vinyl. There’s an air of sophistication and science about the place, and if it were not for the box of an air pistol BB gun, the giant collection of beer bottles outside, and the cheeky smiles of its affable owners, it would be a little intimidating, for this is where the magic happens.  Camea, you have a classical music background? I studied piano for 11 years and grew up with classical music and jazz. When I was younger I played clarinet, sax, trumpet and flute.
My dad was a classical music buff, and Beethoven had a profound effect on me. My neighbour used to have this jukebox with all these old rock n roll records, but I always used to ask them to change the music to Mozart or Beethoven instead.
Do you think that your background and love for classical music affects your music today?
People say that they can hear those dark undertones in my music, definitely. They can sense drama and anticipation, two things I’ve always admired about classical music.
But my music is more instinctual than intellectual, I don’t plan to make drama, it just happens naturally.
And how did you discover dance music? I guess I have the generic rave story. I grew up on the east side of Seattle, and I started going out to raves. At first, I didn’t really get the music, and used to have arguments about it with my friends as I didn’t think it was proper music because it had no actual instruments.
It was so new back then, so people really argued about whether electronic music was “proper” music. We even laughed about it. And then one night, I became hooked on the crowd, and mesmerized by the music. I suddenly understood it.
Can you remember where that happened, and which DJ played? Yeah, me and my friends drove up to Vancouver to this rave. It was a female DJ called Jackie Christie. I had never seen a female DJ before, and she made an impact the moment she started playing. I was amazed at her energy and the way the room changed when she began playing.
She played eight hours, and I was completely blown away. I just remember when I left thinking, “I want to do that”. And then you moved to New York in 2002? Yes, I moved there about six months after 9/11. I guess I wanted to get as close to Europe as I possibly could, as that’s where all the music was coming from that I liked.
I used to listen religiously to mix CDs from Europe. I started DJing locally and met a lot of cool people. I met Tim, and then Tony Rohr, Ambivalent, and Inside Out, who I run my label Clink with. They were all doing interesting projects.  Tim, are your harder techno days behind you? Yes definitely. I’ve been DJing for 15 years now and I began producing in 2000. I moved to Chicago from Houston, and really pushed myself to produce. I think I released 25 12-inches in a short space of time. I actually played in Seattle once, and Camea saw me there and was, I guess, smitten.
Camea: I don’t think everyone needs to know about that! Tim Xavier: Why not? The truth is good. So anyway, I met Camea at this bar and was really gauche about it at the time. I didn’t really know much about her, other than she was just this local DJ.
We hooked up, and then one day she stayed over at my place, and left to go to work the next morning. She left her record bag at my house, so I remember digging through her recrods and finding some seriously cool music - early minimal stuff on Perlon, Studio Eins, Basic Channel. I thought, ‘Damn this girl knows her music!’ I was still making hard techno then, but Camea then sweetly suggested one day, ‘You know, this minimal stuff is the hot shit. Maybe you should just try slowing down your BPMs a bit? You know, not make the hard stuff?’. I thought, ok I’ll try that. So I made a track that was about 125 BPM, and I was hooked instantly on the vibe.
The track was called ‘Deception De Real’, and it was the first record I ever put out on my LTD-400 label - see the spray painted vinyl over there [indicating a row of different coloured vinyl sleeves on a shelf]. That’s my LTD-400 stuff. It ended up getting signed to Ricardo Villalobos’ ‘Green & Blue’ compilation and being a massive success. The success of that record got me seriously into minimal techno. And how did you get into mastering? When I lived in Chicago, I tried to find a vinyl cutting machine. I always admired the guys who would cut these super loud records at the end of the 1990s, and I wanted to learn how to do that.
I ended up understudying this man in New York, called Jack Biswell. I bought his studio from him. The deal was that I would bring him more techno and tech house business, in return for him teaching me how to cut vinyl.
We started cutting a lot of techno records, and then the success of Beatport skyrocketed the demand for digital mastering, so I got into that too. What exactly does the mastering process involve?
Well as a label, you send me your music, and I make it ready for mass consumption. I’m in control of the volume and fidelity.
Is it complicated?
Well I only cut the vinyl master template, I don’t press vinyl. See this disk here [indicating a blank shiny black plastic disk] is acetate, see it smells. I use my cutting machine over there - I have a Scully - to cut the music onto acetate. That then goes to the pressing plant, and they use the acetate to press the actual vinyl.
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