Mixed Up in The Hague: Sewersounds of the 90s

The Hague in the mid-90s by Flint Michigan with a short interview he conducted with Interr-Ference from Acid Planet for Break/Flow in 1996.

Sewer Fact:

Minimal and subtle, repetitive, driven and endless, crazed and calm. Distorted time. Subconscious sound. Acid-Dirge-Grunge-Funk at unknowable densities. There’s something missing but it’s not lacking. These are tracks that are repetitive to the extent that you can’t mentally piece them together as progression. You loose all sense of linearity as tracks play on a memory that becomes transformed into a surface awaiting sensation. Recollection diffuses into an instantaneous moment. The drive goes on and cuts up the surf flow. Drive on. The groove is voluminous. Sound works on the subconscious as it by-passes the foreground to place rhythmic events beneath the background – a twisted perversion of subliminal seduction, an artificial alienation, a composition of rhythms. Leaving, left, gone. The listener is operating. Even during the dense moments there are so many spaces that it becomes possible to inhabit the vinyl, to be wired up and lost in variable speeds.

All the while subjectivity is being produced before it is even aware of itself.

We want to play at birthday parties, in cellars, on balconies and on the backseat of a 1970 Dodge Charger, but never again at them horrible festivals. Interr-ference: Skreem 15

Sewer Fiction

A proliferation of outfits, names, labels and mediums in an ever evolving mutation makes a mockery of any introduction to the Hague scene which first came to peoples’ attention around 1993 through the Bunker label and the Acid Planet squat parties. From Bunker the scene seemed to grow as much as it spliced: new labels and pseudonyms erupted: Beverly Hills 808303, Interr-ference, Electronome, Orx, Hott, RA-X, Housemaid etc on labels like Acid Planet, Blue Attack, Clone, Reference, Interr-fered, Viewlexx, PHOQ U and Clone.

It doesn’t stop there as new labels are in the pipeline – Asbest, Mononom, Murdercapital and video projects that feature abstract pixel-spite, industrial wastelands, estuary scenes and a rumoured Unit Moebius porno video. The Acid Planet parties have now spawned Livingroom 2000 – a ‘club’ with an ever decreasing timespan: lasting 6 hours when they started, Livingroom 2000 is gradually working down to having a party that lasts a minute long. This is a cool comment on the growing tendency in the European ‘underground’ towards miniaturisation and micro-mutation.

Like others, the Hague scene works at odds to a predominantly media-negotiated ‘techno’ style and, rather than institutionalise itself and become overtly visible, the creation of offshoot labels, of pseudonyms and mediums means that it operates laterally and without a fixed point of reference. It multiplies, it interferes, it functions from break/flow. It wards off the encroaching blockage of the celebrity-machine.

Like Network 23, the Hague scene is fucked off with the usual channels of distribution and all the pimps and careerists that abound there. It outflanks these through mail order and by connecting up with other underground cells who deal the shit from their kitchens: coming into the Hague we have a German connection (Cross Fade, Music Aus Strom), an Italian connection (PSS 2099), a Detroit connection (Fanon Flowers) …coming out of the Hague we have link ups with Drop Bass Network, Disko B and Cross Fade. What follows is an interview with dealer/producer Interr-Ference aka Beverly Hills aka……

Questions and Intro by Flint Michigan

Feeders —

My history is kinda wide. Since I was a kid I was fascinated by music and vinyl. The most important influence musically speaking must have been the music my uncle had recorded for my dad on a cassette, played in the car during the ride on a certain vacation in ‘78. The tape was played over and over again and we did not get
bored at all. Much later | discovered that it had a lot of Kraftwerk on it. But also Supermax and Chic. Later, in high school I started to get really interested in electronic dance music like Jonzun Crew, Egyptian Lover, Arthur Baker/John Robie, Suddenly I found out that 80% of the records I liked, were made with the 808, Ring ring!! But the most influence comes from Lalo Schifrin. From like the period 1968 up to 1972 Lalo set the standards with his music. This man deserves a statue.

Slowbuilders —

All the tracks I make just happen. You cannot ask me to make a certain quantity of tracks in a certain period of time. Sometimes I produce 5 tracks in one night. Sometimes the machines aren’t touched for weeks. The resuit of such a happening depends on my state of mind. The music stands definitely for how I feel at that particular moment. I’d die if I couldn’t make music anymore. I’d lose my most important way of expressing myself,

The Groove That Won’t Stop —

The thing with funk is that you can be supercool while nobody sees it: just standing in a corner absorbing the flow. You don’t even have to dance to enjoy it. And that’s what | like so much about funk. But not everybody understands it. I’m so sick of raves and clubs where people come up to you with their big eyes and little aura to tell you to speed up because they wanna jump.

Livingroom 2000 —

In the Hague we experiment with Livingroom 2000 in the old library. Little speakers everywhere spreading old movie soundtracks, industrial noise, electro-nix and movies. You see people having a good time and actually talking to each other. The music is just there and the parties are not dance orientated. You also don’t have to wear special clothes or be someone other than yourself. We’ve come a long way so we can see through that shit anyway, It’s maybe worth mentioning that every week the audience get less time to come in – this week 22:00-01:00, next week 22:30-01:00 – so you keep out the consuming masses or they leave anyway when the people spreading the music don’t answer their stupid questions. It really works but we bet that in two weeks time there’ll be nobody but us in that Livingroom.

More than Entertainment?  —

With music you can definitely transmit viruses. It looks like an entire generation Is communicating through music nowadays; we only have to let others know what music is, otherwise they get mislead. (Electronic) music will be even more important in the future: electro-nix has the power to reduce people to what they really are and before you know it you’re on Acid Planet.

Too many willing prostitutes? —

As you know by now I think that nowadays techno is nothing other than an emotionless consumers-scene. | almost never listen to techno anymore because nothing interesting has happened in the last 2 years. There is no emotion in 99% of the records released so I’ve fost interest.

Undo*round  —

People call themselves underground to get a certain respect they don’t deserve. Claiming a certain soul or status. I’d rather not talk about it.

The Third Rail—

The response to our stuff is good and I’m getting more of a response than | thought. Even though our stuff is hard to get, because of the politics that rule techno nowadays, it still seems to be having an impact. We have problems selling our records to distributors. They just boycott us or do not pay the bills. For us it’s a sign that shit from the Hague is very powerful and we will continue releasing records, even when it’s 100 or 300 copies of one title.

We now directly sell to customers and shops thru our mail order and this works well. If the ongoing line continues we will not need distributors anymore. We will publish a blacklist soon with facts about distributors around the world to protect others from getting framed by them….So the resistance will get harder because we have to make a fist in order to stay alive. You don’t just steal from the Acid Planet.

• Other texts by Flint Michigan on datacide-magazine.com
• Table of content of Break/Flow 1
• Interr-Ference on discogs.com

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