Marcus Henriksson is a Swedish producer and DJ that has been around for the past 20 years. He was involved in different projects with other people, and by himself too. The most important thing in his music is the emotion that allows the audience to let go of their fears and limitations. Belgrade’s audience will have the opportunity to feel this next weekend at KPTM and the Clubber magazine’s crew talked to him, among other things, about the beginning of his career, his collaborations and music industry. You can read the entire interview down below. Enjoy!
Hello! First of all, I want to thank you for your time! How are you?
I am good, thank you. Currently on the road… on my way to Tokyo. I can see the Swedish countryside passing outside the trainwindow.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but you first started working as a promoter and then you started DJ-ing. Do you remember how did you realize that that’s what you want to do?
I went to my first ever rave party 1993. It was a friend of mine who got a tip that there was a rave party in Copenhagen. I had never heard techno music before in my life so I did not really know what to expect. I was 18 years old and a very shy and introverted person back then. It was a big thing for a country boy like me to go to a big city like Copenhagen and be there a whole night. I was use to listening to music like Jean Michael Jarre, Vangelis, Front 242, Kraftwerk, Skinny Puppy. So I was kind of use to electronic music. I remember that I could hear the pumping bassdrum long before we got to the old warehouse building. As I said… this was a big thing for me to go to Copenhagen and go on a rave.
In the beginning I did not know how to dance to the music and I was not use to dance by oneself… facing the DJ. It felt like I was taking part of some kind of ritual. I thought the music sounded the same all the time and I started loosing interest in dancing. I got tired and wanted to go home. But my friend and his girlfriend wanted to stay so I also stayed. There where no chairs or anything to sit down on. And the concrete floor was dirty and cold. So there was nothing else to do than dance! So I did… I had to push through my tiredness and try to find my own dance. And after an hour or so I was starting to have wonderful experiences 🙂 My tiredness was going away. I suddenly got lot’s of energy and a smile on my face. As I said before… I was a shy and introverted person. But these problems went away and I could have eye contact with the people around me… and this was big for me!
I could even smile at the girl dancing next to me without thinking about flirting and stuff like that… I was just full of joy and happiness :-)!
When I was younger (8-15) I was making my own mixtapes. I was inspired by an Italian Disco crew called Max Mix. They where doing these megamix records and mixing all kinds of stuff. So I was trying to do my own mixtapes like they did. Mixing Jean Michel Jarre with Skinny Puppy and also using my older brothers syntheziser to put in som pads and stuff. So I guess my dj background started here.
When dancing at the rave in Copenhagen I was looking at the DJ and I started dreaming… I too want to be a DJ and control the music 🙂 I wanted to do what I had done as a little child. Play music that one could travel and dance to!
One week later my friend and I went to a techno record store and bought our first 12” vinyls 🙂
A few weeks later we had done our first ever mixtape. You can listen to it on my homepage (Mixtape from 1994). I still like it very much and feel very connected to the music that was played back then.
We started to sell the mixtape in our school. And it got very popular and then we decided to do our own rave.
We did a lot of Raves during the years 1994 – 1997. I was living and breathing rave culture and techno music. Going to Raves on the weekends… dancing from the beginning to the end. Without using any substances. 8 – 12 hours dancing non stop. I found my ways to get into trance and how to get into the ritual 🙂
Back in 1996 you met Sebastian and you started working together as Minilogue. How did this happen?
I met Sebastian at one of the Raves we where doing. We where living in the same small city (Hässleholm). We became friends and started to hang out. Sebastian had just started to experimenting in making chillout music with another friend (Christian). Sebastian and I started talking about making techno music that I could use in my DJ sets. So we tried to make a track… and after a month or so the track was ready. We recorded it onto a minidisk recorder that had pitch. So I could bring the MD to the gig and I could then mix it since it had pitch. We both loved making music together and both of us put all our focus into this. And we came up with a project name. Trimatic. This was our first project. But soon after that we also started the project Son Kite. In 1999 we released our first album as Son Kite. The album was called Minilogue.
We started getting bookings outside Sweden and was playing on trance parties and festivals.
A few years later (2003) we started another project… Minilogue. Here we wanted to focus on slower bpm’s and more oriented towards techno and house.
Both you and Sebastian had different projects and you’ve been on a break for a while now. Can we expect something new from the two of you in the near future?
After working together for over 16 years… touring almost every weekend for all those years we needed to have a break from each other. So end of 2013 we decided to take a break from our joint projects. We have been doing a few selected gigs during this time but only a few. So we could focus on our solo projects. At the moment we haven’t made any plans to do something together… but maybe soon 🙂 😉
You’re working as Marcus Henriksson, Nobody Home, Minilogue and Son Kite. How do you manage to keep up with making all that music and touring?
Now I only focus on my solo project and my studio. So it is not so much. But when there is many gigs it can become a bit stressy. In those times I try taking long walks in the woods to ground myself. And the meditation also helps 🙂
One of your most recent releases is Feminine Wisdom (Home Records), what can you tell us about the story behind the track and its name?
Does the soul have a gender? Is it the same gender if you are a man or a woman? Who am I? In the search for answers and trying to find inner balance I came across C G Jung. The famous psychologist.
I have always been very interested in the inner and how it works. Been using many different eastern practises during many years now. Meditation, Yoga, Chi-Gong, Shamanism, Entheogens. And when diving deep into C.G. Jung and his work I discovered interesting things that helped me understand some more about myself.
We all have both male and female inside of us. I live in a male body but inside there is both male and female. Finding balance in these inner polarities is also finding balance in the outer polarities. So if we want a world where there is peace between man and woman we have to find this peace inside of us first.
Out of this the name “Feminine wisdom” came about 🙂
We live in a patriarchal society. A society that is male dominated. This is something that is deeply rooted in our subconscious. We nowdays see many feministic expressions… both politicaly and in culture. It’s the inner expressing outwardly. But the change has to happen inside first.
As a man I can say that I have to balance my inner feminine. Get to know my feminine sides and understand. Only then can I truly understand the outer feminine 🙂
Same goes for women. Get to know their inner masculinity. C.G.Jung used the terms Anima and Animus. Look it up if you’re interested 🙂
Could you tell us something about your future projects and releases?
I have my own label. Home Records. I started it last year. So far I have released 3 12” vinyls with my own music. I have been doing some collaborations with friends the last two years. With the guys from a group called Solid Snake. And with Ticon. Nojd (Kris Dubinsky) and P-Woland. So I have lot’s of unreleased stuff that I am hoping to release on Home Records.
Then I have been making high bpm music that I also will release on Home Records. I will release most of my stuff on my own label. In this way I have full artistic freedom.
Then I have started doing analogue mastering for other artists. In the modern times there is a lot of music that is made on computers. They tend to sound digital end sterile. So I can now offer analogue mastering with old tape machines… to wash away that digital sound. Studio Cosmos is where it’s happening 🙂
I am working on an album… but that is just work in progress… no timeline.
Is there something except music that you really like to do?
Meditation, Nature, Hiking, Yoga, Chi-gong, Henrietta, Mira. Try to enjoy life as much as possible 🙂
You’ve been around for 20 years now, can you compare the scene back then and now? What changed for better or worse?
This is my perspective. In the beginning the rave was more of a gathering where people where attending in an ritual. We human beings have been dancing to repetitive drumming for thousands of years. We have been using the ritual as a way of connecting to something greater and for healing and guidance. During these rituals there was also the use of entheogens (psychoactive substances) for enhancing and opening. This is something that is built into our DNA you could say. Native people are still doing this around the world.
I believe that the Rave was the modern societys way of expressing the ritual. The ritual that we all have inside of us. As a way of finding balance in the modern “out of balance” society.
So in the beginign of the Rave culture I experienced the raves and festivals more as gatherings and rituals. The focus was on the music and on dancing for many hours. To get into trance.
I use to to the rave when it started… around 22.00… and dance all the way to the end… at 10.00. I brought fruits and healthy stuff to eat and I did not use any substances or alcohol. Went for occasional toilet breaks ;-). To me the whole rave experience was mystical and kind of religious.
But this changed during the years. Club culture started and the rave music entered into the disco and club world. We could hear the euro-disco sound that exploded in the mid 90’s. It was very influenced by the techno music. It was also here the word Rave was exchanged by the word party or clubbing. People did not say they where going to a rave… they where going to a party. This also changed the focus from Rave and the gathering and the ritual to more focus on party and the use of substances. I myself did not like this change. I loved the gatherings and the more “mystical” vibe you could get from a Rave. Going to the same club every weekend did not give me that “mystical” vibe and I felt that also the music became more superficial and more influenced by the modern societies way of thinking. In the beginning the DJ was not so important. But during the years the DJ became more in focus and the press and magazines started writing about the rave culture. Suddenly we had superstar dj’s that got fame status. The whole club culture became a big bussiness and the music followed. To me Rave music was something psychedelic and something that was unpredicable. Music that could take me deep within. But the club music was so influenced by the modern society it did not notice that it was sucked into the bussiness mind. The word Rave was lost and around mid 90’s there where no more raves… or at least they became very rare.
I was playing as Son Kite on trance events and festivals. Starting 1999. I enjoyed it very much and I felt that the trance scene still had that spirit left that I was experiencing in the beginning of the Rave movement.
Then the computer entered into the whole electronic music scene. A mashine that could make things easier for the touring artist’s and DJ’s. Mark the word “could”! Artist started using the laptop more and more.
When I started making music we only used the computer as a sequencer. All the sound was made on external instruments and synthesizers. The computer was just telling the instruments to play or not. Around 2000 the computer could simulate analogue synthezisers and more and more artist started using only the computer. The whole music bussiness and press was hypnotized by the computer. You could read the music gear magazines how they where saying that the software simulations sounded the same as the original instruments. But that was not true!!! But very few people understood this! So the computer was taking over more and more.
The trance scene had been very infected by the computer and suddenly all the music sounded the same. Same production, same style, same build up, same same same. The psychedelic was disapearing. The computer and the bussiness mind had sucked all that out and to my ears it was a bit soul-less at times.
The music was not looking for that psychedelic experience any more. It was the same in the techno/house scene. I guess it was the same for all music styles.
I have seen so many dancefloors around the world during these 20 years. I have witnessed the change and how people change. How the commercial energies entered into the scene and changed it and the people.
The computer is a machine. A machine that is supposed to be a tool for us human beings. But when musicians and artist loose themselves into the machine and let the App or machine make decisions instead of themselves the human emotions are lost.
So in my point of view I would say that we have to take control over the machine and start expressing our human-ess again. We human beings are in big need of dancing and getting into trance. In this modern society we live in there are not many places you can go where you can let go of all the stress and bullshit that we get from the society. We need to dance and get the possibility to let go of our ordinary life.
This is the key in an ritual. We let go of our ordinary life and enter into deeper space. We get healing and guidance when we dance ourselves into trance. We need this to feel good about ourselves. But if the music is coming from a machine/App we will not be able to travel deep enough to find this healing and guidance.
Balance between human and machine is something I think is important.
All of this is of course my point of view :-). And my heart is still in the Rave and the ritual.
A friend of mine (NOS) wrote in a message to me a few weeks ago and he ended it with “Rave to da grave”. I agree 🙂
You’ll be playing in Belgrade pretty soon; people are excited about that show. Have you been here before? And how do you feel about it?
I have to be honest… I don’t remember if I have been playing in Belgrade before? I think so… many years ago as Son Kite. I am very much looking forward to it… and I have always felt very connected to eastern Europe.
Do you have a message for your fans and our readers? What can they expect from you in Belgrade?
Expect the unexpected. Come with an open mind and see it more as an gathering or a ritual that you will be taking part in. Make it something special in your heart instead of just another weekend out clubbing.
In the space between the particle is You. And in this space there is unending joy and love.
Peace 🙂
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