Nick Höppner – Influences

This is a song off my most favourite album ever, “Loveless“ by My Bloody Valentine. It’s like watching the mountains whenever I fly over the Alps: I will never get tired of this. When I bought it right when it was released in 1991 I didn’t quite get it. I was a Punk Rock and Indie kid who was just getting into HipHop and MBV’s music was just a bit too abstract for my ears more in tune with Dinosaur Jr. or Mudhoney. But slowly I peeled back the endless layers and discovered those anthemic songs and completely fell for Kevin Shield’s insane production. I still discover new details in here every once in a while. The way all the instruments, effects and distortion are layered and floating in and out of each other, the way this album is more than the sum of its parts has definitely influenced my own production.

Although I like Ian MacKaye’s second band Fugazi a lot more, I had to include something by Minor Threat, the legendary Hardcore band from Washington DC. Without them and the SST camp in California (Black Flag, Minutemen etc) there wouldn’t be an infrastructure of independent record labels, self-governing youth centres and concert venues, as well as fanzines. Without them Hardcore would have become a mindless, violent, testosterone fuelled bro-fest even faster than it actually did. Minor Threat were the true trailblazers of DIY – An element, which at first attracted me to Techno in a big way and which, unfortunately, has been lost to a huge extent along the way. I really can’t listen to their music anymore, but I still have a very big soft spot for this kind of youthful, pure at heart, righteous anger.

This track connects to what I said before about Minor Threat and DIY, as Lawrence, Carsten Jost, Efdemin and their label DIAL have shown me around the turn of the millennium that Techno is completely open to ANY interpretation and form of representation, even open to transport political ideas. We were all living in Hamburg at that time and I was going to a lot of their parties, mostly at Golden Pudel Club or Hamburg’s biggest squat, Rote Flora. After a decade of glowsticks, “the raving society“ and the complete economic exploitation of Techno in Germany, I felt their understated and romantic approach to this music and its aesthetics was super refreshing. I find the way they were (and still are) undermining preconceptions regarding Techno very inspiring.

With a lot of music I can pretty much exactly explain why I like it. Ca. 15 years ago, when I bought Miles Davis’ “Kind Of Blue“ containing a version of “So What“ and put it on for the first time, I was hooked to it in a way I haven’t felt about music for a long time – that feeling, when music becomes your second nature, which mostly only happened to me when I was younger. I have never been a Jazz head at all, but this music touched me deeply and “Kind Of Blue“ quickly became one of my most listened to albums of all times. I can’t say why and honestly, I don’t really want to find out, because this kind of mystery really is, what makes music so fascinating.

Not exactly Post Rock, but one of my most favourite songs of one of the more prominent bands associated with the genre and the Thrill Jockey label from Chicago in the mid to end 90s. The Sea And Cake are one of the most consistent and versatile bands I know, hardly any duds in their discography. After growing out of more boisterous forms of rock music, I completely fell for this band, as well as Tortoise, the most iconic band of this scene. Both bands shared John McEntire on drums, probably one of the best drummers I ever had the pleasure to watch live on stage. Their blend of rock, jazz, dub, electronic music and ambient sounds awful on paper, but totally blew my socks off when I first encountered it.

Although Techno got big very quickly in the early 90s and there even were Techno parties in my small hometown discotheque, I never got into it until much later. My first real love has been Jungle and Drum’n’Bass in terms of club music. I will never forget my first encounter with it at Störterbecker, a small venue in the squats of Hafenstrasse by the harbour in Hamburg. The place was packed, sweat was dripping from the ceiling, people were lighting off cans of hairspray in appreciation of almost every frantic Ragga jungle track Silly Walks, Hamburg’s most popular Reggae soundsystem, was dropping.

When Drum’n’Bass became completely stale for me in 98 or so, 2Step slowly started to morph out of UK Garage and won me over in no time. I ran a weekly club night in Hamburg with three friends. Although I had been djing for fun in really small bars and clubs before, this is where I really learned how to dj. Around that time, I also was working as an editor for Groove Magazine and was able to go to London a lot to interview people like El-B and his crew, MJ Cole or Neil and Sarah from FWD, then also a distribution and PR company. On every trip I made sure I went record shopping. Thus, I’ve been able to get a lot of stuff that never made its way to Germany. I still think that this beat, its syncopation and the way this music uses silence is one of the sexiest things ever invented.

Not much to say here – Stone cold classic, completely blew me away when I first heard it and still sends a tingling sensation down my spine today. I wish the young Techno Militia all clad in black would take note. This is Techno, too, kids!

Metro Area for me will always be the quintessential music of Panorama Bar’s first incarnation at the old Ostgut, Berghain’s predecessor. Listening to this and thinking of that place really gives me goose bumps, as cheesy as it might sound. From today’s perspective it almost seems completely improbable, but Metro Area tracks were what a lot of DJs were working towards in their sets. In a way, it was total peaktime music and I often saw crowds go completely nuts to this duo’s deepest cuts. They were also playing live when I came to Panorama Bar for the very first time on april 30th 2001, still months ahead of my first gig there. Never forget!

One of the most perfect tracks ever made! Although I know it’s probably totally overplayed, I really have to restrain myself not to play it as much as I would really like to (which basically is always). This is so energetic and positive and still really has the power to truly unite a dance floor!