Much has been written about the hectic days of garbagelegendary nightclub erol alkand Established at the age of 23. With his pioneering approach to the then-popular genre and early performance, LCD sound system and Yeah yeah yeahis widely advertised as. A club night that defined the era. Following that final night in January 2007, a void was left that has yet to be fully filled.
“If someone wants to play that role, they can,” he says. “It was their due, but I didn’t want to overstay my welcome. I felt like 10 years was enough and it was the zenith. I’d rather do that than just keep going until the wheels fall off. I think it was good.”
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Trash’s fun-filled extravaganza of genre-bending bootlegs and wild live performances is accompanied by pomp and ceremony, but you’d be forgiven for thinking that its DJ booth would have been a breeding ground for inflated egos. . That is not the case with Erol Arcand.
“I’ve always said that being a DJ is one rung up the ladder above glass collectors. You’re just there to make people dance and bring people together. That’s what it’s like to be a DJ. It’s your job. Nobody cares about you. They care about the music.”
Alkan was and still is true to its principles, Trash’s spiritual home, and has remained true to those values even alongside a host of celebrity mainstays. Music always came first.
“The fact that DJ egos were now being questioned was really shocking to me,” he says. “For a long time, you didn’t realize it at all. In the very beginning, the only reason anyone would go up to a DJ and interact was to make requests.”
Trash has established itself as London’s achingly cool, must-attend weekly club event, making it an attractive proposition for fairweather dance fans, although many of them are strict but somewhat vague I was not allowed to enter due to the dress code. There is no need to apply a business type; an alternative business type reigns supreme. But after 10 years, Alkan felt things were coming to a natural conclusion.
“I was really pushed to the point where I only had 10 years left,” he recalls. “I love the word ’10 years’ and I remember wanting to be able to say I’d lasted 10 years. It felt like a really good fit and at that point I was too old to be a resident DJ.” I felt like I was taking too much.”
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Alkan had other plans. In 2006, just before Trash’s last hurray, and that very same year, Mixmag crowned him. DJ of the yearhe had already gravitated to the mixing desk, teaming up with short-lived but acclaimed names like Mystery Jets and Long Blondes. pier delay Start production.
“It’s really ironic,” he laughs. “Mixmag is a dance publication, so I thought, ‘Okay, we’re going to make a bunch of indie albums.’ In that sense, I’m a bit of a contrarian. Things are going really well, but I… I want to break out of that trajectory and put myself in a more challenging trajectory because I need to prove what I can do.”
Alkan’s creative work would lay the foundation for what would come later. fantasy, a record label he founded in the very same year. Since then, Alkan has been able to remain a standard-bearer for various musicians.
“We felt like we could do something for artists that we really like and help them get the right contracts,” he muses. The first few artists we released all went on to get big deals, but that didn’t necessarily mean it was a good thing. Because how well those deals worked out varies. However, it was a stepping stone ability for people. At that time, I felt a bit of an obligation. ”
Many of the artists listed overlap with electronic music, but few fit neatly into one genre. For Alkan, it’s a deliberate choice inspired by his other roots.
“Some people say, ‘If we stuck to one sound, we’d sell a lot more records,'” he laughs. “Sometimes people say it’s abnormal to like electronic music or like alternative music, but it’s hard to stick your flag in the sand and say, ‘Yes, I’m part of this tribe.’ You don’t have to say that. As time has gone on and music has become more accessible, music discovery has become more accessible. Now it’s the other way around, you just fall in love with unique sounds.”
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Home of psychedelic style conan moccasinsgenre-defying electronic production from Daniel Avery, and intense techno from Factory Floor vocalists. Gabe GuernseyPhantasy, to name just a few, remains a unique monster, but it’s also one that’s hard to categorize.
“On the one hand, I love labels that have a certain sound,” he says. “When you discover a record from that label, you feel like you have a clue to explore that record further and discover something that’s completely foreign to you. But I also felt like the label didn’t have a unified sound. Potential. There is a sense of unity in taste But it always existed. ”
Phantasy doesn’t have a clear visual identity that underpins every release, but it does have an aesthetic DNA that runs through it, even if fans aren’t consciously aware of it.
“I love the fact that people can buy ‘Forever Dolphin Love’ and ‘Drone Logic’ without realizing they’re from the same label. But back in the day, when you followed a band and you saw continuity on the record sleeve, I wish I had one, like when I lined up my CD singles and they all lined up perfectly. I still love that, but I used to hate it when the releases didn’t line up.”
So why not try it with Phantasy?
“I somehow realized that maintaining that level of precision is very dangerous and probably not the right thing to do. I also like the look of everything I put out and if I’m confident in it, In fact, when I looked back on it, I felt that there was a kind of harmonious resonance to it all. Even if it looked different, it still made sense. Be true to what you like. I feel like that will happen eventually.”
Music aside, Phantasy’s influence can be seen throughout broader club culture, with its iconic merchandise line becoming a dancefloor staple. Phantasy’s “Smile” T-shirt inverts acid house iconography, and the slogan “EROL Keeps Kids Dancing” has appeared on many T-shirts and jumpers, but has been a source of speculation over the years. It’s a confusing “Make Greek Acid Jamaica” T-shirt.
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The phrase was first seen on a postcard included in 2012 with the 12-inch release of A Sydney Jook, a collaboration with Dave Taylor known as Switch. Alkan had dismissed his original name, “Acid Cuts,” as “silly,” so Taylor suggested another name.
“Switch suggested we call it ‘A Sydney Jook?'” Alkan recalls. “I said, ‘Okay, how did you get there?’ He replied, ‘So acid cut is acid…Sydney…joke,’ which is the Jamaican patois for cut, stab. I explained that it meant something. I thought that was a very strange word. I really love how you come up with otherworldly song titles. ”
Sidney Joke’s work coincidentally coincided with a show Alkan was booked to perform in Athens. When he arrives, he notices a custom-made poster reminiscent of an MC Escher illustration that still hangs on the wall of Alkan’s home. This image was created by the promoter himself, and Alkan immediately commissioned him to design the artwork for “A Sydney Jook” in a similar style. Working with designer David Rudnick, they came up with the idea of releasing a 12-inch as a lost Greek acid record, which would enhance the label’s merchandise line for years to come. This led to a spontaneous idea.
“I said it seemed odd to do something with a Jamaican patois-inspired name that featured this Greek illustration, but it all came together anyway,” Alkan said. “I don’t know whose mouth it came from, but one of us said, ‘Let’s turn Greece into acid Jamaica.’ We looked at each other and said something like, ‘That’s a T-shirt.’ I did. David said, “Wait a minute,” and he just downloaded the Greek flag, put it in Jamaican colors, and wrote “Make Greece Acid Jamaica” on top of it. ”
The T-shirts became a solid cash cow for the label, and Alkan said that T-shirt sales ultimately kept the label afloat for some time afterward.
“It’s kind of a coincidence, like a lot of music comes about,” he muses. “We don’t sit down and think, ‘Let’s design a best-selling T-shirt.’ We just pull things out of orbit and it just pops up out of nowhere. None of us think it’s going to end up looking like this.” We didn’t expect it to happen and that it would cause so many kinds of confusion. No one knew what it meant.”
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More recently working with the likes of Ride and Duran Duran, Alkan still spends a lot of his time creating, but he hasn’t given up on decks. Later this month, he’ll be appearing at the Bristol booth alongside 2manydjs and DJ Seinfeld as part of his day-long Document acquisition for Bugged Out, the latest venture from his Motion and Marble Factory teams.
“Palms Tracks and I will be putting sets together and playing them back-to-back, which will be fun. The great thing about B2B sets is that they really inspire you to embrace different parts of yourself. If you have any bad habits, please stop them.”
Naturally for Alcan, the joy of mixing live comes from seeing and interacting with the audience in real time. That love for her has continued ever since the trash days.
“As a DJ, I can only bring 50% of the music I believe in and want to share with people. The other 50% is like reading the room and just seeing where the moment is going. I’m really inspired by the person in front of me, the setting, the atmosphere, the temperature of the room. I mean this in a positive way, but I’m really focused and focused enough to think, “This is my set.” I think it’s not enough. This is what I do’. That’s why there’s probably always been a little bit of confusion here and there, and it still is. ”
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words: paul weedon // @Twotafkap
Erol Arcand joins 2manydjs, DJ Seinfeld, Ellie Stokes, and Palms Trucks on Bugged Out! X Documents in Bristol, February 17th – Get your tickets online.