Clear Sound and Vision

One of the most consistent techno producers of the past few years, Manchester’s Mark Stewart aka Claro Intelecto, together with Andy Stott, is one of the main artists on Modern Love. Responsible for a series of deep, slamming club tunes - the ‘Warehouse Sessions’ - Mark, who together with Stott has just done the best RA podcast yet - is one of the highlights of the Bloc Weekend. Here, he talks about his new album, his internet stalker – I know that feeling! – and de-intellectualising techno…

Do you still work a day job – or are are you doing music full time?
“I studied multimedia and design in college and now I work for a company in Manchester doing 2D and 3D design, after effects and general multimedia stuff. Sometimes it’s hard to juggle music and work, but at the moment it’s working out OK.”

You’re best known for the ‘Warehouse Session’ EPs: do you get a lot of inspiration from the jacking/Chicago sound?
“I left school in 1989, so I just missed out on the Hacienda, but I love Chicago house as well as the idea of sparse, lean music for darkened rooms. I have one more ‘Warehouse’ coming out and that’s the end of the series. I’m not really a big record collector, I only get them when Shlom (from Modern Love) gives them to me and I get a few freebies elsewhere. The only other music I hear is stuff the guys from Pendle Coven play me, but I am listening a lot to Theo Parrish and 3 Chairs. To be honest, I don’t have the time to collect records.”

Where did you get your stage name from? Claro Intelecto suggests an aloofness…
“The stage name came from a project I was doing at university. When I was in college I also got very interested in Spanish language and film and I picked this name that I felt would be a mixture of my interest in film, design, music and language. I just kept the name from then. It translates as ‘clear intellect’, although I’m sure there is a better translation for it, but it has no hidden meaning. Some people think that I have some hidden, secret music equipment, but the truth is that everything is done on Reason and I have use a little bit of extra kit – I even sold all my analogue equipment a while back. “

Do you think that there is a danger in over-intellectualising techno and that it should just be enjoyed in the moment?
“There is a danger that you can go too deep, especially with electronic music, and get carried away with the concept. Sometimes people can be snobby, but to be honest, I’d rather make a killer groove, programme a great 4/4 beat. Theo Parrish is a good example of this: the elements in his tracks are so simple, but it’s hard for anyone else to get it to sound so good. Once music gets too complicated, that’s when there are problems.”

Does it take you long to make music or do you record a lot of material?
“I’m actually a fast worker: I wrote 80 tracks in the past year and felt I was being slack! I’ve even written a gamelan-style track. The way I work is to start by getting an 8-bar loop going and try to introduce some chords if I’m going in a musical direction or just focus on the programming if it’s a ‘Warehouse’-style production. When I did the gamelan track, I ended up like Alan Wilder from Depeche Mode on the synth! I don’t like to go too fast, or get to a point where it loses its groove - I never go beyond 130bpm.”

You're one of the main artists on Modern Love: do you think that you have helped to shape the label’s sound?
“Not really: when I started with Modern Love, me and Shlom spoke about my music and he gave me good guidance. He said he preferred the deeper side of what I do - don’t get me wrong, I also make harder stuff – but he always picks the deeper stuff from the tracks I give him, that’s what makes him tick. Modern Love is only a small label, but it has a high volume of stuff coming out.”

What is your new album like and when is it out?
“Metanarrative’ is out at the end of February. The tracklist has changed about three times because, hand on heart, I didn’t have the proper tracks - but the way it sounds now, this is me. Having said that, the album - you can tell I did a bit of philosophy at college, can’t you?! - works very well as a collection. The direction is different, it’s more melodic and some tracks even sound poppy. That’s my love of Depeche Mode coming through: ‘Black Celebration’ is one of my favourite albums of all time, it still gives me goosebumps. It had to have a narrative as well: the last track on the album, ‘Beautiful Death’, is about my gran dying, it’s a very sombre tune and the bass is like a heartbeat. I love making pieces of music as opposed to just tracks, and of those 80 tracks from last year, 12 were pieces written on a piano. We were actually thinking of putting out an EP of them because this musical side is important to me too.”

I scoured the internet to try to find out some information about you, but apart from links related to your music, there seems to be little else about you. Do you like to keep things mysterious intentionally?
“I got asked that a few weeks ago - ‘why are you so mysterious’? I actually intend to do a proper website soon and I only have a MySpace site because there were two impersonators using my name on MySpace. I had a falling out with Jason Smith from Ai, the first label that I released stuff on. He dicked me over, tried to rip me off left, right and centre. Ai got my first demo with ‘Chicago’ on it and they thought that anything housey was ‘gay’. When I told them that Modern Love wanted to release it, they went mad. When I started playing gigs, they wanted to take 25% of my fee. As soon as Deepchord put out a record on Modern Love, this guy started to bad mouth the label. Anytime that Modern Love does anything, puts out a record, plays a club, he makes sure to bad mouth them. He has even started threads on messageboards criticising my work, where he has pretended to be five or six different people. Of course it was obvious what was going on because he was using the same IP address for each identity! It’s like having a stalker but really, he’s inconsequential to me because I just want to get on with doing my music. You come home from work, the last thing that you want to do is to go onto MySpace and have endless arguments with guys like that.”

You have done quite a few remixes in the past, but not recently - how come?
“I’m actually going to do one for Robag Wruhme, who I bumped into at a festival in Amsteram. It’s my first in quite a while. I’ve had a few requests, but I’m too polite and I forfeit the job and the cash if I’m not into the track I’m meant to remix.”

One of the things I like about your sound is the beats – they’re tough and have more depth than most techno/house producers. Do you spend a lot of time on them?
“I spend a lot of time making them, but I don’t hear that they are especially loud or heavy. Maybe it just happens like that. Having said that, Andy noticed it when we played Panorama Bar recently, he said my set had more of ‘a snap’ to it. Maybe it’s half by accident and half by design.”

You have a production credit on Andy Stott’s ‘Merciless’ and you appear to be performing together at Bloc: Is this a plan to slowly turn into a north of England techno supergroup?
“Ha ha! Andy is like a family member and yes, we are going to work together, we just need Dave Gahan to do the vocals! We have spoken about it and I suppose we will be pushed into doing it! We are drinking buddies and Andy came around recently and we made five tracks together. In the meantime, we’ll keep doing our respective solo stuff, but there will be something in the future…”

Comments

[Daragh]

Saw him and Mr Stott at Sonar last year, 6pm on the Saturday, frazzled head, frazzled crowd and a packed tent. Was absolute quality.

[Steve]

Excellent interview, Richard!

[jig]

the track at 19 min in the RA podcast is pure class. the kinda stuff hawtin should still be making...

Great interview, some very open answers especially on his dealings with AI.

[tom/pipecock]

nice interview! he certainly has some interesting things to say. interesting about Ai, i hadnt heard anything about them being bitches like that before!

[chrisdisco]

finally some info on claro. thanks for the interview.

[Kenny]

Good interview. His set at bloc is def near the top of my list for must-sees. The Warehouse Sessions are the mutts nuts.

[B]

Would love to have that collabo with Dave Gahan come true...That would be too cool Stott, Claro and Dave Gahan. Would be so sick!

[barry]

love stotts stuff, but was dissapointed at the pod, not by him, sound just wasnt up to it..seemingly it was a new soundcard so it was a fault on his side perhaps.

[PC/dysconnect]

All done on Reason?! I will *never* make a claim about the superiority of outboard/analog gear ever again - sheesh.

There's an interesting tension here in Claro's self-presentation: he worries about the danger of going 'too deep' and over-intellectualising, but then releases tracks called 'Lacan' and albums called 'Metanarrative' - but somehow this makes it all more interesting, non?

I'd always wondered what happened with Ai - what is it about hard-leaning electroid peepz and incipient homophobia? Am I alone in being unsurprised that the label owner was frightened off by the perceived 'gayness' of Chicago? Oh well, it's the label's loss, innit.

[Sotek]

Nice interview! I'm looking forward to the new album...

[Cam]

Excellent interview. Was very interesting to read about his experiences with AI. Indeed, they were very silly to be scared of the perceived "gayness", and now it's their loss.

I hope he releases that gamelan track along with the piano pieces!