Electro Mix: Hysteric – Electro Will Never Die
Cold Crushin’ Mixes Episode 4
Hysteric – Electro Will Never Die
Cold Crushin’ Mixes is back with a slamming electro mix from Melbourne mix master and certified wax addict Hysteric, who has done some hardcore crate digging to pull some very obscure tracks for us! But don’t let the fact that you have probably never heard of most of the tracks put you off — as unknown as many of the tracks might be to all but the most knowledgeable of electro fans, our homeboy Hysteric has put together an absolute banger of a mix, covering a range of styles from bboy electro funk and electro rap, to synth pop, minimal electro, new wave and some very heavy hitting sludge electro tracks from The Hague. Ya’ll should know what to expect by now from Cold Crushin’ Mixes, so needless to say, shit is off the chain!
RETALI8 spoke with our interstate guest who is going to be ripping shit up live on the decks this Friday night at Cold Crush
Hysteric on the decks at System in Melbourne, 2009
RETALI8 talks crate digging, music and the Melbourne electro scene with Hysteric
Cold Crush: Yo George! Killer mix man
Hysteric: Thanks
Cold Crush: So listen, for the benefit of those unaware, tell us a little about yourself
Hysteric: Well, my name is George, and i’m a wax-o-holic. I’ve been collecting records pretty much my whole life…I think I bought my first record at about 8 or 9
Cold Crush: Oh yeah? what was that?
Hysteric: It was Player One – Space Invaders, on 7”. A pretty cheesy record but i’m not ashamed to own it
Cold Crush: Everybody remembers their first! What else were you buying?
Hysteric: Actually, mostly punk records and movie soundtracks…I didn’t get so much into the electronic stuff until a bit later on
Cold Crush: No shit? What’s your favorite punk record?
Hysteric: Definitely The Misfits – Legacy of Brutality, that’s my tattoo. I have the Zombie Elvis from the cover tattooed on my arm. And my favorite film score would have to be between A Clockwork Orange or Return Of The Living Dead
Cold Crush: Bad man. So how did you go from punk to DJing?
Hysteric: I got into DJing quite a few years later, mostly through my younger brother Henry. We are both pretty big vinyl collectors to this day. My brother is Dj Polarity — the DJ/Producer in a Melbourne hip hop crew called Low Budget
Cold Crush: So you started out playing hip hop?
Hysteric: No, I was more into techno at the time. Kind of cheesier stuff, but nothing too embarrassing. Oliver Lieb, (Thomas P.) Heckman, these guys are all doing minimal kind of stuff now but back then it was acid techno. That’s how I got into electro too, back then a lot of the techno guys would have maybe one or two electro tracks on their records…especially The Advent, he was a big one. DJ Hell too, he had some great mixes… and his label International DJ Gigolos, well, before they turned crap. At the time they were doing a lot of techno/electro crossover stuff
Cold Crush: Gigolo records are a label that a lot of people turn their nose up to, but they were a pretty influential label even in underground circles even if not everybody will admit it. I mean, they released some killer Dopplereffekt records!
Hysteric: Yeah, they were almost like a major label, they were very much an electronic label, but almost like a major — they published everything, from underground to very commercial. On one end you had Dopplereffekt then on the other end Tiga. From crème to crap
Cold Crush: Haha… true. But lot of people probably heard the more mainstream tracks and from there went to check out the more underground stuff which is cool
Hysteric: For sure. Hey, I’d like to mention my all time favorite electro record: IT & My Computer – Eat My Computer. The whole record is great!
Cold Crush: Shit yeah, that record kicks ass. Where did you hear it?
Hysteric: I first heard some of those tracks in Mattamation’s Infection mix, which was all Invasion Planète tracks. (Regular readers will have heard it by now but check the link if you havn’t — RETALI8). I knew some of the Invasion Planète stuff already but Matty really got me into it once I had heard those tracks a couple of times
Cold Crush: You are probably best known for playing Italo Disco, how did you get into that?
Hysteric: Definitely through electro. I-F and DJ TLR were the main ones that got me into it. I heard a few I-F records and got pretty interested in The Hague sound so I checked out some of their mixes on the net. From there I discovered Italo and really fell in love
Cold Crush: What was it about Italo that won your heart?
Hysteric: The most important record was definitely Claudio Simonetti (of Goblin — RETALI8) with his soundtrack for Dario Argento’s Tenebrae. I already owned that record and loved it a long time before I even knew what electro or Italo were, so it kind of tied what I was already into with this new scene. Apart from that, some Mr. Flagio, and definitely all the stuff from Mixed Up In The Hague. That mix really set something off in me
Cold Crush: Me too! You ran a pretty legendary electro night down in Melbourne called System. Tell us a little about that
Hysteric: System was a really fun party, I miss it. We had some great people play there. The first night would have been in 2006, it was three of us running it. Roger Ramos, a girl named Dominy and myself. It was pretty regular over the years, just about monthly apart from the odd break here and there. We went through a few venue changes from over the years, we started out at Tilt, then Horse Bazaar and finally at Loop, but we finished up there at the end of 2009
Cold Crush: What’s happening with System now?
Hysteric: We are looking hard for a new venue! System will be back for sure
Cold Crush: And who were some of the best artists you had play there?
Hysteric: We had Ratsnake, a Russian guy who just had a release on Murder Capital records in The Hague, The Sentinel aka Patrick HAF from Southern Outpost, Alex Nôrinh from Kommando 6/Bunker/Zerohour who played an amazing live set. We also had Mattamation and yourself visiting from interstate last year, that was a good night
Cold Crush: What else is going on in Melbourne?
Hysteric: Hmm. Not much to be honest. Disco is pretty popular here, but I can’t say much without offending certain people so I’m going to have to say no comment
Cold Crush: Fair play. How about Meccanoid? is that still running?
Hysteric: No, but Jan from Meccanoid is running a record label now called M-Division. I did a series of minimal synth mixes for them called DJ Is Capitalist, and also did the Miserable edits
Cold Crush: Did you ever get into producing?
Hysteric: No, i’m too lazy *laughs* I just stick with doing edits. I use protools but do my edits DJ style, extending breaks, chucking out bits I don’t like, stuff like that. I like the Italo edits I have done, people seem to like those the best. Well some people anyway
Cold Crush: You have a reputation as a pretty hardcore record collector. Tell us a little about your crate digging experiences
Hysteric: Well, when I wasn’t working — which has been most of my life, I got by buying and selling records. I would actually get pretty depressed if I went a single day without buying a record, so i’d get a train out to some random suburb of Melbourne going to second hand record stores digging through boxes and boxes of 80s crap hoping to find something good
Cold Crush: How did that go for you?
Hysteric: Great at first, but after I while I stopped finding much good stuff so I started buying most of my records from Discogs and Ebay. Mostly Discogs. You can’t really find much Italo in Melbourne, I mean, you would find bits and pieces here and there that people had in their collections, but usually nothing. I love buying records…I buy too many
Cold Crush: There is no such thing!
Hysteric: *laughs* When there is no space to move in your apartment it is a bit much
Cold Crush: It’s not the records that are the problem — you just need a bigger apartment *laughs*. So Cold Crush this Friday will be the second time you’ve played in Sydney right?
Hysteric: That’s right, I played at a cool gig called Ritorno Al Futuro in 2008, with Mark Pritchard and Wasubot. It was Italo, minimal synth wave stuff. At first the crowd didn’t seem to get it but they were really getting wild by the end
Cold Crush: Yeah, I was there, you played a nice set. So listen, Cold Crush is this Friday — what do you have in stall for the party people?
Hysteric: Doing this mix really got me pumped up… it’s been a while since I’ve played a lot of these tracks so i’m really excited. I’ve pulled out some nice records to play, some obscure shit, actually, some of my favorite records: Hague electro, some freaky Invasion Planète stuff, probably some Italo — not too much though. And some bboy stuff too for good measure
Cold Crush: We can’t wait, see you Friday night!
Hysteric – Electro Will Never Die track listing
1. Nimoy – The Orca Reunion
2. Le Syndicat Electronique – Crashland
3. Simulant – Access Future Audio (Mix)
4. Boyz from Tronn – Radio
5. Newcleus – Jam On It
6. Toddy Tee – Do You Wanna Go To The Liquor Store
7. Novamen – Bubblegum
8. Chester Louis III – It Drives Me Wild
9. Sipho Mabuse – Break Dance
10. Cinebrivido – Automatic Object
11. Le Car – Flame Job
12. DMX Krew – Bump To The Beat
13. Sem – V.5
14. Le Syndicat Electronique – Ewigkeit
15. Interlude: David Shire – Space Linkup / Earth Fallout
16. Mr. Velcro Fastener – Assassins / Moonbase
17. Cybernet Systems – Robot Movement
18. The Advent – Future Cities
19. Ultradyne – Black Panther
20. DJ Godfather – Booty Percolate
21. EDMX – Perc Au Lait
22. Umwelt – Haunting
23. Le Syndicat Electronique – Run
24. Legowelt vs Orgue Electronique – Mr. Jims Nightclub
25. Double Dutch – Launch Detected
26. Ultradyne – Radar Blip
Hysteric – Electro Will Never Die
I want to be representative of sex in the movies and I am Algerian, 25 Years