For more than 13 years, this man has represented the beautiful and ultra-modern side of drum and bass to fans of electronic music. During that time LTJ Bukem has established himself as a true leader of the style and achieved a great deal within his genre, whether through his own productions and collaborative work with MC Conrad or the numerous releases from his popular label Good Looking Records. Bukem will once again visit Perth with MC Conrad as the headliner for Heavyweight Soundz at Capitol on Friday, March 17.
Bukem is the embodiment of passive aggression. Aggressive in the music industry and in his passion for his own projects, and passive toward public opinion, occasional mockery, and rumours. From his point of view, the journey to the upper echelons of this explosive genre has been completed.
With so many releases popular all over the world, Bukem admits that there is no one more demanding than he is. “I’m never satisfied with the sound quality; I always feel it could be better. That’s my character—I’m always trying to improve everything,” he says. It is worth noting that Bukem himself cannot single out favourite tracks among his creations; he is happy that each one seems to contain the period of time in which it was made. “All the Progression Sessions are equal to me, because all of them were given music that reflected that particular moment in time, the atmosphere, and the rhythm of the night when they were recorded.”
Despite his far-reaching creative efforts, Bukem is also one half of what may be the longest-running and most successful DJ/MC partnership, and the energy of the Bukem/Conrad duo continues to find fans around the world.
“Honestly, I’ll tell you why Conrad and I have such a good partnership. It’s because I make him a lot of money!” Bukem replies, laughing mischievously. “Why would he go anywhere else without Danny Bukem if I give him 200 parties a year! First of all, we’re both on the right track. Secondly, and seriously, when it comes to creating material, we really work wonderfully together. He understands me completely as a DJ and enjoys my music and what I play. I have complete respect for him as a lyricist. He lets the music breathe, gives it his all, and doesn’t turn it into a solo show. It works for us. He makes it work, and what we do helps if you can captivate someone and take their music everywhere you go. The more we collaborate, the clearer it becomes that our show is aimed at becoming even better.”
Moving on from assessing the talents of Conrad and their ongoing collaboration, let’s turn to matters concerning the status of his record label. Bukem speaks about this with the same humour. Because of the lack of activity last year, rumours circulated around GLR about major debts, the closure of GLR’s studios in England, and the fact that Good Looking was unavailable for any contacts or offers.
“First of all, all the people who talk about Good Looking’s death—why has not one of them contacted me or my business partner at Good Looking Records?” asks Bukem, somewhat puzzled by the whole situation. “Secondly, all these people—the people saying such things—are going to be the kind of people who will never achieve anything in their personal lives. They are people who could not even achieve, or begin to achieve, what I and Good Looking have done over the past 15 years.” His tone contains obvious light-hearted mockery of the situation, yet there is no sign of anger over any of the rumours being spread.
“How can someone who cannot achieve what I have achieved get under my skin? I would be a strange person if people of that kind could throw me off balance.”
Bukem’s contempt for the emergence of the Internet rumour is simple and obvious. The passion and drive he draws from his work, of which he is enormously proud, are boundless. Nevertheless, in a business that follows no conventions, other real activities have often had to remain in the background of his professional life.
“Most people take a holiday once a year. My partner and I took a holiday after 15 years of work. I think that if we wanted to take a year off, we had the right to do it,” he replies, slightly tired. “That is exactly what we did for 12 months. Besides, I mean, the fact that people are concerned about it doesn’t upset me, but I take note of it.”
Throughout that year Danny Bukem did not rest on his laurels, and even during his break from work in the industry he was fairly busy. “I wrote some new music and did some work with Conrad. We have the best album in the 10 years of existence of Progression Session at Fabric; we’ll record it on DVD, we may decide to do a Progression Session in Australia, and I have lots of plans. My business partner and I are also renovating the studio building, which played a major role during the last two years of work. It’s really difficult to do that when you’re far away.”
“I worked monthly for 10 years and I needed a break. It requires a great deal of organisational effort. You put on parties every week for 10 years, and then suddenly people ask, ‘What happened, did you go bankrupt?’ or ‘Oh no, is it all over?’, and I reply, ‘No, it isn’t. We put on parties at Fabric every month, so don’t talk nonsense.’ There is one message I would like to leave people with: go and do something publicly that benefits the scene, benefits Good Looking. Go and write some music, create a record label—go and find 15 people in an office and 40 musicians, then run it for 10 years. Advance people’s lives and feel the difference. When you’ve done that, come back to the forum and start talking about Danny Bukem.”
Beyond the rumours and beyond the deception, LTJ Bukem is eagerly and enthusiastically looking forward to the upcoming tour. “We’re celebrating the label’s thirteenth anniversary, we’ll be doing some new material, trying to let an audience that has never heard anything like it listen to it, and perhaps trying to educate them, but at some point in the set we’ll try to play some retro, perhaps at the beginning, perhaps at the end. We’re only going to present some of the music that was previously played at our parties and is the reason for our presence here. We’ll play a few tracks as part of the celebration.”
The reason for his enthusiasm about the coming tour can be stated clearly and simply: “We love Perth, we love it.”
Original article: Xpress Magazine (Perth). Translated from the Russian translation by Addams and Buran, edited by r.dee.
