This is how all live shows should be -- the EQTV cameras catch Octave One in action at the Sub Club, and we talk to Lenny Burden about the duo's live set-up, their music and their upcoming album Here, There And Beyond...
While we hate to sound like luddites, but laptops really have ruined all the fun. Live shows used to be a bit of a spectacle, but these days, even the Chemical Brothers have stripped back what was once a vast wall of machinery to a handful of computers. Luckily, there are a few producers who still know how to put on a good show when they play out -- and the Burden Brothers are two of them. Octave One don't believe in laptops. They believe in giving the crowd a show -- which is why they lug a massive amount of equipment around the world with them whenever they play out.
It's worth the effort -- as their recent set at the Sub Club in Glasgow for Subculture proved. Rather than staring into a monitor, Larry and Lenny were furiously tweaking knobs as they pounded out some of the best techno you'll ever want to hear. They've been around since techno's birth and they're still as good as ever.
Their label, 430 West Records, is celebrating their 20 years of groundbreaking music by revisiting classic tracks with a load of new remixes. The Revisited Series of EPs got its second outing at the end of January 2011 with I Believe getting a very special treatment from Sandwell District, and Daystar Rising getting reworked by Aril Brikha. Both tracks, plus additional remixes by some of electronic music's elite -- Ken Ishii, Luke Slater, Cari Lekebusch, Alexander Kowalski, Vince Watson, Los Hermanos, and Alter Ego -- are included on the Octave One retrospective album Here, There And Beyond.,
So with all this going on, Lenny Burden had plenty to talk about when we spoke to him before the Sub Club set. The album, the remixers, their lives shows, and Octave One's music in general were all on the agenda. Enjoy...
Revisited Series II is out on January 31 on 430 West Records. Here, There And Beyond follows at the end of February. Visit www.octaveone.com/ and / octaveone . And check out a mix from the Burden Brothers over at www.pulseradio.net/artists/oct...