Interview with Ellen Allien - 11th Hour Technology

Ever since Ellen’s label first reached our ears back in 1999, Bpitch Control has become a buy on sight imprint for the 11th Hour team. Releasing a broad range of quality electronic music, from Techno through Electro, breakbeats and House – all very different, yet all stamped with a distinctive Berlin sound - Bpitch Control has swiftly built up a reputation as one of the most interesting and forward thinking labels in Europe. Having notched up over fifty releases in little over three years, it is also setting itself to be one of the most prolific imprints around.

Ellen’s second label, she first began releasing music on the short lived Braincandy project, and is currently working on a 7 inch concept, Spielplatz

She is also a renowned international DJ, having been a regular on the Berlin circuit for over ten years, and her unique blend of synth driven Techno, Electro and breakbeat cuts has made her popular across Germany and Europe, as the huge Bpitch tour this autumn testifies.

We caught up with her at Sonar 2002, the night after she performed at the Bpitch Control Showcase, alongside label signings Modeselektor and Feadz.

We are proud to present – Ellen Allien

Ellen The first electronic music I listened to was in London, it was acid house. I was living in London for a year in about ’89. Then I came back to Berlin, which first was more into hip hop, because at this time hip hop was very famous in the underground – very indie and cool. And then it changed to techno and acid-house – there was the first techno club in Berlin, called UFO. Then, in ’92 they were starting to play music in one bar, called Fischlabor – that was the same guy who started UFO, the same guy who now runs Tresor. So he made this bar, and all the DJs there started to play techno, and jazz, house – everything. This was a very important meeting point for the scene in Berlin, and I started playing there about the same time. After this a lot of clubs asked me to play – I was a resident of E-Werk from Berlin, I played every Sunday at Tresor; and then I made my own radio show on Kiss FM called Braincandy, every Thursday for two years I was running that. I was also working in a record shop – I’ve done so many things in the music business!

11th-hour Was that when you started the label Braincandy – off the back of the radio show?

Ellen Yeah, I called the radio show Braincandy, so I made the label with the same name – that was in ’95, ’96 – something like this!

11th-hour Why do find yourself attracted to the more experimental side of Techno – as opposed to straight Techno, which is very big in Germany?

Ellen I like more breakbeats, and stuff like this – I don’t like so much the Techno dark stuff. And I hate Trance! Because I come from Berlin, and I think there the music’s more positive; it goes more in the light – up - than in the cellar.

11th-hour Why do you think Berlin has such a strong electronic culture – why has it become so popular in Berlin?

Ellen We have the biggest club scene in the world I think, because after the wall came down, we had many, many locations on the east side where we could make small clubs, with cheap rent and no problems with all the neighbours, because there were no neighbours! In this time, from ’89 to ’95, the government had such a lot of problems to get us. Now it’s very complicated, because now it’s a big city, and all the capitalism shit is there, and now everybody likes to make money – it kills the underground, because they make the buildings new, and now it’s very hard to find cheap clubs. But the good thing is that our network is so big, that it can bring things forward if you hold together, if you’re working together. And no-one in Berlin is working against each other. Well, maybe some people, but I don’t know them! Our network is good – if we have issues we call each other, we work together – so the big companies don’t have a chance to kill us. That we know, and we try to bring things forward. And I think in Berlin many people are very active – they don’t think so much about money, they try to be more creative. That’s the most important thing – not looking only for money. You can make money doing something else, but the most important thing is to be active.

11th-hour Do you find that feeling is still holding together in Berlin, even with a lot of electronic music becoming more money driven?

Ellen Yeah, yeah. And you notice it – sometimes we even make panels, are talking together with the media, and with labels to know what’s going on everywhere. It’s good – it’s modern!

Ellen I stopped doing Braincandy because I had many problems with the distribution, and I was younger – and I didn’t know how to talk to men, in the men world!! But by getting older I learned a lot from men! There’s no macho culture here, but the most important thing for me was to know how to get the information I needed. Then it’s no problem, but if you’re young, you don’t know… Now it’s no problem for me.

11th-hour So you started Bpitch control immediately after you finished Braincandy?

Ellen I finished Braincandy, and then I started to make parties, Pitch Control, in industrial places, very big and getting very full. And I was thinking after two years, ‘what else – the people can’t take things with them, because we don’t have a label, we don’t have mix compilations…’ I was thinking I had to catch this moment of the music, and I had to make a new label. So I started to make Bpitch Control, because for me it was important that people can take it, and always have the memories of the parties, and of the sound. I had to hold it. So then I started this label – it was in ’99, and it went very fast! I don’t know why! Now we are very into it, and into the sound – and the sound is better and better for me. It’s not something you can say very much sometimes, but I think the music is very special.

Ellen No. No, not at all. Everything is more in the creative thing; if you like to sing, you can sing, etc… Nothing came out where I said ‘Do this, do this, do this, because it’s better for selling.’ Most tracks are made by night, and I listen to them the next day, and say ‘Hey, give it to me. Let’s go, let’s get it out!’ The style’s changing always – that’s very important for me as I don’t like to be a label doing only this or that, because it makes me so tired! I always need new influences. This is important. Not one style.

Ellen I think it’s always light – it goes in the air, because the music is not dark. And it’s Berlin. You can hear this – if you visit some clubs in Berlin, you know this is the Berlin sound.

11th-hour Are you happy about the success of the label, becoming increasingly ever popular – particularly with a lot of German labels becoming extremely popular and moving over into the commercial scene – is that something you want?

Ellen No. I don’t like to be, and don’t have to be in the charts. If the artist says to me ‘let’s sell it’, then we can do it. But I don’t look for this – I look more for people we can work with for a long time, to build it up – but not in the commercial thing, more in the creative thing. If they like to make pop we can do it, but it’s not like we have to do it. I hate that – the most important thing for me is that everybody is open, and that it’s free. I like to be free with my things, and the artists have to be free.

11th-hour So what about your new 7 inch label, Spielplatz [Playground]- do you have a different idea of how you want to develop that, or is it just an extra project?

Ellen Sometimes we have only two tracks from one artist, so it’s a channel to bring just two tracks out. And maybe only two hundred copies, something like that, and I really look forward to making a compilation later, on CD…

11th-hour Are there any names we should watch out for, or any releases you’re particularly excited about?

Ellen Yeah, a new Sascha Funke album is coming out, and I’m really happy about this one! Also in September we will make a new compilation called Germeinsam – that means ‘together’, and we will tour together in Europe. And my new mix CD [Weiss] has just come out. We are also making a lot of videos, though only for fun!

Ellen Sometimes I play at Ostgut, but our real club is WMF – that’s the new club for Bpitch Control. And Tresor… But we play everywhere – not too much, but everywhere!

11th-hour So did you ever envisage when you started that the scene would have grown to such a size as it is here at Sonar?

Ellen Well, I love this place, but when we had our showcase last night I felt nothing. The distance from the crowd was so great – I saw no faces! For me here it’s only really good as an artist to listen to others – like Kid 606 - it was brilliant – it’s funny, it’s fresh. Also I like to meet many people I can talk with, like business to business. And it’s nice to eat fish here! But the clubs are no so good as in Berlin – at Nitsa the sound is bad, Moog is too small… I don’t know, for me Barcelona isn’t the best city for clubbing – it’s a nice meeting point. I like all the abstract and intelligent music, but as a rave, it’s not so important…