More than a decade after their landmark self-titled debut, Voices From The Lake remain a project built around uncertainty. The Italian duo of NEEL and Donato Dozzy have always approached electronic music as something unfolding in the moment, patient, immersive and never entirely fixed.
That philosophy was at the centre of NEEL’s solo Voices From The Lake performance at MUTEK Montréal, where he blended material from the project’s two albums rather than simply recreating them. Afterwards, Dance Wax caught up with NEEL to discuss improvisation, following Voices From The Lake’s acclaimed debut and why playing without a safety net keeps him connected to the roots of techno.
Hearing the music live, it felt like it had more drive than on the records. How did you approach bringing the two albums together?
It’s all blended together. The music evolves very slowly. It’s not like having a clip on a computer that you press play on. You start playing something and maybe it only fully appears two minutes later. You have to go with the flow. The bass, the rhythm, the aquatic sounds, a lot of that is made on the fly.
I was super focused. I never really looked at the people because I couldn’t lose the point of where I was.
Does playing in a venue like this shape how you approach the performance?
Definitely. I’ve played some very special venues over the years. The Barbican in London, places in Paris and here was insane. It’s also different when everybody is seated. People might be tripping out, but you can’t necessarily see their reaction. When people are standing, you can see them moving. Here, I had to think about how to make people dance with their heads.
You’ve got quite a history with MUTEK. What does returning mean to you?
We performed as Voices From The Lake around the time of the first album, although that performance was much more dancefloor-oriented. MUTEK has a very educated audience in terms of listening. People are open to hearing everything. They give things patience, which nowadays is difficult to find.
When MUTEK was only here in Montréal, especially at the very beginning, I thought it was one of the most advanced festivals in the world. There must already have been something happening in this city for a festival like this to exist.
With the second Voices From The Lake album now out, is this live show something you want to keep evolving?
For sure. When Donato and I play techno together, we basically connect the machines and make sure we’re synchronised.
Sometimes we don’t even know exactly what the other person is bringing. We ask: “How many machines do we have? How many sync outputs do you need? How much space do you need?” That’s basically it. Everything happens on the fly.
Has the way you perform together changed over the years?
It changed very quickly. At first, we had material prepared and you knew roughly where you were going. Then we played a party in Tokyo. We were supposed to DJ back-to-back and play live, but we decided to bring the machines instead. We started with ambient and experimental music at around 11 at night and kept going until about 7:30 in the morning. It was all live.
That was the first time we went on stage with no clue, nothing prepared, seven and a half hours and no backup. That’s important. If you have a backup, somewhere in your mind you know there’s a shortcut. Without it, you have to be there in that moment and put your blood into it. From then on, that became the way.
Is that why you don’t want to structure a performance like tonight too tightly?
Exactly. If I structured the first album and then the second album, I would get anxious. I need the blank page. Otherwise, I don’t get the emotion. It’s already my music, so I need to reinvent it for myself.
If something tonight hadn’t worked, maybe a sound was too loud or something went out of sync. I would prefer that to having a completely structured, safe show that everybody likes. Otherwise, why did I come here? You’re on stage to play, so you have to play.
How did you want the second album to differ from the first?
If you make something on the same page as the first album, people say, “It’s the same.” If you change it, people say, “They’re not the same anymore.” At the beginning I thought of it like this: if the first album was night, the second one was day.
There’s more harmony. It’s still organic, but the first record takes you underwater. This one is more like coming above the water, although there are moments where you go back underneath. None of that was really planned. It came spontaneously. That’s what makes this project magic for me.
Do you think this improvisational approach connects Voices From The Lake to an earlier idea of techno?
Absolutely. I think it goes back to the roots. With Voices From The Lake, and when I play alone, I’ve always improvised. That’s how I work. Even in the studio, Ableton is basically there for recording. Everything else is on the machines.
Sometimes I make better music playing live with a few machines than I do in my studio, where I have thousands of instruments and an insane listening environment.
Being on stage with only a few machines brings you to the essence of the music. You have those machines and you have to use them to communicate with the people in front of you. The crowd, yourself and the machines all have the same importance. It’s the delicate balance between those things that makes it work.
So you still feel connected to that original lineage of techno?
Absolutely. I started DJing in the ’90s. I grew up in a village of 2,000 people, and when I was around ten, there wasn’t even a mixer available to me, so I bought a kit and built one. I didn’t know anything about electronics. I treated the instructions like a puzzle. The first one was terrible, I burned the board and had to buy another one. [laughs] But you become dedicated. That’s where I come from, and it’s what keeps me connected to this music. I’m not saying one way is better than another. Generations change and people should work however makes them comfortable.
But I definitely feel connected to the core of techno and to what originally made me fall in love with it.
If I stopped doing that, I’d probably be better off opening a restaurant.