For those expecting the white-noise brutality of a mid 2000s, Ben Sims’ set come November may not want to hold their breath. For someone like Sims, one of the longest standing in demand DJs, he is no one-trick-jockey. The British techno stalwart has long embraced a wide selection of music in his DJ sets and watching Sims pack for a gig now is akin to watching Rambo suite up for deployment behind enemy lines. “I’ll quite often take out records, a folder of CDs, USB sticks, Serato and my laptop if it’s possible. I still like to play vinyl. Most of the time, at the moment, I tend to be playing with three CDJs and it seems to be quite stable,” he says.
Ben Sims is part of a British vanguard in electronic music comparable to what Derrick May, Mike Huckerby and Kevin Saunderson are to Detroit techno. But as techno’s prevailing winds blow back across the Atlantic, it’s the Sims et al in James Ruskin, Mark Broom, Regis and Surgeon that now have UK techno at the forefront of influence and popularity. “It is one of those periods where techno seems to be influencing quite a lot of styles, you’ve got a lot of guys coming from bass music or the post-dubstep scene that are making music which is essentially raw techno, but they are doing it without the same influences as the older generation. They’re not coming from a Detroit or Chicago background, they’re coming from more of a drum and bass or dubstep background,” Sims explains.
Techno’s re-resurgence is something that Ben Sims has seen more than once. “At the moment it does seem like techno is on the up and it seems that the more commercial end of DJs are playing techno-y stuff. I played after Sascha in Ibiza the other day which in itself is quite a bizarre concept and he was essentially playing quite raw dubby techno and I was like, ‘that’s quite odd’,” he says. “Being into it (techno) for as long as I have you see things come and go so many times, it’s why I try and not get too excited about the next craze. People jump ship and keep changing styles, I think there is something quite naive about that, things do come in and out of fashion and if you can carry on doing what you believe in, eventually it will be popular again.”
However, Sims’ embrace for the renewed interest in techno is a welcome one. “The last time it felt like this was in the mid to late ‘90s when it was a lot of UK producers; Surgeon, Ruskin and people like myself coming through, then you had the older generation coming through like Luke Slater and Dave Angel – it’s like that again now,” he says. Last year Sims released his debut LP Smoke and Mirrors on Adam Beyer’s Drumcode. Prior to the album, Sims admits he never really considered himself an artist; he was always a DJ who produced tracks for his DJ sets. “The album was the first time I really took time out and really focused on just the music. I really enjoyed it and I managed to keep the momentum going and kept up the excitement of going into the studio,” he says.
This momentum and excitement will translate into a follow up LP explains Sims. “At the beginning of next year I’m going to take January-February off to work on a new album,” he says. “Before I saw the production side of things a very small part of what I do, it was always about the DJing, but now I feel a lot more confident after taking the time to work on a project that was ambitious and I look forward to doing some more.
“I have spoken to Drumcode about it and they are up for it, but it all depends on the music I make, it may not suite the label at all once I have done it. The last album came out on Drumcode, but I didn’t cater it for Drumcode,” he says. “I want to continue from where I left off and try and experiment a little bit more, maybe work with some more vocalists again and do some more housier stuff and push myself a little but further.”
For the remainder of 2012, Ben Sims’ conveyor belt like release schedule shows no sign of slowing. He teams up with Steven Brown for an EP on his own Theory imprint, the tribal sounds of his Hardgroove label will see a relaunch with a remix package featuring KiNK, Gary Beck and Mr G as well as a homage to Kevin Saunderson with a 25th Anniversary edits bundle.
BY JAMES MANNING
