From the moment it’s mentioned, one of the iconic legends behind influential electronic group Leftfield asks all kinds of questions. He wants to know what the festival looks like. He’s wondering how the stages are set up. He’s keen on the lineup. Strawberry Fields is going to provide his first opportunity to DJ in Australia, and to cut a long story short, he’s ready for some fun.
“People have a different attitude when they come to see you,” Barnes says. “They’re not expecting to hear all your tunes. It’s quite often none of your tunes, so you have a responsibility to make them dance, and that does affect how you think about the evening. If I’m doing a big event -and I’m sure Strawberry Fields is a big event – when you get more than, say, three thousand people in a field, something happens that’s different, and it’s no longer a club.
“The type of records that you can play in a club – that might be more busy and sweaty and acidy – don’t work on these really big environments, where you’ve got this big open field, and this stadium techno vibe takes over. The type of records that you play are affected by that – when they’re in big crowds, people want things to happen quicker.”
The venture is a slight departure from Barnes’ usual work in Leftfield, where he admits to liking a slower build and development to his musical craft. He relishes the challenge and is eager to weave magic with his different skillset. Ever since taking the world by storm with Leftfield’s seminal 1995 album Leftism, Barnes has been cemented as a master of eclectic electronica. Those willing to join him on his wild ride can be assured a treat of explosively diverse proportions.
“There are people making absolutely brilliant records at the moment, but everything is so subdivided into things, it’s incredible,” Barnes says. “And they don’t mix. I find that a little bit sad. I’m really tempted to drop a really heavy bass record into the middle of my set, but I know people will stop dancing. People go, ‘Why’d you do that, mate?’ A couple of my sets, I’ve changed it up in the middle, and I’ve sent it to my agent, and they’ve said ‘Oh, people don’t like that stuff – you’re either one thing or the other.’ I’m quite fortunate that I’m managing to get that reputation for playing interesting music. People know they’re going to come and they will hear really banging techno tracks that they’re going to love, but then they might get 15 minutes of wonky German records, if I feel like it. There’s enormous choice these days, and that’s a big difference.”
When crafting the ultimate setlist, Barnes insists that it’s important to play a range of different styles. Inspired by the creative attitudes of Bob Marley, Bowie and Björk, Barnes will carve his own way on Australian soil, rejecting homogenised trends like drops and build-ups in favour of an inventive approach. He loves Aussie crowds for their receptive nature, and although there are obvious limits (“Proto-punk doesn’t go down well,” he says), he’s not adverse to dropping beatless tracks or even the odd folk record in the right environment. Experimentation keeps his performance eternally fresh, and he loves surprising an audience with a left-of-centre banger.
“I get the feeling that 95 percent of people come in and it’s like, ‘Half a pint of techno please, with a little bit of house,’ ” Barnes says. “Most DJs stick to the same BPM from beginning to end. I think that the best prize is people like Marcel Dettmann and Daniel Avery. Guys like that, they are real proper DJs. They do mix it up, change it up and play records that you don’t expect. I love that. You’ve got to do that. I’d get bored shitless playing the same records every night. I don’t know how people do it. I don’t care whether it fills the dancefloor, I don’t care whether people want to hear it. Tough.”
By Jacob Colliver
