On Friday August 7, Greig-Hurtig and his Steeplejack cohorts are launching the Steeplejack V/A compilation at the Tantradance party at The Mercat Basement. The name of the party relates to the fact that Greig-Hurtig feels it’ll be the climax after a long build-up; just like the theory of tantric sex.
Steeplejack V/A consists of just four tracks, composed by five separate acts. In running order, they are: TS-305 by Ron Big & Doc Brock, Groove Control to Major Ron by Ron Big & Irv Katz, Word by Nali and Storia by Nali.
Beat met up with Greig-Hurtig, Ron Big and Irv Katz (AKA Conor Mcleod-Gibson and Chris Cochrane-Friedich) in the beer garden at Prudence in North Melbourne to discuss the compilation, the party and the evolution of the Steeplejack label.
For the last two years Greig-Hurtig has been running Steeplejack & The Huff’n’Puff Chimney at New Guernica. “About one year in, the guys I was working with moved from just DJing to making music,” he says. “I was doing a fair bit of DJing at the time as well – as well as booking Pleasure Planet. But despite all that was going on, I saw a platform to be able release the tracks that they were making that was great music but it wasn’t leaving their lounge rooms.”
There is a sparkle in his eye as he reflects on the label’s history. His enthusiasm grows exponentially as he talks about the forthcoming release: “It got to a point where we couldn’t just talk about it for any longer, I had to just get it out there,” he says. “So I had a bit of savings and some friends that do visual art, so we decided to focus on a label and a compilation.”
Melbourne’s underground dance community is extremely tight. Its leaders realise that in order to maintain breadth and vitality, everyone must work together to discover new oceans of opportunity – rather than thrash and tussle in the existing pool until it is blood red. For Steeplejack, this has manifested itself with established labels like Butter Sessions, which is spearheaded by the Sleep D duo, and the gentler folks at Analogue Attic.
To the part timer listener, Steeplejack’s V/A compilation might come across as having a strong ‘90s bent, with Underworld being an easy comparison. Greig-Hurtig suffers a dry chuckle before he acknowledges the throwback impression.
“A lot of us involved with label listen to a lot of ‘90s dance, but we also listen to a lot of current music as well,” he says. “I think it’s more about appropriating the sounds of the last 30 years, 40 years even. We like a lot of Berlin School stuff from the ‘70s, and we are trying to present it in a modern context.”
By Berlin School, he’s referring to a wave of krautrock acts, including the likes of Klaus Schulze and Conrad Schnitzler from Tangerine Dream. “I guess you could boil it down to a modification of Berlin School, ‘80s synth pop, ‘90s Berlin techno and 2000s minimal.”
Ron Big and Irv Kat’s contribution to V/A is the second track Groove Control to Major Ron. If you’re looking for an embodiment of Greig-Hurtig’s description, this track condenses many of those elements. Though, there’s a prominent psychedelic running through it as well.
Cochrane-Friedich explains the origins of the track: “We sampled a Talking Heads tune and then sampled a recording from Istanbul that we used for the vocals and we just built from there,” he says.
Mcleod-Gibson offers his take on the song’s evolution: “We just bounced ideas off each other in the studio and that included doing some percussion and working out a nice bass-line. All the drum machines we use are hardware.”
Despite paying homage to several earlier eras, Steeplejack is in no way a purist analogue label. “Nick Li [Nali] does everything on the computer and that is apparent, but it doesn’t take away from his sound,” Greig-Hurtig says. “I would say the high energy of the opening two tracks is complemented by the analogue, almost live sound, whereas Nick’s songs are more subtle and dreamy and I think the technology works well in that context.”
On the topic of marrying different styles, the Tantradance party will transform the basement at The Mercat into a multi-sensual paradise, pairing musical acts with installation artist Oliver Ellmers, visual artists Cosmo Felt Ham and William Rosenfeldt and fashion label Coldsystem Clothing.
BY DAN WATT
