09.04.2012
Bottin interview & mix for iCrates Mag
In-deep interview with the venetian disco master mind that includes a vinyl only mix
Bottin has made a career out of defying his contemporaries. Enamored in the kitsch, much-maligned world of italo disco at a time when many turned their backs on the genre and obsessed with obscure, unpopular and often malfunctioning synthesizers, it’s almost a wonder he’s got to where he is today. Consider too that he hails from a city with more gondoliers than vinyl records and Bottin’s rise to fame seems all the more improbable. However, the 34 year old Venetian disco producer has succeeded in carving a niche for himself somewhere between italo, disco and nu-disco, bringing a much-needed dose of childhood naivety back to the dancefloors of the world.
Fresh from his fantastic contribution to the iCrates Vinyl-Only sessions, we caught up with William Bottin aka Bottin (unsurprisingly) to chew the fat about curious synths, the disturbing rise of the laptop DJ and one or two psychedelic Japanese cartoon soundtracks.
The mix you’ve done for us is called “Disco for the Family”. Were you surrounded by music as a child?
I didn’t have much music in my family, it’s kinda strange. I think I had less music than the average kid. I had maybe ten vinyl records in my home. Some Stravinski and Vivaldi, that’s about it. I was also given 3 or 4 seven inches with children songs, but I do remember that since I was like 4 or 5 years old, I really focussed on the bass line part, and I remember discovering groove-based music over childish melodic music. I have been making music all of my life, but I’ve never had a proper musical education – with the exception of piano lessons from an old lady and later some classes in jazz piano – or any direct musical inspiration within my family.
If you had no music at home as a child, who were your musical role models?
I discovered most of the disco and italo stuff through older DJs who were working for local radio stations. They didn’t have a big following or anything but they were just really good music connoisseurs that had good record collections. I was lucky to inherit parts of those.
They would give me records they did not wanna keep.
At one point I started liking the stuff that they really loathed, for instance like italo – they thought it was shit, and most of it is probably shit [laughs]. When those records were coming out at the time nobody really liked them in Italy, they thought they were second or third rate records compared to the UK or the US productions. I found a sort of naiveness in them and I liked them for that reason. They sounded fresh and not so overproduced and not so professional. I don’t think it was meant to be that way – but it just happened. When you listen to music that was made 30 years ago with the ears of today you make some assumptions that were not made at the time.
What’s your relationship to the term ‘nu-disco’ that you often get described as?
I think it’s a term that works well for magazines, but it doesn’t really describe much about the music. When the term was first introduced the music it was referencing was mainly house music. I think 90% of so-called nu-disco was actually more melodic house music, now it’s the third deep house wave. People tried to make old disco with new instruments, but it’s not an innovating scene. That’s why I have a problem with the “nu” part of the term, because I don’t think it’s even trying to be new. It’s not really avant-garde.
What is it about what you’re doing which is different?
I found myself at one point that the music I was liking, was becoming closer and closer to the music I was listening to when I was in elementary school and in junior high school. I didn’t even know it was italo at the time and I didn’t know I had it in me. It was the first sort of pop music I was exposed to.
There was also a strange phenomenon in Italy in the 70’s or 80’s that all the cartoons we would get on TV were Japanese cartoons and all the soundtracks were like disco funk with a lot of synthesizers. Also because many of the songs were re-scored by Italian musicians so they could avoid paying the original publishers, they were scored with the instrumentation that was in fashion at the time, and that was mainly disco and funk music. I’m basically trying to bring my childhood influences to contemporary clubs, which to me is not really a musical statement, it’s more of an approach. You know there’s nothing like when you hear a great song for the first time, so I’m trying to bring back that genuineness and naiveness. When something is immediately recognizable as part of a scene I don’t think it’s that interesting anymore; it’s not fresh anymore.
So the challenge is to make something with a very strong retro aesthetic continue to be relevant?
Yeh, I mean the retro aesthetic comes from the instruments I use, because they are very old instruments and I use them in an old way. I don’t use the software versions. I just find it easier to work with the physical piece of gear rather than with the software. So that conveys a sort of retro flavour.
[...]
Read the whole interview via iCrates Mag website.
Listen to Bottin’s ‘Disco For The Family’ mix for iCrates Vinyl-only sessions here.
