Moving Forward with Robert Babicz

Robert Babicz is a Polish producer who grew up in the hardcore German techno scene and began by making his own path under the alias Rob Acid. Throughout his nearly 25 year career, Babicz has shifted and evolved continuously to become not only an internationally renowned producer, but also a sound designer (Native Instruments), a label owner (Babiczstyle), and an avid photographer. Babicz functions as both a perfectionist in the studio and a live artist in clubs. He presents a humanistic feel to the electronic scene with works that convey a tremendous amount of skill and emotion. After a triple-header weekend in Toronto, Montreal, and New York, THUMP caught up with Babicz for the latest.

THUMP: Welcome back to North America and to our electronic music scene. Some might say that our scene has become saturated with a poppy aspect to electronic music, what are your thoughts?
Babicz: I have the feeling because it’s so saturated, the people have started to become hungry again for something different. The pop version has nothing to do with our vision of electronic music, but it brings fresh kids into the game and that’s very important. I am thankful to all the David Guetta’s and the Deadmau5 artists out there because they bring new kids. I mean, I have been doing this music now for 24 years. In the beginning of the ’90s there was this horrible commercial music, then later all this rave happy hardcore whatever music [came around]. There was always something there, but it brings people into this music. It’s the children though, it’s the kindergarteners. Even if through these millions of kids—even if we get 10 percent of these kids who become really interested in the music it’s a good number. We can count of them. It’s important we have new people because this whole movement is not easy. We have people who go out for two maybe five years in their lifespan. The time where people go out to the clubs and enjoy music before they go into their jobs and start to have families and everything, then they don’t go out to the clubs anymore. Only the real fans will stay.

In this saturated market there is a platform to book the acts that pioneered electronic music—such as yourself? How was the triple-header weekend you just had in Toronto, Montreal and New York?
It has been a very intense weekend. Since I’m not a DJ and I play my own music, I think every night I was playing minimum four hours so it was four hours of Babicz only. It was massive fun and I really enjoyed it; the people were so into it. They were so open minded because my music is somehow very broad. I really enjoyed everyplace. At CODA, [the crowd] was very energetic. Stereo [in Montreal] had this very interesting psychedelic vibe. The whole design [of the club] is based around it being very dark. Everyone was really into the music, not this, “Oh look at the DJ, and wow… he’s a superstar!” They were all really dancing, they were following me, and they were trusting me.

You are somewhat notorious for filming your travels. You have an amazing Flickr account. How would you explain your connection between film and music and this parallel passion that you have for each of them?
I ask myself this a lot. I think it has something to do with the rules that both pictures and music follow. In a way they both have a geometrical beauty. That’s how I would describe it. Looking at it the other way around, I can see music—so when I listen to music I see geometrical structures in time. When I look at things at the same time, I can imagine how they sound.

Is that where the emotive and evolving music you produce comes from… these images?
Yes. But it’s also the reason why I produce so quickly in the studio, because I am producing around one track per day. I can see the sounds and when something is not right it just looks ugly. I work with the production until I see the beauty in it. When I go to the studio I have an inside feeling for a track, but I don’t have the actual track in my head. The feeling of what I want to achieve is there. I have a storybook. Every track of mine is set up like a small theater scene. When you listen to one of my tracks—at least when I do—I see actors, the sounds, the stage, and they are acting and doing things. So some tracks are action scenes, some are love, and some are drama.

You can check out a virtual tour of his studio here.

With your experience in mind, if you were to give advice to producers today on their own productions, what would you say to them?
I think the most important part is don’t give up. It is very frustrating. Something I always say is even after 24 years I am only now starting to get the feeling that I am an advanced beginner. Some doors are opening. Now I am at a point where I can go to the studio and I don’t have to think about the technology. I don’t have to think about how to make the sound, I just do it. I think there are steps when you are an artist that you have to climb and when you start. Of course you may like this artist and you want to make your music sound like this, so you kind of emulate and replicating stuff instead of inventing. So it takes time. At the beginning I had these emotions but I didn’t have language yet. I understood a few words and I was repeating those words.

Your music gives a very human feel to electronic music, which is unique.
And that is so important. I think a few years ago I had a moment where I think I was reading some interview about some techno artist and I thought, “Okay we have been listening to this person for a long time but I have no idea who this man is. Is this even a human?” We don’t know anything about most of the artists, we just know they are into their music, but who is the human behind it? I missed the human side behind it, so I said I will open up as much as possible.

Did you feel like you were getting this across with your earlier works or was this realization a pivotal switch?
I think my switch was Robert Babicz. The moment where I understood that all my project names were parts of me, so I didn’t feel like I needed to hide anymore behind these names—I can be me. So Robert Babicz can be hardcore noise or really nice and ambient and whatever in between. It’s all me, so I don’t need to hide anymore.

Would you have anything you want to say to your fans and future fans? Anything you want to say to the world?
Especially for this North America audience, I am really excited that there is a seed that is really growing. It took so long. I think I started to play around 1995, that’s when I had my first shows in North America

How would you say it has progressed since 1995?
In that time there were dark and dirty warehouses with horrible sound systems. Everything was nice, but it is much better now. The music has evolved so much, it’s sounding much better. If you are listening to this old music, it is really like kindergarten music. From the perspective of sound design and composing at that time in the ’90s, we were doing really simple music. It was good and it was the music of that time, but we don’t need to go back to this, at least I don’t need too—I want to go further. The basic idea of how I understood electronic music was that it is the music of the future, so it makes no sense to look back and think, “Oh this guy was much better, let’s go backwards.” Evolution!

You can follow Geoff on Twitter @gpharricks