Beneath the Label: 10 Years of Perc Trax

On the day we catch up with him via a rather troublesome Skype connection, Ali Wells AKA Perc is back in the UK and sounding pretty chilled out after one of his busiest weekends of the year. Having performed at Amsterdam’s ADE festival, Unsound in Krakow as well as squeezing in smaller club gigs in places likes Zagreb and Venice, it’s safe to say Wells is in high demand far beyond his London base.

One of the key figures during a resurgent period for what many might term ‘proper techno’ – characterised as it is by much more grit than was offered by the deluge of inadequate records that saw the minimal movement reduce itself to nothing – Perc has seen his reputation and that of his label, Perc Trax, grow significantly. Initially launched in 2004 as a platform for his own productions, the label has now developed to accommodate a small family of artists and has amassed a considerable following.

Yet, reflecting on the decade long history of his outlet, Wells recalls a sense of uncertainty in the earliest days of the venture. “It definitely hasn’t gone the way I anticipated,” he admits. “I never really expected the label to last more than two or three releases.

“It’s not a case of not taking it seriously, because I was very serious about what I was doing, but I wasn’t really thinking of the bigger picture and the business side of things. I was just putting out music and seeing what sticks and what people liked. As the label continued through to about 15 to 20 releases, in my DJing and in my production and with the label itself, a certain sound was solidifying and the techno/industrial crossover kind of thing was where the label was going.”

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"A lot of stuff on the label is dark and moody, but that’s just the way I like it”

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That pulverising sound is one of the most recognisable features of the label in recent years. With a growing back catalogue of releases from Wells himself, as well as from a core group of other contributors such as Truss, Forward Strategy Group and Sawf, Perc Trax has advanced a particularly hard-hitting and murky style of techno. Kick drums fit to bore holes through your chest frequently form the backdrop for tracks that evoke the darkest of 5am basement club scenarios.

“It’s not some kind of reflection of my emotional state or my mood,” says Wells when asked about the dominance of gloomy atmospherics in both his own tracks and those he puts out on the label. “I go into the studio and the tracks I make come out like that; it’s just the way I am. In terms of the label, a lot of stuff is dark and moody, but that’s just the way I like it.”

Though he favours that particularly fierce brand of techno, Ali is clear about the potential for diversity within the genre, when asked about its lasting appeal and its current renaissance. “More than any other kind of dancefloor music – compared with house or garage or drum 'n' bass – I think techno is quite a wide-ranging thing.

“There’s not such a defined formula, and if you’ve got a 4/4 kick and maybe some percussion at a suitable tempo then the range to experiment on top of that is pretty wide. People in the club or the people buying the records are, for the most part, fairly open-minded to new ideas – especially if they are sort of strapped onto that basic engine.”

For sure, Wells can hear the seeds of Regis and his early Downwards sound in many new producers’ work and evidence of cross-generational allegiances can be found in the recent collaborations between Surgeon and Blawan. But Wells is full of praise for the way in which the new generation of techno producers are adapting the form, rather than aping past work. “It does go through cycles and you can hear trends come and go but I think, unlike the way house is right now – which is going a bit backwards with the whole deep house revival and things like that – techno hasn’t had a stage like that. People aren’t just ripping off those old tracks. I think that’s what keeps techno fresh, whereas in house [right now] there are people just making exact copies, with the exact same equipment as the tracks that were coming out in the early 90s. Thankfully, techno doesn’t do that too often.”

What’s immediately clear from prolonged listening to the Perc Trax catalogue and from observing the way in which it has developed is that the label isn’t locked in to one particular course; it’s not resistant to evolution. Particularly in Perc’s recent collaborative work with Truss, there is evidence of more colour finding its way into the label’s trademark opaque sound, and Ali tells us this will only continue in the coming years. “It’s [about figuring out] how to get hooks, riffs and synths and things like that into your music without doing anything too clichéd. I like a bit of energy and some sort of hook – not just a kick drum and a drone.”

As part of the celebrations around the 10 year anniversary of Perc Trax, this month sees the release of Slowly Exploding, a blistering double CD compilation put together by Wells. Rather refreshingly, he shuns picking out landmark records from the label’s history in favour of presenting new work from some of its key players. “It’s really about looking forward,” says Ali. “The label has had a lot of releases so if I was going to do one or two CDs of either my favourites, or the best-selling, or the most popular in terms of club play, or anything like that, I think it would never be fully satisfying and it would exclude certain people and certain tracks.

“I wanted the core group of artists on the label to contribute something and then other people that I’m really into at the moment. I wanted them to be part of it, and if they go on to release their own EPs on Perc Trax that’s great and if they’re just going to be on the compilation then it’s still nice to have had them on board for the one track. I didn’t want to do a retrospective thing or take a bunch of tracks from five years ago and do a whole bunch of new remixes. I think that would have been a waste.”

For the second CD on the compilation, Ali admits he “couldn’t resist” doing a mix, and the resulting effort is an expertly sculpted voyage through the work of the label’s main ambassadors, alongside some tracks from less frequent contributors. “It took quite a lot of planning and going through tracks,” he explains.

“There’s people who haven’t contributed a track [to the first CD] but that I wanted to somehow feature in the 10 year celebration so it was important for me to include them in the mix – people like Dead Sound & Videohead. Then there’s the Ancient Methods mix of one of my tracks. That’s the only thing Michael from Ancient Methods has ever done for Perc Trax but it was really important to have that connection there. It’s the same with the LUCY mix of Go Hiyama; I wanted both of those guys in there. There was a lot of going through tracks and grouping them by how intense they were – so deeper tracks at the start and tougher ones at the end. The actual mix itself came together [quickly] but it took a long time to choose what I wanted to include in it.”

As an artist, Perc has shown increasing versatility in his own output over the years and he has made comfortable strides into producing work not squarely aimed at the dancefloor. His interest in industrial music – not just club-friendly techno interpretations – led him to release an EP of reworks of tracks by German group Einstürzende Neubauten, longstanding pioneers of the industrial scene. For these kinds of projects, Ali launched the Submit sub-label in 2013, meaning Perc Trax is likely to keep a fairly dancefloor-focussed remit for the foreseeable future. That’s not to say we cannot expect fresh approaches though. “Going into next year the sound of the label will develop a bit,” Perc confirms.

“I think the kind of intensity and the distortion and noise of the industrial stuff will stay, but maybe some of the more metallic sounds and some of the murkier atmospheric sounds which are quite common in industrial techno right now will go away and maybe the label will push more stuff that has a slightly more electronic edge. I know everything that Perc Trax releases is considered electronic music but maybe, instead of murkier atmospheres, there will be more synths and things like that.”

When pressed on specifics and details of who may contribute, Wells explains that there are no grand plans laid out but that we can expect more from the elusive Sawf, whose new track on the Slowly Exploding compilation has given Ali great confidence in the Greek producer’s future potential. As well as this, he is keen for Scottish based duo Forward Strategy Group to continue their close association with the label. “In terms of releases, I’d like to just do maybe five or six really beautifully packaged 12 inches,” says Wells on his decision to avoid releasing any more albums for the time being.

“I never tell people what to do and what sort of music to make but if people want to move their music forward and try something slightly different from what they’ve been doing for the last year or two, then I’m definitely up for listening to it. Hopefully there will be an EP from Truss and one from myself. It would be nice to do strong artist EPs - no remixes, just each artist making a statement for the future. If they are really well packaged and they are really collectible then that would be a good year for me.”

Given the way in which Perc Trax has developed over the years, it seems Slowly Exploding is a rather fitting title for the upcoming compilation. The label arguably emerged with little fanfare and took time to establish its identity and forge roots within a techno scene at that time still in need of some resuscitation. Ten years on, and with those roots firmly established, there is a sense of confidence in the way the label is run, evident by the decision to look to the future with the anniversary release. Retrospective collections can all too often herald the end of a label, as past glories are rehashed in the absence of any fresh vision or ingenuity. Even the most cursory dip into next month’s double CD proves that Perc Trax faces no such problem.