Jacopo Carreras: Somnambulism and Sofas.

It would have been all too easy to dismiss Lan Muzic as another Berlin techno label pumping out tracks for the Watergate: 12”s by Touane, Philip Sherburne and label bosses Exercise One offered little more than familiar shuffling rhythms and fractured arpeggios, even if they were damn solid floor movers. However, with Jacopo Carreras’ debut album, From Bed to Couch, Lan have well and truly broken the mould. Despite the lethargic title, From Bed to Couch is a whirlwind of a record, swerving seemingly randomly across the musical plane, displacing every element. At the eye of the storm, it’s still techno though, and Manky and Gentle Touch power forward with the kind of hard-nosed beats that flood the floor at peak time, whilst Carreras builds from this base to explore minimal composition, rock, breakbeats and wonky trip-hop.

Carreras’ eclectic tastes go some way to explaining the multi-faceted power of From Bed to Couch; he cites SunElectric, Efdemin and Modeselektor as favourites, but just as happily references Hendrix, the Beatles and his childhood piano lessons. “As I said and as I believe, every piece of music we listen to, even Ms Aguilera, leaves a piece in each one of us”, he tells me. He later expands on this idea when discussing the influence of Berlin and Lan Muzic: “All my musical friends really influence me. Probably the closest are the ones who reach more into me. From Lee Jones, to the Exercise One crew (whose live set I can’t even think of not experiencing), to every single DJ/performer I heard - whether I liked it or not. I would say it is an ideological heart contribution. As in all art scenes everyone gives, everyone receives. I hope I manage to give too!”

Along with musical taste, Carreras’ biography is represented on From Bed to Couch. As an occasional DJ, former rock bassist and jazz musician, he’s able to inculcate the kind of driving, electro-punk that Killing Joke have been trying to recapture for the past decade (Rox Tox), the springy kick drums and repetitive riffs of Amê (One Sentence), and splintering electronics a la AFX (Manky).

However, this is not merely a collection of external influences and memories. Indeed, From Bed to Couch was created using custom-designed software, patches of which are included with the album. So why did he choose to start with custom software? “The first reason I did it was pragmatic: do by yourself what others won’t do unless you pay a lot of money,” he responds, “The second, but of greater importance, is ideological; defining my own spaces is as important as defining where you want to go.” As with Kraftwerk or Monolake, Carreras reinvents the methodology behind music production and in doing so, creating an entirely new contextual framework to work around.

Carreras exhibits none of Kraftwerk’s legendary inscrutability with regard to his tools though, and includes a number of his custom software patches along with the CD version of From Bed To Couch. Giving away the mechanics behind his work seems contrary to the very idea of individual spaces, as each use of the software further crowds the ‘individual space’ with skewed reflections. However, Carreras disregards individual ownership of his programs, seeking more to engage with the evolution of technology and music as a whole. “I am so convinced that software awareness is the focal point of a new individuality we are heading for, that I had to put it in practice, somehow” he explains. “I needed to share my experience and I don’t really care if someone else uses the distortion from Anarko-F, or Acute's guitars. I would actually be very, very happy for this!”

It’s refreshing to encounter an artist so in touch with the philosophical concepts surrounding their creativity, and Carreras happily states that “I could go on for days!” discussing ideas of individuality and an artist’s ‘ownership’ over their work. The kinds of musicians willing to engage with these concepts are usually either smugly incomprehensible art snobs obsessed with method, or reclusive techno artists prone to spectacular hissy-fits and very occasional remixes. However, Carreras stands out not merely for his philosophy of interaction between art and artists, but the fact that From Bed to Couch is bloody entertaining and hugely catchy. It can be enjoyed on every level, from critical appreciation to philosophical debate, to technological study. Quite simply though, there’s nothing like the dirty, overdriven bass of Rox Tox to leave you crawling between horizontal positions the next day.