HI-SHOCK TACTICS

“It’s all about the music, getting the sounds out there, experimenting with fresh styles – and now the new possibilities with digital platforms let me introduce not only more of my own sounds, but also to expose other great artists to a worldwide audience.”

So enthuses Simon Nielsen, better known in Australia – and increasingly around the world – as DJ Hi-Shock. Simon is an enthusiastic guy, and his enthusiasm is catchy. Chat with him just a few minutes, and you’ll be agreeing with his intent, his ideas, his passion for the perfect dance floor oriented groove, and his future intentions.

Those future intentions cover not just his own productions (and there are many of these, not just as DJ Hi-Shock, but under aliases like Secret Surfer, Technika, PSI ROOM and Deep Night), that cover the musical terrain from techno through to house and trance, but those of an array of other talented artists, via his netlabels Elektrax Recordings and Hypnotic Room, and their sub-labels.

“Elektrax Recordings was originally started to release my own techno productions on vinyl many years ago, then I re-started the label digitally on Beatport back in 2005, releasing proper, hard-edged and deep – minimalistic grooves,” DJ Hi-Shock says. “Since then, I’ve been getting so many new great demos with different styles of music, I felt the need to start Hypnotic Room to expose a unique variety of dubby techno, electronica and tech-house, and Elektrax Progressive for the progressive house and tech-trance sounds, in order to give those new guys a chance to get their music heard. I felt that as long as the quality is there, it deserves a release, no matter if it’s made by a well known producer or a totally unknown being from across the universe!”

Some labels and producers have held out against introduction of the digital medium, while others, like Si Begg, Richie Hawtin or Gayle San, have publicly sung the praises of the digital phenomenon. You can count Simon amongst their number.

“We have access to a global market, and can get releases out there much quicker,” the Australian appraises. “More music has been purchased through digital download sales than ever before, and physical record and CD sales are have dropped to low numbers. Digital sales allow us to spend more money on marketing and promotion, as we’re able to save on shipping and the manufacturing costs of physical product, and associated costs of distribution. We still release limited vinyl, but only as part of marketing campaigns to promote a particular compilation or one of our regular label artists.”

The artists involved with DJ Hi-Shock at this point are both formidable and fresh – there’re old hands and talented new faces, as he’s keen to point out.

“The more known ones are Gayle San, Commander Tom, Virgil Enzinger, Wyndell Long, Orlando Voorn, Ree.K, Steve Stoll, Orlando.B, then there are the regular guys such as DJ Warp, Zen Paradox, Little Nobody, Takashi Watanabe, Miruga, Dale Baldwin, Dich, M.A.Z.7 and some of the new talent includes Nash Donson, TRYB, Ken-Gee, e383, V1NZ, Thanatos, Polygon Prompt, Hologram Hookers, Son of Zev, Enclave, Bitch Shift, Koda, Darkmode, 3 Deep, Wally Stryk, Flag75, SERi, M. Uchida, Ren de Rives, Claudio Masso, FrameON, Stereo Underground and many more…

The attraction of working with them is, of course, the music quality, but most important is the fact that they share the labels’ vision, and for them it’s all about the music! The doors are always open to fresh talents, just visit the labels respective websites for information on how to submit demos.”

Then there are the truly pioneering talents who have worked with the label. “My labels also love to work with remixers and we have introduced the Special Edition series of Hypnotic Room to focus on remix series.

So far we’ve had great remixes from Si Begg, Dave Tarrida, Jammin’ Unit, Shin Nishimura, Mijk van Dijk, Woody McBride, Justin Robertson – and, soon to come, we’ll have mixes from Patrick Lindsey, Pablo Bolivar, Paul Mac, Patrick Pulsinger, Claude Young, Nick Taylor, Ray Castle and Japanese producer NOP plus a new remix from DJ Wada (Co-fusion) is also in the works.”

While Simon is gaining rapid respect for these labels’ work and for his own production and remix techniques, he really did earn the ‘DJ’ part of his moniker – he’s been one of Sydney’s best known rave and techno club DJs for almost 20 years playing along side Sven Vath, Kevin Saunderson, Oliver Lieb, Thomas P. Heckmann, Commander Tom, Lenny Dee, Dr. Motte, Mijk van Dijk, Jammin’ Unit, Atom Heart to name a few.

Inspired by the early electronic music of Detroit, Chicago, early German techno and the underground sounds of Belgian New Beat, he began his versatile professional DJ career way back in 1988!

Simon was also responsible for importing into Australia some of the best vinyl in the ’90s from the likes of Thomas Heckmann’s Trope and AFU imprints. He admits to still being a Heckmann fan (who isn’t?), and then gushingly refers to some other proper all-stars.

“One of the most consistent guys, in my opinion, has been Oliver Lieb. I’ve visited his studio, and let me tell you, he is a perfectionist; the quality of his sound has always been superb. Other all-time best producers would include Atom Heart (Atomu Shinzo), Dave Clarke, The Advent (during the Internal days), Ralf Hildenbeutel (Earth Nation), Torsten Stenzel, Ken Ishii, The Mover (in his PCP days), the Detroit and Chicago crews, of course… wow. There are so many more talented people out there, and respect to all of them!”

Finally, comes the dj chart question, but instead of the “give me your current top 10″, this time DJ Hi-Shock got asked to name some of his all time favorites.

“Wow, that is certainly more difficult than naming the current top 10, because I love so many tracks from the good old days, but when I get asked to do an old-school techno set from the 90’s, there are some tunes that always keep getting played: Zzino – Accelerate, Vampirella EP (Subvoice), Daz Sound – “Juggernaut”, Luke Slater – “X-Tront Vol.3″, The Advent – “Manipulate”, Dave Clark – “Red 2″, No Soul – “The Bang” plus a whole heap of the early Harthouse Frankfurt releases by Koxbox, Pulse, Synesthasia, Eternal Basement”.

© Terry Rance 2009

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