Perc is one of modern electronic music’s reference points: an internationally touring DJ and live act, founder of the scene leading Perc Trax label and one of the most respected producers in techno today. As a performer Perc has taken his sound across the world to such seminal clubs as Berghain, Fabric, Tresor, Fuse, Space Ibiza, Concrete, Unit in Tokyo and to festivals including Awakenings, Glastonbury, DGTL Unpolished, Mayday, Unsound, Verknipt, Dour, Soenda, 10 Days Off, Extrema and many more.

In 2024, a pivotal year awaits Perc as he prepares to launch his new album, 'The Cut Off'—his first since 2017—in March. This release marks a shift towards a more dance floor-focused sound compared to his previous full-length albums. 'The Cut Off' will be complemented by an extensive world tour featuring live and DJ performances. Additionally, Perc Trax, his seminal imprint, is set to celebrate two significant milestones: its twentieth-anniversary year and the release of its one hundredth vinyl record.

His newest release features EAS- A Southern California based producer and co-owner of Tympanum Records. Involved in the ever-growing Los Angeles Techno scene, Emmanuel Andreas Santamarina is an artist well known for developing industrialized, monstrous noise, contrasted with his eclectic tastes and stylizations.

In this unique and exclusive interview, Perc and EAS interview eachother about the driving acid techno cut 'The Cut Off'. Perc starts off this interview series and covers EAS' rise in the LA techno scene, the significance of music production, his production process and preferred tools, the state of the Los Angeles music scene, memorable gigs, and dream venues. While EAS closes out this Q&A by delving into Perc's creative process, comparing past and present influences, discussing the evolution of their sound, favorite plugins and gear, consistent elements in their music, and reflecting on a defining piece of art that resonates with their life.

 

Perc Interviews EAS

Hello EAS, You've been rising through the LA and wider US scene for a few years now, building your reputation with your DJ sets and production work. What is the next step for you this year and beyond? Is the US scene big enough for a DJ to be gigging there full time, or is it necessary for an American artist to move to Europe to take their career to the next level?

Hi, Ali. Yeah, I've been working at this for some time now, but I wouldn't be where I'm at if not from the support of artists like yourself that I have a great deal of respect and admiration for! It's been a rewarding experience; sometimes, it's not easy! But I feel like it's been absolutely worth it. From a production perspective, I've been experimenting with a few different styles and sounds. I'll be introducing a new alias this year, for example (won't say anything more than that though). But other than that, I'm still setting my sights on playing more in Europe.

Maybe it's different for other genres, but I feel like for my specific area of Techno, gigging in Europe seems more sustainable, especially if you have the ability to stay there for months at a time. I don't necessarily know if it's a priority to make the full move to Europe. But it seems like not only do more Europe gigs lead to even more opportunities, naturally, but it also leads to newfound respect from American promoters, and therefore, more American gigs as well. It's a bit peculiar, but that's just how it is. If this leads to me having to live in Europe full time, then I'll take that step.

When I started producing, the tracks an artist made and the labels they worked with were a huge factor in getting DJ bookings. Do you feel that producing is still valued in this way? Or has social media and self-image taken over as a priority for artists and bookers?

I feel like producing your own music will always be the de facto way to create longevity in a career. The only people that have gotten away with having longstanding careers solely as DJs are people that have already been doing it for decades. Social media image and its strengths in the modern scene don't change that. If anything, it could accelerate the process of people falling out of relevancy. Information moves so fast nowadays, and therefore, so do careers that are too dependent on social media brand without the ability to create something that is genuinely their own. Of course, social media helps insurmountably, and it's something that promoters always have their eyes on. But, at least in my opinion, producing is the strongest way to create your own identity. And identity is key to legacy. And where's the legacy if everyone is just playing the same stuff? Just food for thought.

You are quite a prolific producer. Do you always start the production of each new track a certain way or have a basic starting template set out in your DAW? Or do you start from scratch each time? And what are your favourite go-to plugin instruments and effects?

I do have a basic starting template on my DAW. A couple of things on the master bus. But the main things are for my starting kick and sub bass. Everything else, I start from scratch. I feel like it promotes a little more room for creativity and experimentation on my end if I do it that way. But my tracks always have a kick and a sub, and I have my way to consistently make them, so that's in my starting template.

Some of my favorite plugin instruments have got to be Punchbox, the king of all kick drum VSTs. The Viking VK-1 is probably my most used softsynth; many of my released tracks have leads from the VK-1, and it's free! For effects, honestly, I absolutely love the stock amp plugin on Ableton. Also, Standard Clip is my bestie.

How do you feel the Los Angeles scene is right now, and how is it similar or different from other scenes you have experienced?

The Los Angeles scene is honestly the best I've ever seen it in my time being part of it. The kids coming into the scene are quite receptive to just about everything I play; it's been awesome, overall, after the pandemic. But the scene is also kind of fragile right now. And people are trying to pull some fast ones that are only beneficial for themselves in the here and now, but in the long run, could be harmful for everyone. But hopefully, things will stabilize, and we can keep enjoying this golden age for the scene for the time being!

In terms of similarities, the aesthetics and the type of music we generally enjoy parallel what's happening in Europe. But besides that, I think the most interesting things about LA are how dissimilar it is to anything happening in Europe. Europe has the market and the infrastructure behind it, whereas here, infrastructure for these events is harder to come by. Europe's clubs often emulate the urban aesthetic as a form of expression. In LA, it lends into it, but the environment is often out of necessity. There's a certain charm to it that makes the LA scene so special.

 

What has been your favourite gig and travelling experience to date? What makes for a good event from the perspective of you as a DJ? Which clubs or festivals are on your wish list of events to play at?

The first one that comes to mind as of late was definitely my set in Vancouver for Groundwerk. It was my first time going to Canada outside an airport, and I had an amazing time. The hospitality was astounding (thank you to Joel and Tia, I'll always appreciate you two), and the crowd was eating everything up, even though most of the night was definitely not as hard or industrial as what I was doing. It was awesome; I always cherish experiencing new places I never could've imagined I'd end up being at, all because of this passion we share.

The first thing I always pay attention to as a DJ is if the promoters are doing their best to make the party a safe space for people to have fun. The promoter could be an asshole, or on a high horse, or be incredibly kind to me, but if I'm surveying the party and the vibes feel really off to me, that's a huge red flag. The last thing I want is being involved in an environment where nobody feels safe. So, if the party has good vibes, then I'm a happy man!

Primary mark on the wishlist has got to be Berghain. Right after that, it's been a huge goal of mine to play Fold in London. Those are my two biggest dream gigs currently. Joke answer is, b2b with Tiesto at EDC Las Vegas, but instead of playing music, I beg him to play Trance again for an hour, but he politely refuses, and that's the set.

Thanks for the questions, dude. You're the GOAT.

 

EAS Interviews PERC

In 2024, do you feel like musically, you’re looking more into past or present music to pool into your inspirations as a producer/DJ?

Hi there. It's always easy to look back and remember certain sounds with an air of nostalgia, remembering them to be better than they were at the time. Finding inspiration in current things is much more satisfying but requires a lot more effort. Sometimes something great will find its way to me, but more and more I have to actively dig for new music to play as a DJ and to inspire my production work. In a perfect world, I'd look to build my own future sound. I do try for this, but pushing forward is hard and takes a lot of thought and risks, compared with looking backward, which is why so much dance music now pulls heavily on established sounds from the past.

 

What kind of comparisons can you make regarding your new album to your previous albums? Choice of instruments, how you’re arranging tracks now as opposed to before, tempo, etc.

It's easier to compare my new album with the album that went before it (Bitter Music from 2017). I approach producing albums very differently than producing EPs. With an EP, I just keep working until I make one track that I feel is really strong and something new for me, and then the EP is built around that. With albums, I build up a large palette of new sounds just for that album and then use those sounds on all the tracks on the album so the album tracks all have a shared sonic fingerprint. Bitter Music used a lot of piano and flute sounds while The Cut Off is more electronic and used more synths and arpeggiators, which don't usually feature in my music a lot. The tempos across the new album, especially on the club tracks, are faster than some previous releases of mine, which just follows how I'm playing in my DJ sets right now. Arrangements haven't changed too much, still more focused for the club tracks, while the more experimental tracks can have more abstract arrangements.

 

What’s the plugin/piece of gear that you’re the most excited to use right now in your projects? Doesn’t have to be anything musical necessarily; it could be a certain limiter/EQ/compressor, anything that you’re really excited to apply into your works in progress.

For this album, a lot of the creative inspiration came from going really deep into plugins that can take a sound somewhere completely different from where it started. I use a lot of D16, Sonic Charge, Audio Thing, and Audio Damage plugins, plus the usual Fabfilter, Eventide, and Softube tools that are a bit more well-known. If I had to choose one plugin I used a lot right now, it's Permut8 by Sonic Charge. It's not new at all, but I finally found the time to go really deep into it when producing this new album. Synth-wise, the only hardware instruments used on the new album were the Waldorf Pulse 2, plus the Jomox MBase 11 for some kicks. These are real studio workhorses for me. I use them so much that they don't really excite me, but I know them so well they are always of use to me. Hardware effects for the album were the things I always use, my Culture Vultures, my Looptrotter Sa2Rate 2, and the Overstayer Modular channel.

 

What is a through-line in most, if not all, of your music that you feel is always present in whatever you work on? Is it a way you arrange? A way you mix your projects down? Perhaps a certain timbre you always like to use in your work? If you don’t feel like there is, can you explain why?

My workflow stays the same really. I build up the basic idea of a track by writing short loops, then I do a rough arrangement of the track. Then I bounce down all the channels to audio and do more edits and the final mix from these. The hardware effects that I listed in the last question have the most influence over the timbre of a Perc production. Most things go through at least one of those to add some grit and analogue bite to in-the-box sounds. They often just make a small difference to an individual sound, but when all the sounds of the track are combined the cumulative effect is quite noticeable.

 

If you could choose one piece of art that summarizes your entire life, that isn’t something you made, what would it be?

Oh wow, that's a big question and it depends if we can include music into the wider definition of 'art'. The classic industrial techno answer would be Francis Bacon's 'Three Studies...' but something like 'The Ancient Of Days' by William Blake or any of his more metaphysical works appeal to me. If we are allowing music then Jeff Mills' Waveform Transmission Vol. 1 has been a blueprint of how I try to approach art and music in terms of refusing to compromise. I don't always stick to this or get it right, but this album is always playing in the back of my mind at all times. Thank you EAS!

 

Connect with Perc: SoundCloud | Facebook | Instagram | Bandcamp

Connect with EAS: SoundCloud | Facebook | Instagram