Besides distributing nearly 60 labels worldwide, Kompakt itself is a prolific, hydra-headed source of music, spinning off series like a popular TV sitcom: Pop Ambient (blissful beatlessness), Schaffelfieber (shuffle techno), Total (label overviews), and Speicher (hard, peak-time techno). With co-owners (and esteemed producers themselves) Wolfgang Voigt and Jürgen Paape, Mayer has elevated Kompakt to the most visible underground-electronic label ever.
All of which means squat when he gets behind the decks or the mixing board. Mayer's debut as a producer, Touch, abounds with elegant, epic techno anthems that seem suspended between the dance floor and the headphoned mind. Mayer's goal with Touch was to "keep it as personal as I could. During the production period, I was listening to all kinds of favorite records from my childhood, teens until today. I tried to distill some kind of fragrance that attracts me in an almost sexual way. I wanted to transform this into contemporary club music [that] seeks its goal also beyond the dance floor. The outcome is a collection of electronic poems or short stories."
Touch's merits aside, Mayer's DJing prowess is undeniable. People rightly speak in hushed tones about his dubby, minimal-techno mix discs Immer and Fabric 13. Is there room in Mayer's sets for whimsy, unpredictability, and perversity?
"Watch out! It can happen anytime," Mayer says. "I clearly favor diversity, but within certain parameters. There still has to be a kind of red line throughout my sets. But I would always mix the old and the new, the populist with the understatement, the happy and the sad. There are too many exciting micro-genres these days to play with a purist attitude."
An 18-year DJ vet, Mayer waxes hopeful about today's dance-music scene. "[D]ance music has never been as fascinating and diverse as today," Mayer opines. "Okay, there's no new big thing right now, but it fascinates me how everybody is trying his best to contribute something original to the history. We're not living in times of big gestures; now it's all about subtle variations and improvement. It's more like watching ants building a new castle. At the first glimpse it looks like a big black unit but if you put some effort to talk to every single ant in person you'll be surprised about the rich variety." DAVE SEGAL
Michael Mayer plays Mon March 7 with Jake Fairley, Bruno Pronsato, and DJ Veins at Chop Suey, 1325 E Madison St, 324-8000, 8 pm-2 am, 21+, $10.