:: BB INTERVIEWS ::

:: KARTON ::

Karton - Music For All Seasons by Karen Sprey Not many producers get a request over the airwaves from Annie Nightingale to get in touch. But that’s just what happened to Australian duo Karton (Paul Beohm and Paul Richter). Annie had been playing their first tune on her show for eight weeks and asked them to make contact if they were listening. A BBC Radio 1 live show followed, pushing the Karton sound out to thousands of breakbeat fans. Karton’s original and remix work has been signed to Australian and international labels and has received high rotation from Hybrid, The Crystal Method, Atomic Hooligan and Elite Force among others. Their DJ and live shows are hugely popular, and their ability to brilliantly mix genres has seen them support many big name breaks, hip hop and indie acts including The Stanton Warriors, Smithmonger, London Elektricity and Mc Wrec, Artificial Intelligence, The Presets, Kid Kenobi, Nubreed, Basskleph, 30hz and Baobinga, Kosheen, Klaus 'Heavyweight' Hill, Luke Chable and Good Buddha. They also have a debut album in production. ‘For All Seasons’ represents the diversity of music they write and listen to: breaks, rock, DnB, hip hop, down-tempo and big beat. Paul Beohm gives us more of an insight into Karton… Your productions and live shows cover breaks, D’n’B, hip hop, rock, big beat and more. Do you find that you appeal to a wide audience and that you’re introducing people to genres of music they wouldn’t have otherwise been exposed to? I think we have done pretty well in establishing ourselves as a group who does bounce around between genres and that does mean we can comfortably run in a few different circles. I hope it exposes people to stuff they wouldn’t be used to, but honestly we do it because we love so many different types of genres, and we want to express that in our shows and are trying to do it more through our productions. Your live shows incorporate percussion, vocalists, guitars and drums: what kind of experience are you aiming to give people who come along to your shows? We like to think that we give people something a little different; we bounce between genres and showcase the skills of other musicians who are our friends and people we want to make music with. As for the experience people get, basically we hope that we give people something that’s memorable and fun. Was it a conscious decision to bring together different genres? We do make conscious decisions with our productions and shows to continually move around between genres and that has established the idea that anything can go at a Karton gig. That said, there are certain threads that run through all our stuff so the sound can be recognisable. Has your sound evolved over the last couple of years, and if so, how? Definitely, we have gotten much better at being able to produce the kind of tunes we want, the sound has to some extent been stripped back without losing that Karton layering. You’ve had many influences over the years. Who are the most inspirational for you at the moment? At the moment, hmm, I’m really digging the stuff that DnB guys like Logistics and State of Mind are doing. Hook and Sling is doing some awesome electro stuff and I love the new Interpol album too. BijouBreaks has an international audience, largely the US and Europe: can you tell them a bit about Canberra and what it’s like to make and play music there. Canberra is pretty small by comparison, it’s about three hours south of Sydney and very laid back, but it has a really strong music scene, from bands to DJ’s and producers. Everyone is friendly with each other and there are lots of collaborations going on. What are the positives and negatives of making music in Canberra as opposed to bigger cities like Sydney or Melbourne, which have more established and active dance music scenes? I suppose living in a bigger city we’d get more opportunities to play, but Canberra is a great place for producing, it’s easy to get people in the studio and there is a strong scene of people who are all really supportive of each other. You have a preview of a forthcoming SOH tune ‘Mugstar’ on your MySpace page at the moment. How’s that going? Feedback has been good. The web is great, it’s so easy to send stuff around to people and get an idea of what they think. It’s also good for us as it allows other people to get their stuff to us. A lot of people are looking forward to hearing your debut album For all Seasons; will it be ready for this year’s Christmas stocking? Ha, no, its getting closer but we have been working on it on and off for a year now and we don’t really feel any pressure to rush it out. That said, it should be good to go in the first half of 2008. You’ve recently had remixes released of Tactica’s ‘Valvular’ and Stisch’s ‘Sawdust Caesar’, and you have also done a remix of Manual Neztic’s ‘Lost in Space’. What’s planned in the studio for the rest of 2007? ‘Cant See’ has just come out on SOH and ‘Mugstar’ and ‘HiFi Show’ will follow. Apart from that we are pretty much just focusing on the album and gearing up for the summer party season. What’s your production process like – structured or more on the chaotic side? It’s a very loosely controlled chaos. Sometimes it can get crazy and sometimes it’s very structured, it really depends on the tune and how many cans we have had… Do you have musical backgrounds/training or are you self-taught? Richter is classically trained and he does most of the composition work because he’s much better at it than I am. I’m somewhat self-taught, but do have a small amount of training. We have both learnt a lot just by trial and error, especially on the engineering side of things. How has the Radio 1 live show changed your international profile? I’m not too sure to be honest, I think it might have put our name on a few more minds. With that under your belts, as well as praise from around the world for your original tunes, remixes and live shows, are there any plans to tour overseas in the near future? We’d love to, maybe after the album is done. Things are just a bit too hectic back at home for us to consider it right now. Finally… the phone rings and it’s a call inviting you to play at a festival or an event you’ve always dreamt about – what/where would it be? That’s tough, I’d love to do a Big Day Out [major Australian music festival], that’s always fun to be at and the line up is always awesome. :: November 2007 :: Additional info on Karton can be found at myspace.com/kartonmusic.

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