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Isaac Tichauer opens up on Australian politics, hearing aids and house (mainly house)
Isaac Tichauer is a name which has become familiar in house music across the UK and his native Australia as well as overseas. We belled Isaac Tichauer mid-tour to catch up re: fine dining, Montage of Heck, Australian electro and the ‘language of groove’. He drops Lord of the Rings references, confuses Van Gogh with Beethoven and tries to get his friends to wear earplugs in Panorama Bar. We definitely count him as one of our own.
What’s electronic dance music like in Australia now?
It’s trap basically. Flume is like Australia’s poster boy. He was raised by Triple J. Triple J’s support is the key to success in the country. When you get it, you can play to thousands of people, if you don’t get it, you’ll struggle to ever do that. He got picked up by them because he was extremely talented and he went from being support to where he’s at -2 years ago he was selling out 10,000 tickets in one city. He started the wave of trap. I played a festival in Perth called Sex on the Beach, it’s like a 5000 person beach party. I played it with Jonas Rathsman and we played the first set to nobody, nobody had any idea who we were and after us, it was just trap DJs, basically the whole way through. So that’s what it’s like in Australia at the moment.
The house music is there, pushed by some niche promoters. Recently the club circuits in Sydney kind of died though, because there are a lot of laws and there’s been a lot of change. It’s not the hot genre in Sydney and even Melbourne where there are really good clubs pushing it, because a lot of good producers have left for Berlin or London. You go to the UK and make so much money and play to an audience who really know your stuff and you just think ‘what am I doing in Australia?’. The only ones who stay in Australia are the ones who have the type of touring capacity to be able to fly to the UK and it doesn’t matter if they spend a couple of grand every time they tour, and they can lock in ten dates in two weeks. If you have the right profile, not only will you have the right money but you can actually dictate your dates. I have to be at a club with an existing fan base and I’ll boost their numbers but won’t sell out their club. People with that high profile can stay in Australia because Australia’s amazing but the rest of us have to move over here and play on the Friday or Saturday nights and to make that worthwhile you’ve got to be living here.
Would you say you’re biggest in the UK then?
Yeah. I play most of my shows here, make most of my money here.
You’ve had a lot of support from XOYO and the Nest
Yeah, I always play my best sets there because I know the people, I know the system, I know the crowd and I’m super relaxed because I can just do what I want. It doesn’t work like that everywhere but I love playing there, it’s a great way to get paid.
I’ve heard it’s all about the money in Australia - everything is really expensive and laws are tight, which can strangle nightlife
A lot of clubs are free or cheap to enter and drink prices aren’t more expensive than London. The problem with Sydney is that there were some incidences of violence, which are rare, but a couple of people died. Someone put in this law to have the licensing changed and the licensing thing has always been a nightmare, they’re out to get bars and clubs. They have a team out every night of 5-10 police officers undercover watching the interactions in clubs trying to find drunk people and impose fines, generating revenue for the government. I used to work on the doors, I was a door bitch –
You were a door picker??
Yes, I was a selector of humans. And I had to stand in a certain position behind a security guard and talk to people in a certain way. I could never tell people they couldn’t come in because by law I wasn’t allowed to tell anyone to move, so I had to say my thing to the security guard to let him know who to let in and he’d then say ‘sorry, not tonight’. I nearly got fined six hundred bucks because I wasn’t quite standing behind the security guard by like 10cm. They were looking to fine the club because it was a big club, had thousands of people coming through and it was a target. They knew they could fine it and get paid. So that’s the type of environment...All clubs in the main areas can’t let anyone in after 3am and they pretty much all have to close by 3 and they stop serving drinks at 2 and stuff. Kings Cross [New South Wales] used to be full of people, now the only thing you’ll run into is a tumbleweed, it’s dead. Melbourne’s cool though, they give money to clubs so they can soundproof and get later licensing, it’s got different ideals. So Sydney’s being beaten up by these laws but Melbourne’s doing great and other cities are doing well too.
Where are you based now?
Shoreditch, basically on Old Street. I want to go further east just to get out of the city a bit, I find it a little intense.
I lived in e1, e3 for ages and felt the same. I moved north east to Manor House and it was a great call
Is that that warehouse thing?
Yeah
I’ve got a friend who lives there, on Eade Road – Lancelot. We played a party somewhere there on NYE, the top level. They always throw cool parties there.
Are you round there a lot?
Na, the parties are too intense. I’m trying to cut down.
You don’t party every week?
No. I rarely go to clubs to be honest. I just play. I listen to loads of music but don’t feel like I need to be in a club to do it. If there’s particular acts I want to see, I’ll go see them but won’t go out for the sake of going out to a busy club. It’s bad for my hearing and stuff. My ears are so sensitive now. I was in Berghain...I literally couldn’t be in Panorama Bar. I felt like the sound was pushing air against my eardrums really hard. I was trying to convince everyone to put earplugs in.
I’ve read that you only have hearing in one ear
I was born deaf and they fixed one ear when I was young, between 3-10 I had about 5 operations.
It’s crazy to think when you were born, you couldn’t hear anything
Yeah, I was just making weird noises and stuff so my parents thought I was either severely disabled or it was something smaller. And the questions still open but we’re pretty sure that was the only thing at the time. I’ve thought about going to have the other ear looked at but I know what it’s like to have a hearing aid and it’s like having a small radio in your ear, like you’re listening to the world through an AM radio from the 1950s. It’s not thick sound. Until it gets so bad that it’s that or nothing I’d rather have less of the right thing that this buzzy crap coming into one ear.
Do you struggle to have conversations with people?
No, people only notice if I tell them. I naturally walk on the right side. Even if you’re on my left side, my bad side, I can still hear you. The right ear captures a good percentage of hearing on the other side. When I’m making music I have no understanding of stereo because I’ve never heard it, so it’s hard to pan, spread sound and understand the space of a mix. I still work in that way but I do it in different ways. I use visualisers and when I’m using speakers I can sort of feel the sound on my face a bit.
Can you tell us about a rave that changed your life?
Francoise K played in Byron Bay when I was quite young and he played Metro Area’s ‘Miura’ for the first time and I’d never heard it before. They were my favourite, my number one favourite album after that. I was like what the fuck is this, I was so affected by that moment, I started adding choirs to my tracks. I wanted to have that moment in every one of my songs, I probably would have been 19. I was absolutely obsessed by that set and that was when I kind of decided I wanted to do house music. I was making music at the time, but probably progressive stuff.
Do you have a book or piece of literature that changed your life?
Yes, men are from Mars and Women are from Venus.
Really?
No.
If you could tell people one thing about your music, what would it be?
It’s honest music. I’ve done it all for fun. If it was just a hobby, it wouldn’t sound any different.
I saw a picture on your Instagram of a studio in east London. Are you still building that up?
We’ve closed it down unfortunately because of sound issues. I had it till the end of December, that’s where I wrote all my recent music.
Where are you doing most of your work right now then?
At home.
Big up three DJs
Kerri Chandler, I just love watching him play, he changed the way I DJ. I want to be something like that. He has the best posture I’ve ever seen. He’s my favourite and no one comes close. Jonas [Rathsman], because, again, I love watching him play, he’s a warm character to have DJing. I listened to a Jackmaster podcast recently which I loved. The style was really mature but really party and it’s so hard to do that. It sounded like fun the whole way through. And maybe &me, I think he plays some really good music.
What have you got coming up?
I’ve got another remix coming out. I’ve got a podcast coming out with Ninja Tune, it’s a flowing mix that really came together. The track I’ve got coming up with Lancelot is called L.O.G. because we originally called it ‘Language of Groove’, which we realised was the worst name for anything ever, but we didn’t want to lose the name altogether, so now it’s called ‘Log’, haha...I’ve got music which I’m now going out and pitching to labels, a new EP.
There’s a track I put on my Soundcloud a year ago for about a week and it got loads of plays then I took it down because I got some offers on it, then I couldn’t get the sample cleared and bla bla bla bla bla. I’m going to put it out in the next few months and I think it’s going to be really great. It’s called ‘Sometimes.’ I think it’s the right time for it to come out. It’s got a modern house sound, I guess you could kind of call it deep house. I’m trying to think of words to describe it and they’re all negative...It’s a club track and it’s got big build ups and a really big vocal.
Yeah, it’s a minefield labelling music, sometimes even calling something deep house can sound derogatory
Yeah, it’s a past genre, it’s not in now, but a lot of the things we call deep house, or techno are just house really. ‘Step Away’ is probably the closest vibe to this track, it’s off my last album [Devotion] with a buzzy sound, arpeggios and female vocals.
So you think that deep house sound of Devotion is not the sound of the moment anymore?
No, Devotion didn’t have any tracks that were coining a particular genre. ‘Doing What I Got’, which I didn’t really want to put on that album, and it stands out like dogs' balls, was coining the tropical house sample stage I was having about four years ago. The rest of the album is just house music. Some of it has a throwback feel but I wouldn’t say anything is deep house or techno or disco. Maybe I just sound up myself and think I’m better than genres or something but I didn’t do anything because I felt I needed a big round bassline and a Biggie sample which was the sound back then, I did it because I wrote 50 songs and I chose 9 for that album, because they sort of went well together and they were the only ones I could finish in time. It was my personal taste in electronic music at the time. I still really like that album and think it’s kind of relevant, some tracks more so than others. ‘Devotion’, I think you can still play now.
Isaac Tichauer is on Twitter, Facebook and Soundcloud.
