Parental Guidance

There may be bigger stars in dance music but few DJ/producers have Erol Alkan's influence. A one-man subculture, the Brit not only reconciled the noughties' indie and dance realms, but also played godfather to nu-rave while leading a grungy electro revival. Alkan has since established himself as a cool producer-for-hire, guiding the likes of Late Of The Pier. 

This summer the tastemaker of tastemaker DJs will again hit Australia's festival circuit – welcome news as years ago he expressed doubts about ever touring due to aviophobia. "Yeah, I had a bit of a fear of flying, which prevented me from going to Australia, but I kind of got my head around it," Alkan assures. "Then, after my first trip [for 2009's Parklife], I was hooked (laughs). So it was a bit of a problem back then, but it's not anymore."

The North Londoner, his heritage Turkish Cypriot, attributes his initial pop education to a hip uncle. Alkan purchased his first record, Boney M's Daddy Cool, at Woolies. He started DJing seriously in the '90s. Alkan ran London's feted Monday night indie disco Trash for a decade from 1997. By the early 2000s he was playing to a 'dance' crowd, beginning a long association with Bugged Out!. Alkan DJed for Madonna – in Camden. Mixmag named him 2006's 'DJ of the Year'. In the meantime, Alkan quietly developed his psychedelia DJ combo Beyond The Wizard's Sleeve (BTWS) with Richard Norris, the guy infamous for The Grid's banjo-dance smash Swamp Thing. They cut edits (and remixes) referred to as "re-animations" – like that of Midlake's folky Roscoe. Alkan soon acquired a rep as a canny producer. Kylie Minogue recreated his outrageous mash-up of Can't Get You Out Of My Head and New Order's Blue Monday at the BRIT Awards. Then Alkan's remix of Justice's Waters Of Nazareth helped break them. As with his contemporary Ewan Pearson, he'd produce LPs for bands – The Long Blondes (Couples), Mystery Jets (their career-clinching Twenty One, home to Young Love with Laura Marling) and, yes, Late Of The Pier (the neo-glam opus Fantasy Black Channel). 

Today Alkan has apparently overcome his old reluctance to produce others, but he remains just as discerning. He last co-produced Kindness' dreamy post-disco song Cyan with Cassius' Philippe Zdar. Possibly Alkan has pulled back on studio gigs because he now has a label, Phantasy Sound, with a cred album act in Kiwi Connan Mockasin. But is he still open to pitches? "It's all really down to the situation – when you hear something or believe in something enough that you want to be involved with it," he responds. "That's my underlying criteria for it all, really. I'm open to anything if I think something great is gonna come from it." Alkan regards the producer's role as that of a facilitator. "There's been occasions where there's people who I think are fantastic, and there's been a suggestion of working together, but I wasn't able to particularly take it any further than they've taken it already, you know?," he says. Passively sitting in on sessions isn't for him. "You don't really wanna be a passenger in someone's vision... you don't wanna just be there for the ride."

Late Of The Pier's Fantasy... was among 2008's most riveting albums. Frontman Sam Eastgate made NME's 'Cool List'. However, the Castle Donington kids have now disappeared. Will they record a second LP? And does Alkan even know their whereabouts? "I still speak to all of them occasionally," he says cautiously. "I like their attitude in the way that they're not forcing themselves or being forced to make another record immediately... The way I feel about music – and the way I like to approach music – is that, if you make music that's good enough, it never dies. It will take a long time for Fantasy Black Channel to disappear. I know that it would be great if there's a second one or anything, but there's people now who are kinda discovering that record and getting excited about it... If they choose to make another one, if they wanna make it next year or [in] two years' or three years' time, then I think that they can do that. There's an alarming trend in the music industry to capitalise on everything that you do – it's like, get something out within six months to capitalise on what you've built. I just think that if you make music that's good enough, then that's never an issue. I don't know. We'll see. Who knows? Your guess is as good as mine!" Indeed, sometime Trash guest performers the Klaxons, for whom Alkan produced a couple of B-sides, succumbed to that very pressure, overthinking Surfing The Void.

Alkan has his own group of sorts in BTWS. This year he and Norris put out an original 12 inch, Door To Tomorrow/Black Noise. "We only made 500 copies and they just came and went immediately." It was, Alkan says, "fun". BTWS have more music in the can – or, rather, music that is "almost finished". "It's just hard because Richard lives in Brighton now and we don't really get to see each other that much," says Alkan, a family man. "He's really busy with [his band] Time And Space Machine, which is going well for him, and I've got all the things I'm doing." In the past three years Alkan has also aired tracks under his own name, collaborating with German techno type Boys Noize – check out the ambitious Jarvis Cocker-featuring Avalanche (Terminal Velocity), inspired and approved by Leonard Cohen – and, recently, Switch. Again, Alkan has tracks stockpiled but is undecided about what to do with them.

Inevitably, Alkan has had mix-CDs, notably a 2005 Bugged Out! set. The DJ lately assembled I Love Techno 2012, tied in with the Belgian event he headlined in November. Besides Alkan's club bangers, there are selections from Blawan, Gesaffelstein and John Dahlbäck. The mix isn't typical Alkan but, then, he doesn't do typical. "I mean, it's called I Love Techno, because it's for the I Love Techno institution, so I felt it was probably appropriate to make a CD of what I felt techno was like in 2012," Alkan says. "If you were to listen to my [second] Bugged Out! mix-CD [Another "Bugged Out" Mix & "Bugged In" Selection], which came out a few months ago, that's completely different."

Ask Alkan for his favourite album of 2012 and he doesn't hesitate in citing an Australian release – Tame Impala's psy-rock Lonerism. "I absolutely love Lonerism – it's brilliant," enthuses Alkan, who, coincidentally remixed their 2011 single Why Won't You Make Up Your Mind?. "It has some moments on there that I think are far greater than people have even yet realised. I feel like Feels Like We Only Go Backwards is one of the best songs written this year – it's such a beautiful, brilliant song... I can't think of anything that's been made on these shores that's better than that this year so far – so that's me telling you Australia, listen to Tame Impala!"

Erol Alkan will be playing the following dates:

Tuesday 1 January - Summadayze, Sidney Myer Music Bowl, Melbourne VIC
Sunday 6 January - Summadayze, Patersons Stadium, Subiaco WA