- Timeless techno from Brazil to Berlin.
- Camila Milieme has been playing techno long enough to experience a few of its boom-and-bust cycles. Starting off in Brazil in the late '90s with the kind of rippling, tooly techno you'd expect from that era, Milieme lost interest once things started going minimal and took a break from techno to take up studying instead. By the time she checked back in, the genre had taken a turn closer to the stuff she used to play, so she packed up her bags and moved to Berlin, where she's become an indispensable part of the techno scene.
As The Lady Machine, Milieme has released on Mote-Evolver and also runs her own label, Unterwegs, with UK producer Decka. As you'll hear on her RA Podcast, she prefers a classicist (yet, still, modern) style of techno that mixes toughness with texture and detail. With plenty of unreleased tracks from her cohort and tracks from British Murder Boys, Jeff Mills, Dave Clark and Christian Wunsch, this is a timeless techno mix for heads from any generation, from the '90s to the '20s.
What have you been up to recently?
A lot of traveling during the past few months! I've been playing non stop since clubs and parties re-opened. It's great to be back on the road.
What are you grateful for these days?
Grateful to be able to do do what I love the most: working with music, always.
How and where was the mix recorded, and can you tell us the idea behind the mix?
The mix was recorded in my flat in Berlin. I used two Technics SL-1210MK2 turntables and Allen & Heath Xone:92, plus a few records, test presses and dubplates. The idea behind this mix was to compile some favorite tracks I've playing from the beginning of my career as a DJ, plus other new tracks that found their way into my playlist recently.
You went on a "hiatus" from techno for a while. How did that happen, and what brought you back?
There was a big shift in techno around mid-'00s. Minimal came really strong and music overall became a little bit more commercial. Techno lost its strength—strange times indeed. I think I coincidentally lost interest in what was happening around that time. It was a gradual change, and by 2010 I had already lost interest in what was going on, musically speaking. I decided to take a break. Shortly after I moved to England I decided to go to university and enrolled in a sound engineering course over four years. During my time studying I completely distanced myself from what was going on in the scene, and focused on learning production and techniques. I ended up becoming an intern and a mentor at the university as well, which made me more involved with it all. By the time I graduated, Brexit came up on the cards, and that made me decide to leave Bristol for Berlin. When I got in touch with what was going on musically around that time, five or six years ago, techno seemed exciting again. The music I was listening was great and that inspired me to start playing gigs again.
What was techno like in Brazil when you first started out, and how do you think electronic music there has evolved over the years?
The late '90s and early '00s were really exciting times for techno in Brazil, especially in São Paulo. In 2001, I became a resident at Aloca, a legendary club for the queer and music community. Then the Circuito parties started around the same time. The atmosphere at these parties were incomparable with anything else. Meanwhile, in Rio, I was a resident at Bunker, another club that is stamped in the city's electronic music history.
My musical formation comes from these times, from meeting local legend Mauricio Lopes. He was the first DJ I saw playing an all-nighter who knew how to navigate between techno, electro and house music gracefully in the late '90s. Unfortunately there was a big music shift during the second half of '00s in Brazil and music became very commercial.
By that time I moved to Europe, I got out of touch with what was going on there for many years. Until I re-connected with Amanda Mussi. She used to come to my gigs and after many years I found out she also became a DJ and was playing an important role in the music community in São Paulo. The parties there seem to be exciting again. I can't wait to go back and find it out for myself. I haven't actually played in Brazil for almost ten years, so it's difficult for me to judge how things evolved during this time. From what I hear it's going back to the roots again, fortunately.
What's one social or political cause you want the world to pay more attention to?
There are a lot of things going on right now in the world which I think we should all be aware of. The evident one that needs mentioning is the ongoing war in Ukraine. We have absolutely no idea of when it will end and how things will turn out in the next few months. It's devastating to think about all the consequences this war brings to us, never mind to those who had to flee and leave their lives behind or lost their loved ones.
TracklistRoseen - Unreleased
Decka - Unreleased
Dorbachov – Viakal
Surgeon - Magneze
Olga & Josef - Katzen Kotzen
Phara - Unreleased
Thomas Krome - Shockabucku Volume 1
Christian Wunsch - Master Avalanche
Henrik B - Recollections
Gaetano Parisio - Themis
Dave Clarke - Compass
Glenn Wilson vs Ignition Technician - Bioformatic
John Thomas - Undisputed Life (Technasia Remix)
Ignition Technician - Foundation
HU – Som Sám
Mark Verbos - Disbelief
Jeff Mills - Life Cycle
The Lady Machine - Unreleased
Damon Wild – Opaque (Surgeon Remix)
DJ Shuffelmaster - Tokyo Rose
Alexander Kowalski - EMTEC (British Murder Boys Remix)
Planetary Assault Systems - In From the Night