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Published on 8/5/08
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In Berlin, techno and electronic house flow through the city streets like current through a wire, and a lot of that juice is generated by the Get Physical label. Founded six years ago by a sextet of old friends—M.A.N.D.Y.’s Philipp Jung and Patrick Bodmer, Booka Shade’s Arno Kammermeier and Walter Merziger, Thomas “DJ T” Koch and Peter Hayo—the imprint is one of dance music’s driving forces. On Friday 10, Get Physical is cruising to Studio B on the local stop of an American minitour, with the men from M.A.N.D.Y. (hot off the release of their excellent Fabric 38 mix-CD) joining labelmates Heidi and Audiofly on the Fixed fiesta’s decks.
“At the time, we just wanted a way to put out our own music,” Jung modestly says, recalling the label’s origins. “But it seems like it was a case of just having the right people getting together at the right time. I had done A&R for record companies; DJ T had been publishing Groove, which is Germany’s most respected music magazine; and the Booka Shade boys had been producing great music for a long time. So we had all these backgrounds that really fit together, and we put all of our heart and soul into making it work.”
But all this toil wouldn’t make a difference if the music wasn’t there to back it up. Though the label deals in everything from minimal techno to electro-disco, the defining sound—for Get Physical and M.A.N.D.Y. alike—is an austere, spacious and melodic kind of tech-house. It’s almost a stripped-down version of trance, an influence that Jung readily admits. “We were Frankfurt kids and were going to places like [seminal trance club] the Omen and listening to Sven Väth. But the sound was nothing like today’s trance. It was more powerful and emotional, with ups and downs and beginnings and ends. There’s no denying that it’s affected us, particularly in the way we structure our songs—not with big breaks and drum rolls or whatever trance is now, but with the idea of taking risks to convey emotion.”
Fair enough—but what’s up with that name? Is M.A.N.D.Y. some coy reference to Barry Manilow, just as Get Physical could be construed as an homage to Olivia Newton-John? “We never bothered with a name for a long time, but eventually we did need to come up with something quickly for this remix we did, and M.A.N.D.Y. was it. We thought it sounded like a self-confident girl that goes out a lot or something. Five years later, I was at some party in Zurich and the question came up, and some guy said, ‘It stands for ‘me and you,’ right?’ I was thinking, Fuck, that’s right! But I said, ‘Yes, of course that’s what it means!’ So credit goes to some unknown Swiss guy.”
Fixed: Get Physical is at Studio B May 9. 2008.
