The following months we will introduce all the members of the Triphouse Rotterdam crew with a series of interviews. First up is the young trooper Taylan Alan who is currently making a name for himself as one of the upcoming dj’s in the Rotterdam scene.
Taylan Alan – Triphouse Rotterdam Mixtape // 23-01-2012 by TaylanAlan
PLEASE CAN YOU INTRODUCE YOURSELF, TELL US WHERE
YOUʼRE FROM AND WHAT YOUʼRE CURRENTLY UP TO?
My name is Taylan Alan and Iʼm a DJ/music addict from Turkey, but born and raised in
Rotterdam. Since the last 2 years Iʼve been playing at various locations in the Netherlands
and Germany which has been like a dream come true. Nowadays Iʼm very busy checking
out old records in the Triphouse store and online to obtain fundamental knowledge which I
can use when producing music myself or DJʼing.
WHAT THINGS HAVE INSPIRED YOU THE MOST IN LIFE?
Well I think it has to be watching people enjoy the atmosphere I’m creating by
playing the music that I love. As a kid I always wanted to take control of the music
being played at birthdays, parties or when I was just hanging out with friends. The
fact that they enjoyed it as much as I did made me hungry for a larger crowd. When
I started going to parties I was amazed by how the DJ controlled the audience with
technique as well as music and I began to observe them. From then on I went to
see all my favourite artists perform in clubs and at festivals. This has been a huge
inspirational process for me as a DJ because I tried to learn their tricks to increase
my skills.
WHAT MUSIC WERE YOU LISTENING TO IN YOUR TEENAGE
YEARS? WHICH ARTISTS HAVE BEEN PROMINENT IN THE
DEVELOPMENT OF YOUR PERSONAL TASTE IN ELECTRONIC
MUSIC?
When I was in primary school I used to listen to alot of hiphop like Jay-Z, Eazy-E
and some other mainstream artists. But I was actually more interested in the beats
rather than the lyrics. I enjoyed listening to instrumentals, that way I could get lost in
my own imagination and thoughts rather than listening to the same lyric over and
over again. After that came a period of commercial house music because I started
going out and at the clubs we would go to they would play this kind of music. That
was when I really got attracted to the 4/4 beat and started to realize that there was
more than just the simple house beats that you heard in the club as well as on the
radio.
That was when I started doing research on the roots of house music. At first I came
up with artists like Kerri Chandler and I immediatly fell in love with the warm sound
of his productions, I wanted more. While checking out mixes of different house artist
I noticed that they would alternate different forms of house and techno, so I also
started listening to some German techno on labels like Cocoon and Kompakt for
example. But the thing that I liked the most was combining these different streams
and making it one whole, and that’s what I’m still trying to do today.
WHEN DID YOU START TO DEEJAY, WHAT EQUIPMENT WERE
YOU USING BACK THEN (AND NOW) TO MIX RECORDS?
It all started when we went on a schooltrip to England in the 8th grade. That was
the first time I ever went into a recordstore and also the first time I bought records. I
bought 2 hiphop records by Method Man and Snoop Dogg who were some of my
favourite artists at that time. The only problem was that I didn’t have turntables to
play them with, so I had to wait till my birthday a few months later. When I finally got
my turntables (2 numark TT1610 beltdrive’s and a Behringer DJX400) I had already
bought like 10 records (some of them house) so I could start immediatly. From this
day on I started practising every day until I got the hang of it. This took me more
than a year to manage because I didn’t have anyone who could teach me how to
mix two records.
At some point in high school the girl who organised the parties asked me if I wanted
to play. This would be my first real gig, so I immediatly said yes! Then she asked
me if it would be a problem to play with cd’s, and till that day I had never played
with them, but I told her it wouldn’t be. This meant that I had 1,5 month to learn how
to play with cdj’s, and since I didn’t have any DJ friends I decided to burn some cd’s
and go to our local audio store to practise. Four to five times a week I would bring
my cd’s with me to school and go to the store afterwards to practise mixing. The
guys who worked there were very friendly, they taught me some tricks so I picked it
up very quick. It was only natural for me to work there… Unfortunatly that didn’t
happen 🙁
A few years later I heard about Traktor being the next best thing in digital DJ’ing,
because you could mix all your digital tracks with analog turntables. That meant no
more burning cd’s or buying records, just downloading tracks from the internet. I’ve
been doing this for quite a while without buying any vinyl until I realized if I would
lose these digital tracks I would have nothing. So I started buying vinyl again, and it
feels good to have something you can actually touch. Nowadays I try to combine
Traktor with some old records that I get from the store.
HOW DID YOUR RELATIONSHIP WITH THE TRIPHOUSE
ROTTERDAM CREW DEVELOP?
In the summer of 2010 me, Roberto and Caroline went to Berlin for the weekend to
meet with Maralina. When we got there I saw this random guy sitting there with a
Triphouse Rotterdam shirt on (Raymond Schmuckenschlager aka the Smoek
Operator), Maralina turned out to be the mutual friend of the Triphouse guys so it
clicked immediatly. After having a great weekend in Berlin, we met again with
Smoek in Rotterdam to play some music and exchange musical thoughts. It turned
out we had a common taste in music and he told me to meet the rest of the crew.
From then on I met Steven and Khalil and I started getting involved in the whole
thing.
CAN YOU NAME THREE RECORDS THAT DESCRIBE THE
TYPICAL TRIPHOUSE ROTTERDAM FEELING FOR YOU?
Mim Suleiman – Mingi
When I first started hanging out with Khalil, we would just sit and listen to records
for hours and hours. At some point he had me listening to this track and I completly
lost it. It felt like some kind of victory song from africa mixed with a sick 808-drum-
groove, and I loved it.
Schmoov! – Playground
This record describes the trippy/dreaminess of the Triphouse sound. You should
definitly watch the video too.
Axel Boman – Nattsudd
I really love this track because it sounds like a mix of classic filter house combined
with a a modern drum beat. It’s very happy and brings up a summer feeling
everytime I listen to it.
CAN YOU DESCRIBE A MEMORABLE NIGHT YOU ATTENDED,
EITHER AS A DJ OR AS A VISITOR THAT HAS LEFT A DEEP
IMPRESSION ON YOU?
That has to be the first few times I went to see a DJ who I really admired, the first
time was when I went to see Kerri Chandler with my friend Ali. We were 17 years
old and loved his music, when we saw that he was coming to town we just had to
be there. But we were still underaged so it was going to be a little tricky to get in,
fortunatly we had 2 other ID’s with us which were of friends of ours who were older
to feel a bit more confident. When we got in we noticed that it wasn’t crowded at all,
and this was at 1 o’clock when Kerri would start. As soon as he put his first record
on everything around me didn’t matter anymore, just the music. He played his 5hr
set right in front of me and I danced the whole night without drinking or anything
else. From then on I started the search to get that feeling again when listening to
somebody play, but it’s very rare and that’s what makes it so much fun.
HOW DO YOU SEE YOURSELF IN ABOUT 5 YEARS FROM NOW?
I hope to be making a lot of music and being involved in the recordlabel business,
playing as many gigs as possible and doing some parties. The way I see it, I’m
going to be in this game for a long time so I want to explore as much as I can.
photo: Katja Rupp, Eva de Korte
text: Glenn Wever