Playground magazine

The story of Turbo Recordings is marked by many highlights, which, little by little, brought them an undeniable popularity (the label has a wide audience of clubbers and vinyl lovers, mostly thanks to the constant driving force of its founder, Tiga), but also an iron reputation as a prestigious platform. In truth, it's very hard, or almost impossible, to be at the forefront for almost fifteen years, standing up to the economic crisis and the passing of trends, if you haven't always worked hard, with clear goals and a plan, supervising the course of action and correcting mistakes as you go along. Turbo has managed to attain the longevity that many labels aspire to but few actually achieve, and although it seems like only yesterday when Tiga started the label in 1998 with “Live: Montreal Mix Sessions”, many things have happened since then.

We were talking about highlights. The most memorable one, of course, was “Sunglasses At Night”, a rendition of Corey Hart's eighties hit, in collaboration between Tiga & Zyntherius (Zyntherius was a one-off alias of Finnish producer Jori Hulkkonen, who had just abandoned F Communications, but not his passion for acid, synth-pop and warm techno). “Sunglasses At Night” wasn't exactly a Turbo release (it originally came out on Electric Kingdom, while the copy that sold the most was the issue on International Deejay Gigolo), but it did mark the moment when Tiga entered the electronic mainstream, dragging Turbo along with him. Until then it had been focusing mainly on commissioning sets by kindred spirits like Jesper Dahlbäck, DJ Lafleche and Hulkkonen and was contributing, step by step, to the growing buzz then about the Italo disco and synth-pop revival that we would later call electroclash. Turbo's reference number 20, “Crockett’s Theme” (a rendition of the more contemplative tunes that Jan Hammer did for the original “Miami Vice” soundtrack, by FPU, a short-lived alias of Swedish producer Peter Benisch, who released an album under that name in 2003, “Traxxdata”) was a defining moment as well: the label demonstrated ample knowledge of eighties music and great skill and taste when it comes to remixes and cover versions.

In those ten years of frantic activity following Turbo's explosion onto the scene (with FPU and “Sunglasses At Night”, but already anticipated on the tremendous DJ-mix “Montreal Mix Sessions vol. 5 – Mixed Emotions” by Tiga, on which he effortlessly mixed the Scandinavian hard techno of those days with the first pieces of electroclash, key titles from cold, hard electro by Zeta Reticula and I-F, and a fistful of primitive German minimal records), the label released over 150 titles, seeing the coming up of artists like Chromeo, Mateo Murphy, Boys Noize, the Dahlbäcks (Jesper and John, alias Hugg & Pepp), and Azari & III, most of whom continued to release on Turbo, besides their material on bigger labels. It's also been Tiga's test lab, where he could experiment with material that is rawer and harder than the things he does on his albums, generally somewhere between house and pop: the 12”s signed by ZZT (in collaboration with Zombie Nation) and Rainer Werner Bassfinder (with his buddy Jesper). And so, year after year, record after record, variation after variation, Tiga and Turbo have adapted like chameleons to the needs of clubland. To this very day.

Today, Turbo is the same label it's always been, only with a different focus, which is leading the platform to dig in different fields, looking for new talents and genres. You could say that the brand is venturing into dubstep (there's a Skream 12” coming), nostalgic, angular techno, and new-generation acid house, without forgetting its close connection with cold-wave early eighties synth-pop. Among the label's new titles we find house master Nautiluss (a new arrival on Montreal's underground scene who sculpts bass lines as if they were marble), the mysterious Clouds (his “Optic”, released this year, is viscous 4x4 like few others), the deep-house-infused post-minimal of Sei A, and even Raid Over Moscow, Marc Houle's new openly synth-pop project.

All in all, it's a good time to go a bit deeper into the past, present and future of Turbo, guided by Tiga's brother and right-hand man Thomas Von Party (Turbo’s current director). But before we start, here's a little gift from the Turbo family: a set by Thomas Von Party recorded on 21st January at Le Bain, New York, at the Throne Of Blood vs. Turbo party, freely downloadable on Soundcloud.

The label was born in the late 90s, so it’s about to be 15 years old pretty soon. Where did you see yourselves in ten, fifteen, even twenty years’ time when you started Turbo?

Tiga started the label, so I’m not sure I’m qualified to answer that, but I kind of doubt he was looking so far ahead… 15 years is a really long time in record label years. And even longer in dog record label years…

What were the initial motivations, musical and non-musical, behind starting a label at that moment?

It was a natural progression from starting a record store and opening a club. Tiga had been developing relationships with his favourite DJs and producers, and the label provided an outlet for him to leverage those connections and champion the music he felt passionately about. So passionate leverage, basically.

In all these years, a lot of things have happened in Canada: tons of indie-rock bands have achieved worldwide popularity, a notable breed of techno-house producers, etc. Turbo is based in Montreal, and I remember that in the beginning being a Canadian label was kind of exotic, but now nobody points out that fact, as if Turbo has somehow transcended borders, nations, etc. What ‘Canadian qualities’ do you think the label still retains, or, on the other hand, how important has it been for Turbo to transcend those origins?

Montreal is a special city, with just enough cultural activity and music coming through, but not too much to be oversaturated in the way a place like London is. We have the luxury of having a bit more space to do our own thing without feeling overwhelmed by the pressure of what our peers are doing. I think what’s pretty Canadian about us is that we possess a cool neutrality – the coolest neutrality, really - that allows us to flow freely across genres and trends… our identity is open-ended enough to embrace a range of possibilities.