ROBERT BABICZ - BUILDING GALAXIES

Germany-based acid techno pioneer Robert Babicz may cautiously concede that he’s benefited from the 2000s’ minimal explosion, but he doesn’t identity with that sound. “In Europe ‘minimal’ is something like a bad word,” he demurs. “I think it’s because there was too much really boring dance music labelled minimal – and then nobody wants to listen to boring music.”
The mildly eccentric Babicz first toured Australia in 2007. He’s now becoming a regular visitor. It’s late in Germany – after midnight – but he’s content to discuss his third trip and all things Oz. “It’s like a second home for me already,” he says in his broken English. Aside from his Antipodean excursion, Babicz will start the new year with another ‘artist’ album, Immortal Changes.
Babicz has long been an outsider, which possibly stems from his Polish background. He arrived in Germany from Poland as a five year old, his new country not always hospitable to their Slavic neighbours. It was 1980 and Babicz’s parents were escaping the Communist regime, which would collapse by the decade’s end. Babicz struggled to fit in at school, not being able to speak German.
Now based in Cologne, Babicz first produced music in the early ‘90s as Rob Acid. Success came early: his acid house Happy Answer, initially issued on Injection, was signed by London Records and blew up. He later claimed that it was all a happy accident. Babicz subsequently released music under a myriad of handles before determining to ditch them all in favour of his birth name. Today Babicz is more inspired – and focused – than ever, while balancing music with a family life. In 2007 he presented A Cheerful Temper on Marc Romboy’s Systematic Recordings.
Babicz’ follow-up album, Immortal Changes, led by the single Astor, will materialise in March. The title is not a reference to the prevailing cult of vampirism, or the prospect of eternal life, but the constancy of change – as Babicz puts it, “the one thing that is not changing in your life is that everything is changing.” He wanted Immortal Changes to be warm and life-affirming, its real instrumentation, supplied by friends, melting into his machine music and ‘found sounds’. Immortal Changes encompasses an alternative version of Dark Flower. What drives Babicz artistically is childlike curiosity. “I think I’m mega curious,” he laughs.
Babicz has never been a DJ – he performs live exclusively. Understandably, he pays less heed to current electronic music than his DJ peers. In the past Babicz has professed to listen to classical music composers like the avant-garde Pole Henryk Gorecki. “I’m still influenced by classical, by jazz things, by experimental electronic music. But the biggest influence I’m getting right now is from travelling and hearing the music from that country.”
In 2010 Babicz will launch another label, Babicz Style. He wants to be able to air music instantly – and the digital era allows that.
For Babicz’s third trek Down Under, he’ll perform at the psy-trance orientated Rainbow Serpent Festival in regional Victoria as the token cool ‘club’ act in addition to a series of metro dates. “The principle of my sets is that it’s changing all the time. I never know what I will play next weekend.”