Critical acclaim for an innovative and unusual personality on the IDM scene is rare. Creating Techno/dub/deep house sounds live on stage, kitted out with a laptop, a Roland 909, synths, samplers and good old Ableton, Joseph Keevil, AKA Saytek (Live), has received plaudits from dance music luminaries such as Carl Cox (who called him ‘One of the UK’s most exciting live acts…Amazing!’) and rave reviews in both the national and international press. Thrilling international IDM audiences with his live, improvised performances, he has developed a reputation for offering genre defying, responsive, improvised sets and now regularly tops the bill at venues like Fabric (London), Mr C’s Superfreq (France) and The Zoo Project (Ibiza). Sheffield’s dance scene is awaiting his gig this month at DLS with bated breath, so Toast got on the dog and bone for a chat.
Words: Polly Perkins
Born in Reading and raised in nearby Wokingham, Joseph Keevil was the ‘…Geeky, rebellious problem child…’ of a ‘Good Family’. Suffering from Dyslexia, he frustrated specialist teachers with his high IQ but lack of interest in academia. ‘…It was one rule for me, another for everyone else…I was in all the top sets but never did any homework…I just didn’t tow the line, a proper rebel.’ Joseph’s school days were somewhat fraught, a fact he now suspects may be due to Aspergers syndrome, for which he is currently being tested, ‘…It would explain alot about my childhood and what I do…they call it ‘The Geek Syndrome’ you know?’
All the while, growing up, his father’s eclectic tastes and penchant for Hifi kit encouraged the young ‘geek’. ‘…The first record I owned was a Bob Marley record my father bought for me…I still love Reggae and rock music… I started listening to ambient music and soon I was making bleeps on a computer and using a Tandy mixer, a Jen synth and a Roland TR606 drum machine. I was totally obsessed with sound, mixing my own tunes in my bedroom from a really young age.’
After school, Joseph studied sound engineering at FAE College in London, ‘…Bought a sound system and started putting on illegal raves and squat parties…it was complete mayhem: Sex, drugs and techno…The first job I got was as a sound engineer at a club called Home, when that shut down a couple of years later I started freelancing and one of the places I worked was The End…The lighting guy went to the toilet one night and I ended up doing the light show, a bit more creative than engineering but all the time I was into making music in my home studio…’
Eventually Joseph got his chance to shine and, under the pseudonym Saytek (live) has been working as a live artist and recording producer for the past decade. In 2011, Recordings of his live sets at The Zoo Project (Live from the Seal Pit/Other Side) became two of the most played records in Ibiza and won him international acclaim. Now collaborating with reknowed artists such as Blind Minded and Alex Maxwell (EIVISSA SOUL), co-running the Cubism record label and playing to packed venues internationally, Saytek well remembers the challenges of his early days as a live IDM artist. ‘…When you’re so emotionally attached to your music, as a live artist if anything goes wrong with your set you take it personally…it’s soul destroying… Nowadays no promoter would put me on to an empty dance floor but in the early days it happened a lot.’ Then there’s the technical nightmares, ‘…I used a desktop computer and I remember one of my early gigs the hard drive worked it’s way off the stage, so I had to improv’ with the hardware in front of Mr C… I lost 4 years worth of Music…I learned to always double back up my work from then….Once, when I was playing The Zoo Project, the stoned, Spanish sound engineer managed to unplug my power lead three times in one performance. My kit takes a few minutes to start up and I was in front of 800 people, all going mad…I’m quite a placid person, but to make the same mistake three times? I actually swore at him in front of 800 people…’
The challenges of touring as a live IDM artist, lugging heavy, cumbersome kit across the planet on planes and trains, were compounded by drug addiction ‘…I was into drugs from an early age, acid, MDMA, speed, weed, whatever…I’ve been clean for three years now and recovery has been a journey of personal, spiritual growth for me… You have to find yourself and find your heart when you’re getting clean, so the music I’m making now comes from a very spiritual place… when you’re dancing you’re feeding your mind, body and soul.’
The benefits of playing Live far outweigh the challenges for this artist ‘…you can connect with your audience like any live artist can, I can watch the audience and feel where to drop the beat …that connection to the crowd is something really special…’ So what is the creative process for this maverick of music? ‘…I sit in the studio putting sounds together…I know that when I get that feeling, the hairs on the back of my neck stand up,or I’m bouncing around; that’s a good thing… I love little bits of chopped up vocal, that’s where I got the name ‘Say’ and then ‘Tek’ as in techno…I keep the raw material, organise it and move on to the next thing… I roughly know when I’ve got about an hour’s worth, so there’s a loose structure, but I’m arranging it all live… I will only make music that I love, I don’t have any preconceptions, don’t care about fitting into any genre…’
The future looks bright for Saytek, with upcoming collaborations and recording work looking set to exponentially increase his international audience and now, well on the road to recovery, he plans to marry his polish fiancé next year. Saytek admits to some trepidation about his upcoming gig at Sheffield’s DLS where ‘…they’ve got some pretty grand ideas about putting me in middle of the crowd, hopefully with some sorta metal barrier for protection! I’ve got a rough structure which I will deviate from when I need to, I’ll feel it out on the night… It’s a warehouse kinda vibe which is very close to my heart… I spent my youth losing my mind in Warehouse parties for days on end, you know? I still love it, I love the vibe of the underground scene.’