EMC Day Two: Nina Kraviz Vs The World

There are some heavy heads among the early arrivals at day two of Electronic Music Conference 2012, but not necessarily for the reasons you'd think. The talk isn't of epic kick-ons and debauchery, but of late night Skype calls to the States and starting the day with the Jack3d pre-workout supplement.

Welcome to dance music circa 2012 - professional, and very serious business indeed.

Well, not for everyone. The attendance for the hotly-anticipated EMC Artist Panel is roughly half that of yesterday's opener, and as one of the artists stumbles around the room looking like they're three days old, it's clear that partying is still a big part of the dance music equation. "I just love to party," Matt Stafford (aka half of the Stafford Brothers) quickly confirms for his reasons for being in the EDM biz, which numerous knowing murmurs in the crowd seem to support.

While many in attendance on Day One were expecting fireworks when reps from Australia's biggest festivals - including Ken West (Big Day Out), Richie McNeill (Stereosonic), Brett Robinson (Future Music Festival) and John Wall (Parklife) - took the stage to close proceedings, there was a hint of disappointment that everyone was on their best behaviour (give-or-take a couple of barbs about the Swedish House Mafia).

Fortunately, the artists aren't too concerned with politics when it comes to talking shop. Diplo, the Mad Decent head whose first record was Kylie's Locomotion on 45, admits his artist signing and DJ track selection process is based around personality. "Sometimes I play tracks that I got on the email that day, haven't listened to the whole way through, and don't have an ending," he says, later backing up Australian DJ veteran Simon Caldwell's assertion on Day One when saying that at large festivals "a lot of people don't know any of the DJs, they just know the hits".

Passionate Russian tech house DJ/producer Nina Kraviz doesn't have hits - not main stage sized ones anyway, stating that "my duty is to make people dance to unknown music". Stafford says you have to have hits to play the main stage, while Diplo contends that there's not going to be another Carl Cox or Gilles Peterson building their career as a tune selector. Producing is "almost like marketing" to him, and Melbourne-based Dutch trancer MarLo agrees: "For me, producing is like a flyer that goes around the world."

And here's where things start to get interesting as Nina takes a stand for vinyl and the dying art of the DJ. "It's not gone!" in her opinion, though Tommy says to Matt "I don't even think they still press our style of music on vinyl."

Diplo: "I press vinyl, but I'll play a 120k track - I don't give a shit... I actually play YouTube rips." In the end, "what really matters is that the artist is genuine", even if their releases are ghost-written. "The fans don't actually care," he says.

Nina disagrees: "I think some of them do."

Diplo (deadpan): "Alright." (turns the other way).

Awkward...

Once the tension has cleared, discussion is a little more civil on the How To Make It In Australia panel. Scott Horscroft knows a thing or two about this, having guided The Presets and Empire Of The Sun to success, and his formula is simple: "Making great music is the basis for success... starting somewhere and then developing that. It's not about reinventing the wheel."

Triple J Unearthed's Dave Ruby Howe says "Triple J Unearthed is not the only way to make it in Australia", though radio exposure on the Js certainly hasn't hurt Flume. Future Classic's Nathan McLay talks of discovering the young Sydney producer through a comp run in conjunction with the defunct Spank Records, trying to avoid the "inevitable on some level" overexposure, and building a team to break him internationally.

He also adds that there are "so many managers lurking around" but they're not a necessity for young artists, while Scott says of self-managed fellow panellist Elizabeth Rose that "all the decisions she's made have been about her truth as an artist".

(On a side note, Nathan seems to be on Nina's side of the purism debate, saying he still discovers new music by digging for vinyl at Amoeba in LA and Phonica in London.)

Wax Motif masterclass

EMC isn't strictly a passive talk-fest for attendees, with plenty of DJs lining up to test out the new Pioneer Nexus CDJs (or 'SYNC' their teeth into it, if I may drop the requisite lame DJ in-joke/pun). The pre-lunch production masterclass from Wax Motif is also popular. He walks through the building blocks of his Madame Buttons collab Never Fall Again , with plenty of audience interaction from people wanting to know their sidechain compression from their bubbling 303 acid synths. (WM's Pro Tip: a polished turd still doesn't sound good.)

Post-lunch, many more people have surfaced to find the answer to that eternal question - Clubbed To Death: Where To From Here?

Future Entertainment's Scott Robertson, who graduated from running Sydney's successful Kink night in the '00s, reckons it's too easy to blame the "big bad festivals" - young promoters who are more interested in "getting loose" than putting up pole posters until 3 in the morning are part of the problem.

Marquee's Brandon Roque reckons there's enough room for more clubs in Sydney and will take on the rest of the country after they "straighten up Sydney first" - though when a punter asks him how he can talk about poor marketing of dance music in Australia when the USA only discovered EDM five minutes ago, he plays back with a straight "No comment" response.

For Michael Watt from The Met, the Fortitude Valley has been a victim of its own success - from tumbleweeds in the fledgling rave scene of the late 1980s to its current Entertainment Precinct status, with a 3am lockout that could've been avoided if the government "had asked us first".

Gold Coast club owner (and occasional reality TV star) Joey Lamattina is typically forthright, unhappy that "casinos have their own rules" when it comes to lockouts and liquor licensing and that his underground club Shuffle has to pay $3000 a month in licensing to the PPCA to funnel into the pockets of artists they don't play. He's currently "in discussions with a few nightclubs to take the PPCA on".

While Giovanni Polizzi from Majik Entertainment says his trance nights are going great guns in Melbourne, Lamattina says the heavy influx of police at his monthly trance event has scared the kids off. "I don't know what you guys do in Melbourne, we can't pay them off up here," he quips.

Veteran Sydney DJs and promoters Murat Kilic and James Taylor, who both perform and are involved in the behind-the-scenes workings at Spice Cellar, still place a big importance on the old-fashioned values of local DJs and building a community.

And it would be hard to argue with the success of EMC 2012 in doing just that as well. Just don't slip a USB stick of 128k MP3 promos to Nina Kraviz when she's rocking the after-party at Ivy Pool tonight.

Words and pictures by Kris Swales