Breaks is a bit of a funny genre. We all know the aged legends like Krafty Kuts, Stanton Warriors, Plump DJs and A Skillz. We all recognize the mammoth breaks labels synonymous with these artists, such as Finger Lickin’. That being said, it’s not often one hears of a new artist making a name in the breaks game. Marten Hørger is doing just that. Producing tracks with his unique flavour he has made fans out of the biggest names breakbeat has to offer. All of the aforementioned artists have named Marten as one to watch, and with his new project with Leeroy Thornhill of Prodigy fame, I’m are stoked to keep an eye out. On Marten’s recent stop in Calgary, we met up for a chat about all his upcoming projects, how he got started in electronic music, playing at Kazantip, karma, and drinking at Oktoberfest.
You started DJing when you were 15 … what kind of stuff were you playing when you first got go- ing?
I loved hip hop. I’ve always loved warm sounding 90s hip hop … but the problem was back then you didn’t really have Internet. We kinda had it, but it wasn’t the same as now, so I didn’t really have access to all the music all over the world. I went to this small record shop and spent days and days there, and all the kind of stuff I found there is what I was DJing.
What kind of stuff was it? It was hip hop and then drum and bass.
Well, back then drum and bass and breaks were still on the ‘newer’ side of things genre wise, right. There was a lot of 4/4 and house and stuff around in those times, and I can imagine in Germany there would have been a lot of house and techno.
Yes, but I’ve always wanted to be different. I’ve never wanted to make things that other people do, so I discovered all the stuff outside of house and techno and that’s what I loved because it was different.
I also read that when you were 15 you’d sneak into clubs just to DJ. Was there an older member of the German electronic music community that would help you do that, that you would say kind of mentored you along?
Yeah yeah, there were definitely friends that made it possible. I was actually underage still when I got a residency, so I was allowed to go in there to DJ but not allowed to stay. They would kind of sneak me in and then sneak me out again.
(laughing) That’s kind of funny! Yeah it was quite amazing and frustrating at the same time.
So when you got into breaks, did you ever think you’d be making music with the guys you look up to? No, never ever. That’s why it means so much to me. Can you tell me a little bit about that experience?
At first it was pretty frightening. But yeah, I still sometimes realize what I do in the process of working with someone, and feel like I’m 16 years old, and I’m like ‘wow, check it out.’ It’s awesome.
I also wanted to ask you too, what does it feel like to know guys like Plump DJs, Krafty Kuts and Stanton Warriors are publicly championing your sound? I think that’s extremely rad.
It’s great! Funny enough, I spent a long time of my career trying to sound like them. Whenever I made a track and it sounded like Plump DJs I was really proud of myself. I only started to get recognition when I stopped all this and started doing the things that I had in my head, like my own sound trying to be original. That’s when it all came together; they turned around and told me that they loved my music.
So, the state of breaks… It seems like less people are playing them, and even last time I saw Plump DJs they were playing a lot of electro and stuff. Do you think it’s in a place where it’s tapering off and just a few people are keeping the sound alive? Or is there some secret breaks realm of elec- tronic music I’m not privy to?
Yeah there are certain islands of this world where breaks are really big, like that original Finger Lickin’ sound. I think there’s so much good breakbeat out there it’s just not called that anymore. Some 18 year old hipster kid will make an amazing breakbeat and just not even know that it’s called that. They just call it future garage or whatever. The other thing is too; a lot of us are making music just for inner circle. I give my music to people like Krafty, Stanton Warriors and A Skillz and they give me stuff in return. It’s cool for us but in the end it’s bad for the whole breakbeat thing. I understand that kids go on Beatport looking for tracks because they want to be a DJ and if the tracks aren’t there… funny enough a lot of the things I do they categorize as electro.