A journey within the music of Spekki Webu

Estimated read time: 10 minutes

Vinyl records are all about creating a physical connection with the music. Here at De Vinyl Klub, we aim to share the stories behind the records, adding a narrative to our collections. In this interview, we dive into the musical world of Spekki Webu, whose record "Kept In Reality" we included in our first box, De Box #1. From his tour experience in Asia to his reflections on the journey component of his music, Spekki Webu–real name Chris–shares his approach to crafting a DJ set (which he defines as a mood board) and producing music, as well as some background on the record we just sent to members of De Vinyl Klub.

Do you want a musical background for this read? Here's one.

Touring in Asia

The first point of the conversation with Chris is his four-and-a-half week tour in Asia. "The guys there in Japan have eyes on what is happening around here," he says. "One of the guys is named Occa. He’s an artist from Sapporo, Hokkaido, the northernmost island in Japan. He’s into the more experimental, progressive part of electronic music and has booked many European artists and arranged club tours for them. It was a dream for him to get me over at some point."

The tour started in Taipei, Taiwan, and then proceeded to Japan. "After Taiwan, I flew to Sapporo and played at Precious Hall, one of the first clubs in Japan that hosted electronic music, booking house artists from New York and Detroit. It’s a very old school club, open for 31 years, with the same owner, same doorman, barman, and bouncer. We then continued to Osaka, Kyoto, Tokyo, and Kitakyushu, the westernmost part," he recalls. "That was a wonderful experience: everybody has a similar mindset if they’re into music, but they have a different way of being passionate about electronic music."

Precious Hall, Sapporo

Differences in clubbing culture

Nobody is on the dance floor talking, no phones—they want to soak up what's happening.

Discussing the differences between the club scenes in Japan and Europe, he notes a distinct contrast. "You can really sense here that electronic music and techno have become a big business, a marketing thing. In Japan, people are just there for the music. Nobody is on the dance floor talking, no phones—they want to soak up what's happening. They are very open-minded and don’t care about how many followers you have or who you are."

Spekki Webu playing at WOMB, Tokyo (Photo credit: Junpei Kawahata)

This sort of purity has an impact on Spekki Webu as a DJ. "It makes me much more emotional. It is super beautiful to see, and it makes more sense of what I am doing, sharing my story, because people are really willing to listen to it." This allows for more experimentation as well. "Last year, I played in Osaka, and they told me to keep on playing, so I played 3 hours longer and went in weird directions. People just stay because they want to experience it. I think people in Holland are a bit less open-minded. This is not always the case, of course. If I do a label night, it's different. During the last one in Garage Noord, the dance floor was packed till 10 am because people knew what to expect and came for a more experimental approach to electronic music."

Overall, the ultimate freedom that Spekki loves is the freedom he can have on the dance floor. "You do not have to be afraid, thinking 'Can I play this now?'. You can just do it, and most of the time, people will accept it over there."

The Japanese Spekki Webu

Who's the Japanese equivalent of Spekki Webu? "Nobody, of course!" Chris replies, laughing. "There are a few artists that are very good, and I feel we're definitely in the same pool. There's Occa, who booked me, then a guy called Kohie, whose artist name is Olevv, a very sick DJ. Then I think DJ Yazi is also very interesting—he's more of an old school guy from the '90s. I played with him in Tokyo. These are three people I really admire."

"Kept In Reality"

...music has to be a journey. Especially when doing DJ sets, you have to experience a journey that can tell something or do something for you.

For the first box of De Vinyl Klub, we sent one of the latest EPs from Spekki Webu, "Kept In Reality". "I used to listen to a lot of rhythmic noise and experimental noise in the past—definitely a part of this record is inspired by that, especially the non-dance-floor stuff," he says. In our review of What's in De Box #1, we wrote that "Kept in Reality" projects the listener into an alien world, with atmospheres becoming more complex and layered by the second. Indeed, Spekki confirms the "alien-ish, industrial vibe," which he likes a lot. "There's a lot of field recording engineering, a lot of self-recorded stuff," he says. "There's one track which has bells that are basically the church bells from my city, sampled, re-sampled, and processed."

"'Kept In Reality' is a big reflection of stuff I used to like back then, and it has very alienated sounds, like in 'Total Recall,' where you have these machine-like animals, very science fiction."

The cover of Kept In Reality by Spekki Webu

There is definitely a journey component in Spekki Webu's music; he recognizes it as well. "It is something I always seek because music has to be a journey. Especially when doing DJ sets, you have to experience a journey that can tell you something or do something for you. When I make music with a more cinematic approach, in music for films and series, I just think it's my own journey as well, so it is a 1:1 reflection of how I am experiencing a mood or feeling."

On the printed sleeve of "Kept In Reality" (it was sold out, so we could not send that, sorry!), a text says "A journey for the open-minded." Where does this journey lead to? "It's a little bit of introspection, looking into yourself; this is also what I want to do with the label Mirror Zone—I mean, of course, it's a mirror. Definitely also a little of letting something go—both in the sense of letting go on the dance floor and letting something go from yourself in a more spiritual approach. Almost every record I have done till now has something to touch that base; the last one for Blue Hour also has something about this philosophy. The names as well have something to do with that, like... Neurobender."

A mood board called DJ set

What I have learned for myself is to go out of my boundaries, stepping outside of my comfort zone in what I hear or try to play.

Reflecting on his relationship with vinyl records, everything started way back for Spekki, before DJing was even a thought for him. "To be honest, I did not care at all about DJing; this only came later in my life. I was interested in music, subculture, and a movement. I started buying vinyls at 13-14, and now I have a big collection of records and CDs." This investigative approach leads him to even hint at an alternative career path. "I think if I wasn’t doing what I am doing now, I’d be a journalist. I really like to dive into something, finding out the story behind the records I have. This started years before I even thought about playing records."

After collecting records and CDs, Spekki Webu's first gig was at a club in Delft called Ciccionina, now closed, after some friends pushed him to do something with his passion for discovering music. From then on, Spekki Webu became a well-known DJ with a mission. "I am quite an emotional human being. I try to reflect that in the mood board of a DJ set. What I have learned for myself is to go out of my boundaries, stepping outside of my comfort zone in what I hear or try to play. I try to teach this to people as well. Let them experience something new in a musical sense. It's also about reconnecting with yourself and letting go a bit on the dance floor, guiding your spiritual ethos through music. At the end of the set, you're like, 'Wait, what just happened? What did you do to me?'"

Chris defines a DJ set as a mood board. While some DJs deliver a set by understanding the crowd's needs, he doesn't necessarily agree with this. "I am playing and showcasing my craft; it is a reflection of myself, not of the dance floor. I do deliver to the audience, but I deliver what I think I am able to deliver," he says. "A lot of artists might follow the direction that works better for the crowd. Maybe this is more the DJ approach, but I am also a musician and very multidisciplinary. To me, it is not just about DJing anymore; it is about showcasing something that’s me."

De Nieuw 2023 @ De School

When asked what his best memory at the DJ booth is, emotionality comes back into play. "One and a half years ago, I played on January 1st at De School in Het Muzieklokaal. It was an interesting set. Two weeks later, I get this message from a guy – a long, emotional message where he said 'I want to thank you very much because at the end of the set I had tears in my eyes' and I get tears in my eyes for this stuff as well. That really hit me very hard. I do not know what kind of emotional spot I touched with this person, but when he sent me that I was flabbergasted. I cried for that stuff. It really hit me hard and it was a beautiful moment to see that the emotions I try to transmit hit someone as well." Regarding best moments on the dance floor, he recalls one set from The DJ Producer at Ground Zero, "he was playing a super experimental set and for me it wasn’t music anymore, it was an art showcase. I was just frozen by listening to what he was doing. It really reminded me again that whatever you do, don’t bound yourself in boundaries, don’t narrow yourself, go out of your comfort zone, break boundaries."

Tearing a hole in the universe

Spekki Webu's journey involves live sets as well, in a wonderful collaboration with Feral. Describing the live set at Ratherlost (@ LoFi, Easter Edition), someone rightly said "Spekki and Feral are tearing a hole in the universe". "Live sets are less flexible than DJ sets," Chris explains, "but they are a total 1:1 on what is me. I am not playing someone else’s tracks, it’s my own music. I also do live rhythmic noise, ambient, audiovisual shows, it’s very project-based. I like to work on certain sounds and try to create a certain atmosphere. In a sense, it is also freedom." 

Describing his collaboration with Feral, he recalls how this musical journey began. "We’ve been in touch for quite a few years, because I really like his music. We’ve been talking on the internet, then 4 years ago I was booked for the Mo:Dem festival in Croatia. We met and immediately became super good friends. End of the week he was like ‘You make music, right? Let’s do a live set together at Mo:Dem Festival!’ and I said ‘Why not?’" This spontaneous decision led to a fruitful collaboration, with their first studio session in Rome resulting in 15 tracks over three days.

Their collaboration has been ongoing, with visits to each other's studios to work on new projects. "We’ve got a release coming up on his label: some extracts we’ve showcased live, we arranged and mixed – it’s a 4-tracker. I think this is an interesting project, two different worlds coming together".

The future

Before diving into some unreleased music in his studio (what a treat!), Chris talked about his plans for the year. "There's a lot of stuff going on," he admits, "I am now mixing a double LP that is coming out on Beyond The Bridge (the label from Pyramid of Knowledge), which is going to be experimental, fast tribal stuff. I finished a CD album for Mamasnake's label, 13 tracks, coming out at the end of the year". From the snippets I had the pleasure of listening to, it is going to be a beautiful journey. "It goes from ambient to downtempo and to IDM, but it also has fast GOA-ish tech-trance stuff". Lots of gigs as well. "Festival season has started, I am flying to New York and Miami, then I will go to Croatia; Solstice Festival is also coming up again, there we're doing a more dub-tech live set." Whether or not he prefers big or small stages, Chris is very clear: "It is still a bit weird to play on big stages. Put me in a club with 200 people, I’m happy – dark, that’s more of my thing."