28.02.2016 by Florian Bürki

Being Kontra – An Interview with Ulf Eriksson

Hailing from one of Sweden’s southernmost points, Ulf Eriksson and his Kontra-Musik emporium distribute their musical ideology through record stores and PA systems all around the world. Based in Malmö, a stone’s throw away over the Oresund from Copenhagen, Kontra-Musik originated as a club night back in the heydays of Malmö’s illegal party scene. Ulf likes to put Kontra-Musik and thus other people’s work in front of his own musical endeavours – a true master of understatement, he is very comfortable in the background, and one can sense this both in his DJ sets and through interacting with him.

The story of this conversation goes back to a club night in December 2013 in Bergen, Norway, where Ulf and Bern-based artist and DJ Florian Bürki played a Nabovarsel club night at Landmark. Nine months later, the two RBMA alumni met again on Skype to talk about Scandinavia, Börft Records, small town syndromes and future releases on Kontra-Musik – all to find, later, that Florian’s recording of the conversation had been abruptly cut short.

Florian Bürki Can you tell me a little bit about the idea behind Kontra-Musik and where it all came from?

Ulf Eriksson It started in 2002 basically as a club night here in Malmö. The name was sort of a reaction to a boring, very commercial club scene here at that moment. My thought was to put underground… that’s a cliché word – maybe I should say quality… quality electronic music into the normal club venues. At that time we had a strong illegal techno scene in the outskirts of the cities. My idea was to take the same music and put it into established, normal venues. The underlying thought was also that these club nights would generate some money to set up a label. But there was never any income from these nights, so it took until 2006 before I could do the first release.

UE Yes, absolutely. The name of the club night was definitely a statement this was going to be something different, a bit subversive, a bit something else. When I started the label I just decided to keep the same name. It was already established and I also like to be a little bit anti, a little bit punk and against what’s considered the norm.

FB How has the club scene in Malmö changed since those days?

UE I would say that in 2002 I was the only one who did techno music in the legal venues here in town. Later, around 2010, there was a boom in the scene and there were a lot of techno clubs opening. But it has totally changed again and the scene has moved back to the illegal areas in the outskirts of the city. Right now we have a very strong illegal… that’s the wrong word again… underground techno scene here in Malmö.

FB Before you decided to go into official venues, had you been involved in illegal parties?

UE Yes, of course. But I was interested very early on in bringing the music to official venues. In Sweden back then, techno music was considered by the general masses to be a very bad thing. People associated the word with trance music, drugs, kids with strange clothes and strange hair losing their minds… Around 1996 there was this big rave scene in Sweden, which got a lot of bad publicity. So my mission was to sort of put electronic music back into people’s consciousness without those bad associations. I always knew I wanted to put the music back into the legal scene instead of doing it underground.

FB Could you tell me something about the original Kontra-Musik team? Was it your own thing, or was there a group of associated artists when you started to release the first record?

UE The club night we started as a team. It was me and a friend called Martin Jarl who was a techno producer. But he decided to take another path in life. He became a parent and very soon I was alone with the project. So I started the label completely on my own.

FB How do your activities as label-boss, promoter and DJ come together? How do you differentiate between the different tasks?

UE I guess it’s all coming together. It’s one big mess. Kontra-Musik is not so well figured out and it happens as it goes along – it’s very spontaneous. Doing parties back then also functioned as a tool to get gigs – setting up nights gives you a chance to perform yourself. I can’t say I’ve ever had a very clear picture of anything – well maybe I do, but I don’t realize when I do, because it’s me who’s behind it. I’ve always liked club or dance music with a strong listening quality – at least that was the idea when I started. The concept of club music alone was not enough – it needed another dimension to touch people. I guess that has changed a bit. Now I try to release music that somehow breaks down the standard formula of clean, boring, and precise club music. I want to break those norms.

FB Can you tell me something about your connection to Börft Records? It seems like

[recording stops]