BC015 – DJ Q&A: Michael Mayer (Spring 2013)

The Kompakt co-founder recalls a classic party in Brooklyn.

Michael Mayer; via Ableton

This interview was conducted in 2013, while I was working on The Underground Is Massive—which, at the time, included a mooted chapter on the Kompakt Vs. Rephlex party in early 2004, which I flew to New York from Seattle to attend, back when I had the scratch to do such mad things. The party was a blast, as I recall, but since the book was in flux to the very end, I tried to ask as many questions as I thought might be pertinent. Michael Mayer is a gentleman and, as well as a great producer and the head of one of my favorite labels, Kompakt, is also a great DJ. When I saw him on a New York boat party in 2015, he was all class, and finished it just right, with “Let the Music Play.” Enjoy.

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Paint me a picture of what Kompakt was at the very beginning of the company. What was the idea of it?

MICHAEL MAYER: At the very beginning it started out as a record store, just a small record store that specialized in electronic music. We were already operating a handful of labels at the time. But quite quickly there was a new sound crystallized from this group of people, and we thought it would be important to create a proper forum for the sound, because it got increasingly more difficult to describe what we were doing, where we come from. The parties were called this, the record store was called that, and the labels were this and that and that and that.