Nightlife

Three tracks from Spektre to get you ready for the U.K. duo’s Vegas debut

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Scratch the techno itch: Rich Wakley, left, and Paul Maddox are Spektre.
Deanna Rilling

“It was a large room full of people, all kinds. And they’d all arrived at the same building at more or less the same time. And they were all asking themselves the same question. And they were all free ... and they were all free ...”

If that hook from “Behind Closed Doors” doesn’t intrigue you to stay up past your bedtime for After’s presentation of Spektre on Saturday at Backstage Bar & Billiards, then recognize that the dynamic duo of Rich Wakley (aka Filthy Rich) and Paul Maddox will dig so deep that we might end up in China. We caught up with Wakley before the duo—together for a decade—spins its first Vegas gig.

For people starting to break out of their EDM bubbles and dig more into tech house and techno ... I’m glad you said that!

For those people, what are three essential Spektre tunes they should research before the show to get a good idea of the vibe you’ll bring? I’ll say one really recent track has just been released on Phobic, which is Sasha Carassi’s label, and that is called “Behind Closed Doors.” That is a great example of where we are now. It’s a strong underground techno track.

I guess another track to check out would be from our album we did [21] months ago, which came out on Rhythm Distrikt, which is a label of Toolroom. The album is called Cyclic Operations. I’d tell everyone to check out the full album, but a particular track would be “Opus,” which is a techno track, but it’s got a sort of house-y piano in the track as well. The whole album is very different from a normal techno album, it’s a bit more of a journey [with] lots of interludes that link the tracks. And the album comes to a pinnacle with “Opus.”

For a third track? Maybe a remix. There’s a recent remix of an Irregular Synth track called “Techno Assault,” and that’s a really tough, heads-down techno track. It’s on a label called Sick Weird Rough, so it’s very German-sounding, very underground and the harder end of what we do.

You’re currently in the studio. What new material is in the works? In the last couple of weeks we’ve been working on a couple of remixes on Gate Null, which is one of our regular labels that we produce on, and Funk’n Deep, which is based in the U.S. They are both labels that we are playing the label showcases for at Amsterdam Dance Event, which is coming up in a couple of weeks. We’re working on new music every single week, so we try and divide our time between remixes and solo stuff and also collaboration projects.

Speaking of labels, what’s new with your own Respekt Recordings? We are now in our 113th release, I think. Everything’s running as usual. We’ve got the next three releases scheduled and ready up until Christmas. The next EP is actually one from us with an Anthony Castaldo remix and an Axel Karakasis remix, so that’s coming out at the end of [this month].

Spektre with Spacebyrdz, Justin Baule, Daniel Mihai, Audiovana. September 26, 11:59 p.m., $10-$20. Backstage Bar & Billiards, 702-382-2227.

Tags: Nightlife
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