A Rush Hour favourite in the mix.
His tongue in cheek bio will tell you that he’s your favourite DJ’s favourite DJ’s favourite DJ, but all jokes aside, it’s not far off the mark at least in Amsterdam, where Robert Bergman’s low key attitude, digging nous and exceptional taste has landed him work at Rush Hour and cemented his spot on Dekmantel, ADE and Trouw lineups year in year out. He’s recently been stepping up his work in the studio too, launching a new imprint to house his weird and wonderful analogue techno, in between studio jams with fellow Rush Hour shopkeeper (and previous MDC contributor) Olf Van Elden aka Interstellar Funk. The mix is pure fire as predicted, a home listener full of typically Bergman twisted sonics, sweet love songs and so much more.
Hey Robert, how’s things? I hear you moved from Amsterdam to Antwerp recently, how’s that going so far?
The city is super nice, it’s a real calming city to walk around in, so that’s nice. Other then my daily strolls through the city not much has changed for me really. I still go record shopping (albeit in different stores) and try to make things that could be passable as music.
So the story goes that you were the kid that wouldn’t leave the Rush Hour store, so they gave you a job. Tell us about working in the store with so many great DJs on both sides of the counter, and how has the RH experience inspired the music you make and have become known for playing.
Having a store as Rush Hour that you can visit is great. There’s a wide variety of genres so there’s always something that attracts people and it gives everyone space to get into more things. When I started coming over, years ago, I used to be mainly interested in the used disco bins which then slowly grew into different things. I guess it’s a nice spot to get into music and slowly expand/discover your own favourite things in music, which is how it happened to me over the course of a few years.
You started a label earlier in the year that has so far released two of your own EPs showcasing your distinctively twisted techno.. Tell us about your idea behind Brew, and what’s next for the label?
As of now it’s three 12″s that I’ve put out this way. There’s not so much a great vision behind it, I use the label as an outlet to create 12″s that I’d like to play myself and this is a way to make it work. There will be a continuation much in the way I’ve done the previous 12″s but I’m not entirely sure how that’s going to take shape…. Just rolling with the punches.
Tell us a bit about Faster Action, your ‘weirdo house’ production duo with Rush Hour’s Interstellar Funk.. Your first offering seemed to channel Ron Hardy on one of his wonkier jack tracks, can we expect some more of those vibes to come from this collab?
I don’t think Olf (Interstellar Funk) or I really intended it to sound that way. I guess we both do look back a lot to the period of early house but we never intended to replicate such a thing. That having said, this record just came out rather organic. We just hung out at the studio (Olf’s studio) a couple of times and we just messed around with the machines which led to us recording a few bits at some point. Antal eventually heard a few songs and he liked a couple so we just went with it. Nothing really preconceived or anything but it just worked out in a really nice way. We still hang out in the studio, although less frequently as I’m not around as much anymore, so there might be more songs coming from us in the future but we don’t really have plans for it to actually happen yet.
What can you tell us about this mix you’ve put together for us, and where would be the ideal environment for listeners to enjoy it?
So basically, I’m really bad at making a mix, especially with dance music as I can’t really replicate the 4 a.m. vibe while being at home during the day drinking tea. Hence that I just recorded a few songs that I’m into lately, a few new bits I bought and a couple of favourites but it is definitely something that you can listen to during day whilst having tea or when you’re walking around in a city.
What’s coming up next for the Bergman?
Coincidentally the next thing for me will be hanging out in Melbourne for a little while. Unfortunately no big schemes going on afterwards, I’ll just cruise with what the universe gives me.