Body Beautiful

Unless you have been living on a particularly isolated island for the past few years, you will have heard about Get Physical. The Berlin-based label is home to DJ T, Booka Shade, Chleonis R. Jones, Lopazz and M.A.N.D.Y and their zeitgeist-defining, elemental house music, a by-product of years spent listening to electro, acid, minimal house and techno and too many nights lost in small, sweaty clubs.

Leading the Get Physical posse are M.A.N.D.Y, aka label bosses Patrick Bodmer and Philipp Jung. The duo believe that the focus has shifted from the US to Europe in the past few years as the centre for electronic innovation. Jung has few kind words to say about the US scene, which he believes to be backward-looking and money-grabbing.
“There are so few [US] tracks on our new mix (Body Language) because the Americans have such a rude, arrogant way of doing business,” he says. “They always want too much money to license tracks and there is always a manager involved who complicates matters further. They announce European DJ tours and never come. It’s weird, because they play in Europe and should know what’s going on, but their own productions sound like they were made 10 years ago. They are no longer ahead of time, and it’s no wonder that Europe has taken over.”
Jung is wary of the acclaim which has greeted recent Get Physical releases. And he is reluctant to categorise the label's sound. Asked whether he thinks Get Physical has a distinctive style - all the records are engineered in Booka Shade’s studio after all - he throws the question back.
“That’s really something that you have to decide,” he answers. “It’s hard for me to know because I’m so deeply involved. Part of our success is that house and techno DJs play our releases and that there are so many changes taking place: it’s always interesting to see what Weatherall is doing, and he supports our releases, and even Sven Vath is playing sets at 125 bpm. What we’re doing seems like the right music and fits in with these changes, although it’s not planned."
Part of Get Physical’s evolution includes putting out CDs, and M.A.N.D.Y are the DJs behind the label’s first mix record, Body Language. They can boast over ten years’ experience spinning all over Europe and, having remixed everyone from Daniel Bedingfield and Sugababes to Mylo and The Knife, are ideal candidates for the task.
Boasting Booka Shade’s grimy ‘Panoramic’, Robag Wruhme’s skeletal re-shape of Slam’s ‘This World’ and stripped down contributions from Luciano, Villalobos and Jay Haze alongside Tiefschwarz’s grinding ‘Isst’, James Holden’s bass-centric version of Andre Kraml’s ‘Safari’ and their own mournfully bleepy ‘Body Language’, the mix is an inspired collection.
“It is our first mix and we wanted to give an overall view of what we play when we DJ together and we’re pretty happy with the result,” Jung says modestly.
The record also boasts new school Italo tracks from Sterac, Francisco and Hans-Peter Lindstrom and, while he insists that ‘we are not electro DJs’, Philipp agrees that these tracks’ tragic-comic melodies and uplifting synths take the edge off their minimal selection.
“We adore those tracks, but we’d never play four hours of Italo,” he says. “I like its kitsch side and, if you play half an hour of cool minimal stuff, then you drop some Italo, it’s like an emotional release.”
While Body Language contains some of the best minimalist tracks of the past few years - including the soulful, vocal-led ‘Appreciate’ by Jay Haze – Jung worries that minimalism is receiving too much attention from mainstream DJs. “Loads of people are jumping on the bandwagon and because so many DJs play the same music, there is a danger that people will get bored. At the same time, Villalobos, Luciano and the Wighnomy Brothers are all great artists and keep making brilliant music. As long as the tracks are well-produced, you could do it for 500 years,” he complains. “It’s the same as The Beatles or The Beach Boys, they didn’t constantly re-invent themselves, they just wrote great fucking songs.”

Body Language Volume 1 is out now on Get Physical