Dave Chamberlain

The connection between modern electronic music and industrial of yore music isn't a difficult thread to pin down.

There's a parallel between how both genres, especially industrial and drum `n' bass or abrasive techno, actually sound. A great example is Atari Teenage Riot, a band that, despite using samples from various hardcore metal bands, created a noisy version of jungle not terribly dissimilar to KMFDM's metal-industrial slant. The connection becomes personified by its most direct link, DJ? Acucrack.

Born from Chicago's industrial/metal act Acumen Nation, DJ? Acucrack is the result of collaboration between two members of the Nation, Jaime Duffy and Jason Novak, both of whom seized the chance to explore a more electronic side of music by developing unused electronic parts written for Acumen Nation. "People expressed interest in hearing more of that side of us," explains Novak, "so we put together these tracks and liked them so much that we started creating more specifically to go with them." The first Acucrack record, the "Nation State" EP, skirted in and out of aggressive techno and pounding drum `n' bass, as did the follow-up full-length, "Mutants of Sound," both from 1998.

Fast-forward to 2004 and, as Duffy and Novak prepare to release their fifth record, "Mako vs. Geist," due in September on Crack Nation Records, DJ? Acucrack has become a full-flavor drum `n' bass act. Though the pair leans to a more sinister, dark-step approach on the surface, the depth of what they do is far more diverse. Though "Mako vs. Geist" kicks off with a d'n'b carpet-bomb of "Damage Report," by the fifth track, "Chronic Suspension," Acucrack's angle turns more towards combining the atmospheric and snare-heavy jungle of the mid-nineties with snippets of the ever-popular ragga-jungle style. It's a diversity seldom present in modern drum `n' bass records--full-lengths like those from LTJ Bukem lean on one style--and perhaps more importantly, all the tracks are DJ? Acucrack's, with nary another DJ's song to be found.

The latter was always a trademark of Acucrack, in the studio and behind the decks. Regarding playing other people's records, Novak explains "even from the get-go, we weren't sold on it. That's where the question mark in the name came from, because we thought there was no way we were gonna play other people's records if we were gonna do this. At the time it's why we pulled the live PA thing together, to bring the amps and synths, because we wanted the ability to play as much of our own material as possible."

Though the pair gradually integrated other people's records into the mix, it has as much to do with the performing dynamic of DJ sets as it does their own embrace of drum `n' bass. " Oh, we definitely do now," Novak says. "But a lot of times in the past we would sample something that was hot, that a lot of people would recognize, and use it as a build in one of our own tracks, or mix it in a little bit. When we started playing a lot more drum `n' bass, we just fell in love with so much of the music that we started integrating more full tracks into our set."

Despite the intention to play their own material, Acucrack came to realize that it provides a different kind of opportunity than performing with a live rock band. "It's why I think there's a lot more money to be made in club culture, because you can be a lot more adaptive to the crowd," Novak explains. "Even when we're playing our own stuff, there's the ability to drastically switch gears if people want to hear something in a different style. If you're a rock band, you're going to play your music, and you have a sound and this is what you're gonna play. And if you have a mellow crowd, it's hard to say well let's get out the acoustic guitars and play everything like that. A rock band is gonna come in and play its twenty songs, and the crowd has to accept it. With a DJ, and even a live PA, you can make it much more adaptable, see how the crowd responds and make the show lean towards them. The result is that everybody has a much better time."

Don't take that to mean that Acucrack has forsaken rock `n' roll. Novak says that there is material--and tentative plans--for one last Acumen Nation record. And to an extent, Novak feels a touch of disappointment over Acucrack's success versus Acumen Nation. "Only because of the heart-and-soul aspect of writing a song," he says, "with the lyrics and the melody that you feel tears your heart out, and getting up and performing it, or at least trying to. You're just up there screaming, please understand what I trying to say, as opposed to the cool and calm aspect of beat matching and mixing."

But Duffy and Novak rolled with the punches of musical evolution, and there's nothing bitter in what Novak says. "I'm happy on people digging whatever it is--and I'm grateful to have discovered drum `n' bass, the people involved with it, and the chance to be a part of it."

DJ? Acucrack opens for Goldie and Photek, September 3 at the Metro, 3730 North Clark, (773)549-0203. "Mako vs. Geist" comes out September 14.

(2004-08-31)

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