Friday 12 May 2017

Thoughts On Love Smoking Podcast #16. Headman/Robi Insinna (Relish)

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The work of Artist, DJ, producer and Relish label owner Robi Insinna will no doubt be familiar to anyone reading this. Alongside seminal artists like LCD Soundsystem, Soulwax, Black Strobe and Trevor Jackson's criminally underrated Playgroup project, Robi in his Headman alias helped forge the early 2000's disco-punk aesthetic. His debut single 'It Rough', and it's plethora of remixes released way back in 2001 on Gomma was one of the tracks responsible for the whole scratchy post-punk electro scene which pretty much dominated club and fashion culture at that time. He started the Relish label soon afterwards initially to function as the home to his Manhead alter ego and as a reaction to his many trips round Europe digging for records when he had constantly discovered new labels and artists from the late 70’s and early 80’s and had a vision to create something that combined all his passions of music, visuals and style.
It's this passion for aesthetics which was the thread that tied his work together and marked the label out as something a little different from a lot of the more throwaway moments from that scene. Robi's recordings and his nascent Relish label had an artistic premise behind them which was perhaps lacking in the other one-man labels. Since then Robi's career has gone stratospheric, DJing across the world producing and remixing the likes of Roxy Music, The Gossip, Franz Ferdinand, Richard Fearless, Nitzer Ebb, The Units, Unknown Cases, A Certain Ratio,  Gina X and Klein & M.B.O to name check just a handful. As well as that he's released 5 critically acclaimed solo albums under his Headman alias and another record as Manhead.
Relish still paints itself as somewhat of a project rather than a label, with a defined ethos. The last Headman album came in an artbook format, Screenprinted and hand numbered in a limited edition of 100 and The 6 EP III, released in 2015 with its accompanying prints and visuals is a prime example of Robi and Relish's mission statement.
After a rich run of form last year, peppering 2016 with some of it's most solid dancefloor moments 2017 is turning out to be yet another year of note with the release of the second 'Best Of Relish' compilation and French wunderkind Mondowski's second Relish single 'Surfin' Hell' last month, the much in demand producer and selector follows those up with the latest roundup from his ever essential label on Relish Vol 5 on the 23rd of June. There's no rest for the wicked or the wickedly talented it seems!

And so we come to the meat and bones of this thing. The mix! We've been talking to Robi about things for a while now and him putting something together for the podcast series. We thought it would be cool to do something a bit different for a change and as such, Robi has very kindly recorded a recent live set he played in Berlin @ Griesmühle for the WRONG ERA party on the 15th April. We're over the moon that Robi took time out and recorded this specially for us and even happier that it's an absolute killer of a mix!!
Dive in!! X



As usual, due to Soundcloud beeing moody with allowing downloads, you can grab the mix (and all our other podcasts) from our HearThis.at site, below....



Follow Headman/Relish on Soundcloud, here.
Check out the Relish website, here.
Headman/Relish on Facebook.

Till next time.
Big love. Mark. X