Time and Labor

I first heard about Terre Thaemlitz a few years ago, under her DJ Sprinkles moniker, as my thing for electronic music became a thing, and friends shared her tracks with me, particularly the dubbed-out reworks of some of his sample-heavy deep house. As my dance music taste got progressively darker and harder, I heard less and less of Thaemlitz’s music, (or rather, didn’t take it upon myself to search it out, since her music requires active effort on the part of his audience to access and listen to), but had seen and read interviews in which she pursues a campaign of sharp social criticism that refuses to shy away from the institutional politics of the music industry. Her musical output, like her writing, has remained prolific over the course of her career, and includes, alongside essays in journals and books, video projects, albums, the Deeperama mix series, plenty of singles and remixes, as well as the longest album in the world. The Japanese producer is rarely seen in Europe, and will perform as both Terre Thaemlitz and DJ Sprinkles next month as part of the Berliner Festspiele’s Maerzmusik program, including a 30-hour piano performance. Given the opportunity for an email interview with Thaemlitz, I brushed up on some of his ideas via her challenging Comatonse.com website, and sent some questions over. The following was her response.