The Stool Pigeon

At school I used to have a friend called Richard Head. He shat all over everyone at anything he turned his hand to, despite his unfortunate name. From acing all of his GCSEs and winning every sports award going, to shagging the fittest girls in the year above and being the party king, Dick was pretty much the boy. What used to really get my goat, though, was not his abundant talent, but his cool indifference to it, which is also what’s so frustrating about Henry Smithson, aka Riton, the brains behind Eine Kleine Nacht Musik’s self-titled electro/Krautrock masterwerk.

Today, Henry is joined by David Bailey Ross, the director of the equally stunning video made to complement the first three tracks of this mesmeric album. From its opening blasts of warm mechanical synths, to the tripped out noise of its final moments, it’s not so much an LP but one long journey of a record. Together, David and Henry have dug deep into the vaults of Germany’s avant-garde ranks to create an audio-visual affair that’s more than just the sum of its influences. Anyone else would be shouting about such an achievement from the rooftops. Henry’s delighted with the record, but restrained.

“It’s a bit of a break from what I normally do, really,” he says calmly, referring to his main career as a dance music big hitter. “But I’m really happy with every part of the album. And I’m sure David would agree; it’s something I’ll be very proud to look back at in 10 years time when I’m doing remixes for Kylie Minogue...”

Jokes about working with Australian pop strumpets aside, it’s easy to see why Henry, London-based but originally from Newcastle-upon-Tyne, is talking in such lengthy periods of time: the album was finished nearly three years ago. Life as a superstar DJ may have its perks (including collaborating with such luminaries as Soulwax, with whom he’s about to unleash motorik-tinged tunes under the moniker Die Verboten), but for Henry simply generating any label interest in Eine Kleine Nacht Musik has been a long voyage in itself.

“I finished recording it in my studio at home two or three years ago,” he explains. “I just did it between DJ gigs, and I didn’t get any interest from labels until well after it was finished, because it was just a project I’d done with mates. So I went into the studio, mixed it properly, and started to hand it around. At first I went DC Recordings and then to DFA, who said they quite liked it, but I didn’t hear anything more. And then I found Modular, and they loved it. I was really surprised at the time, because it isn’t very accessible, but they took it, which was fantastic.”

Reason enough, then, for Henry’s relaxed attitude toward what’s an exceptionally rare event in modern music. Much like Kraftwerk, Neu! and Can, Henry approached the creation of the record with a holistic attitude, paying as much attention to the style and form of its presentation as the music. Imagine, for example, Kraftwerk without the colour-coordinated uniforms and Bauhaus-influenced videos - it wouldn’t be the same, would it?

“One of my main influences was a graphic artist called Fergadelic, who also did the artwork,” elaborates Henry as we discuss his artistic vision. “He was the one that got me into the music in the first place, so it’s always had this image thing with it. The way those Krautrock bands packaged the visuals in an electronic atmosphere was a big inspiration too. When it’s done well, it can be really amazing.”

Eine Kleine Nacht Musik’s 2001: A Space Odyssey-esque video is done extremely well. Featuring Henry himself dressed as a celestial being in a glittery body suit on a trip to outer space, it mixes anachronistic, futuristic (if it was still 1974) special effects with cutting edge digital production to create an utterly unique experience.

“All in all it took about six weeks to make,” says David, the film’s auteur. “I wanted to make it a real collage of different things, rather than just doing the whole thing on the computer. The concept was to make a video that you can dance to and go on a little journey with. We wanted a hint of a story, but really, it’s just visualising the music.”

“Plus, I don’t really want to tour it,” interrupts Henry, dropping a resounding bombshell on anyone hoping to indulge in some of his bizarre music on the live circuit. “It just wouldn’t really be feasible, so I wanted to make something with it that would last.”

More’s the pity, but for a busy guy like Henry, it hardly comes as a massive shock. While balancing duties as an DJ with Eine Kleine Nacht Musik promotion and the aforementioned Soulwax collaboration, he’s already well underway with the preparations for his next album as Riton, which he enthusiastically informs me will be clash of “banging techno, and maybe a bit bassline house”.

Nonetheless, when all’s said and done, Henry surely can’t be contemplating abandoning Eine Kleine Nacht Musik to the cruel whimsies of time in favour of playing crowd-pleasing room-shakers for the rest of his days, can he?
“I think you’ve got to get a balance,” Henry says, nonchalant but sincerely. “I’ll probably start another Eine record late next year, if they pick me up. But I’ve no idea what the concept will be... probably more of the same.”

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