The first time I encountered the music of Ali Wells, aka Haringey-based electronic artist, DJ and label boss Perc, was at a Demdike Stare gig, where new Quietus staffer Rory Gibb was DJing. The sound floating out of the PA was instantly recognisable as the deep, luxuriant bass tones of Chris Carter… but what was the violent percussion contained within? It transpired that it was Carter’s remix of ‘My Head Is Slowly Exploding’, a track from Perc’s debut album Wicker & Steel.

Wicker & Steel is a commanding, potent listen. As the title suggests, it has the feel of a dialogue between the urban and pastoral, the hard edges of technology and the insecure moments at the back of our minds, triggered by the dark, the rural, superstition, that still sit dormant from an older, slower time. Beginning – bizarrely enough – with a sample of Sleeper’s Louise Wener discussing suburban life and feminism, it continues as a brilliantly coherent album of percussive (hence the name) techno.

Yet Wicker & Steel is a record that has at its heart a great optimism. This is not a record of industrial techno that feels bleak, like spending a Threads nuclear winter sat on shattered steel beams. Tracks like ‘Pre Steel’, for instance, suggest a train ride into the city, celebrating the anonymity and decadence which attracts so many. Final track ‘Jmurph’ is all joyous, digital steel drums, while ‘London, We Have You Surrounded’ suggests, as Wells will go on to explain, the oft-ignored presence of the Home Counties bordering the capital.

2011 has been the first year that Perc has achieved wider recognition outside the techno world.Wicker & Steel was the Trojan horse that subsequently led many, including myself, to his brilliant Perc Trax label, home to the mutant industrial of Dead Sound & Videohead, the gritty mechanical electronica of Ekoplekz (whose Westerleigh Works EP was Perc Trax’ fiftieth and most brutal release) and soon a new album by techno masters Forward Strategy Group. Characterised by heavy drums and menacing production, both Perc and his stable of artists have been part of 2011′s resurgence of dark, heavy electronic music that includes fellow travellers Factory Floor, Sandwell District, Cloaks, Byetone, Raime, Prurient, Cut Hands, The Haxan Cloak, Shackleton, The Black Dog’s excellent Liber series and the return of Carter Tutti.

So, Mr Perc, how did you get into producing?

Ali Wells: I was always an indie kid until I was about 16, into the whole Stourbridge, Neds Atomic Dustbin, Wonderstuff, the onset of grunge, baggy bits and bobs. My brother was old enough to get into M25 raves and we lived in the Home Counties. He’d go into London and chase these raves, and brought the music and the mixtapes. I was really resistant to it at first, but then got stuck in and loved it.

That’s the way it was in the 90s wasn’t it? You weren’t allowed to like indie and dance music

AW: I wouldn’t tell my friends what I was listening to. It was like a secret thing. It was seen as music for morons, not legitimate music because it was made in a completely different manner. Unfortunately I was just too young to go to the raves. The first real club I went to I borrowed a friend’s NUS card because I was just too young and went to the Hacienda. It was quite a shock, when you’ve grown up in Hertfordshire. It was all people with eyes bulging, giving each other back massages, wearing roadworkers jackets. It was an XL showcase, the Prodigy and all that, very different from and XL showcase these days. My brother started DJing so I picked up that from him, and when he finished university he dropped out of it, but I kept going… read full article here