We’re here with Adam X as he describes the label’s origins and dives deeper into the rich history of the record label and what helped inspire it.
Hard to believe that 30 years washes under the bridge so quickly. It was 1990 when Frankie Bones came back from the UK with a mission to bring a little of what he saw back stateside to help kick off the North American rave scene. A pivotal part of that was having a central base of operations in the form of Sonic Groove: the record shop where Frankie Bones, Adam X, and Heather Heart would provide a soundtrack and access to this new world of music blooming in the states.
Five years after the Sonic Groove the store was opened, Adam X kicked off Sonic Groove as a record label to distill his experiences within the music and impart his vast knowledge of the artists of the earl 90s scene (combined with his own personal, harder edged influences of Techno, Industrial Techno, EBM, Acid, and Experimental electronic music).
Dirty Epic: Since a majority of our audience may not have been born 30-35 years ago, can you describe the musical climate in New York in the early 90s and your experience getting into it?
Adam X: New York City had an amazing musical culture back then, with many diverse scenes happening all over. From rap to punk to disco to electro, it was a real melting pot of underground music styles that took over, which you could find your way into. In the late 80s, house music started to take over the sound at clubs, and since my family was into disco and my brother had been DJing since the early 80’s, it seemed only natural that I would follow that path into house, hip house and acid house. My brother, Frankie Bones, who I’d go see spin with Lenny D in Staten Island in the late 80s, definitely influenced my musical choices. By that time, he was already releasing an innovative new sound of break beat fueled “freestyle house” on vinyl which had made its way into the UK rave scene.
In 1989, Frankie was invited to play a few events in the UK. One of these events, called Energy Rave, had about 25,000 people in attendance. Frankie came back to the US with a VHS tape and showed my mom and I footage of him playing in front of 25,000 people inside an abandoned aircraft at an illegal rave. It was simply mind-blowing! The music, the mix of people of different races all dancing together in unison. We’d never seen anything like that before. The music too was cutting edge.
At the same time, there was a lot of racism and angst among the youth in New York. I think a perfect way to describe what was happening in the city during that period is the Spike Lee movie “Do the Right Thing.” The youth, especially in the outer boroughs, were used to a lot of violence. If you went to local clubs, fights could happen just about anytime. Seeing what was happening in the UK with these big-scale raves, my brother had a vision to bring that positive energy to New York City. The first step was to open a record store that sold house and techno music. He opened the shop, and I jumped in about two months later. That’s where we started pushing this new style of music (techno) onto the people. This was the beginning of something big here in New York.
I won’t deny that, at the same time, Ecstasy was making the rounds in the New York club scene. This drug had started to catch on at the parties where we played techno and house, and it really helped the youth leave their aggression at the door. The thought-provoking music itself, with no vocals telling people how to feel or what to feel, it simply helped folks open up their imagination and leave their inhibitions behind. You could clearly see that this was what many of the youth in New York City were craving. Yes, in just one year, it spread like wildfire. By 1992, there were already 5,000 people hitting warehouse raves all over the city—no fights, no violence, just techno. I can’t tell you how amazing those times were. It was simply mind-blowing.
DE: It seems like your brother Frankie Bones was getting acclaim with his break beats and collaborations (as well as his remixes in the 80s), were you inspired by that and were you also making music on your own at the time?
Adam X: Yes, absolutely. I was inspired by this when I made my very first solo record titled “Listen,” which is a full on breakbeat escapade. My brother’s creation of this particular sound of techno music definitely influenced me. His Break Boys releases like “My House Is Your House” were simply brilliant mashups. I was already heavily into breakbeat-laced mid-to-late 80s rap coming out of New York—artists like Public Enemy, EPMD, Big Daddy Kane, Boogie Down Productions. That raw jacking breakbeat sound with roots in funk music, primarily James Brown and others were already in my blood.
The crossover that my brother created by blending break beats into techno was simply brilliant and invigorating. He was definitely the first to create this hybrid of sound. When he went to the UK in the late 80s, he influenced many producers there. This genre of music that developed from his sound eventually became known as UK hardcore, which then evolved into drum and bass.
Personally, I love the early days of it—the 1990 and 1991 period. I still have a lot of records from that era. Great stuff, brilliant memories. But by late 1991, the sound eventually became too commercial with awful high-pitched vocal samples and too many happy piano breaks. I stopped following it and continued on my path of darker techno with the constantly innovative sounds coming out of Detroit, German, Belgian and New York.
DE: You’re known as an EBM, New Beat and Industrial expert. Can you explain where that came from? Was it to differentiate yourself from the House music and Hip Hop scene in late 80s New York?
Adam X: Well, for sure, I didn’t come from the first wave of it. (laughs) In fact, we were pretty turned off by that sound when we’d hear it at our record distributors in the early 1990s. I didn’t like the growling, distorted vocals, and a lot of what I heard, stuff like Nine Inch Nails, Ministry, had guitar in it, which I wasn’t into at all. Also, the drums sounded much lighter than techno. It was simply lacking the raw, hard kick drums that techno had. That sound was unlike anything before.
Many of our record store customers who came into our shop had come from the scene, but they were all jumping ship in the early 90s, including one of my employees at the time, Reade Truth. So techno also seemed like a logical progression in sound. I’ve always had an affection for darker, edge music. I was a huge Black Sabbath fan growing up. Unknowingly, I also liked very thought-provoking electronic music; I just didn’t realize that what I liked was all electronic until I first got into techno.
As a young kid, I loved Giorgio Moroder’s “The Chase.” It’s one of my all-time favorite records. It was on TV a lot, especially in commercials for the Yankees but also in the movie “Midnight Express” which was always on TV. I also loved Kraftwerk and used to borrow my brother’s Albums, like *Man-Machine* and *Computer World*, when I was just 11 years old. I’d listen to them for hours on end. I didn’t make the connection at the time that this music was electronic; I just liked it for what it was.
I also went to disco roller skating rinks where disco was played with my family and realized that a lot of the music I liked from that time was also electronic — like Italo disco, with artists like Kano, Capricorn—I loved that Vocoder voice sound.
In the late 90s, I found that techno started to feel really redundant. The two main sounds of the era, hard groove and loop techno, became way overplayed, with too many records flooding the market. The sounds were mainly just drum loops without any real thought-provoking mood; it all just felt very stale to me, and I got pretty bored of constantly hunting for new music that all sounded the same. I began to circle back and collect records from the 80s. I was discovering a lot of electronic music from that time, and while I thought some Italo disco had excellent electronic synth sequences, there was something a bit cheesy about it that never fully drew me in.
One day in the same period, while I was working at my shop, a woman came in with a collection of EBM and industrial records. I didn’t know much about any of it. Reade was working that day, and he went through her collection. He was like, “You need to check this out. This stuff is amazing, trust me—you’ll like it.” He played this one record by Clock DVA, called *The Act*. When I heard the instrumental version, I was immediately hooked. There was no cheese—just pure, heavy, dark mechanical, provocative electronic music. That record started it all for me, a real life changer, and within a year, I had bought over 1,000 industrial and EBM records online. That’s how hooked I became on this sound.
At the same time, another friend of mine, Johanna Constantine, who’s a DJ in this scene, took me to clubs where they played this kind of music. My interest grew deep and before you know it, I was a regular in the East Coast circuit.
As quickly as my interest in this music grew, I also started making my own combination of it. I began to combine elements of EBM, industrial, and techno nearly a decade before it would hit big in techno. It was a brave new world—back then, only Terence Fixmer and Thomas Heckmann were really pushing EBM into techno territory. They had their sound, and I created my own by mixing industrial music, rhythmic noise, plus EBM, and techno into its own unique thing.
DE: Which was more influential to your introduction to EBM/Industrial…was it more or less a kinship towards Chicago and Wax Trax as we can assume Jeff Mills may have been, or were you following these artists directly from their labels based in Belgium, Northern England, and Germany?
Adam X: I would say neither in regards to my deep affection for EBM and industrial. I’ve always had this extra love for Belgian electronic music. It all started with techno when I first got into it in 1990, and I fell in love with the sound coming out of Belgium at that time. The Belgian scene was also emerging with New Beat & EBM, I had a strong affection for New Beat from my early days. Reade Truth, who was extremely knowledgeable about EBM and industrial, introduced me to all the Belgian acts like Klinik, Insekt, Vomito Negro, as well as other UK acts like Nitzer Ebb, Click Click.
Wax Trax mainly licensed most of their acts from Europe or Canada. There weren’t many homegrown bands on Wax Trax; for example, Front 242 always released their music first on Belgian labels. Acts like Clock DVA were initially released on Tresor’s original label, Interfisch, before they licensed their records over to Wax Trax. I don’t want to come across as discrediting Wax Trax. They were simply incredible at rebranding and packaging this genre of largely European music for a wider audience at a time before the internet, when finding out about such underground music from other countries took a lot more time to research.
DE: 1995 definitely seemed like a real turning point for techno in the world music sphere. There was a lot of Acid techno in 1993 onward and the idea of techno being this sort of psychedelic happy-go-lucky genre in England had caught on, to the point where some old school “techno” heads in the English scene had declared that Jeff Mills had “ruined it” with his industrial influence. Do you think that the Industrial influence in techno was a net positive?
Adam X: I wouldn’t consider anything that Jeff was doing to be even closely related to industrial in this era. Jeff created a very stripped-down sound of techno, basically removing a lot of the song structure and making the music more loop-based. Jeff was also sampling old drum rhythms from disco records, like Martin Disco Circus, and using those tribalistic loops to craft the early Purpose Maker sound. Additionally, the Jackin Chicago techno and house sounds like Relief Record, Ghetto Booty releases on Dance Mania, DJAX Records, and artists like Robert Armani, DJ Funk, Green Velvet, Neil Landstrumm, and DBX, were really huge back then in techno. In fact, techno seemed to be leaning more towards house and disco and less towards the harder, industrial sound during this period in 1995 than it did in the earlier 90s.
DE: Describe post 9/11 New York and American political opposition to raves and club culture. 2001 seemed like a reckoning for the scene you helped to lay the critical groundwork for. What changed the most during that time, for you and the label?
Adam X: The scene was decimated after 9/11. People were very sad and in fear of what was next in the wave of terrorism, war, and uncertainty. It was not a good time for events in New York City. There was also a significant drop in tourism because of the horrific events our city faced. My record shop alone lost 60% of its business due to the lack of tourists coming through. Then, soon after, Joe Biden introduced that RAVE ACT law, (Reducing Americans Vulnerability to Ecstacy) which completely destroyed the scene in the US. Once this law was passed, the rave scene across America, which was thriving in many cities and towns were pretty much over. The law stated that if someone was caught selling drugs in a venue where a rave was happening, the promoter would be arrested and sent to jail. This actually happened to one of the biggest promoters in New Orleans.
DE: The darkest time for Sonic Groove seems to have been 20 years ago when several record distributors went bankrupt and you were forced to close the record store. Can you give us an idea of what you’re feeling at the time, and how you planned to bounce back?
Adam X: It seemed like the end of the end; there was no feeling that it would bounce back in the US.
After two years of my shop being shuttered and the American rave scene being nearly none existent, I decided to move to Berlin, as working outside of the realm of techno was not for me.
DE: It seems like that things went full speed for you and the label after your move to Berlin and introducing the world to your then anonymous alias, Traversable Wormhole. I recall at the time you had said you had wanted to try to build something completely new from scratch.
Adam X: I was aiming to continue my mission of cross-pollinating industrial with techno, both in music and scene-wise. My first mission in Berlin was back in Autumn 2007, when I started organizing industrial techno events with my friend Nadja under the name: Crossing the Parallel. The combination of hi-level techno and industrial artists booked for these parties was amazing. The parties were a big success with over 500 people at each. And all this during a time when minimal and techno house were the huge sounds…we knew this sound was going to come up.
Traversable Wormhole was a separate project from this, and it was over two years into my time living in Berlin when I wanted to have another project for deeper and more sci-fi sounding techno.
DE: There’s been a lot of industrial influence on the SG label in the last 5 years. Orphx, Blush Response, Terrence Fixmer, and Frontline Assembly’s Rhys Fulber. Is this more or less a dream come true for you personally, or a way for younger audiences to get in touch with a colder mechanical sound that other labels would shy away from?
Adam X: There’s been a significant industrial influence on the label since the beginning of the 2000s starting with the release from Sector in 2001. Sector is one of the original members of legendary industrial artists Clock DVA. However, there has always been straight techno on the label as well., especially more so in the past two years. I prefer thought-provoking electronic music, whether industrial or techno or a combination of both. The motto on our old sign for the record shop was “Futuristic Electronic Underground Experiments,” and this is what Sonic Groove has and always will always represent.
DE: At the 30 year mark, Sonic Groove is doing better than it ever did with 8 releases in 2024 alone. There’s a new light within you, it seems like, what keeps your motor going?
Adam X: My never-ending love for this music is what keeps me going…at least until death do us part. Since we don’t know what happens to us after death, I can’t tell you if the motor will keep running from that point on but hopefully it’s eternal.
DE: The latest iteration of the Sonic Groove name has been the podcast. It’s been really well received and hailed as educational and a great insight into the scene. What prompted you to initiate the podcast and what are some of the main ideas behind it.?
Adam X : My friend Holger Wick, who was the first person to bring me to Germany back in 1992 and who is responsible for the highly watched “Blind Test” series on Electronic Beats, suggested to me about 10 years ago to start interviewing artists for a podcast channel. It was always on my mind, but in recent years I’ve become much more nostalgic about the 90s, and the time to do it felt right. Although the podcast will be more than just techno in the 90s, I’ve been quite focused on artists from that era at the moment, as there is a huge revival of 90s-era techno sounds like hard groove and hypnotic techno, which are big right now.
DE: Which has been your most favorite podcast in the series so far, and why?
Adam X: I don’t have a favorite one, because every artist I have interviewed so far has a great and unique story. (On a side note, the latter ones probably flow a bit better because I have more practice in doing them.)
– Interview by Sean Ocean.
This weekend, Adam X lands in Los Angeles for the Re/Form x WORK weekender, celebrating 30 years of his iconic Sonic Groove label. He’ll headline Saturday’s underground warehouse event alongside his brother Frankie Bones, Mike Parker, and Axkan.
Links:
RA: https://ra.co/dj/adamx
Discogs: https://www.discogs.com/artist/3027-Adam-X
Website: http://www.adamx.net/
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