Returning to Plastic People once more, we welcome the formidable It’s A Fine Line. Comprising of Ivan Smagghe and Tim Paris, IAFL have been on our wishlist since their inception a few years ago on the strength of their material for the likes of Kompakt, History Clock, Marketing Music and more.

We’ve been massive fans of Ivan Smagghe harking back to around 2004, the time of his Death Disco and Bugged Out CD’s; an exciting period musically where various scenes mutated into each other and the likes of James Holden, Damian Lazarus, Tiefschwarz, Joakim, Kiki, Superpitcher and Smagghe became prominent figures. The minimal explosion to follow put paid to our interest in some of those DJ’s and producers, but Ivan has always managed to do things independently and keep things interesting. Over the years, via various outlets: Wrong Meeting, varied mix CD’s, his blog, etc. he’s chiefly been responsible for introducing us to essential music both on and off the dancefloor from The Cramps, Scott Walker, Musiccargo, D.A.F., OMD – not to mention a whole bunch of Wierd obscurities, garage, psych and beyond.

Not long after leaving Black Strobe, he hooked up with fellow Parisian in London, Tim Paris whose remix of Jason Edwards – Codeine on Kill The DJ still gets played from H&P to this day. As It’s A Fine Line, their production levels soared with some interesting results. Eins Fine Grind on Kompakt might be the best example of their amalgamation of sounds and possibly the first rockabilly techno track? Watch out for some new material coming soon.

It’s not often that you’ll catch them individually or collectively at Plastic People and as such, we’ve given them the reigns to charter the whole night into territories unknown. We’ve collated the tracklistings for Ivan’s available mixes below to give you an indication that you should expect the unexpected – krautrock, rockabilly, disco, techno, house, minimal synth and anything in between. We caught up with the two of them below.

H&P: You’ve both been living in London for a number of years now, during that period of time the scene in Paris has flourished from the Ed Banger days with the emergence of Pilooski, Discodeine, and more recently Clement Meyer, French Fries, Canblaster, not to mention new material from the old guard, Cosmo Vitelli, Krikor, Chloe, et al. What do you love and loathe about London? Could you see yourself living in Paris again? Or moving elsewhere even?

Tim Paris: Back to Paris doesn’t seem like a reasonable plan for now. We really enjoy the lifestyle here, it’s just the weather which is a bit of a punishment so maybe we could go and live on the countryside somewhere south, or to some exotic destination far away (if we wouldn’t have a job to do here…)

Ivan Smagghe: London is such a massive space compared to Paris. You can do your own thing without complying to social obligations if you don’t want to. Going back to Paris full-time would be like going back to a small village where you know everybody. But I love going back as much as possible, my heart and my crew (Kill The DJ and the friends who run it) makes every trip worth it. Anyway, I consider ‘scenes’ as ‘musical’ more than geographical. I concur on the idea of having our studio in a farm under the sun of southern France though…

H&P. Having both ran established labels for a number of years, I believe this year marks the tenth anniversary of Kill The DJ? What do you have in the pipeline? and what advice can you offer someone who’s just getting started?

TP:Concerning Marketing records there are quite a lot of EPs lined up at the moment. Hiem ‘Freaky Nights’ was just out last month, ‘The Sex according to Judas’ should be out in a few days. There will be a release from Trulz&Robin during the summer  and again 3/4 Eps are scheduled to be out before Christmas. Most of them are from young producers but they’ll come with remixes.

My advice to a young label manager is to nurture great relationships with artists, you have to help them fulfil their potential. It’s a 100% job whereas most of us tend to do it as a secondary role and then get frustrated when artists sign to bigger labels for better exposure.

IS: We’ll celebrate KTDJ’s 10 years early next year. Probably with a week of not only live and nightclubbing but also daytime stuff: art, talks, movies, general politics. The whole team is quite ‘political’ (about gender and the rest) and France is going down a nasty slope. Time to re-affirm the values we’ve tried to stand for all these years. Record wise, loads of stuff. Battant’s second lp, As I Ride With No Horse (produced by the both of us), an album by The Eyes in the Heat (a side project of Oliver Ho/raudive) and more…

As Tim said, we never signed someone we didn’t get along with even if it meant passing on ‘big tracks’. And I think that we are doing as much as possible for our artists in those hard times.

H&P. Having been pretty elusive and being renown for playing upfront and often unheard music, you’ve started a blog Ivan, why the change in tact?

IS: Do you see my blog as being ‘non-elusive’? ah ah… I may be known for playing obscure stuff but I’ve always believed in sharing music. I cannot even fathom Myspace or Facebook, the blog was the only suitable way to communicate to the outer-world. And I quite like writing…

H&P. Moving on in a related theme, Jackmaster mentioned elsewhere about the growing necessity for a DJ-only like himself, to have up front dubs to stand out from the pack. What comes first? Do you consider yourselves as DJ’s who produce or producers who DJ? In the current day and age, where everything is readily available at the click of a button, do you feel the same pressure?

TP: Those are separated activities. When,in the studio, we never consider ourselves as Djs (actually do we ever consider ourselves as DJs…?). We just tend to make music which means something to us at a particular moment. Reason why IAFL production sounds so different from one track to another. It is obvious that the role of the DJ has changed a lot now everyone has access to the best music around. The difference between the local resident DJ and ‘big’ names has shrunk down drastically. Today it has more to deal with a certain sensibility you are going to bring. Who gets gigs because he is a good dj today ? You get ‘more’ gigs if you are a good DJ but that is not the first reason why you are booked.

IS: It’s a bit of a useless conundrum this… I could say that I regret the ‘good-old-times-where-I-was-the-only-one-with-the-white-label’ but where’s the point. And in a way, the mass of tracks available makes an acquired taste even more important. I’ve also noticed that I fuck this ‘novelty fascism’ really and play tracks I like over and over…

As far as the relation between DJ and studio, I don’t think we’ve ever sat down and tried to make a ‘big club track’.

H&P. What I like most about your productions is that without being too blatant, your far flung influences are apparent. I’m curious to what’s on the horizon production-wise? and to what you’ve both been listening to of late?

TP:We just finished 3 remixes in a row: for Remain, People Get Real and a new Rock band called ‘Paris’. Just before these we worked on the production on Battant second album which will be release on KillTheDj in some time.

IS: We should get working on our own stuff really… even if it takes more balls. I’m listening to about everything really and don’t like dropping names (ah, the old elusive reflex!)

H&P: I’m thoroughly looking forward to hosting you at Plastic People. As a relative newcomer to London, it’s the best space and sound I’ve found in amongst the cities clubs to date. Have either of you played the venue before?

TP: Never myself, Ivan ?

IS: I have but pfffff… back in the Jurassic. My fave venue in East London by far.

H&P: Obvious question, but for those who haven’t seen you in a while, who or what is floating your musical boat at the moment?

TP: I’m getting really obsessed with ‘Classical’ music at the moment…Classical is a convenient term but I’m not talking about Mozart only of course…

IS:  So you do want names then… John Talabot, Margot, Sons & Daughters, can’t get enough of Daniel Maloso, all Oliver Ho’s projects are great right now, The Black Angels, I quite like the latest album by the Raveonettes (underrated) and my favorite/most annoying ad tune is from the Cornetto Enigma one, ‘Only Man’ by Audio Bullys. Now that’s cool right? Last 12″ that really blew me: ‘Maxa’ by Edward on Merc.

H&P: Music aside Ivan has previously mentioned that your music has as equally been informed by your interest in both films and literature, can you give us more of an insight into your viewing and reading habits?

TP:  I still watch quiet a lot of french movies actually, it’s a bit like homesickness I suppose. But mainly I watch and read music related books and documentaries. As said earlier I get pretty obsessed with Classical music, I mean really obsessed not only with the music in itself but theory, composers, repertoire, history…

IS: Woooow… Too many things to mention. I co-run two other blogs about books and films but they’re in French… I read all kinds. Lately really liked The Ballad of Trenchmouth Taggart by Glen Taylor. Also reading a lot about the English working class at the moment: from Orwell’s essays to a good expose about the raging class system in place in 2011 England (Chavs-The Demonization of the Working Class by Owen Jones), or a demolition of the cliche of an illiterate working class (The Intellectual Life of The British Working Classes by Jonathan Rose)… I could go on…

Same with movies though I’ve been watching quite a bit more of Hollywood classics recently. Western for instance, with a penchant for Boetticher/Kennedy/Scott, William Wellman). Or getting obsessed with the so under-rated John Farrow, finishing watching every single early movies of Jeff Bridges (to the point of buying a VHS of American Success), and trying everybody I meet to watch the complete works of legendary BBC documentary maker Adam Curtis. Stop me whenever…

So join us at Plastic People on the 15th of July… Advance tickets are available from Resident Advisor. We’re giving away 2x pairs of tickets and copies of Ivan’s latest Colette CD which will also be available to buy on the night.

To enter, please complete the following. “It’s a Fine Line between…” send your suggestions to hello@huntleyspalmers.com Each entrant will receive an exclusive, It’s A Fine Line remix.