Eric Turner aka SURCO is an American techno live performer and producer. While active as a DJ since the 1990s, over the last few years, he has really made a name for himself with his approach to fully improvised hardware modular live sets.

In this exclusive interview with Stromkult's Mathieu Pé, Eric talks about his roots in music, his live setup and approach to musical transitions, performance in the age of AI, the beauty of the imperfect, his live performance courses, and more.

In case you are in Berlin during the week of the SuperBooth, you can also catch Eric live on the evening of the 7th of May at a SuperBooth afterparty at MaHalla! You can find more information over at Resident Advisor.

STROMKULT: Let's start with the present. Can you tell us a bit about what you're doing right now before we dig into your past?

Eric Turner (SURCO): Right now, I'm focused on live techno hardware performances. All of my performances are completely improvised, all of the music is written live in the moment for each event. There's nothing prepared in advance. When I start a show, my sequencers are blank. I don't have preset patterns or anything like that, everything is written in the moment.

I started this transition from DJing and producing [towards performing live] back in 2019. Then, when the pandemic happened, it gave me a lot of time to focus on this change and perfect everything. Since then, I've put my DJing and traditional production work on hold and have pretty much been exclusively performing live.

Let's turn on the time machine then and go back in time. How did you first get into music?

If you want to go all the way back, I really grew up in a house where there was always music. My parents both played music, and I started playing guitar when I was about nine. I grew up playing guitar and singing in blues rock cover bands, artists like Stevie Ray Vaughan, Eric Clapton, and Jimi Hendrix, that kind of stuff.

But while I was playing in those bands, the music I was listening to was very electronic; bands like Depeche Mode and New Order, and then artists like Nine Inch Nails, Ministry, Front 242, Frontline Assembly, and Skinny Puppy. And then, in the early- to mid-90s, I moved to Europe for a while, working for a resort company. At that time, techno was really starting to boom. All of the events I was going to were techno and house-based, and I then just kept going down that path.

Can you tell us more about your journey into DJing and production?

I first started DJing around 1991 or 1992 and I was a DJ for quite a while before I ever got into production. I only started producing around 2008 to 2010. I was doing both house and techno under a couple of different aliases. Most of the techno stuff I was doing was under the name Eric Bingham, “Bingham” being my mother's maiden name. I also had my own label, Clandestine Recordings, which I ran for quite a while. I was also making house music under other aliases. 

Unfortunately, I then had an incident where I lost all of my social media related to the Eric Bingham name, because I had based everything on a personal Facebook page with the name Eric Bingham, which isn't my actual last name, it‘s Eric Turner. So when the account was hacked, I couldn't produce identification that said my legal name was “Eric Bingham”, and they wouldn't let me recover my accounts. I then basically lost ten years worth of connections and social media presence and following. But coincidentally, this was also around the same time that I was making the switch to performing live, so I said to myself “screw it, I'm just going to change over”, and that‘s how the SURCO project was born.

What motivated your switch to the all-live concept?

I was getting a bit frustrated with DJing, because I feel like in the modern era, it's very difficult to differentiate yourself as a DJ. You know, it used to be that you had to really dig for music and find good tracks. But now everyone has access to all the same music. Everyone's listening to everyone else's DJ sets, downloading the same tracks. And then everything starts to sound the same, I think.

So I wanted to have something that can be unique, where every set is different. I was actually inspired by the Grateful Dead in that sense … yes, I'm old enough for that (laughs). I loved that people would go to a specific show, record it, and then trade cassettes of different shows because each show was unique. So I like the idea of each set being this one of a kind performance where I am doing the things I love – producing and performing – but I am writing the music in the moment and being inspired by the crowd. 

So there might be a black market of SURCO gig bootlegs out there? (laughs)

Yeah, there could be (laughs)!

But there‘s also a risk to not having that repeatability, no?

Definitely, and that‘s actually one of the reasons why I‘ve taken a break from producing. I realized that the things I would produce in a traditional studio setting didn't sound like a live performance. So it took me a few years to figure out how I could represent that aspect of live performance in production, and vice versa.

I now have a few productions coming out this year finally. They are all taken from my live performances, they have those beautiful little mistakes that only happen during a live performance. I just didn't want to release anything that wasn‘t representative of my live performances. But trying to find that way to represent that sound in my production took quite a while … actually, I just recently reconfigured my modular system so that I can record multi-tracks while I am playing live!

You're playing with the Bored Brain Eurorack mixer, right?

Yes. The way I record is that there is a direct-out module that connects to the back of the mixer, allowing you to still perform on the mixer just the way you normally would. I then have those direct outs going into the SD card of a 1010music Bluebox I have next to my case.

Every time I've watched your live streams, your case is slightly different. But there is still a kind of overarching concept to it, right?

There are definitely a few things that stay consistent and a few ideas that I‘m always thinking about as I'm selecting the modules that will determine the sound palette for whatever kind of show I'm going to play. One thing that is always important to me is that the modules themselves offer a good variety of sound. If I get an idea while improvising, I want to be able to realize it with what I have, I don't want to be limited to just a few different sounds. But at the same time, they also have to be immediate enough to make sense in a live context.

You know, there are thousands of modules out there, but those that are both variable and immediate are a pretty small group. There are a lot of modules that sound amazing but take a while to dial in. There are other modules that are very immediate but have a very limited sound palette, they can do one thing really well, but that's it. And I just can't have things that take up space in my case if they don't give me a lot of variety while also being easy to use. And finally, my selection has to be small enough for air travel. I never check in any of my gear, so it has to be able to fit into just what I'm allowed to carry onto a plane. 

Are you doing the drums outside the case or is everything happening within the system now?

It depends on the show, but for these current shows, I actually didn't bring anything outside the case. Well, I have the 1010music Blackbox with some percussion loops and hi-hats in there. But for the most part, everything is happening inside the modular now. I have a couple of different kick drum options, hi-hats, percussion — all of that stuff is in the case.

You've been using some Shakmat modules and the OhmForce Bohm for drums, right?

Yes, the Shakmat Battering Ram and the Erica Synths Arcade for the hi-hats. The Bohm is my main kick drum module now, it's just great.

Usually, one of the hardest things with a modular live setup is achieving fast, contrasting changes. What are your strategies for transitions?

That's one of the things that's actually easier than you might think with improvised performance. Because you don't really ever have to transition — at least not in the traditional sense — because you don't have anything pre-prepared. Transitions only become a problem when you have song A and need to transition to song B. 

But when I'm performing live, my whole set is basically one long track, there aren't really any transitions. I am transitioning individual parts, but there‘s never a moment where I have to do a transition between discrete songs with EQ and faders like a DJ does. You can take specific sounds and say, "I'm going to take this one sound and transition this into something else". And in that sense, you actually have a lot more fine control than you would have if you were doing track-to-track transitions.

Which part of the decision-making process usually comes easier to you: the preparation prior to the performance, or the immediate decision-making whilst performing? 

The preparation is really the most important part, because if things are prepared correctly, the actual performance becomes a lot easier. So when I'm performing and I have an idea or I get inspired by something that happens in the crowd – if I've prepared correctly – I can just make it happen. If you haven‘t prepared enough or correctly, that kind of fluid improvisation becomes a lot more difficult.

You are a power-user of the OXI One Sequencer, right?

Yes, I am a long-time user. But you know, it's funny because there's a lot of functions in it that I don't actually use. I‘m not really a “power-user” in that sense —  there are certain things in it that I really lean on, but there are also other things that I've never even messed with.

But you would still say that it's the perfect sequencer for you?

Yes, it is really central to my performances. I think the two most important pieces for my performances are the OXI One and the Bored Brain mixer module I mentioned earlier. Those two things are the constants that are always there.

Have you also tinkered with other modular formats like 4U Serge and Buchla?

Not really. I'm still relatively new to Eurorack, I've only been using it for maybe four years. You know, it's interesting, because I think what draws me to Eurorack is quite different from a lot of other people that like it for its experimental aspects, the unique sound design and modulation capabilities and so on.

For me, what I really love about Eurorack is its immediacy and small footprint. You can fit so much into a single case. My case has over twenty voices! There‘s no way you could travel with twenty keyboard synths.

You also teach live performance to other people. Can you say a bit about your teaching practice?

It really started when I was first trying to learn how to perform live with the modular a few years ago. And like everyone else, I would go on YouTube to see if there‘s anything out there. But I just wasn‘t finding the kind of information I was looking for. So as I was fumbling through this stuff myself – learning with a lot of trial and error – I thought, "If I'm having trouble with this, I'm sure there are other people having trouble, too". So I just started putting out videos on YouTube as I was learning, in the hope that it might also help someone else.

About a year and a half ago, that then evolved into my first online course on improvised live performance, and a second course on hybrid production – basically using my performance workflow in production – about eight months later. As I mentioned, it took me quite a while to find the right approach, so I wanted to show other people all the things that I had to fumble through myself and maybe provide them with some good ideas they can use themselves. 

What kind of people are reaching out to you for your courses?

It's been crazy! In the first year of doing my live performance course alone, I‘ve already had over a hundred people take the course. We have one session a month, generally. And in any given session, there will be people from all over the world. Just recently, I had one with someone in Sri Lanka, people in Europe, the United States, Singapore, and South America.

I think what makes my course unique is that it‘s specifically geared towards improvised live performance. It's not a general "how to produce music" course, of which there are already millions out there, obviously. So the people finding me and taking the course are the ones really looking for that particular thing, people that want to perform live.

Do you do one-on-one sessions, or do you do Zoom calls with several people at once?

When I built the course, I tried to reach as many different types of learners as possible. So if someone signs up for the course, they get fifty pre-recorded videos, broken up into eight different sections, for each course that they can watch at their own pace and review whenever they want.

We then also do eight Zoom calls as a group where we get everybody that's in that course together. We focus on each one of the individual sections so that they can ask specific questions. I‘ll also set up my studio so I can do live demonstrations if something wasn't clear in a video or if someone needs more detail. If needed, I can also help apply things more to someone‘s particular setup, as the course isn't specifically about modular or even hardware in general. You can use whatever kind of gear, it‘s really about the general concepts of performing live, regardless of your setup or genre.

There‘s also an active online community for people who have taken the course where they can connect with each other. This past year at Superbooth, there were fifteen of my students from all over the world who came to Superbooth for the first time. They all met up there as a group, ended up staying in the same hotel, going out to clubs together, touring the Superbooth together. It’s a great way to meet other people learning and interested in the same things. It was really great to meet everybody.

What's the most exotic setup somebody has showed up to your course with?

It's been everything and anything you can imagine, everything from massive modular setups to what I think was the most minimal setup: one guy that did the course with just a mono synth and an iPad. That was his whole live setup. He was using apps on the iPad and connecting them together with an external mono synth. And then really everything in between those — hardware boxes, software, or a combination of the two.

Have you had people playing live instruments on top of their electronic setup as well?

I think I‘ve had a couple, but not as many, mostly because these people have found me through my YouTube stuff or my performances, so a lot of them are more technically leaning. But again, the course isn't specifically for techno, it's really for whatever genre they may want to do.

And purely computer-based setups as well?

They can if they want to. But particularly in the production course, it‘s about a mix of the two, about how you use a live performance setup and get that into a DAW to produce tracks, or use the DAW to make things like samples or loops that you can then move into your live setup. And then when you're playing live, you can record that back in. It's really a circular thing where you can use both the DAW and the hardware setup for their advantages, you get the best of each world and avoid their limitations.

Do you think more people are now getting to the same point you were at four years ago, because they‘re thinking ‘it makes no sense to produce stuff in the studio anymore with AI and everything – the only thing that's left is to make it happen live in the moment’? Are you seeing that sort of mindset in your students?

Yes, and that‘s actually something we talk about a lot in my course. As I mentioned before, I think live performance is on the rise and it's going to be the next big thing, again, as it had been in the past. I think a lot of it has to do with AI, as you mentioned. I think people are starting to be more skeptical about everything they see, whether it's on the internet or whether it's music. Just recently, they had to pull hundreds of thousands of tracks from Spotify because they were all AI-generated. Audiences are starting to be skeptical. 

And obviously, some people don't care, they just want to listen to something and that's fine. But the people who are fans, who want to go to a show, who want to see a DJ or a live performance, they're starting to become more skeptical, like, was this music actually made by the person or not?

It's also part of the reason why I personally wanted to make the switch [from DJing] to performing live. AI can make the tracks, you can put them into different engines to have AI create complete DJ sets for you. You can say, "I want to use tracks that are this style, that match up with this particular genre, these tempos", and it can pre-mix a DJ set for you. You could then roll up and stick that into a CDJ, press play, and pretend that you're DJing.

I must say that the pretending-to-DJ thing wasn‘t sitting there waiting for AI to happen though (laughs).

(laughs) For sure! It's just gotten even easier now though. It used to be that to do a pre-recorded set, you had to actually have to record that set. Now AI can just pre-record a set in moments. So I think audiences that are paying a lot of money to go to a show are starting to get skeptical about whether the person performing is actually playing music, is it their music that they have written?

And with things like that, there then tends to be a backlash. And that backlash I think is going to result in a shift toward live performance. People are going to want to see a human being making music live. If they come to a show and they see you turn a knob and they can hear the sound change, that's something that AI can't do yet. They can be certain that what they're seeing is an artist creating art in that moment, whereas in a lot of other cases, that certainty doesn‘t exist anymore.

You could have a camera zoomed in on your fingers while you‘re playing and project that on the wall behind you or something (laughs).

(laughs) I love to play shows where I can set up on a table on the dance floor with people around me instead of being set up in a DJ booth. I want people to be able to come up and see what's going on, because that's as important for my show as the sound,  me doing the thing in the moment. I've actually thought about incorporating visuals in that way with cameras, it‘s just that where I play there often isn't the infrastructure to be able to project things. It would be interesting to do if my shows were bigger.

Are you often sharing the stage with DJs?

Sometimes, yes … quite often, actually (laughs).

How do you deal with the change-over between sets?

I think it's easy enough for me because I‘ve DJ'd for so long. But it can be a challenge. A lot of the shows that I play are club nights and after-hours parties where there are a lot of DJs and sometimes I'm the only live act, so you have to fit in as if you were another DJ in the lineup.

So you're doing a gradual transition, taking over the tempo from the previous act?

Exactly. But unlike a DJ, you can‘t just take over the decks, you have to show up with your stuff. And sometimes, you don't get a soundcheck and you have to somehow cram your system in there. That can be a challenge, it really can. I always try to arrange with the promoter that I can go early to make sure that there is a space that I can set up in while other artists are playing, because I don't want to interrupt their performance while I'm trying to get my stuff set up. And I try to keep my rig small enough to fit in small spaces, but sometimes it is difficult and you're soundchecking with things in your hand and stuff stacked on top of everything else. 

Have you been tinkering with software tools at all lately, or are you purely hardware-based now?

I'm focused on hardware for my live shows, I use software for studio production though.

How do you approach listening back to your own music and giving yourself feedback?

I do listen to my own stuff and I give myself feedback, but I feel strongly that live performance and production should be an expression of the artist, and that's the most important part to me.

I think a lot of people find it difficult to listen to their own music because they're not thinking about it from the artistic side, they're thinking about it from the technical, perfectionist side. They‘re listening and going, "oh, that wasn't right; oh, I should change that" instead of listening to it like the audience would be listening. No one at a show is listening and thinking "oh man, I totally would've changed the threshold on that compressor (laughs)", they're listening to the feeling and the emotions and the vibe of the music.

And I always try to listen back with that same ear, although finding the right workflow for production that allows me to do that was really difficult for me. If you multi-track everything and start to break things down in your DAW, your first instinct is going to be to try and digitally realign everything and make it perfect. But I‘ve found that when you do that, even with material from your live performances, it just sucks the soul out of the music, it just becomes this digitally perfect, everything-aligned thing. 

So what I'm doing now when I‘m multi-tracking my shows is that I try to keep as much of the main stereo out as possible; that's the track. But then I also have all of these other pieces I‘ve tracked, so I can do things like build an intro and outro to make it more DJ-friendly and maybe fix a problem here and there if really needed. But if a live section is not working as a chunk in itself, I'm not going to take it out of a set and turn it into a track.

I recently went through a set I did for Rinse FM, and I pulled out about six tracks from a two hour long set. So there were six moments that I really enjoyed and I turned those into tracks, but there was also a lot of stuff that was kind of in between – there may have been some great moments, but they weren‘t meant to be tracks. And I didn't want to go in and fix them in the DAW, because then it would no longer be a representation of the improvised live performance. So it's this balancing act of wanting to make it presentable, but also not wanting to suck the soul out of it by taking out all the improvised imperfections.

Like swing.

I think imperfection can come in all types of forms, and it's really those imperfections that give music character. Like, I remember the very first time I heard Stevie Ray Vaughan's cover of "Little Wing" by Jimi Hendrix. A friend of mine worked at a radio station, and I went to the station to listen because he got an early copy of it. So we were in this perfectly soundproof room and as soon as you turned on that track, the first thing you heard was just the hum from the amp, before he even started playing. 

Those are the things, those little magic bits that people now often try to introduce after the fact, “humanizing”, making it “lo-fi” and so on. But I think instead of making it perfect and then trying to make it imperfect later on, you can just make it real from the beginning, just making it what it is. Like, I'm old enough to remember when “lo-fi” was just the bad gear you had (laughs). You just had something that was bad and it was like, well, that's the sound. Now people often want to take these flawless digital recordings and then put a plugin on them to make it sound like it was recorded with bad gear … but you could also just record it through an old tape deck to begin with (laughs).

Like the mixer hiss in dub techno. It initially emerged out of necessity and then became a part of the style. 

Exactly. You know, if the PA system is turned up, but my rig is completely off, with no tracks running at all … it's loud as hell (laughs). There's this awful noise floor that comes from my rig, but I'm not going to fix it, because that's the sound, that's what it's supposed to sound like. I don't want it to sound perfect. I don't want to waste that time. I want it to have its own personality.

What do you currently have coming up?

You can find my upcoming gigs over at Resident Advisor. I'm also continuing to teach my courses as well, if people are interested in the courses, they can find them over at Surcolive.com/courses. I also have a new six-track EP, Obscura, for Diffuse Reality records from Barcelona. I'm also doing some tracks for RAW Industries in Berlin and some other tracks for Peer Audio from San Francisco – a bunch of things are coming out now, finally, now that I feel good about what's going to be released.

Nice one. Will you be at this year’s SuperBooth?

I'll definitely be back for Superbooth. I can't miss that every year. It's the one that's the most important … you just have to cross an ocean, but it’s worth it! 

You can find out more about Surco and his upcoming shows over at his website and follow him on social media here.