So we might have missed the launch party for Padre & Bar.ba & OE's 'Alterity' release but we're lucky enough to have caught up with Pete ‘Padre’ Lazonby to get into 'Alterity'.
Best known for ground breaking 'Sacred Cycles' in the mid-nineties, he's been making music ever since under loads of different names so lets start with asking him, how did your latest alias Padre come to life?
PL: It wasn’t my idea, but it’s a name I can grow old into. I was never religious, but I believe in English choral church music, and the black North American kind too. I sang in choirs all my life. I also once sat at the back of a church service in Clarksdale Mississippi where Muddy Waters’ cousin was preaching and singing (Ed. Wow!). I prefer to think that the music itself is god, rather than her being some bearded policeman who happens to share all your prejudices.
YATM: And with that in mind, is there connection/re-connection with 'Sacred Cycles' and 'Holding Hands We're Feeling Power'; possible because both stand-out individually and as a call to arms/peace/love?
PL: Music can always be more than what has gone before. I want to share my sense of wonder. Ultimately, we all feel in the same way.
YATM: I have to own up, I didn't know what 'Alterity' meant but was it something you started out with this new project on Aterral or was it applied after the tracks
PL: 'Alterity' means otherness. Things which are completely new and yet easy to understand are the only creative efforts I value. We should celebrate alterity, not demean it for failing to conform to retrogressive genres. I found the word in a book, maybe Roberto Bolaño? I read a lot of accessible literary fiction. The name, 'Alterity', was the final addition to the project to tie these tracks together.
YATM: And is it Otto Fischer on the vocals as Oe?
PL: Yes, this line of Otto’s “Holding hands we’re feeling power” is the conclusion of a full length song about beginning relationships called 'Entanglement'. 'Entanglements' and new beginnings, you hold the key…. etc. I failed to deliver an adequate production for the full song yet. I’ve successfully repurposed several of his lines into new contexts as I did with this one. It’s good for dance floor hook ups. Matchmaking is one of the highest purposes of a party.
YATM: And for completeness, who is Bar.ba?
PL: Davide ‘Bar.ba’ De Michele is an Italian producer from the mountains near Bergamot. About 2 years ago he started sending me everything he wrote and I would finish them. My engineering is not formulaic so I don’t make his work become more conventional. I just use all the frequencies and fill the space. It’s hard to maintain any collaboration, but from a purely musical perspective ours is bulletproof. We both don’t care about what people think is or isn’t underground or commercial or this or that genre. We both look beyond electronic music as a way to raise our game. He to the wacky 60s Italian hits his grandfather used to play him, and me to arty music and indigenous roots forms. We are much much stronger and faster together. There are many more yet to be discovered ways that we could work together.
YATM: The beauty of 'She Dances Like A Painting' is someting I could envisage in a church with the echo bits are there any plans for remixes
PL: Haha. I wonder what the Marquis De Sade would say about that? It’s his description of one of his favourite ladies. She supposedly also had the finest ass in the French Alps.
Please contact Carlo (Álvarez - @carlosthings) if you’re interested in remixing. I’d love to give these tracks more legs. Nothing is disposable here. Just give me a musical or dancefloor reinterpretation, not a transient genre piece with no connection to the original. I dislike the idea of remixes as purely commercial associations with no creative necessity behind them.
YATM: Talking of Aterral, how did you get to link up with the Berlin-based label?
PL: Carlo is an old friend. I met a bunch of Málagan ravers in London, then Barcelona and Berlin. The southern accent is considered goofy in Spain but of course they are amongst the best people. Malaga is a great city, maybe because the English rarely hang around there on their way to the Costa Del Sol? I’m very happy these tracks found their way to Aterral. They share our vision for subtle special feelings and value our pushing at the boundaries of what is known in house music.
YATM: Is this the forerunner to an album release?
PL: No, but I have lots of new tracks with Bar.ba coming up.
YATM: Is there an 'Alterity' launch party planned?
PL: I just did it here in Taipei on the 22nd. A good night!
I'm afraid our office petty cash didn't run to trips to Taipei but if you're after "emotive, avant-garde compositions that resonate on the dancefloor" and recommend checking out his recent shows on Soundcloud/padreuk or
Artist: Padre & Bar.ba & Oe
Title: Alterity (Holding Hands We're Feeling Power ft. Oe / She Dances Like A Painting)
Release date: 28th February, 2025
Label: Aterral
Cat. No:ATRRL032
Format: Digital / Bandcamp
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