Exercise One Interview

What is your vision for techno music? You have a very glassy, smooth sound and very unique style. What helped you to develop in this direction and what experience are you usually trying to provide the listener?

Our vision is that techno will become more musical again and consequently be more stunning. It is more necessary than ever that every musician seeks inspiration on different grounds and blends it into their output. This has always happened but I would love to hear more 'off the general tip' records being played in the clubs at the moment. This doesn't mean that everybody should play Bongo's or include Flute's from the Kontakt sound library. If the sound of contemporary techno spreads out more significantly then well made minimalistic cuts will have the impact in a dj set again that made them famous in the beginning. Our sound in particular is a blend of what we like to hear and what happens when we let the machines run. Our aim is to make tunes that move people in the way that we love to get seduced by great techno music. Sounds a bit esoteric but is about trying to transport the special feeling that you get when you hear a great piece of music. Sometimes this works better - sometimes less well. If we can send people on a trip and freak them out from time to time we are happy.

Tell us about your live set up! What gear do you use and how do you collaborate in a logical fashion to create a clean show?

The heart of the live-set is... Ableton Live... what a surprise ! The advantages of Ableton are obvious and we have been using it since the number 2. I guess we are hooked. Then we have the Korg Electribe (with the synth) which gives us the possibility to use a drum machine and a small synth live on stage. To have total control of the digital programs we use 3 different midi-controllers. Each of us has one programmed to his personal needs and then we have one that we share for basic functions like muting the kick or switching scenes, etc. We are now considering to extend the set up a bit to make the live experience more analog. But travelling with the stuff sets limits the extent of how much gear you can take along. The actual collaboration between the two of us is not based on a strict seperation of the same track elements or instruments. E.g. we both use the electribe and both have rythmical parts. We seperate all of the elements of a track and each gets a chunk. Then we arrange live and/or tweak parts that are supposed to evolve in the course of the track. We agree on a a basic arrangement and then reproduce it more or less accordingly on stage. The fun part is that things can go different and wrong. That's why it is probably rather a dirty show.... ha ha

Do you guys have different styles independent of one another? Do you listen to different music than each other on your days off? Who brings what skills/views to the studio?

We have a slightly different musical education and therefore different personal classics and taste. But there is a huge overlap and so in the studio things click quite well. Marco has a history in stuff like Joy Division, Cure, Front 242 and Depeche Mode whereas Ingo comes from rock with heroes like Kyuss, Social Distortion, Refused and a lot of punk shit. This also makes the difference of what we look for when we are not in the studio. But both of us are huge fans of the big english techno giants Underworld and Chemical Brothers. In terms of studio skills it is safe to say that Marco has accumulated more knowledge because he has devoted most of his time in the past years to studio work. He knows more about the range of contemporary production possibilities. Ingo has kept his passion of drumming in a rock band alive and presumably infuses this implicitly.

What hardware/software/samples do you use and recommend for production?

As we mentioned above Ableton is the heart if our set-up. We also use it to produce tracks in the studio because it enables us to capture arrangements in the way we play live. If you have an idea there is no faster way than Ableton to grab it. Besides the live gear we have an old Moog Prodigy from a friend and a fucked up Prophet. For Kicks we got a MBase from Jomox and have a 16 Channel mixer from Soundcraft. We are now considering to get the Blofeld from Waldorf because we are hearing good things and it is very affordable. Digitally we are using a lot of the Native stuff and we love the Plug-ins from Ohmforce. Those guys are nuts and make excellent small tools. Very recommendable. Also great are the Plugins our friend Jacopo Carreras programmed. He made them on Max MSP and they are available on his Album that came out this year. Great little tools to tweak your sounds. Further recommendations are always tough because the intention and the level of knowledge make hard- and software more or less valuable to the specific producer. Ableton is great to get going and for others it is better to get into Logic; does somebody want analog gear or rather stay digital, etc, etc. But one recommendation would be to not be cheap on a Soundcard. This will haunt you later...

As DJs, do you have any plans for a potential global economic collapse? How do you think it will affect the scene?

We don't. We are glad to be musicians and as long as this pays the bills we are happy. But as an artists there is never a guarantee that things will sustain as they are. A severe global economic collapse will surely end the carreer of many mid rage artists because there will be little to no money left to spend on enjoyable distraction (=live music ;). We are not gonna quit music if we can't live off of it. If necessary we will get day jobs and continue with what we are doing. There will be less time for it but what the hey...

Tell us about Lan Music. What inspired the label ? What is your day to day experience of running it?

We were inspired by the music of our friends were making and wanted an outlet for our own stuff. We had been involved in the music biz before and wanted to give it a go. A key element was that we had built a studio space with three rooms and had shared it over time with guys like Jeremy Caulfield, Luciano, Jacopo Carreras, Donato Dozzy, Lee Jones from MyMy and a local rock band. This led to a bunch of music and if you look at the first releases you will find all these names. The day to day experience has become frustrating recently. We never set out to make money with the label and released quite a bunch of weird stuff on it. But we started to loose money even on rather accessable releases and so we now decided to quit putting out vinyl regulary. Very sad... There are new ways of distributing electronic music and so we will follow those paths. An idea is maybe to have a special editions of vinyl with exclusive tracks which will not be released digital. But this would be only for the love and passion of vinyl.

Most DJs I interview strive to separate personal views/politics from their music. Are you guys the same way? If not, what are some of your personal views that you channel into the music?

That's not an easy question. We have spent hours on discussing this topic. In a way electronic dance music has proclaimed to be explicitly non-political. But that in itself is political and the impact it has had on society and youth (and even pop) culture is immense. The amount of books published on Techno, House, etc. with their takes on sociological implications and contributions for Cultural Studies show this. But opposed to other music styles it is less at the fore. Critical lyrics in rock music or singer songwriter stuff can obviously be more personal and/or political than techno. But on an implicit level I think it is impossible to exclude your personal beleifs from the music you make. If you are making things that you genuinely like from the heart. From my point of view we channel little direct messages into our music. We transport a shared feeling and this is based on personal views. One affects the other. We like certain environments and atmospheres. We always like to play outdoors festival or well run underground club with little to non commercial sponsering. That's where we come from and this can be traced in the music we make. Chic clubs full with tacky boys and girls are not our home turf. If we can be part of something useful, like playing at the demostration of the G8 summit last year or similar things, we are always up for playing music in political contexts. But everybody has a responsibility in his or her community (whatever that might be) and this is independant from what you do as a profession. Sometimes musicians can help to raise attention, but if you only play one charity event a year and are an asshole the rest of the time it doesn't do much help. The day to day decisions of every consumer and political being is what make our society. But enough of pseudo-philosophics. One thing is for sure. It is stupid to make music just to celebrate yourself...

Tell us about your take on synthesis and what generally makes good sound design and dance music. Any tips for other/new producers?

Phew... We are really not the most technical guys and don't follow a stringently developed scheme, which we can share with the world. We love to try to find a balance between analog and digital, though. Reaktor is a great playground and generally we sink ourselves in tweaking instruments until we find a sound that strikes us. Having a bit of analog gear is in our view great because you tend to use it in a playful way. This leads to unintentional outcomes which can be the starting point for a new idea. Every machine has a life of it's own and it is fun explore sounds. A good sound comes from a producer who knows what he is doing and has the whole frequency spectrum under control. The balance of elements in each range make the quality of a track. The more you throw in a track the harder it gets but it can be equally more fun.

What does the rest of 2008 and the beginning of 2009 hold for you guys?

We are on the brink of finishing our first album and so that is THE thing for us next year. It is supposed to hit the streets in May and now we are getting everything ready. We will have at least one video to accompany the first single and are looking very much forward to present what we put together. We are glad that we have the chance to work with a video artists because we have alwas been keen on visual art. The first single will feature a collaboration with Argenis Brito (Senior Coconut / Cadenza) who sings on 2 of our tracks. One just has some vocal snippets but the other one is a real song and will suprise the people that know us. We wanted to try out new avenues on the album and it worked well. Making an album is fantastic. We are putting together an extensive tour and will prepare a new live-set for that purpose.

Any comments about this excellent, exclusive dj mix for the FWD listeners?

This is a dj mix made of tracks only by friends and us. We thought it would be nice to make a mix with tracks that have a personal connection to us... Hopefully the listeners approve the idea...