simultaneously and layering loops, melodies and acapella’s on top has created a whole new way of building sets and music perception. I’m personally very happy about that, but in the end we’re still just playing music for people dancing.
What is your ideal technological set up for song production? I love to just use Ableton as the main workspace, making loops, sounds and melodies is super easy and intuitive. You’ll need some good plugins to get a good sound, but that’s pretty much it. Having said that, I recently worked in the studio with a musician playing some instruments and percussion parts, and that was very refreshing, going back to the basics of just recording real music and making some small edits afterwards was great.
Who would you most like to work with from a production standpoint? Who would you most like to DJ a back to back set with? The musician I just wrote about is called Shawn Lee, an amazing multi instrumentalist from London. I always wanted to work with him because I loved his sound, very organic, funky and soulful. From a DJ point of view I wouldn’t mind building a b2b set with Richie Hawtin one day. He’s very beats driven these days, and that would be a great combination with some more recognisable elements and parts I could contribute.
Do you put more weight into your skills as a DJ or your skills as a producer? Or do you find both to be equally as important in your respective genre? I’ve been focussing a lot on producing music behind the screen at the moment, just experimenting with sounds and arrangements, making music that I would never play in my sets but is still really nice to work on. In my DJ sets I’m more pragmatic, more techno and groove oriented. But limiting myself to only that would feel very unnatural, parties and DJ’ing are great, but for me it all started with the love of music in general.I also would love to be able to keep making music after I finish my DJ career, so I’m trying to broaden my musical horizon already right now.
What is your favourite part about having a career in dance music? What is your least favourite? The traveling part is nice because of seeing the world, but spending time in planes and hotels half the year kind of gets to you after a while. My favourite part is still being able to play music in front of a great crowd, and create these magical music moments together. There’s nothing like playing your own tracks for the first time and seeing an amazing response.
In what ways has your creative style changed from the time you started producing until now? How would you like it to continue to evolve? In the beginning I just did whatever I liked, just made music without having any expectations. It was very intuitive and making many mistakes and learning a lot that way. Nowadays I think my sound is better, but it’s not as easy getting in the same vibe as before, things are more calculated. I really should start learning how to play keys, so I can be more free in making music spontaneously rather than using a mouse to draw notes on a screen. That’s my next goal!
That being said; what can we expect from you as we move into 2013? Do you have any specific goals for the new year? I‘m trying to finish my new album at the moment, that has been quite a difficult project as I’m stretching my boundaries and have gotten way outside of my ‘dance music’ comfort zone. As I said, it’s been a challenge and I’m hoping to wrap things up quite soon. Hopefully the result will be something interesting… besides that I’ll be touring a lot again, my schedule is already starting to look quite full.