FACTS:

1:
2:
3:

QUESTIONS:

1. What is the biggest inspiration for your music?
C&E: Cosmic emotions

2. How and when did you get into making music?
E: Probably since I was in my mother’s womb, listening to my father play the guitar.  Have you ever heard what music sounds like in there?  It’s very much like Christy’s guitar style. As soon as I was born I asked for a piano!
C: when I was in high school I went through a medical procedure where I couldn’t play sports for a year. My father took pity on me and got me that guitar that I’d been asking for. That’s when I think I got really addicted to music.

3. What are your 5 favourite albums of all time?
E: Maro Ajemian’s performance of John Cage’s Sonatas and Interludes for prepared piano (where Cage himself has made the preparations) and Willie Nelson’s Red Headed Stranger
C: I’m always in the mood for Neil Young’s “On the Beach” , “Afro Roots” by Mongo Santamaria , or the Dr. Who Soundtrack.

4. What do you associate with Berlin?
E: Darkness, unpredictability, Thai food
C: beautiful urban decay

5. What’s your favourite place in your town?
E: The East River Ferry
C: my apartment

6. If there was no music in the world, what would you do instead?
C&E: Run

7. What was the last record you bought?
E: Ethiopiques vol. 21
C: Zapp & Roger “Greatest Hits”

8. Who would you most like to collaborate with?
C&E: Brian Eno!!!!!

9. What was your best gig (as performer or spectator)?
C&E: We don’t know but Sunday February 12th at The Roter Salon in Berlin will probably be the best gig ever.

10. How important is technology to your creative process?
E: Vintage gear plays a big role.  The NORD scares me.
C: We aren’t scared of Nords!

11. Do you have siblings and are they proud or jealous of you?
E: I think my sister used to be really jealous of me growing up.  We were raised in the woods while my parents built our house, and at one point she hit me on the head with a hammer.  Now she sends me texts and tells me she loves me all the time.  So we figured it out.
C: I have a big sister too but everything is cool with us.

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Christy & Emily is a duo from Brooklyn, NYC. Its music has been described as “Arthur Russell jamming with Galaxy 500″.

Christy & Emily | Kings & Monsters

Like the Wonder Twins or a Reeses peanut butter cup, theirs is an interesting partnership for the strikingly different abilities and musical flavors these two multi-instrumentalists bring to the studio and stage. Gueen’s Head, the product of their work, isn’t just “rock” versus “classical,” but interpretive versus creative, mood versus hook, song versus sound.

christyandemily.com

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FACTS:

1: I once played a 3 hours show in a parking garage, from 4am to 7am. There was a very natural reverb.
2: I am graduated in flute.
3: I worked as a nanny in New York.

QUESTIONS:

1. What is the biggest inspiration for your music?
The Music, and the creation of it, itself.

2. How and when did you get into making music?
My parents are both musicians so music was always in our household. I first started learning piano when I was maybe 5 or 6 and then moved to flute which was main my instrument for many years.

3. What are your 5 favourite albums of all time?
Swans- Swans are Dead
Godflesh- Pure
Big Black- Songs About Fucking
Sonic Youth- Confusion is Sex
Neurosis- Through Silver In Blood

4. What do you associate with Berlin?
Freedom to live and work and play the way I want to.

5. What’s your favourite place in your town?
Toronto: Trinity-Bellwoods Park
Berlin: Soviet Memorial in Treptower Park

6. If there was no music in the world, what would you do instead?
Cry.

7. What was the last record you bought?
Joni Mitchell- Hejira

8. Who would you most like to collaborate with?
Bill Frisell.

9. What was your best gig (as performer or spectator)?
The Boredoms in Melbourne, when they played with ten drummers on the 10/10/10.

10. How important is technology to your creative process?
It is important but not absolutely necessary — I can still make music without it.

11. Do you have siblings and are they proud or jealous of you?
I have one brother — he plays music too, but not professionally. He thinks the music I make is weird, so maybe bemused is a better descriptive than either jealous or proud.
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Aidan Baker is not only a multi-instrumentalist, but also a poet and a writer.

Aidan Baker | Live
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tqGJOCdAgKY&NR=1

He released many experimental albums, ranging from guitar drone to ambient post-rock and contemporary classical: beside his solo project, he is also involved in bands as Nadja, ARC and Whisper Room. He collaborated with many musicians, last but not least with Pyramids leader, for the album Sailors With Wax Wings.

www.aidanbaker.org
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FACTS:

1: Has Yogurt every day.
2: Loves Berlin, but feels intimidated by the wide streets.
3: Loves the wide streets.

QUESTIONS:

1. What is the biggest inspiration for your music?
This feeling that I need to create music comes from deep inside my brain.   Even more so then my heart.  I am miserable when I can’t make tunes. So it’s this drive that i have that inspires me to make music.

2. How and when did you get into making music?
I started making noise around 4 or 5.  Music came a little later, around 12.  I decided i wanted to be a musician when I heard Miles davis when I was also 12.   It was Live at the philharmonic.  Very intimidating scary stuff.

3. What are your 5 favourite albums of all time?
Oh man, that is so unfair!  Ill say in no particular order, and ill get some friends to laugh at this…
Nas–Illmatic
Wu-Tang 36 Chambers
Aphex Twin–RDJ album
Miles Davis–A Tribute to Jack Johnson
im gonna leave this 5th spot open, its too tough man…

4. What do you associate with Berlin?
Cold!  But I was there late January for CTM festival… I would love to return in the spring or summer.  The people were so nice, and we found an amazing brunch in this park.  Very cool restaurant buffet style.  lots of young couples and children.  Very sweet.

5. What’s your favourite place in your town?
My studio is up there.  My girlfriends couch.  The booth at Club Love is up there too…  Anywhere with a bunch of friends really.  NYC is crazy, you will see some weird shit anywhere, so you better be with some friends to share it with.

6. If there was no music in the world, what would you do instead?
I would teach.  I still want to teach and may do so in a few years. I will always make music though… but if there were no music i wold be teaching kids for sure.

7. What was the last record you bought?
Hmmm… James Pants, who just moved to berlin i think, gave me his new album.

8. Who would you most like to collaborate with?
They are all dead.  Living… I have already collaborated with my hero, but he needs to finish his part!  If it get’s finished you will know.

9. What was your best gig (as performer or spectator)?
Same gig actually! I opened for Modeselektor in Brooklyn.  I had a great set, a really fun time on this big stage, everyone was dancing! he rafters were moving.  Then I got lost in the crowd when they played and forgot where i was.  that is magical.  Does not happen often.

10. How important is technology to your creative process?
Very because I use a computer to make music.  Although I can survive without it.  I played the upright bass for 12 years and the flute for 7.  I would miss  the workflow of a computer if it were gone.  It is incredibly fast when you think about it.  Make a whole tune, record it, master it, all in a day or two…  I guess musicians do the same too, but not in there underwear alone at 3 am.

11. Do you have siblings and are they proud or jealous of you?
I have a sister that is very proud of me.  I am very jealous of her, because she has a steady job! There is no hustle for her haha!  I hustle everyday… but I would be bored without it.  Peace.

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When Falty DL released his 2009 debut on Planet Mu, Love is a Liability, it was notionally tied to dubstep, despite not sounding much like the sound at the time.

A combination of irregular but still funky drums, bass and light musical surfaces, it stood out and was recognised for it’s distinctiveness-this was a native New Yorker interpreting his love of British dance music from a unique angle.

Falty DL | To New York

After spending 2010 honing his craft and working on singles for a bunch of different labels and remixes for the likes of The XX, Mount Kimbie and Anthony Shakir, Falty DL, born Drew Lustman, pulls his skills and experience together for this new LP; “You Stand Uncertain”.

http://www.myspace.com/faltydl | http://www.planet.mu
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FACTS:

1: They only time I was suspended from school was because I hacked the school computers.
2: I am not a big fan of cheese.
3: I watch Blade Runner once a week.

QUESTIONS:

1. What is the biggest inspiration for your music?
Sound design and the production techniques of certain time periods. I’m quite inspired by films and nostalgic thoughts. I tend to write music inspired by the future or the past, not so much the present.

2. How and when did you get into making music?
I’d say about ten years ago is when I started. Even before that, I can remember dubbing cheap keyboards over tapes of The Chemical Brothers. I think my first step into production was trying my hand at being a DJ. DJing forced me into being aware of sounds and trends in electronic music and pushed me in the direction of writing music that I thought was missing from the world. I started writing drum and bass, but after a few years I got a little bored, about the same time I discovered Boards of Canada. Boards of Canada was a revelation to me–their complex melodies, and the overall feeling and world their music created for the listener. Over the next few years I explored down-tempo, abstract hip-hop and electro through different aliases. Com Truise is the product of that exploration, a culmination of my life and travels with music.

3. What are your 5 favourite albums of all time?
Gary Numan/Tubeway Army–Replicas
Joy Division–Unknown Pleasures
Boards of Canada–Music Has the Right to Children
Future World Orchestra–Mission Completed
Bibio–Fi

4. What do you associate with Berlin?
Forward thinking electronic music. I have yet to visit, but I have no doubt I’ll be there in the near future.

5. What’s your favourite place in your town?
It’s not so much this town but, my parents have a house in the Adirondack mountains in upstate New York. The air is so fresh It makes you tired. It’s my favorite place to forget about life and just enjoy being alive.

6. If there was no music in the world, what would you do instead?
Filmmaking. I’m obsessed with picture quality. There’s definitely a visual aspect to my music.

7. What was the last record you bought?
I just ordered the Siriusmo – “Feromonikon/Signal” 12″ from Monkeytown Records not 30 minutes ago.

8. Who would you most like to collaborate with?
David Frank, he is a legend in my book.

9. What was your best gig (as performer or spectator)?
I DJed with Phace in Philadelphia a few years back. We went to some warehouse party after, and Flo (Half of Phace) totally twisted the top of the glass bottle right off leaving a gnarly jagged opening, cheers’ed me and drank the beer, glass and all.

10. How important is technology to your creative process?
Very, I’m a nerd. I’m not saying I couldn’t do what I do with a more minimal setup but I love being surrounded by buttons and knobs.

11. Do you have siblings and are they proud or jealous of you?
I have a younger sister and she is quite proud of my success thus far. She writes music also and is quite the wordsmith, I’m sure she’ll do just as well if not better than me!

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An admitted synth obsessive, Com Truise is the maker of an experimental and bottom heavy style he calls “mid-fi synth-wave, slow-motion funk”.Haley’s been making music on the side for roughly a decade—going through pseudonyms like toothbrushes (Sarin Sunday, SYSTM, Airliner)—first as a DJ, and currently, as an excavator of softer, window-fogging synth-wave.

While subliminally informed by both parental record collections and hints of faded electronics product design, Haley’s Com Truise project isn’t just nostalgia capitalization. There are fragments (read:

Com Truise – Sundriped

DNA strands) of Joy Division, New Order, and the Cocteau Twins, but it’s like you’re hearing them through the motherboard of a waterlogged Xbox—demented and modern. He’s got a way of making familiar things sound beautifully hand-smeared.

The first Com Truise release was the Cyanide Sisters EP—distributed for free on the AMdiscs label—where mellow stone-outs like “Sundriped” and “Slow Peels” sat next to harder IDM bangers (“BASF Ace” and “IWYWAW”) and bumpy alt-funk trips (“Norkuy” and “Komputer”).

http://comtruise.com | http://ghostly.com
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FACTS:

1: I am very proud of the fact that I have never had a day job in my life other than being a musician/artist.
2: I have an incredible love and need to swim in my life, swimming contributes so much to my music and physical stamina,
3: I work to live, not live to work – (Somebody said this)

QUESTIONS:

1. What is the biggest inspiration for your music?
The biggest inspiration for my music has always been my family, in particular my mother and father.  Without their love and support I would not where I am today.  Secondary are the incredible musicians who came before me, in particularly, John Coltrane, Albert Ayler, Charles Tyler, Clifford King (my teacher), the Art Ensemble of Chicago, Sun Ra, and African Music, as well as Eric Dolphy.

2. How and when did you get into making music?
I began taking music lessons at the age of 7 years old.  I have been playing music my whole life since then, with the exception of several years during high school when I was a student athlete playing basketball.  Once I got into Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio I began to play my first public concerts and can document live performances from a August 1971 concert by one of my first music groups “The Collective”.

3. What are your 5 favourite albums of all time?
1. John Coltrane – A Love Supreme
2. Cecil Taylor – Conquistador
3. Busi Mhlongo – African Classics
4. The Art Ensemble of Chicago – Nice Guys
5. Dollar Brand – African Piano

4. What do you associate with Berlin?
I have visited Berlin several times and I associate the city with a lot of arts activity, 24 hour happenings, wide avenues, and a New York kind of pace.

5. What’s your favourite place in your town?
My favorite place is my neighborhood of the Fillmore. I love it here. This is where I live and it is the historic Jazz area of San Francisco where I can walk to jazz clubs, super markets, and cinemas.  I love to walk to places in my neighborhood.

6. If there was no music in the world, what would you do instead?
I would write! I love to write. I would also make films.

7. What was the last record you bought?
I just brought a record by a South African jazz musician. The record is entitled, “Zimology Volume One”

8. Who would you most like to collaborate with?
I would most like to collaborate with Cecil Taylor.

9. What was your best gig (as performer or spectator)?
My best gig as a performer was in 1972 in Amsterdam at “De Kosmos” with my band “The Pyramids”.  I also had a wonderful performance at the 2000 International Jazz Festival in Nurnberg, Germany with my band “The Idris Ackamoor Ensemble”

10. How important is technology to your creative process?
Technology takes a back seat in my creative process. I know it is necessary in these times, but my creative process is very “live” and human. I love to just have a wooden floor to tap dance and my instruments surrounding me and then let loose!  My creative process is very physical and requires a  lot of stamina.

11. Do you have siblings and are they proud or jealous of you?
Technology takes a back seat in my creative process. I know it is necessary in these times, but my creative process is very “live” and human. I love to just have a wooden floor to tap dance and my instruments surrounding me and then let loose!  My creative process is very physical and requires a  lot of stamina.

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The Pyramids, founded 1971 at ohio’s ANTIOCH college. There they not only visited the legendary rock churches in LALIBELA (ethopia), which lend one of their albums the name, but also lived in ghana and kenya for a while. members included the never resting IDRIS ACKAMOOR and his soon-to-become wife, flautist MARGO ACKAMOOR.

The Pyramids | A short Intro

2007 saw a highly energetic reunion of the group in the original line-up, which has performed several shows in the bay area now, boosting their trademark sound of massive afrocentric drumming meets ecstatic group improvisations.

At the dawn of the 1970s, saxophonist Idris Ackamoor, flautist Margo Simmons and bassist Kimathi Asante were embedded in the radical artistic hotbed of Ohio’s Antioch College. Idris Ackamoor had cut his teeth with Albert Ayler’s alto player Charles Tyler in LA & Clifford King in Chicago and had his own free jazz outfit.

www.myspace.com/thepyramidseuropeantour
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FACTS:

1: D.I.Y
2: B. Y. O. B.
3: GOD IS DOG

QUESTIONS:

1. What is the biggest inspiration for your music?
my life

2. How and when did you get into making music?
I started DJing in 1983 and for years kept doing radio shows, ‘zines, record labels… Around 2005 I finally started making my music public.

3. What are your 5 favourite albums of all time?
sorry no chance that I could reply to this as I have thousands of records and my tastes change on a daily basis, though for sure CRAMPS “human fly” is my favourite song + the first eponymous Suicide might be the one which is aging best for me.
Other than those 2 of importance are:
FoetuSteroid Maximus, Ken Nordine’s “colours”, oXbow, Wire, Cows, Sort Sol, Die Haut, X-Ray-Spex, Music Machine, Bernard Herrmann, Tod Browning, Black Flag, Aphex Twin, Cabaret Voltaire, Autechre, Goz Of Kermeur, Fugazi, Ennio Morricone, No Means No, Ciccone Youth, Felix Kubin, Gun Club, Nurse With Wound, Guapo, Joy Division, MBV “loveless”, The Cure “pornography”, Christian Marclay, Khanate, Syd Barrett, Godzilla, Talk Talk, Radio Birdman, Xenakis, Throbbing Gristle, Tom Verlaine, Igor Stravinsky, Soft Machine, Luc Ferrari, God (the band), Schneider TM, Ornette Coleman, Kraftwerk, Mingus, Hint, Glenn Branca, Neurosis, Sun City Girls, Jam, Unwound, Tod Dockstader, Hasil Hadkins, Pita, Big Black, Alice Coltrane, Pere Ubu, Devo, Condense, Mouse On Mars, Jesus & Mary Chain, Steve Reich, Fad Gadget, The Stooges, Naked City, the soundtrack for Eraserhead, Andy’s Car Crash, Michelangelo Antonioni, Headcleaner, Olivier Messiaen, VU, Luis & Bebe Barron’s “Forbidden Planet”, some early Brian Eno, 13th Floor Elevators, Jesus Lizard (live), Violent Femmes, Tetsuo 1, Boss Hog, Clouddead, Duchess Says, Damned, Sun Ra, Animal Collective, Tortoise, El-P, Einstürzende Neubauten, Swamp Rats, Gastr del Sol, Captain Beefheart And The Magic Band, Tuxedomoon, Made To Measure, Slint, Alog, James Joyce, Kas Product, Bauhaus, Pebbles/Back From The Grave/Ugly Things compilations, Kim Fowley, Kepone, Thomas Brinkmann, The The, Seeds, Gvs.B, Fennesz, The Fall, Birthday Party, The Deviants, Gallon Drunk, Sun Ra, Boredoms, Mars, The Monks, Silverfish, Supersilent, Pussy Galore, early LCD Soundsystem, Bark Psychosis, Bernard Herrmann, The Residents, Art Ensemble Of Chicago, Erik Satie, PanaSonic, Morton Feldman, Pixies, Dinosaur Jr., Alarm Will Sound, Magazine, Pharoah Sanders… & many many more…

4. What do you associate with Berlin?
bar

5. What’s your favourite place in your town?
at home spending time w/ my family or creating some new music

6. If there was no music in the world, what would you do instead?
music changed my life, from such an early age and later on being a Punk kid not willing to get drugged out to be able to come back home and listen to his records… It prevented me from many addictions which caused the death of some friends… I’d rather avoid thinking what my life could have been if I had not been that passionate about music.

7. What was the last record you bought?
Foetus “HIDE”

8. Who would you most like to collaborate with?
I’d love to score some a movie for David Lynch…

9. What was your best gig (as performer or spectator)?
I shouldn’t be the one describing my best gig as a performer. Regarding others, it is like the question about records, I was lucky to see so many bands that it is really difficult not to forget any. The most marking show for me was Kraftwerk, back in  1976, who after finishing the gig gave an encore where manikins where playing “we are the robots” without the audience being aware of it. Suddenly they arrived aside their replicas and the 10 year old kid I was back then got totally surprised by seing 2 of each of them… Apart that trick, the bands who really left a mark on me where The Cramps, Birthday Party, Johnny Thunders, The Damned, The Sting Rays, Gallon Drunk, Melt Banana, Guapo, Unsane, Hint, Condense, Fugazi, and dozens of others… Recently definitely Big Sexy Noise.

10. How important is technology to your creative process?
whenever possible I aim at capturing field recordings, acoustic instruments and for this I need technology. Then I love to treat those sounds sometimes which again is being done by computers. Then onstage I use some electric/amplified instruments or turntables/synths so I guess that I need technology to transcribe what musically comes to mind.

11. Do you have siblings and are they proud or jealous of you?
unfortunately life has taught me that whenever you are as active as I have been throughout the years + dare express your opinion some people will be jealous or mad at you. whatever I keep doing what I need to do and find some people being on the same wavelength, such as Lydia is. ;- )

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Philippe Petit is interested in soundtracks, even if he creates original music he’d rather be introduced as a “musical travel agent” than a composer. Petit uses turntables and laptops to build up electronic layers and take advantage of vinyl material to fondle released sounds.

A journalist for various magazines and radio as well as a musical activist, Petit now celebrates his 25th year of sharing his musical passions.

PETIT has assembled what people call a dream-team of collaborators, often joining Lydia Lunch or Faust onstage, and working with: Foetus, Edward Ka-Spel, Kumo, Scott McCloud (Girls Against Boys), Cosey Fanni Tutti, My Brightest Diamond, Sybarite, Pantaleimon, Graham Lewis (Wire), Barry Adamson, Scanner, Mira Calix, Kammerflimmer Kollektief, Guapo, Leafcutter John, Simon Fisher Turner, Jarboe and many more…

http://www.myspace.com/philippepetit

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FACTS:

1: Robert Duvall, Gene Hackman & Dustin Hoffman used to be roommates.
2: I typed this whole interview on my stupid phone while
waiting for my flight to Lisbon.
3: I could really go for a root beer right about now.

QUESTIONS:

1. What is the biggest inspiration for your music?
“One Man Band (Plays All Alone)” by The Chi-Lites

2. How and when did you get into making music?
There was a piano in the house where I grew up & my parents listened to lots of pop & classic music on the home stereo. I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t aware of & interested in music.

3. What are your 5 favourite albums of all time?
I don’t have 5 favorite albums of all time. I’m not that organized. There are lots of albums that I’m fond of, & here are 5 of those, in no particular order:
Irma Thomas: Sings
Arthur Russell: World of Echo
Tsegue-Maryam Guebrou: Ethiopia Song/Solo Piano
Harvey MilkH Courtesy & Good Will Toward Men
Ruth White: Flowers of Evil

4. What do you associate with Berlin?
Falafel

5. What’s your favourite place in your town?
My apartment

6. If there was no music in the world, what would you do instead?
Stand-up comedy is the closest thing I can think of. I already spend plenty of time just talking during my concerts. It would be easy to just not play any songs in between the jokes. I probably just wouldn’t get as many laughs as I do now.

7. What was the last record you bought?
Timmy Thomas: Why Can’t We Live Together

8. Who would you most like to collaborate with?
I’d like to write & produce an entire album for my friend Jenny Herbinson to sing.

9. What was your best gig (as performer or spectator)?
I saw Corrupted play in Berkeley, California a few years ago, and I still think about it a lot. They played for a really long time, & in the middle of it, I felt like i’d left my body. It made me want to write longer songs.

10. How important is technology to your creative process?
They are practically the same thing. It’s hard for me to imagine one without the other.

11. Do you have siblings and are they proud or jealous of you?
I have one brother.  His name is Gordon Ashworth, & he is also a musician. We have done some tours together. We’re very supportive of each other & I’m certainly very proud of him, & I can only assume that he is also very proud of me.

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Casiotone for the Painfully Alone (CFTPA) is the musical solo-project of musician Owen Ashworth (born April 22, 1977) of Redwood City, California.

Ashworth started CFTPA after he dropped out of film school in 1997. He has toured with other indie artists such as The Donkeys, The Papercuts, Cass McCombs, Kill Me Tomorrow, P:ano, The Dead Science, David Bazan, The Rapture, and Xiu Xiu. Additionally, his brother is Gordon Ashworth, who makes experimental harsh noise as Oscillating Innards and ambient works as Concern.

Official Video White Corolla by Casiotone for the Painfully Alone

Advance Base Battery Life CD/LP out February 10, 2009 on Tomlab Records.  Directed by: Julia Pott, Animated by: Julia Pott and Robin Bushell

The band’s musical style is characterized by the use of electronically produced beats, cheap keyboards, and slow, frank lyrics. On Etiquette, Ashworth widened his musical horizon and added more analog instruments and an overall more organic sound.

In 2010 Ashworth announced that he was retiring the “Casiotone for the Painfully Alone” name, although he planned to continue making music. The band’s final show will be on December 5, 2010, the thirteen-year anniversary of its first show.

http://www.myspace.com/cftpa| http://cftpa.org
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FACTS:

1: yes
2: no
3: maybe

QUESTIONS:

1. What is the biggest inspiration for your music?
hmm. it´s quite a while ago. i´m a very moody person and i think i can only draw inspiration from something if i´m in the right mood for it. it can be anything. a movie, other music or just silence. i seriously think i should not make music for a year. maybe it´ll get better/easier. i´ll do this when my next album is done.

2. How and when did you get into making music?
my father was a musician and i already hung out at rehearsal rooms and gigs when i was 5. i started playing drums quite early but gave up when i discovered electronic music.

3. What are your 5 favourite albums of all time?
autechre – amber
radiohead – kid a
fennesz – venice
plasticman – music
max richter – the blue notebooks

4. What do you associate with Berlin?
i used to connect my city with grey buildings, green gaps between them and lots of space to make stuff happen but berlin is changing fast and “szenebezirk prenzlauer berg” starts to bore me a bit.

5. What’s your favourite place in your town?
my most favorite places are outside of berlin. märkische schweiz for example. i love to escape from time to time. i didnt have a motorbike this year. it got stolen in spring, i was touring a lot and didnt really manage to get a new one but thats something i definitly have to do next spring.

6. If there was no music in the world, what would you do instead?
i think something without computers. something with animals? i could work in a filmcrew doing animal documentaries! if any producer reads this – i would still concider to switch;)

7. What was the last record you bought?
i think it was the new interpol record but actually i havent really listened to it. first attempts turned out not totally pleasant. i´ll buy the new antony and the johnsons tomorrow… 8.

8. Who would you most like to collaborate with?
modeselektor and ellen allien. and maybe telefon tel aviv one day. seriously – i have really talented friends.

9. What was your best gig (as performer or spectator)?
i really liked a sigur ros gig at columbiahalle in berlin. maybe 4 years ago. i think i cried a little.

10. How important is technology to your creative process?
it gets less and less important. when i started apparat it was pretty much based on technology. then i changed over the years. i was a nerd for long enough. these days i write songs on a piano. not every one but it happens. and if my harddrive gets stolen i can just record the same song again. you cannot do this with computermusic. pure electronic music is oftenpartually idea and partually sound. and sometimes its really hard to reproduce a sound. theres quite a bit of randomness involved. but its hard to loose an idea. maybe if i dont stop drinking so much it´ll happen more often in the future though.

11. Do you have siblings and are they proud or jealous of you?
i have a sister and she started to come to my gigs lately. i mean she came to 2 shows which means it wasnt too bad for her the first time. i hope.

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Apparat is a German electronic musician living in Berlin and one of the owners of Shitkatapult records. In 2004, he appeared at a John Peel session. The tracks from this session were rerecorded and reworked in the studio and released as Silizium EP in 2005, as a tribute.

In 2007 he formed his own band to play the album Walls live. Raz Ohara joined him playing the stage piano and Jörg Waehner on drums. Next to playing these live shows, he continued to play his solo live sets, touring with Transforma Visuals.

In May 2009 he released the self-titled album with Modeselektor under the name Moderat on BPitch Control. They have collaborated previously on an EP named Auf Kosten Der Gesundheit which was released as a limited 12″ in 2002. Apparat’s single ‘Holdon’ features in the trailer for the 2010 Teton Gravity Research ski film ‘Light The Wick’.

Apparat’s DJ-Kicks will be out October 26th on K7.

http://www.apparat-djkicks.com |  http://www.apparat.net | http://www.k7.com

FACTS:

1: It’s winter again.
2: japan is great!
3: we will all die one day.

QUESTIONS:

1. What is the biggest inspiration for your music?
my dad. he always dragged me around and got to hang out with lloydy Coxsone & toots from the maytals they all kinda grew up together so you can imagine the exposure to bass roots & ska rudeboy skanking and all those shubins other substances.

2. How and when did you get into making music?
I suppose when me & Morgan Zarate hooked up several years before the Spacek Curvatia Album was conceived, we used to jam on sundays at Cafe WKD in camden with a bunch of london based musicians that were prominent in the jazz circuit at the time. he was asked to do a remix for a friend in west london and i went down to the studio were he was hanging and we jammed a little together on the MPC 3000 i think this was like the initial get go to actually loving the idea of manipulating sound and sequencing tracks that sparked me to
try and understand the machine more. so of course i went out and bought one shortly after that.

3. What are your 5 favourite albums of all time?
Trojan Nyahbinghi albums
Michael Jackson – Off the wall
Slum Village – Fantastic Vol 1
Spacek – Curvatia
Joni Michell – Blue

4. What do you associate with Berlin?
The Wall, Icon club, Mad nights out and a meeting point for lost souls.

5. What’s your favourite place in your town?
Muffathalle it’s a venue hall, club & cafe which is actually in Munich where i have lived and worked for the last 8 years, it’s a great family there and you get to see a lot of artists if you make your self available to that situation i’ve meet so many great artists first hand there and their usually all very sweet and charming. everything from the skatalites through to 2 banks of four and beyond.

6. If there was no music in the world, what would you do instead?
Tricky one…. well i studied to be a social worker for a while after giving up trades as i had enough of Mechanics electronics telecommunication and the building trades i’d say i would have followed football if it wasn’t music.

7. What was the last record you bought?
Monopoly – The George Machine, actually licensed it for a reebok compilations in 2007 but then saw that faces records released it on vinyl last year so picked it up in Athens.

8. Who would you most like to collaborate with?
John Holt the reggae artist i think he has an amazing dexterity to his voice that i don’t really hear these days. lost form i guess.

9. What was your best gig (as performer or spectator)?
Best was Beat dimensions at Sonar 2007 because me and cinnaman had the last show of the day and it was quite nice to see all these heads bopping along to flying lotus, hudson mohawke and some other at the time considered obscurities.

10. How important is technology to your creative process?
it’s a love hate relationship lets say that!

11. Do you have siblings and are they proud or jealous of you?
Yes, theres a ton of us at last count 10 brothers and sisters, i think they love me for who i am and I never felt a sense of jealousy ever.

http://www.beatdimensions.net

FACTS:

1: never get hype
2: play real “live” shits
3: cooking & music is the same art

QUESTIONS:

1. What is the biggest inspiration for your music?
I will say BLACK MUSIC in general, grooves, afterbeat, shuffle, all this way to play and produce always inspired me.

2. How and when did you get into making music?
First , I was bas player, and try to practice again this days…,but turntables bring me to MPCs and then computer producing. I was playing in unfamous bands, kind of fusion funk; tryin to our own style, dark electronic funk, and then solo project happened because of different way to think about music between each musician.

3. What are your 5 favourite albums of all time?
arggg I hate this kind of question because there is more than 5….
but:
Dabrye | One/Three
Roy Ayers | Ubiquity
Tortoise | Millions now Living will never Die
Dimlite | Runbox Weather
Weather Report | Black Market

4. What do you associate with Berlin?
“Unknown” because I never been there, and its a shame, all my friends say its a wonderful and so open minded place… But I hope I’ll meet Berlin soon, I was about to play there with MPM/Hi Hat Club, but I couldn’t happen. I’m workin on it*

5. What’s your favourite place in your town?
Pedestrian streets where you can find cool bars and cool mood. My town is called CAEN, in Normandie, France.

6. If there was no music in the world, what would you do instead?
Cooking and playing+study how to make video games (without sound & music…heheh..weird!)

7. What was the last record you bought?
Pharcyde – Runnin (J Dilla Most Beautiful Insmntl*) , 2£ in London !

8. Who would you most like to collaborate with?
Q Tip

9. What was your best gig (as performer or spectator)?
As performer, it was at Mondayjazz Birthday in Vilnius / Lithuania.

10. How important is technology to your creative process?
I’m not so high geek in technology, I use simple computer; old keyborads, and MPCs (more before…) My music (I hope) sounds Live, and is about to play live, so I don’t need something to hi tech to do it, but I must say I will go more and more in better gears etc, but I will always try to stay simple, because simpleness brings more interesting tricks to play live and to produce. The less you haven, the more you do!

11. Do you have siblings and are they proud or jealous of you?
I have two sisters & one brother, and they are really proud of me I think, when they see me travelling and living just with music, as they are musicicans too, I think they are really happy for me. Would love that everybody could live about what they want to do. I know I’m very lucky. But I worked hard for this and now is the good result I think.

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Fulgeance’s music is a perfect blend of huge, synth-laced French Electro and modern Instrumental Hip Hop. He takes club music into the realm of intelligent musical arrangements, yet always remains “dumb” enough to work the floor.

FULGEANCE: Low Club EP Teaser

He plays live via two MPC’s and is completely mind blowing to watch. His fast paced and energetic performance approach is a refreshing outlook from the ‘head in your laptop’ era. Fun and highly talented, this is a welcome return.

‘The Revenge of the Nerd’ is a perfect slice of his “Low – Club” Hip Hop and has been critically acclaimed internationally. His unforgettable 2007 ‘Chico E.P’ on the Musique Large imprint and swing laced Kelpe remix on DC Recordings have always been favourites at LuckyMe, and we can not wait to hear new exclusive material from his forthcoming E.P ‘LOW CLUB,’ which drops worldwide on Musique Large in October.

http://www.myspace.com/fulgeance | http://musiquelarge.blogspot.com

FACTS:

QUESTIONS:

What is the biggest inspiration for your music?
Heartbreaks and babies crying.

How and when did you get into making music?
Born into a musical family, I really didn’t have much choice ;)

What are your 5 favourite albums of all time?
Joni Mitchell- Blue
Kate Bush- Hounds of Love
Depeche Mode- Black Celebration
John Coltrane- Giant Steps
Brenda Lee- Brenda Lee

What do you associate with Berlin?
Beautiful darkness

What’s your favourite place in your town?
Robert’s Western World

If there was no music in the world, what would you do instead?
Paint

What was the last record you bought?
Janelle Monae

Who would you most like to collaborate with?
Emmy Lou Harris

What was your best gig (as performer or spectator)?
First European show ever performed in Berlin

How important is technology to your creative process?
Not very…

Do you have siblings and are they proud or jealous of you?
I do have a sister. And she is very supportive. Although she gotthe rockstar name. Her name is Velvet. Really. Her name is Velvet. ;)

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TIDWELL comes from a country music background: her mother, Connie Eaton, had a brief brush with fame in the 1970s, and her father, like TIDWELL’s husband (and co-producer) Todd, works in one of Nashville’s prestigious Music Row establishments.

Cortney Tidwell | Watusii taken from the latest album “Boys” on City Slang. Directed by Daniel Franke & Martin W. Maier

Growing up in the heart of Music City she spent her childhood years in her bedroom, avoiding the painful breakup of her parents’ marriage by listening to a wide variety of music, headphones clamped to her ears.

“It seems there’s a shortage of girls in my life. It began when I was a child: I was obsessed with music, and rock and roll’s bombarded with boys, but girls weren’t fussed over it so much. So I positioned myself with the boys. They played instruments and talked about rock and roll, and all I wanted to talk about was music. It’s still the same today, boys everywhere I look. I even gave birth to two of them.”  Cortney Tidwell

http://feverqueen.com | http://www.myspace.com/cortneytidwell

FACTS:
1: The world is indeed not flat, nor flat screen
2: If you hold your breath long enough you will pass out
3: I suck at games of chance

QUESTIONS:

What is the biggest inspiration for your music?
Other music

How and when did you get into making music?
By accident in the ‘60s.

What are your 5 favourite albums of all time?
“how to make an omelet”  by the Master Chefs
“^*46)( “  by ?quontisimo
“Every meal a memory” by the Rosenbergs
“I fall to Pizzas” by the Matoid
“Songs I will always sing” by Dave Cloud and the Gospel of Power

What do you associate with Berlin?
Sunshine, cool mornings, breakfast business

What’s your favourite place in your town?
A bed

If there was no music in the world, what would you do instead?
Interviews

What was the last record you bought?
Townes Van Zandt

Who would you most like to collaborate with?
Obama

What was your best gig (as performer or spectator)?
Queens Hall, London- City Slang Records 10th anniversary
or Merge XX, Chapel Hill, North Carolina – Merge Records 20th anniversary

How important is technology to your creative process?
Moderately important: I lean heavy on “spell check”.

Do you have siblings and are they proud or jealous of you?
Yes, and neither

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Lambchop, originally Posterchild, is a band from Nashville, Tennessee. Lambchop is loosely associated with the alternative country genre. The music website Allmusic refers to them as “arguably the most consistently brilliant and unique American group to emerge during the 1990s”.

Never a band with a “core” lineup, Lambchop has consisted of a large and fluid collective of musicians focused around its creative centre, frontman Kurt Wagner. Initially indebted to traditional country, the music has subsequently moved through a range of influences including post-rock, soul and lounge music.

Lambchop | Paperback Bible live at Rockhouse Salzburg 2006

Whatever the style, the characteristic mood of Lambchop’s music is evoked by Wagner’s distinctive songwriting: lyrically subtle and ambiguous, the vocals melodic but understated. Setting this apart from other minimalist songwriters is the large group of backing musicians, with the range of instruments and styles that it brings.

Wagner’s songwriting bears similarities with soul musicians such as Barry White, Curtis Mayfield and Marvin Gaye as much as with country and folk music.

http://www.lambchop.net

FACTS:
1: This is the first project we’ve fully collaborated on
2: All our artwork is done by Sougwen Chung (http://sougwen.com)
3: We <3 wooden snares

QUESTIONS:
1. What is the biggest inspiration for your music?
Praveen | Love
Travis | Healing

2. How and when did you get into making music?
Praveen | We’ve both been releasing music for over a decade now but we started playing music long before that. Travis first released as Syndrone and Machinedrum on Merck Records and I was releasing music under my first name, Praveen, on Neo Ouija. I last released an EP with my friend Benoît Pioulard under the name Praveen & Benoît. Travis just released his latest Machinedrum & TStewart jams on Lucky Me.
Travis | Our collab started around a year ago when Praveen’s girlfriend moved to Europe and he finally had some free time haha!  Little did we know that those late night jam sessions would fall into the hands of Hotflush very shortly after making them.  The rest is history

3. What are your 5 favourite albums of all time?
Praveen
Aphex Twin | Come to Daddy
Miles Davis | Kind of Blue
Tribe Called Quest | Low End Theory
Burial | Burial
Pavement | Slanted & Enchanted

Travis
Autechre | Cichli Suite
Sonic Youth | Dirty
Steve Reich | Music for 18 Musicians
Tortoise | TNT
Boards of Canada | Music Has the Right to Children

4. What do you associate with Berlin?
Praveen | Techno
Travis | The worlds new melting pot

5. What’s your favourite place in your town?
Praveen | Home
Travis | My Studio

7. What was the last record you bought?
Praveen | Shed – The Traveller
Travis | Jimmy Edgar – XXX

8. Who would you most like to collaborate with?
Autechre

9. What was your best gig (as performer or spectator)?
Dub War NYC. That night in general has always been something special, but playing on that sound system for a crowd of people hungry to hear us was exhilarating.

10. How important is technology to your creative process?
Technology is great but it really comes down to the person using it and not the gear.

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Sepalcure’s combination of love for bass and 90s house acapellas is the culmination of a cathartic two week collaboration between Machinedrum and Praveen.

Sepalcure | The Warning

Their mix of tribal dub, house and two step beats works equally well for both late nights in the club and rainy, introspective nights at home. Detroit techno chords cut through wooden beats, neon synths and dubbed out atmospherics.

http://www.myspace.com/sepalcure | http://www.hotflushrecordings.com

FACTS:

1:
2:
3:

QUESTIONS:

1. What is the biggest inspiration for your music?
The city of Manchester, a number of Manchester people, weird films.

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It’s been a busy time for Illum Sphere since his debut release ‘The Incoming EP’ landed in the spring of 2009. January saw the release of “Long Live The Plan”, the first E.P of a two part vinyl album. The full album on CD is scheduled for release in April and features 12 new tracks alongside remixes from Samiyam & Ikonika.

He’s also been D.Jing in Croatia, Vienna & Athens which followed on from dates in LA at Low End Theory and Dam-Funk’s Funkmosphere party. Meanwhile his club-night Hoya:Hoya since starting a year and half ago has gone from strength to strength.

Illum Sphere | Chasing The Midnight Moth

Last summer Hoya:Hoya put together one of the most talked about line-ups ever at Manchester’s Warehouse Project, with Daedelus, Gaslamp Killer, Rustie, Dam-Funk, Mary Anne Hobbs and Nosaj Thing all playing alongside himself and co-conspirator, Jonny Dub. Whilst last month the club hosted Kode 9, Hudson Mohawke and Actress resulting in an unforgettable night and a cue literally round the block.

Add to that an invite to 2010’s Red Bull Music Academy, a recent remix for Martyn, a BBC 1xtra Music Award and suffice to say it’s been a non-stop 9 months.

http://www.myspace.com/theillumsphere

FACTS:

1: Plants make good food.
2: It is important to know where you came from and where you want to go.
3: Someone figured out how to make butter.

QUESTIONS:

1. What is the biggest inspiration for your music?
Receiving ideas from life around me and reconfiguring them, somehow.

2. How and when did you get into making music?
As long ago as I can remember, always in my head, and at the piano while very young, playing along with my Dad or Grandmother. The first song I played was Mary Had a Little Lamb for my preschool.

3. What are your 5 favourite albums of all time?
How can I possibly answer this…I just don’t really think in top lists.

4. What do you associate with Berlin?
Dichotomy.

5. What’s your favourite place in your town?
Sometimes at the Ohio River watching the water and clouds and seeing my happy dogs – we found a gar fish on the shore the other day, looked like a dinosaur; sometimes eating hot and sour soup with family at the Vietnam Kitchen….

6. If there was no music in the world, what would you do instead?
There would never be no music.

7. What was the last record you bought?
a gritty funk album, the Pazant Brothers, from New York 1969

8. Who would you most like to collaborate with?
People who are open to the conversation and process.

9. What was your best gig (as performer or spectator)?
So many, difficult to specify…. the ones where it is real….

10. How important is technology to your creative process?
The engineering of the piano as an instrument is a given, since I am always responding to the force of it. But since I love making records, the process of building one from multiple sources is critical. Seems like I am always changing formats or methods, I have to make myself learn new technology since I am not really a born computer nerd.

11. Do you have siblings and are they proud or jealous of you?
Have a younger brother, who is a wonderful musician, and we played together for many years in Rachel’s. We love to hang out, see movies together once in a while.

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Rachel Grimes released her solo piano album Book of Leaves in 2009. Widely known as the composer and pianist of Rachel’s Music for Egon Schiele, her work with that pioneering indie chamber group resulted in six albums on Quarterstick/Touch & Go Records.

Rachel Grimes | Bloodroot

She is currently finishing an album with Louisville-based King’s Daughters & Sons and developing a large-scale chamber work designed for New York experimental theater ensemble SITI Company. In 2010 she will share the stage in the US with instrumental composers On Fillmore and in Europe with pianist and composer Nils Frahm.

Rachel Grimes | Every Morning

Rachel’s is an American band that formed in Louisville, Kentucky in 1991. Former Rodan  guitarist, Jason Noble, played music individually and referred to himself as Rachel’s but then began collaborating with now core members, violist Christian Frederickson, and pianist Rachel Grimes.

The group’s work is strongly influenced by classical music, particularly inspired by the minimalist music  of the late 20th century, and its composition reflects this.

http://www.myspace.com/rachelgrimespiano | http://www.rachelgrimespiano.com