Matthias Tanzmann Interview

BBM’s Ash Moore catches up with House and Techno DJ and Producer Matthias Tanzmann to get his thoughts on what’s happening within the genre and on his upcoming Australian tour dates.

Hello Matthias, my name is Ash I shall be interviewing you today. I am currently sat in my flat in London, where are you?

I’m in Leipzig, Germany. Just back in the office, I got back yesterday.

When are you flying out to Sydney?

I think it will be the 25th of October, not sure exactly its either the 25th or the 26th

I see are you looking forward to it?

Oh definitely, I haven’t been to Australia for like two… no three years now so really looking forward to going back.

A lot of people do sky diving, rafting, whale watching whilst there in Oz, do you think you’ll have time to indulge in different activities?

Unfortunately the tour is a little bit tight. So I have to play almost every day and then I think I fly out on the 2nd of November and I go straight to Tokyo and have another gig there. Then I go back to Germany to play exactly the next day in Berlin so I’m afraid there isn’t going to be any touristic stuff…this time.

How was Ibiza this year?

It was a crazy season I think it really picked up after some more difficult years. Like two years ago for example when the island government had put some laws in place, like really changed the law, so you couldn’t do any open-air parties and stuff like that. So it got a little bit better and also every party was super full. I went to the Cocoon closing at Amnesia two days ago, super busy, also the after party at the beach was really, really busy, full of people, it was crazy.
Usually in September the number of people drops, but this time I must say it was really a good season for all.

How does the music industry differ now to Leipzig in the 90’s?

I mean you could say that definitely the main change is the whole development in the music record market, in that you don’t sell any physical music at all. I mean we have a record label here and you can definitely see the changes because we used to sell a lot of vinyl now there is almost no vinyl being sold.

How much has dance music changed since then?

I came from a Deep House base, so I have to say for me, the change personally was an increase in more generic club music. But generally I have to say that there was minimal hype. The return of House right now, for the last three to four years, I have really liked the development and now I play House music and anything is possible. All the DJ’s like for example, those Techno DJ’s have played really hard right now, getting softer and more organic and groovy and it’s kind of interesting.

Has House and Techno always played a huge part in Germany and East Germany in particular?

Definitely I think Berlin especially and generally Germany is probably now the main spots for electronic music because apparently everybody moved to Berlin. Like all the international big DJ’s, so Germany now is really up front in music with development, but of course I’m not saying were the only ones, there’s a worldwide scene. But I remember in the 90’s we were just looking at the U.K and the United States and now it has changed because it kind of shifted, a lot of people came to Germany

America is now only discovering the genre; it must have originated to some aspect in Europe?

Yeah I think the whole world grew together, of course with the Internet and everything maybe Europe, especially Berlin, is much more liberal than some other places in the world especially the States. So even though people really enjoy being there and partying, you don’t have a license properly so you cant just go on for 24 hours. So this definitely makes a big difference in the party, club scene and it’s also cheap to live there and for that reason many artists move to Berlin. This made a critical mass of artists, kind of brought out something nice and interesting,

Do you have any new material in the works?

I was starting to work on a new album actually but then the summer came its destroyed my plans because basically I have been only travelling. I was just in the airports and airplanes and Ibiza. So I hope now after the season finish, I’m going to be able to go back to the studio and continue the work on that album.

You’ve remixed some great artists such as Moby, is there any artist you would particular like to work with in the future?

Remixing is always interesting and challenging. I couldn’t say there’s one specific artist I’d like to remix there’s a lot of interesting options, especially if you remix music that is not one hundred percent related to what you do originally; that you bring something new or you cross styles can be something interesting and yeah there’s not like an artist that I would definitely want to remix actually, I’m open for anything.

With the sub genres of house like deep house and techno house splitting off now, where do you see the collective genre in a couple of years?

I don’t know we started to see the minimal aspect kind of dying or getting less popular and what is big now is this more melodic deep house with a darker attitude to it. The sound that Jamie Jones is playing; this is quite big now especially in Ibiza. I don’t know where its going to go after, the interesting thing about the whole electronic music scene is that it’s always referring to its self and it’s still a small short history but it’s still referring to that history; but at the same time, bringing up something new in that genre.

One thing to do before you die?

Have a big, big holiday where I don’t have to play for a couple of weeks.

Work work work

If you make your hobby your profession then you love what you do, I’m passionate about it, you forget you need a holiday!

What equipment do you use?

In the studio I’ve always been a big fan of the Fender Rhodes electronic piano, like old synthesizers, I really prefer the old analogue vintage synthesizers actually, but as a DJ it’s the other way round. I used to play vinyl for more than ten years, but for the last three years I’ve been playing on Traktor that I’m super happy with. Because in the end I was playing eighty percent CD’s anyway and I was really, really bad at organizing my cd’s, so I would never find the right track and there’s like fifty CD’s and you can’t be sure the one you’re looking for is the one in your hands. So with Traktor, it’s really nice and easy, it’s a direct access to every track you want and helps me so much travelling, organizing my shit, so it’s really convenient. It’s also very creative and you can interact with the tracks with looping and adding effects and layering like three channels.

Thank you Matthias, have a great time in Australia!

To find out where you can catch Matthias Tanzmann log on to www.bbmlive.com