8 Tracks: To Lay Down On A Wooden Floor To With Pablo Mateo

A friend of mine introduced me to Gigi Masin, a Venice/Italian Ambient producer & pioneer. All of his work is very sensitive, complex with playful sound structures that always transmit a positive spirit to me. This is probably the reason why artists such as Björk have sampled him so much before. Now he´s playing live again, sadly I missed the last concert here in Berlin.

Chris Clarks “Empty the Bones of you” album is special to me, and i would say it is one of the key-reasons, why i’m involved with electronic music. Back in the days i was deep into rap music & culture, and somebody in a record shop put this album Accidentally in the “hip hop” crate. I found the cover so fascinating that i had to listen to it. I left the record store in total shock as this LP presented me a sound design that i never knew was possible. It totally change the way I view music forever.

This piece of music is created only a Yamaha DX-100 and a simple delay, every time i listen to it humbles me. It sound is so timeless, organic and liquid. It´s a perfect example that great music can be made with the cheapest (digital!!) instruments and that, importantly, music is only about the artists vision, skills and a open mindedness, and not about having the right equipment.

Bohren und der Club of Gore, one of my all-time-favorite bands. They were originally founded as a Heavy Metal act but perform the most incredibly impressive kind of “Unplugged Doom Ambient” music that I know. There concept of space and reduction is really inspiring to me, and i aim i get to reach that same level of composition one day.

This track by Ricardo Villalobos is not only brilliant in sound design, it is also a huge mind-expansion-trip. Each time i dip into this track it is always telling me a different story, often depending on my current emotional state. You can here the influence of the great early Dubstep artists like Shackleton in it, but he never released something like this again, unless i missed it…

“The duo of Samo DJ and Max Stenerudh have billed the record as a conceptual soundtrack set in Kowloons Walled City, an ex military fort in Hong Kong that became notorious for its dense population, Triad connections and lack of governmental control. It was demolished in the mid 1990s, but has served as the influence for plenty of projects since, and should provide a suitably shadowy backdrop for KWC 92 fractured sounds.”

Instant mantra: this track has duality – either as a wake up song or for a wind down at the end of theday. First time I heard this it was on a yoga-playlist and i’ve been addicted to it since the first minute i heard it. Later i found out that Tony Simon (Blockhead) was sampling this kind of stuff many times. You should hear me when i try to sing it, i’m so far away from the right lyrics and pitch tho!. Still, it is a lot of fun and every time i do sing it, I feel really happy and joyful afterwards, so if you ever are unfortunate enough to hear me singing this, just join in !

Zwei Koerper is the one of the first ambient songs i ever composed. It is essentially a love song and presents two bodies in the shape of drones. It´s about the way two humans should interact with each other, finally reaching a new level of relevance together, to arrive at the higher planes, together and individually. I guess the narrative is something very common and to articulate it with tones was a great experience.