With 20 years of turntable experience and about 2.500 live gigs, Mike S.Kreama certainly has a story or two to tell. When I prepared for the interview with him, it wasn’t easy for me to make sense out of the long list of things he has done already.

Good thing that Mike is an open and friendly guy and helped me understand his history and his idea on good music. Let’s start with an exclusive mix from him:

“I used to play in various Funk, Ska and Reggae bands, and that still influences me as a DJ. I played drums, guitar and bass guitar, and I still like electronic music with some organic elements in it. I also have tons of oldschool HipHop and Electro vinyl at home. These are my roots.”

With these roots, it’s no wonder that DJ S.Kreama has developed a preference for Breakbeats and other funky electronic sounds. Techno has remained somewhat alien to him.

“I was interested in Techno and Goa sounds for a short time years ago, but I quickly sold all the records that I had bought from those genres. Techno is too similar to military march music to me, and my music is a kind of protest against this. Straight beats are ok sometimes, but it mustn’t be too dull and simple. I like rhythms with a little bit of shuffle in them.”

If I wanted to explain to someone how to promote yourself via social media, I would probably use DJ S.Kreama as a positive example. He does a great job of promoting himself and his buddies through various platforms such as Blip.fm, Twitter or SoundCloud.

“I wasn’t really aware of the power of social media until about a year ago. I have a friend who organizes underground parties in Miami, and he is promoting his parties mostly through social media. He explained this to me and since then, I really got the hang of it and use it a lot to promote myself and my friends or get in touch with other DJs from around the world. I get really good feedback, too. You just have to give people something that they value, that’s how you can be successful in the networks.”

Being a sound designer by education, Mike has been lucky to work on several music-related film productions. He is particularly proud of Sonic Mirror, a film about Billy Cobham.

“Billy Cobham is an awesome Jazz drummer, and it was a great pleasure to work on this movie. We really travelled around the world and traced his roots with him. He was also sampled by Massive Attack for their song “Safe From Harm“. I can’t say that I was this lucky all the time, but having had the opportunity to work with music I love means a lot to me.”

When I found out that there was a newly-founded school for electronic music in Cologne, I just had to register for their very first electronic music producer course. I am now among the first alumni of the Electronic Music School and looking forward to my first releases now.

After my last lesson, I sat down with the two founders Björn Torwellen (B-T / Decksharks / Datany)  and Jeyênne (XPQ-21 / Jeyênne) and talked about how the Electronic Music School came to life.

Björn Torwellen

“The idea came to me one night when I couldn’t sleep. I had been teaching courses on Ableton Live before, but I just had this idea of a room full of audio equipment and students learning to work with that, like in a normal music school.” (Björn Torwellen)

While there is certainly no shortage of electronic music producers, one can notice a lack of quality in many productions. This is one of the reasons why the school was founded.

“Producing music has become dramatically easier and cheaper than it used to be. However, a lot of music isn’t well-produced, either on the technical or on the creative side. Apart from that, there are so many creative tools and techniques to choose from that a lot of people simply end up being confused. We want to serve as a guide in this confusion and show people what they really need and give them a good foundation for their creativity. For example, at the beginning of the first producer course, one student asked me what equipment or software he had to buy to become a good producer. When he told me what equipment he had at home, I just told him that he already had everything he needed.” (Björn Torwellen)

While the school has been getting very positive feedback so far, there are also a lot of challenges involved in running it. One of them is a lack of examples to learn from. With its aim to combine elements from music theory, audio engineering and electronic music culture, it’s hard to find something that is similar to this approach.

Jeyênne (XPQ-21)

“There are classical music schools out there, and there are courses for people who want to be professional audio engineers. Both is interesting, but that’s not what we want. When Björn called me and told me about what he wanted to, I immediately agreed to join because I felt that this was exactly the kind of combination that wasn’t there already.” (Jeyênne)

“We had to make assumptions on how to teach this, and we are changing things all the time when we feel something can be improved. For example, we learned that plain software courses for Cubase or Ableton Live are not enough. It’s not enough to just teach people how to use a certain software and there are already courses where you can learn that. We are aiming for a more holistic approach and try to teach things that you really need to produce good music. I also assumed that people would want to work with our equipment (synthesizers, mixers, MIDI controllers, …), but most people are happy to bring their laptop along and work on that.” (Björn Torwellen)

The school has just been around for a couple of months now, but it’s already growing. Apart from courses and workshops on various topics (producing, mastering, marketing, circuit bending, sound synthesis, …), Björn and Jeyênne are preparing to teach in other cities as well. Vianna, Munich, Linz and Dortmund are just some of the cities they will visit in the near future.

“We are also working on a book and several DVDs right now. We first thought that this would hurt our business, but now we actually think that this will strengthen us. Everything we teach can already be learned through books or the internet, but it’s just different to learn from a person than from a book or a computer. I think the book and the DVDs will help us to reach even more people and make our name well-known. I also hope that we will be able to build a community around the school. I hope we can stay in touch with our alumni and I’d be happy to see some activity coming from the people that we taught.” (Björn Torwellen)

“We are also preparing courses for kids and we hope to be able to reach out to other music communities. When you think of electronic music, you often only think about House and Techno, and that’s what most of current students are actually interested in. To me, it doesn’t stop here. A lot of HipHop, Pop or even Gothic/Industrial music is mostly electronic music and we would love to teach people how to do that, too.” (Jeyênne)

Here’s some music so you can see that those two guys actually know what they are talking about:

Björn Torwellen – Dekadent Disco

“We Shit Bits” , a DJ Set by Björn Torwellen

XPQ 21 – Rockin’ Silver Knight

XPQ 21 – Hey You

When I do an interview with an artist / DJ, I don’t do it like a neutral journalist. I am a music nerd, and I do care about the music and the people that I write about.

However, doing a good interview is not easy. I tried various approaches and formats over the years, and my current approach reflects what I have learned. I’ll start with explaining how interviews are typically done to contrast that with my approach.

Record & cut: Lots of work for a little bit of content

I started doing interviews at the local student radio station when I was a student myself. When we started the initiative to create our own radio station, we turned to experienced radio journalists and learned from them. The first approach that we used a lot was to take a mobile audio recorder, go to the person we wanted to interview, ask our questions and then cut out the best parts. A radio-friendly interview was not supposed to take longer than 3 minutes.

This approach works, but recording and cutting the material is very time-consuming. You often ended up working an hour or more for one minute of interview.There is also one strange effect that I noticed a lot: People often said the most interesting things when the microphone was off before and after the interview. During the interview, a lot of people just talked very unnaturally, probably because they were afraid to say something wrong.

Live-interviews: Bad for shy artists

Live interviews combined with DJ sets seemed to be a great idea to me at first. You just invited an interesting DJ / producer to your studio, let him play his music and interview him in between. This approach is a lot better as you have more time and you can easily combine a good impression of the artist’s sound and the person behind it. I used that approach for quite a while, both at the student radio station as well as in the shows that I played at various web radio stations.

For me, this works quite well if I have an artist in front of me who is comfortable with speaking into a microphone and can talk straight to the point. However, not everyone is like that. Many times, I had guest DJs that played great sets, but were just too shy to present themselves well when being interviewed. I also got the impression that some people don’t like to listen to people talking in the middle of a DJ set. Even if the talk is interesting, it still interrupts the music.

What I do today: Talk & summarize

So this is what I do to today: I meet with the DJ / artist that I want to interview. We sit down, have a few beers, talk and simply have a good time. I take notes on the side that I use later to write the article. I do ask questions, but I don’t do a formal interview, and I am definitely not neutral in the interview since I like to comment, challenge or support the words of my interview partner. I also do interviews via phone sometimes, but that just means you have to leave out the beer.

After that, I take my notes and try to identify the topics that we talked about. There are often one or two topics that I find especially interesting in retrospective, and I try to choose those topics that my interview partner either has a distinct view on or a good story to tell about. For example, Elodie & Thompson talked a lot about their experiences in Ibiza, and CJ Masou’s topic was the combination of electronic music and Jazz.

I then condense these topics into a few paragraphs and add a few quotes from the artist. These quotes are often not something that my interview partner said word by word, but mostly a condensed version of what he said. A “real” journalist would probably scoff on that, but this approach helps me to show my perspective of the person behind the music a lot better than the other approaches. I also think that I am doing the artists a favor if I don’t give them the pressure of having to speak in a radio-friendly way. So far, the feedback was very positive.

I also ask my interview partners for a photo that they are comfortable with and a DJ set or other examples of their music. I think it’s important to have the interview, the music and some pictures together since that gives you a much better impression than just a magazine article or a radio interview. However, I believe that it’s better to separate the music from the words so that they don’t interfere with each other.

To conclude this, I would like to say that doing interviews and getting to know interesting people in the process is what I enjoy most about running this website – and that’s why I keep doing it.

I seem to have a talent for finding DJs who are about to leave the country. After interviewing Elodie & Thompson who left for Ibiza for the summer, one of the first things that Alex B. Groove told me when I asked him for an interview:

“Sure, we can do the interview, but we have to make it soon as I am about to leave for Barranquilla in Colombia for two years.”

I hope it’s not me who’s driving good DJs out of the country…

Anyway, here’s a DJ set by Alex B. Groove that he gave me to share with you.

It’s a busy time for Alex right now. Not only is he packing all of his stuff into boxes to get them shipped to another continent, but he is also in the process of making the video for his new single “You Make Me”.

“The video is going to be awesome! There are some great people like the director Axel Schulten working on th video. We all just want the video to look perfect. Also the singer, Alison Degbe, is acting so good and let´s not forget the wonderfull styling and make up lady Baffy Schroth. I am so grateful for that, and I am very happy with the results so far. We just need a few more sunny days to film the last few scenes.”

Without friends, you are not really going anywhere in the music scene. This lesson is very important to Alex B. Groove, and while he has collected a lot of valuable contacts over the years, it is very important for him to always be friendly and down-to-earth.

“I was introduced to a professional producer at a party when I was still a teenager. We got along quite well, and I often visited him in his studio and learnt a lot from him. In the first year, I usually sat behind him in the studio. In the second year, I sat next to him. Finally, in the third year, he let me sit in front of him in the studio. That was a very important time for me. In the following years, I worked in the music business as an A&R, but this job is not good for an idealist like me. You just have to justify your decisions all the time to people who don’t really care about music. However, during those years, I got to know a lot of people that I am still in contact with today. It’s a give-and-take, but it’s important to refresh people’s memory from time to time. For example, that’s how I got to do a remix for the well-known German HipHop band Die Fantastischen Vier. We both come from the same region, we met a few times and they liked my sound.”

With such a strong network in Germany, leaving the country seems to be a big risk for his musical career. Following his girlfriend, who accepted a position as a teacher in Colombia, Alex wants to concentrate on making music and trying out new things – and he is optimistic about that.

“I know it won’t be easy there because no one knows me. However, I will have my musical equipment with me and I will continue making music. I would also love to get in contact with local musicians and see what I could do with them. Apart from House music, I have also produced quite a bit of Lounge music with my band Senator Plus, and getting an authentic latin flavor into my Lounge productions would be great.”

Update: Here is the video for “You Make Me”.

Elodie & Thompson are doing what many DJs only dream about: Right now, they are spending their summer in Ibiza to get behind the decks of the local clubs.

I was lucky to catch them for an interview during a short visit at home in Germany. Here’s a DJ set from them – I could very well imagine enjoying that sound at the beach at night…

“Playing in Ibiza is different than playing in Germany. Of course, you also have a lot of party people in Germany, but the attitude is different. In Ibiza, you see the happiness on people’s faces, they really seem to shine. It’s rare to see that in Germany.” (Elodie)

Being fascinated with the island for quite a while, Elodie & Thompson decided to spend the summer living off of DJing for the summer and taking a hiatus from their day jobs. While this might seem risky when you’re not already a superstar DJ, the two sound quite confident about their plan.

“I speak fluent Spanish, and that helps a lot in getting along with the locals. You might think it’s all about the tourists in Ibiza, but you can’t really achieve anything here without the locals. They own all the clubs, and they have their own networks. You have to get into those networks to be successful, and the first few days, we did nothing but run around, talk to people and give away promo CDs. Few give you paid gigs right away, but at least you get some opportunities and promotion gigs and that already helps.” (Elodie)

As a couple in and outside of clubs, they are unique in a business dominated by one-man-shows. Elodie & Thompson work and live together, and this seems to have a lot of advantages:

“It’s just so much more fun to play together. I had DJed alone before, but had not played for a couple of years because I just didn’t enjoy it as much as I used to. When we play together, we can complement each other very well. For example, when one of us has a bad night, we can still deliver a good set and one can push the other.” (Thompson)

“He is more of an artist than I am, but I guess I am the better manager. I just enjoy promoting us and our music, and I am also okay with playing gigs that are not 100% my style as long as the people there have a good time. As a DJ, there’s always a thin line between being an artist and being a professional entertainer, and walking this thin line can be a lot of fun.” (Elodie)

While they draw a lot of their motivation from the fun of DJing, they do have professional goals and are working on their career:

“Right now, we still have other jobs to keep us afloat. For example, I sometimes work as a light technician, and she works part-time for an online marketing agency. However, we do want to concentrate on making music and DJing, and we are working hard to be able to do that. We are thinking about a lot of things to push our career when we are back in Germany, but I think that our Ibiza experiences will definitely help us and we are also planning other things, like organizing our own parties, producing records and more.” (Thompson)

Tracklist:

1. Clan Destino — Cortado
2. Marcin Czubala — Dont need the sun to shine
3. Marco Effe — Caryllon
4. Federico Locchi, UGLH — No Category
5. Alex Niggemann — Deep Down
6. Saeed Younan — Analock
7. Carlos Sanchez, DJ Ray — Like

There is a flavor of electronic music that I had though of as “yet another sub-genre of house” for quite a while. I am talking about those slow grooving tracks between 100 and 120 BPM that incorporate elements of Disco, ethno grooves, Electro and Funk, among others. Some refer to that particular flavor as “Cosmic”.

Tim oS from Bavaria (southern Germany) promotes this sound together with the rest of his Beatz For Freakz crew, and he explained to me what is special about this sound and why it is so rare for someone living north of Bavaria to be familiar with this.

But let’s start with a DJ set by Tim oS so that you know what we are talking about here:

Tracklist:

1. DJ Luna – Soma Part II
2. Gorillaz – White Flag
3. Schoenrock – Jujube
4. Tim & Puma Mimi – Aquarium
5. Alternative Car Park – Jack Your Sorry White Ass
6. White Label
7. The Champ’s Boys Orchestra – Tubular Bells (Cosmic Mix)
8. JJ Cale – Ride Me High (Joakim Edit)
9. Kafka – Afro Innay (Golden Soul Remix)
10. Sabo & Uriel – Mi Tierra
11. DJ Ebreo – Balkan Tour
12. Sabo – La Negra Chula
13. Basement Freaks – Disco Life
14. Guem – Le Serpent
15. Amplified Orchestra – Dune
16. DJ Zeyhan – Discomatic (Enne Mix)
17. The Popular People’s Front – Arpin’ On (Hot Mix Live)
18. Lost ‘N’ Alive – Feels Like Love (Tiefschwarz Remix)
19. Afrobutt – Wunderbutt
20. Downtown Party Network – Days Like These

“The Cosmic scene is pretty much limited to Italy, Tyrol and Bavaria. I don’t know why, but it just hasn’t spread any further. However, where I live, you have various party crews who promote that style, and there is even quite a bit of competition.”

With its spacey and ethno-influenced soundscape, it is no surprise that those parties often take place in unusual locations and attract a hippie-esque crowd.

“We sometimes organize parties in clearings in the middle of the forest. We are a good team, so we usually have everything set up in little more than an hour, and the next morning it looks like we have never been there. Those parties are very unique experiences. I would also say that it definitely influences my sound and my track selection. It’s just very different to play outside in a forest under the starry sky than to play in a basement club.”

Tim started DJing with House music, but got in touch with Cosmic sounds through his DJ-colleague Zeyhan. While he still likes House music and other flavors of electronic music, Tim oS has found his personal style.

“This style is just perfect for me, and there really is no need for yet another House DJ. There are a lot of good House DJs around who do a great job. I still listen to different sounds, but I don’t understand why rather subtle styles like Minimal or Tech-House are so popular right now. I like it when a DJ set is very dynamic. It’s fine for me when there are times for both relaxed and excessive dancing during a party.”

Beatz For Freakz have also just launched their own record label. Their first release “Discomatic” is already available through all major download shops.

The next forest party will take place on May 22. If you live in the Munich area, check their website a few days before the party to learn about the exact location!

I recently visited Chris Summer in his studio in a small town near Cologne. We spent a fun evening together over a few beers and pizza, and of course we talked about and listened to a lot of good music.

I didn’t really do a formal interview, but over the course of that evening I learned a lot about Chris Summer, and I think this is worth sharing.

Talking about sharing: Here is a bangin’ DJ set that he gave me to share with you.

Tracklist:

1. Monster Hospital (MSTRKRFT Remix) – Metric
2. Poison Lips – Vitalic
3. Don’t go – Puzique
4. Cheap and Cheerfull (SebastiAn mix) – The Kills
5. Look what you have done to me – Voodoo Chilli
6. En direct de la côte (Alavi Rerox) – TEPR
7. Almost Cut my Hair – Cassius
8. Easy Love – MSTRKRFT
9. Allthegirls ( Yuksek Remix) – Siriusmo
10. Gimme what you got (Pull the Trigger)[Alex Metric Mix] – Black Daniel
11. Nil By Mouth (Knightlive Remix) – Bag Raiders
12. Boys & Girls (Les Petits Pilous Remix) [feat. Dragonette] – Martin Solveig
13. Caller – Alex Metric
14. Escape – The Toxic Avenger
15. Sunburnt – Das Glow
16. Won’t You Listen To What The DJ’s Spinning! – Deee-Lite

Chris Summer is a really relaxed and friendly guy, and it is hard to imagine that the first party he organized ended in disaster:

“I was still at school, and I had organized a party for my schoolmates and some alumni. It seemed to go really well at first: A lot of people showed up, a band played, and everybody was in a good mood. I started my set at around 10pm, and I hadn’t even played my second record when a few idiots started a fight and I had to stop the party.”

This disaster didn’t remain the last in Chris’s DJ career: Fire extinguisher abuse, broken arms and retarded drugheads are just a few of the obstacles he encountered at parties. However, his love for music kept driving him and with more than 10 years experience in DJing and producing, Chris Summer certainly knows what he is doing.

“I got hooked to electronic music in the early 90s, but I have tried out lots of different styles since then. For example, I was the DJ and beat producer for a HipHop project for quite a while. I really liked turntablism, but my beats were always a little too electronic for the MCs, and their vocals were a little too much gangster-style for me. I even produced the music for a cinema ad once that  ran nationwide, but I always kept coming back to electronic music.”

Apart from a few commercial releases and remixes, Chris Summer is an active member of the Creative Commons (CC) community. The idea behind Creative Commons is to release music under a license that makes it legal to share and build upon those releases.

“I stumbled over the CC community when I was looking for some nice vocal samples. I was surprised how much great material you can find, and I think that CC releases are a great way to connect and promote yourself. For example, I had very positive feedback on my CC releases from all over the world, and it really blew me away to know that people from Australia or the USA liked my stuff and even played in their radio shows. However, I still release some of my music under commercial licenses. Being a multimedia producer, I just have to live off of something, and if I put in a lot of effort into producing a track and do commercial mastering and all that, I just can’t give it away for free.”

Even though Chris clearly enjoys DJing, he wants to focus on producing music in the near future.

Apart from an upcoming release on Puuhh Records, his network and experience seems to start paying off.

“I got to know some really great musicians, and I am planning remixes and productions with them right now. For example, I got to know a really great singer from a Cologne-based Rock band. She is used to a totally different style of singing than what you hear on most electronic music releases and I think this could become a very interesting collaboration.”

I got to know Madame Summit through an online forum that we both are members of. She was looking for like-minded DJs, and it turned out that we did share quite a few views on how good music is supposed to sound like.

Asking her to do a feature for Sweet Headache was pretty much a no-brainer, and I am happy to present an exclusive DJ set by Madame Summit:

Tracklist:

1. T.Raumschmiere – 111 kg DNA
2. Zoot Woman – Lonley by Your Side
3. Datarock – Robots in Disquise
4. Punks jump up – Dance to Our Disco (headman club mix)
5. Le Tigre – After Dark (Morel’s pink noise dup mix)
6. Zombie Nation – Worth it Part 1
7. The virgin – Rich Girl (le castle vania’s rmx)
8. Reverend & the Makers – Silencee is talking (Alex Metric rmx)
9. Bloc Party – One More Time (Alex Metric rmx)
10. Miike – Animal (Fake Blood rmx)
11. Gossip – Heavy Cross (Yuksek rmx)
12. Malente – Music Forever
13. Justice vs. Simian – We Are Your Friends
14. Fakebeat – Jellyfish
15. Plastique de Reve – Lost in the City

“I started as an Indie Rock DJ in 2007. I had organizied a party back then, and the DJ I had booked for the event didn’t show up. I didn’t want to cancel the event, so I just took over, and people really liked it. That got me interested in DJing, and I started applying for other parties and clubs after that.”

While Indie Rock was her first love, it didn’t stay her last. Madame Summit is still well-known for great guitar-tunes, but also got a taste for electronic music, especially Indietronic or rough distorted electronic sounds.

“I had this vision of really mixing songs into each other, but that doesn’t work too well with most Rock songs. However, I found most typical Techno tracks too boring, so I am glad to have found a kind of music that’s in between Rock and electronic music. I just like to have different styles in a set. Most Indie DJs just stick to a certain style, but that would be too boring for me.”

Having found her very own style, she also likes to combine different genres in a unique way. While most Rock DJs do not mix songs at all on the one hand and most electronic DJs try to blend tracks as seamlessly as possible, Madame Summit has found her own way of combining different genres.

“I do know how to mix songs seamlessly, but I sometimes find clearly audible breaks between songs interesting. I also like using samples to fill the gap between two radically different songs, like alarm sounds or dog bark. I love it when people stop for a second, listen and then continue dancing. Confusing people can be a lot of fun – both for me and for my audience.”

It’s no coincidence that she names The Prodigy, The Whip, MSTRKRFT and Boysnoize as her favorites. These artists also influence her beginning activities as a producer.

“I want to play music that makes people want to tear their clothes off. I am just starting to produce my own music, but this is definitely something that I want to pursue further.”

Madame Summit is a resident DJ at Blue Shell (Cologne) and Emergency (Münster).

I got to know Berlin-based DJ Tak^D at an online radio station where we both had a show. We got along quite well, and we noticed a significant overlap in our musical tastes. However, this was about two years ago, and we somehow lost contact after leaving that particular online radio….

…until a few weeks ago, he sent me a link to one of his DJ sets – and after the first few beats, I felt that I should feature him here.

First of all, here’s a DJ set that nicely shows his style:

Playlist:

1. Wiley – Never Be Your Woman (Hervé Re-work)
2. Crookers Ft Kelis – No Security (Bart B More Remix)
3. Michel Cleis Feat. Totò La Momposina – La Mezcla (Ant Brooks Remix)
4. Duck Sauce – Anyway (Original  Club Mix)
5. Kris Menace & The Dream – Walking On Lightning (U-Tern Blend)
6. Funkerman feat. I-Fan – Sexy People ‘Rock You Tonight (Funk`d Up Remix)
7. Remady – No Superstar (Original Mix)
8. David Guetta Feat. Kid Cudi – Memories (Jp Candela Remix)
9. Nanchang Nancy & Prok & Fitch – Walk With Me (Axwell vs. Daddy’s Groove Remix)
10. Spencer & Hill – Haunted House (Original Mix)
11. South Street Player – Keeps
12. Timbaland Ft. Justin Timberlake – Carry Out (Luffy Luf Dance At Night Mix)
13. Jean Elan – Killer (Jean Elan Mix)
14. Jean Elan – Serious (original mix)
15. Röyksopp – The Girl And The Robot (Jean Elan Remix)
16. Spencer & Hill – Heads Off (Original Mix)
17. Riva Starr – Maria

“I just like to dig a little deeper than others and be more daring. I really like it when a DJ set consists of many different styles, but you don’t hear that very often in clubs.”

Tak^D has certainly learned a thing or two about digging for music over the last few years. Even though he lives in one of the most culturally vibrant cities in Europe, he still finds it hard to find a club he really likes.

“It’s very rare that more than one style is played at a party. Many DJs only do that when they are playing a radio set, not in a club. When I play at a party, I never limit myself to one style only. However, I always try to play both tracks for music nerds as well as normal party people.”

With an attitude like that, it’s no wonder that he gathers inspirations from all around the world. While Minimal Techno is still a very dominant style in many German cities (including Berlin), it often helps to look at what is played in other countries.

“A friend of mine introduced me to Grime, and I really got into this whole UK style. I also like to listen to DJ sets from around the world. For example, the BBC Radio 1′s Essential Mixes are often very good. I also listen to a lot of current french stuff like Kitsuné or Ed Banger.”

You can hear DJ Tak^D at the Carnival of Cultures Parade in Berlin on May 23rd.

I recently got to know CJ Masou at a release party for his label Puuhh Records. After talking to him for a few minutes, I knew that this guy has a unique point of view on electronic music, so I asked him if he’d be willing to do a feature for Sweet Headache.

Improvisation in electronic music, the overused term “Lounge” and old Jazz records were just some of the topics we discussed a few weeks later over a couple of beers. However, to give you an understanding of what CJ Masou sounds like, let’s start with an exclusive set that he gave me to share with you.

“My best tracks are excerpts of live sessions. The way I love to work is to create some beats and loops in Ableton Live and give a Jazz musician a basis for improvisation.”

To understand why a sentence like that is somewhat unique, one has to consider how electronic music is usually made: Many electronic musicians build their tracks in the same way as you would build a house: Starting with the basement (i.e., the beats), layer by layer is added until the track is considered complete at some point. This often involves a large amount preparation, tweaking, planning and post-production.

While CJ Masou also prepares his tracks, the actual music creation happens in a way that is much more similar to a Jazz session: Everyone agrees on a certain set of rules, and the rest just happens in interaction between the musicians.

“I often let the track itself inspire me. When I record something, this just means capturing a certain volatile moment in time. Of course, when I listen to an old recording, I sometimes think about what I could have done differently, but that’s ok to me. I can only capture whatever was there at that moment and release that as a track.”

The experience of playing live is very important for him, and even though his approach might sound a little unusual for an electronic musician, it has also brought him quite a bit of success.

“I started DJing in small clubs and bars in the area. I think this was a great experience, because you are very close to the audience in small locations. However, I got the chance to play live in the VIP lounge of a big trade fair for a couple of days together my friend Christian Schatka who plays woodwinds. When the trade fair ended, a guy approached us, gave us his card and said that he’d like to book us. Since then, we got booked for quite a few events, some of which were in big cities like London or Sevilla. However, I usually like to stay in the background and give the musicians I am playing with a greater visibility. To me, they are the true musicians. I am just the producer.“

With a style that combines electronic music and Jazz, CJ Masou often finds his music labelled as “Lounge Music”. For him, this term is somewhat misleading:“I prefer to call it laid-back music. Certainly, a lot of what I release and play has a relaxed mood, but Lounge Music is often used to describe music with slow beats and rather simple melodies. That’s not what my music is about. For example, if you listen to old Jazz records like Miles Davis, you also have a quite relaxed atmosphere, but there is still so much happening in that music! I just don’t feel comfortable with my music being compared to boring Lounge music, that’s why I don’t like this term.”

CJ Masou is also the founder and owner of Puuhh Records, an independent record label that releases a mix of Jazz and electronic music. “Right now, there are mostly releases of my own tracks, but I got to know some really great musicians that I signed up for releases in the next few months.”

CJ Masou’s latest release on Puuh Records is called “Kolay”. Get it on iTunes!