Artist: Masada

[mars]

Artist: Masada

Date: 12-14-01

By: Mars

 

Q: First of all, what is your musical background (studies, first compositions) ?

A: We started making music long ago (Mathias in the early 90's and Torsten in the 80's). Mathias was into different styles. He started out making music with Soundtracker/Protracker in the Amiga era. He has also done soundtracks for radio and smaller films. Torsten started with synth/electron back in the 80's, turned into italio disco in the late 80's and then progressed into funk and ambient. He also did some tracks with Fasttracker 2 in the group Phluid.

 

Q: How and when did you start to make psytrance, and why did you choose to make psytrance over any other medium of music ?

A: Both Mathias and me started listening to different kind of psytrance. Back then it was stuff like Astral Projection, Man with no name, MFG and melodic stuff. We liked the atmosphere of psytrance. We thought it sounded fresh and inspiring. I remember that it reminded me of JM Jarre's old stuff at the double speed and with massive drums. Another thing that apealed to us was that you didn't need any vocals. Another thing is that we are both creative human beings, I think we have to be creative to feel good about ourselves. We are not the kind of person that sits around doing nothing.

 

Q: Which other music styles do you like ?

A: Besides psytrance Mathias listens to a lot of different music, mostly pop/rock (for example Spiritualized and a fantastic band from Iceland called Sigur Ros) but also electronic music like Air, Orbital and Underworld. Torsten is deep into detroit, ambient, some reggae and stuff like Air and Manu Chao.

 

Q: What do you do in everyday-life except making music ?

A: Mathias works in the telecom business with broadband communications and Torsten is a full time musician.

 

Q: Do you project to release other tracks soon ?

A: Our upcoming debut Oceanic will soon be out on Tsunami Productions. It's the first album in a serie of 4 albums. Most of the tracks on Oceanic and the 3 others are older and more melodic stuff than we make today. A better sample of our current sound is the upcoming 12" on Koyote Records with the tracks Bollen and Centralen.

 

Q: Which of your own tracks do you like the best ?

A:

Torsten: Bhongo Bhonged, Bollen, Centralen, Population with large heads.

Mathias: Invalid K-bytes, Population with large heads, Signal Degraded

 

Q: Your favourite psychedelic Groups & Albums ?

A:

Torsten: Wizzy Noise - Cybermancy, Absolum - Wild, Logic Bomb - Headware, and some of SUN Project and The Delta.

Mathias: Hux Flux - Cryptic Crunch, Power Source - Cosmic Waves, Wizzy Noise - Cybermancy, Son Kite and Logic Bomb.

 

Q: Where does your inspiration come from when building a Track ?

A:

Torsten: It often starts when I hear something in a track that I like. Could be a sound, a bassline or just a mood. Going to psyparties is another huge source of inspiration.

Mathias: I listen to a lot of music, not necessarily psytrance. It gives me a great feeling of creativity. If that doesn't work I usually log on the Internet and look at the incredible number of downloads and great feedback we've recieved on our mp3.com site, that's something that inspires me to make more music. If this doesn't work either, I drink a bucket of coffee...

 

Q: What kind of equipment do you use to make your Tracks ?

A: We used to be a Cubase/synthesizer act, but after discovering Vaz Modular and VSTi's we decided to go 100% software more or less. We have a couple of "hardware" synthesizers left, but we hardly use them anymore. Using software synths is a fast and easy way to write music and today's software sounds so good we don't feel like we need additional hardware. When we write music we do it seperately, we lives in different cities and collaboration is hard.

 

Q: Future projects ?

A: Keep on making good music with Masada and maybe collaborations with other artists.

 

Q: Is there any artist you'd like to work with ?

A: It would be great to something with Wizzy Noise for their hybrid of psytrance and techno with evil breakbeats. SUN Project is another band that makes real funky psytrance and working with them would be very nice and inspiring.

 

Q: What kind of stuff do you play as DJ in parties ?

A: We don't DJ (yet?)

 

Q: Some tips for the beginners who make music ?

A: Try listening to other artist and then exerimenting with your own gear and try to make something that sounds good. Imitation is often a good way to learn, but if you keep imitating others you won't progress.

 

Q: When & where was your best party ? And your worst one ?

Our best party was when we played at the same party as Astral Projection in Sweden. The audience was +1000 and the atmosphere was wild. People went bonkers when we entered the stage.

The worst party was our first appearance at a party called Vampires. The organizers supplied us with one working speaker and a reciever as amplifier. The sound was so distorted that everyone in the audience left the room in 10 minutes and we ended up playing for ourselfes.

 

Q: How do you think trance music will mutate in the future ?

A: It would be great if psytrance and techno could come closer. We like hard and minimal stuff, but pure detroit techno can be dull after listening to it for hours. Maybe trance will be more influenced by electro. We think that there will always be a more melodic side and one monotonous side.

 

Q: What do you think of the MP3 revolution ?

A: MP3 is here to stay and we have mp3.com to thank for a lot of our success. It gave us a chance to share our music with the people without having to release an album first. We have recieved hundreds of letters from people listening to our music and that feedback kept us continue.

 

Q: And what do you think of people downloading them without buying the stuff ?

A: If it's possible to "steal" music or software, people will continue doing it. I think it's impossible to avoid that. The good thing with it is the posibility to "try before you buy" or listening to music you would never hear if it wasn't for mp3. I think it's all good and a natural development.

 

Thanks for the interview and we wish you good luck for the future!!

Big thanks to you too! Cheers!