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Alex Niggemann is one of many creative people to make the pilgrimage to Europe’s most artistic haven, Berlin. Having moved to the German city Niggemann has gone from strength to strength, with gigs taking him to locations as far-flung as Brazil and Mexico, releases on highly influential labels Poker Flat and Get Physical and the launch of his own label AEON.
His latest release on Poker Flat, ‘Materium’, has caused quite a stir, so we jumped at the opportunity to chat with German and he provided us with some very interesting answers indeed.
You’ve kindly recorded a podcast for us here at Pulse – when you record mixes like this, do you envisage yourself DJing in a club and try to transport listeners to that feeling? Actually, I try to do a bit of both. In my eyes a mix you listen to at home needs to start like a good book. Meaning, I don’t start with the full story already by playing the hardest and most banging stuff. I like to keep it a bit more melancholic and musical in the beginning, building up slowly towards the club part, so people can imagine how it would be to listen to me in a club. I believe that people will enjoy listening and clubbing even more when you guide them towards a certain peak, instead of starting at the peak. This way their joy lasts longer.
Does the classical piano training you had and listening to hip-hop influence the music you make today? If so, how? I’m pretty sure that everything you’ve done in your life has an effect on what, why and how you are doing things at a certain point. Knowing about different styles of music, the way they work, how they are produced and knowing how to play an instrument, gives you a wider range of creativity and space to try things, instead of keeping your production process the same as always in house and techno.
In my free time I prefer to listen to non-electronic music, as I usually already do on Monday-Sunday. As scientists already proved, music always affects your mood, even just subconsciously. Therefore I’m pretty sure (also because of freeing my mind of “four to the floor” sometimes) it influences me and my mood a lot, especially when being a musician and not only listening to the music.
Moving to Berlin has become a pilgrimage for so many electronic artists – what is it about Berlin that inspires so much creativity? It feels like 80% of the people who live in Berlin are artists of every kind. I guess it is the free way of life and thinking in this city. Rules aren’t that strict because politicians know about the attraction open-minded Berlin has, which makes it very interesting for young people to move there and work.
24/7 you can express your creativity and do freaky things, which no one would probably do in other cities. People are open-minded and explore new things, even if they sound totally obscure, crazy or make no sense at first glance. Then they judge afterwards. Really, that’s the only way for new ideas to find their way to a brighter audience. These are perfect conditions for inventors and artists.
Aside from Berlin, are there any other locations that you draw a lot of inspiration from? I’d say that every place in the world has an inspiring effect, whether because of the culture, the people or their way of living music. I gain so many ideas and inspiration from being with different people all over the world and checking out their culture.
For sure, there are other hot spots that will always have a big influence on me and on the rest of the music industry – London, Barcelona, Paris and New York are only a few of them.
Has your relationship with music changed over the years since the digital age has grown so much in the music industry? Well, I still love music the same way as I did before. You know, an evolution always brings advantages and disadvantages, but it is just on you and how you deal with it. The big advantage for sure is that it has become a lot easier to reach people all over the world and get a brighter audience in less time, without traveling. The difficulty for me as a DJ is just, that it became much harder to find the good music in this jungle of tracks, as now it doesn’t take that much for anyone to release something.
I do get around 2000 promos each week. Say each of those includes 3 tracks – that’s 6000 tracks a week. You can’t listen to them all. In the past labels were interested in releasing only a few tunes that will sell well. Nowadays it seems to be different. Labels do five releases in one month, selling 5000 times digitally, instead of doing one release a month selling the same amount. Nevertheless, quality will always separate from the rest. I truly believe in that.
Your latest release ‘Materium’ seems to have a darker and tougher sound to your previous releases – Was there a mood that you were trying to convey in the music? Has anything changed in the way you make music recently? Well, I wouldn’t call it tougher or darker. I have done different kinds of music all the time. I like diversity. Before my album in 2012 my music was pretty dark, ‘technoid’ and ‘oldschool-ish’. Even on the album there were a few tracks that sounded that way.
One thing I can definitely say is that my music has become more melancholic – I produce more ‘songs’ than just functional tracks at the moment. I prefer the process of creating melodies and creating moods through melancholy rather than only with beats and basses. The way hasn’t been changed much, just the output, I guess. ‘Materium’ is actually a symbiosis of tougher beats with the melancholy. I like contrasts in songs – creating something that still sounds good together even though the elements totally contrast.
You are often cited as a perfectionist – how do you feel about ‘Materium’ now? It has certainly had a positive reaction since its release. To be honest, I worked on this track the longest time I have ever worked on a track. I had a clear idea for it from the very beginning. The melody should stand on its own in the break. The intention was actually to bring something up, which is totally different from what the track said before, but finds its symbiosis, when coming back in together. In total, I think it worked out very well and personally I think it is one of my most perfect works so far. I’m totally overwhelmed of the feedback the EP got and I still play it in every set!
What is your relationship like with Ibiza? It’s a stark contrast to Berlin. Yes, it is definitely a contrast. Ibiza originally has a hippie background, but it doesn’t anymore. Berlin still owns a bit of that with places like Kater Holzig, Sysiphos and a few other ones. Ibiza became more and more a big element of the industry. I like being and playing there.
The island has something magical, but unfortunately it has lost a bit of its raving character during the years. Parties which are smaller and have smaller line-ups don’t really get a chance anymore. It became all about the very big line-ups, which you can also find on the huge festivals where people go who don’t really have a clue about house and techno. A lot of them only heard about Ibiza and a few well-known names. The more advertisement they see, they believe the better it is.
There isn’t really a chance anymore for upcoming acts to promote themselves through their ‘own’ music or style. Parties with Paris Hilton and Snoop Dogg do their addition to make it worse. There was a time, when people were coming back from the island, bringing back a certain fresh ‘Ibiza sound’. Nowadays it’s not about this and the quality of music anymore. I hope it will change again, as I truly love the island.
What can we expect from you in terms of releases and shows for the rest of 2014? Release-wise, ‘Materium’ is just freshly released on Poker Flat as you mentioned before. There will be an EP on Sasha’s Last Night On Earth at the end of July and remixes for Soulfooled and Compost Black Label coming up in the same month. A new EP on my own imprint AEON in August, a single I did with the singer of Who made Who on Watergate Records in October and last but not least, remixes of Materium from Ripperton & Matthew Dear in November. For sure I’ll tour as well. Besides gigs in Europe, I’ll be in Asia, South America and North America during the next 3 months.
Listen to Alex Niggemann on Pulse Radio.
