H
OW
LING
precision vs intuition
9
0
0
-10
0
center
9
7
0
-1
0
left
text
> When two musically-obsessed people with completely different musical backgrounds meet, the result more often than not isn’t a satisfying experience, even though we all take it for granted that it perfectly should be. Sometimes the artist's ego gets in the way, sometimes it’s the audiences expectations... but very often these collaborations simply aren’t strong or fruitful enough to build a life that has more substance than just being a gimmick. Luckily Frank Wiedemann - Innervisions chief-honcho and one part of Âme - and Ry - who has (and will) release incredibly intimate music as Ry Cuming or Ry X - are here to prove us wrong with their new project Howling.
When the song by the very same name hit us around a year ago, it perfectly captured a certain kind of indie-sensibility and intersected it with a healthy dose of electronic glitz to turn it into an emotional roller coaster ride under the mirror ball Innervisions is so famous for. The second EP “Shortline“, which was released this summer, presented itself as a seamless transition into more cumbrous territory, which easily proved - together with their stunning live shows - that Howling is a project that’s as far away from being a fleeting star than it could be. Lodown met the duo at the Innervisions headquarters in late July. <
6
3
-1
-3
0
left
ffffff
9
1
1
1
1
left
text
Ry, Berlin is treating you fairly well as I can see... do you still perceive it as this kind of creative never never land?
Ry: Well, I think there is a very conscious community in Berlin, and I think that the transient community that comes through Berlin just wants to do whatever they want to do and then leave. But the existing one definitely has some gravity about this city. Certainly, they can’t stop all the changes... but they learned to roll with it quite beautifully. And this is allowing people to continuously express themselves the way they want to, which is pretty rare these days.
Since when do you live here, Frank?
Frank: Since three and a half years ago, but originally I’m from sunny Karlsruhe. It was just time for a change for me.
No offense, but I found it pretty remarkable that you stayed in Karlsruhe for such a long time...
Ry: (laughs) Me, too.
Frank: I have to say that Karlsruhe isn’t a bad town at all. It has a great climate, it’s nicely located since it takes just a short ride to be in the Alps or in France, Frankfurt is close enough for flying abroad. (laughs) But these are actually all arguments for getting away from Karlsruhe. It’s also a fairly conservative town, and this can get a bit annoying regardless of how many cool friends you’re surrounded by. So it took me 37 years before I was able to make that change and move to Berlin.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
6
-1
0
-10
0
right
ffffff
9
1
1
1
1
left
ffffff
text
So why Berlin of all places?
Frank: To be honest, Berlin was the last place I saw myself settling down... but it was just the right move for the label plus I have a lot of musical friends here. I always found it exciting to be here, but I was also very happy to leave after the weekend. I always thought I wasn't necessarily a “big city guy“, but over the last three years I’m feeling really comfortable being here. Maybe because I found out that as soon as you live here, you basically stay in your area, so to speak. Visiting friends that are located in the north of Berlin suddenly feels like visiting them in another city. If I ride to Mitte, it would take me the same amount of time as if I rode to Freiburg.
So did you recognize the effect on Innervisions, once you re-located to Germany’s capital?
Frank: Yes, it actually had an effect. A big one. Regardless of how comfy it is to talk to someone via Skype, it actually isn’t too easy to work things out from a distance. Here in Berlin I’m able to get things out of the way very quickly... let’s say I have a problem with Ableton. If so, now I simply go there and get rid of this particular problem. There’s tons of crazily good musicians here, which you could invite for playing certain parts on new tracks. You meet someone for a coffee and leave with five new contacts. I just did this ballet-thing with Marcel Dettmann at Berghain, and that would not have been possible within such a short time if I were still located in the south of Germany... you know, exchanging ideas at the studio, meeting the choreographers, and finally seeing it on stage.
But how does it work in terms of your project Howling since Ry is located in Los Angeles?
Ry: We make it work by spending time with each other... and if I have to fly to Berlin for some final touches that’s even better. So I would say it’s our home base here, for this project. I almost immediately got integrated into the scene here through Frank and Innervisions, even though we’re both aware that Howling obviously has the power to branch out to very different scenes and genres.
Frank: I think as long as you’re set up really well in any area - in our case it is Los Angeles and Berlin - it’s easy to have this kind of creative cooperation or co-existence. If I needed a change on the vocal, Ry can easily go into his studio in LA and send it to me to the next day. On the other hand I think this project is the child of a new way of making music on a professional level... it proves that you don’t need to sit together for days in a studio to create things. We do a lot of sketches on tour... which works perfectly for us since we’re not about the cleanest tiny production detail anyway. It is much more about capturing moments that we actually live and feel.
Ry: Yeah, it’s a lot about spontaneity and keeping the energy of whatever this take is. I worked in big studios for most of my music life, and I spent so much time setting things up and thinking about which mic I could use. And sometimes the magic can be lost in that period. “Howling“ was a demo that I did in LA, I sent it to Frank and he got back to me a day later... and it was already pretty much done. All you have to do is listen to your intuition musically and artistically - but I know that sounds a lot easier than it actually is - instead of considering what things have to sound like. For us right now it’s best to just set up an infrastructure to be able to capture as much in a single take as we can. I learned that very often big studios just offer too many possibilities, which then are limiting your original idea.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
10
0
0
0
0
left
ffffff
10
0
0
-1
0
left
ffffff
6
3
-1
-10
0
left
ffffff
9
1
1
1
1
left
ffffff
text
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It's funny that you mentioned that it’s basically about capturing moments when you record, because “Howling“ last year - as much as I loved it - felt very designed to me, you know, something with the potential to cross over.
Ry: That was a total accident, to be honest. “Howling“ started with me singing and playing guitar simultaneously, one take, nothing else. I then sent it to Frank... (laughs) even though I didn’t really know what he was doing musically at that time. What he sent back to me was really interesting, really cool and different from anything I’ve heard. It depends on which angle you look at it: when you look at it from the club angle it sounds like a crossover, but when you look at it from the indie angle it just sounds too weird because it is an amalgamation of sounds you’re not familiar with. For me, the whole club-thing feels very fresh because I just entered it around 18 months ago... but within this short period of time I saw so many new influences getting integrated into house, it’s just very astonishing. It’s a beautiful opportunity with the vessel of what house and techno is, you know, being suddenly able to put a lot of melodies in, to put vocals that aren’t “soulish“ in.
Frank: It’s a pretty free world... if you do it well.
Ry: Exactly. That’s the key. We’re always pushing each other, no matter if it’s a song that’s some weird, repetitive lullaby-thing that might belong more on a composer record... if it’s really good and you push the boundaries a bit, it doesn’t have to live inside a certain category.
But how did you actually get together to develop this kind of trust?
Frank: We met on Skype first, and in the beginning we were both skeptical if this could work out musically, to be honest. I heard some of the old stuff Ry did... (laughs) and he heard three minutes of kick drums without any melody.
Ry: But then we start talking about our references and influences, and that’s when both of us started to understand each other a lot better. I didn’t have the slightest clue about Innervisions when we first met, but I soon figured out that there’s no pretense involved in any of it... and definitely not in working with Frank. It all came down to trust... I remember when I first heard the version of “Howling“, my first thought was “Cool, someone gets it! There is nothing I didn’t like on that.“ It was the first time I didn’t have to make any notes for somebody... or tell him to fuck off and never touch my music again.
Frank, did you already know back then that you had a very big tune on your hands?
Frank: I worked on the track on Tuesday and played it the very first time during a gig on Friday in Berlin... when you then see the reactions to a track nobody knows - and the crowd was going nuts - then you realize that this one probably is something special.
Ry: How beautiful you have that medium... you know, to immediately express things in the club. In the indie scene there’s nothing like that. People there hardly react to a new tune. And obviously it takes a lot longer to finish new material and eventually introduce it to an audience. What I love about the perception of music in clubs is that it’s intuitive, there’s no media involved, there is no label saying “yes“ or “no“... it’s basically people who decide that.
Frank: You know, with Innervisions we’re always trying to put out music that is a lot more song-oriented than what the very majority of other labels do.... and still, this is something that stands out in clubs, you don’t hear too many songs in this context. To be honest, I wouldn’t like a set where it’s only songs either. It’s about finding the right balance of songs and tracks.
6
-1
0
-10
0
right
ffffff
9
1
1
1
1
left
text
Was it clear that this would be a partnership that lasts longer than just one EP after the success of “Howling“?
Ry: Not really... there were actually no intentions at first to tour or to work on an album, to be honest. Innervisions is a family, and I was always used to work on my own. But I suddenly started to like the feeling of making decisions together, that there are no barriers even though you release on a label that’s strongly connected to a certain kind of club sound. When “Howling“ got officially released, I wasn’t doing much in LA... just surfing and hanging out. Then Frank called me to let me know that the first two pressings sold out in no time. So I decided to make a video to it. And then things got a bit bigger again. But seriously, there is no rush for us... we’re super chilled about the whole project. The new EP “Shortline“ works almost as an antithesis for me: there is no big hook, there isn’t a chorus. And luckily Frank liked the idea as well to release that song as a follow-up, which proved to me that this is a project of integrity and I have the feeling that this will last a long time.
But then I have to ask why you put a remix on that EP that basically fulfills the expectations people had after “Howling“... and it’s even a remix - or interpretation - done by Frank himself.
Frank: Well, Innervisions isn’t an indie label, really. Superficially you can say that the original version of “Shortline“ is an indie track... and to get people's attention to a house label, we needed a remix that works on the dance floor. And the reason why the remix was done by me and not by Dixon or Henrik Schwarz simply is that the timing didn’t fit and I had the tracks on my computer. I already played a slightly different version in my live sets for quite a while, and saw that it works very well... so why change that? (laughs) But I guess chances are fairly high that you won’t find a Frank Wiedemann or Âme remix on the next Howling EP.
Ry: I think we just need some time to really consolidate this project... to find out what it really is. And hopefully people are interested in following this process.
Frank: Our live show now is already about 60 minutes long, so you can easily see that we’re getting more precise with what Howling actually is.
Ry: We’re working to push boundaries for people, as I see it. So far we’ve played small clubs at 3am and big stages in front of 3,000 people as well as really intimate shows where people rather sit down than dance. It all goes further and further away from the beginning where two guys exchange ideas via Skype. It feels like a real band to me now, and not only because we did a lot of rehearsing for the shows lately.
Frank: And for me, who comes from a different direction, it’s just great to play in a club at 3am and start with a song that has 96 bpm. Obviously sometimes the audience looks rather irritated and bemused, but in the end we’ve won them over. It’s a very different experience to what I usually witness when I’m playing live in clubs... and I’m really really enjoying it.
Ry: And when you talk to people after the show it’s not just about that this was great or “a good job“ or something... people are really telling us heartfelt things, because they’ve experienced something they didn’t expect. And that’s exactly what we want to happen.
words: Forty
pics: Irma Cirikovic
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
10
0
0
-6
0
left
10
0
0
-5
0
left
text
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------