Session Victim

Meeting Session Victim over a cup of tea was like getting an injection of inspiration and happiness. These two guys (Hauke and Matthias) are all about all kinds of music; producing it, DJing with it and listening to it. If they’re not making music together, they’re busy working on their solo-projects, side-projects and throwing parties. The duos first release 'No Friends' came out only three years ago and was an immediate success. Since then, and this is the gospel truth, they haven’t let anyone of their fans down. Six releases later and they are still swimming in lakes of positive feedback. Everything they put their hands on turns into pure musical magic. Here’s the chat we had about the music industry, music, vinyl and...yes, music. Get ready to feel inspired.

Check their exclusive mix for Pulse here.

Pulse: When did the two of you meet? Matthias - Around 1997, we’re both from the same small town outside of Hamburg. We graduated the same year but from different schools, and a friend of ours brought us together to start organising parties. That’s how we met. I never hung out with people from my school, and the older I got I started to hang out with people from his school.
Hauke - Yeah we started to do parties together and that went well right from the beginning, so we just kept on doing that in our little hometown. There weren’t really any other parties around, except of the bigroom-radiohits-best-of-80’s, so that’s why we started to DJ, because we needed to play music!
M - We loved this whole party-organisation, it was great fun, but in the end we did it just to be able to play our music and set up our turntables.

Was this when you were still into heavy metal Matthias? M - Yeah I was into metal, I still am, some of it!
H - Yeah, you played with your band still back then?
M - I finished my last band at the end of 2006, I think, and we started to work together as Session Victim at the beginning of 2007.
H - So, we've been friends since we were 17, and I mean at some point you have to leave this little town that we are from, otherwise there is something wrong with you. I moved to Berlin when I was 19/20 and Matthias moved to Hamburg. We kept in touch of course, we were running a mixtape website where we put up DJ mixes..
M - With loads of different kinds of music.
H - Since we didn’t do parties anymore we wanted to do something else together. It wasn’t just me and Matthias, a bunch of friends were involved as well.

"DJing, or serving music to an audience as it is now, even my mom could do. I could give her a Beatport chart and she could do a big rave."

With the parties or the webpage?  M - Both!

Is the page still up and running? H -Yeah, it’s there!
M - www.basstar.de
H - It contains all sorts of styles of music, more like concept mixtapes ..
M - Everything from country to drum&bass, you’ll find it all there!
H - You’ll see that it’s really simple. We did those mixtapes just to practise our DJ skills. It took me perhaps 3 weeks to do one, to get what I had in my mind onto the mixtape.
M - And it took me 3 months (laughs)!
H - We tried with 3 decks sometimes, and Matthias did something with 4 decks with 2 of his friends.
M - In the beginning it was almost like a competition, who could fit in most records in 30 min, because it was always just 30 min and you had to do the best you could.
H - The concept was half a tape, the smallest tapes are 60 min and one side is 30 min. We wanted to do half a tape every month. Eventually it became harder..
M - Yeah, but because everyone raised the bar for the next one, we didn’t have the time anymore to try to match that once a month.
H - I mean, we did like 18-19 tapes at least.

Are you still involved? H - Well, it’s there..
M - But I think the last one we did was 6 months ago? We put only one up this year, the page itself has been there since 2003.

You guys must have been one of the first one who had this kind of webpage? M - Were we? 
H - Maybe. Nowadays you can get DJ mixes from everywhere, but at that time it wasn’t that common.
M - It was before the word 'podcast' was used. I still don’t know what that word means really (laughs).

When you’re not making music, what do you do? H - I’m a freelancer, and at the moment I’m looking for another part-time job. I also run this label Retreat with my friend Yannick. That takes some of my time; I’m also doing all the bookkeeping and the manufacturing. It doesn’t make me rich, since it’s a vinyl only label. I don’t lose any money either, but it’s nothing that can pay my rent really. I’m pretty good with computers, so I help people with their computers sometimes. Right now I’m looking for a job where I can work with computers a few days a week, so that can pay my rent at least.
M - I’m doing a part-time job at a market research company, which is really nice, because most the people there are into music. Actually there was a colleague who gave all his old house records to me! I get support from them, which is great.

Something I thought about when I listened to your music is that it sounds very old school but still like nothing else. It sounds very honest, and makes me really happy to listen to. Which artist or music makes you happy? M - Hip hop, rap music.
H - The first common music we enjoyed was probably drum&bass? And a lot of 90s hip hop stuff too.
M - I think we are very open; a lot of different stuff can get our attention.
H - Of course we also like house and techno, but honestly it’s not that inspiring..
M - But we love to play other artists music of course; there are a lot of good records out there!
I think you might say that we sound old school, because we really try to work out something good with old samples. To take samples, but really USE them instead of letting the sample work for itself all the time.
H - Nearly every time we make a track we start out with the record player and we use a old record that we’ve bought for like 50 cents, or a record that we’ve got from my girlfriends dad or something. Then we look for parts in the track, and try to find several samples that work together. We have a similar setup at Matthias' place, the computer records samples that one can play around with, while the other guy is looking for more samples. And then sometimes there is just this magic moment when you drop the needle somewhere at the record you chose and there it is, exactly the right sample you were looking for.
M - If you work with samples and take a record and make it a little faster, you automatically put it out of tune.
H - Most of our music is made out of samples. We have a few machines too, but the basis is mainly samples. Maybe that’s why it sounds a little bit different, because it’s not software plug-ins making it. Every time we take a sample, it’s already dirt on the record so you don’t have to make these artificial sounds on it afterwards. It’s like Matthias always says, when you record just the bass sound from a record, it’s already recorded in a room somewhere, with some sort of reverb so you don’t get these sterile sounds.
We have our own drum-libraries, Matthias spend weeks just recording his own drums from old records. We hardly use software synthesizers anymore or sample libraries. Especially not the ones from Ableton (laughs).
 

"When we finished our first record, I listened to it and was like: "yes, this is great BUT I don’t think that anyone else will like it. Maybe a few people perhaps but probably not many.” Then we received a lot more love than we expected." 

M - There are a lot of people out there that use Ableton for all of their music, you can hear how it’s all generated artificially. I like a lot of that stuff, but usually when Hauke and I make music we might try synthesizers out and we’re like; yeah that’s kind of nice but not exactly what we want. Then we find a sample from a classical record and it sounds much better! More alive..
H - The disadvantage with our records is that they’re not really made for the biggest dancefloors; we don’t have the biggest kick-drum and a huge amount of pressure, because if you work like other people do, it’s all really loud. Everything is compressed and ..
M - It’s more signal-based, you get signals from everywhere.
H - I think we’ve just found a good way for us to make music, and nowadays we work together really well so when we’re in a good mood we can just keep on adding parts to a track.
M - It’s also really fun to discover new stuff together, for example none of us were interested in latin music before but then one day Hauke came to me and showed me this latin track and we though wow, this is really good! Then we didn’t think so much about it, a few months later we made a track and when I listened to it I realized that we had made a latin rhythm! That’s great, to discover new influences.
H - That’s also why we decided to call ourselves Session Victim, we never decide the track's direction before we start. We just play around..
M - And see where it leads.
H - Take a few loops, throw away a few loops. Then we find a sample on a record and go from there. That’s the reason we made some disco-ish tracks, that was never planned, but at that time we where spending a lot of time listening to disco music and getting inspired by that. Same thing with the other house or down beat tracks we’ve made, we never decided they'd come out like that in advance. We try to not make any compromises on anything we make; we just try to do what we like.
M - When we finished our first record, I listened to it and was like: "yes, this is great BUT I don’t think that anyone else will like it. Maybe a few people perhaps but probably not many.” Then we received a lot more love than we expected.
H - Actually, all the tracks that we’ve released, when we finished them we’ve always been very insecure about what other people will think of them. We are never sure.
M - We made this track for Delusions of Grandeur, The Keyboarder and when we where finished with it we listened to it over and over and even tried it out in clubs to see how it worked. The response was really good, but STILL we where not sure about sending it away (laughs).
H - Once you are really into music-making it’s really hard to get any kind of perspective on your tracks.
M - Sometimes when I come to Berlin to work with Hauke, we listen to the tracks we’ve been working on just before I leave and we are both really happy about them. Then I go home and Hauke calls me a few days after and is like; “you know what… I’m not sure anymore”. Then we get totally confused, but then we listen to it a week later and realize again that, well yes it’s great (laughs).

So you don’t sit down, decide what the track will be like and just do it? M - No, I don’t really know how that feels even! I think one part in the puzzle leads to the next.
H- We find something to start off with, then we get ideas. In the middle of the project we discover that we need this or that, which gives us concrete ideas of what direction we want to go in. We never know in the beginning.
M- To quote Bob Ross "it’s always happy little accidents that lead to good things”.

When did you realize that you could do your own music? H - Matthias already could when we met!
M - Yes, I’ve always made music and never anything else with the same passion. I started when I was 12/13 and I started my first band when I was 14. Honestly, the feedback we get now is nothing at all what I expected, I never saw myself in this position. I was just happy to make stuff that a few friends would appreciate, to make them happy would have been enough for me.
H - I’ve always played around with synthesizers and music-software but never that seriously. I started to make a lot of music when I spent a year in Australia 2005-2006, but just at home. Though I did finish a track that a friend of mine forced me to send to 3 different labels.
M - That’s how it all happened!
H - I bought him lots of drinks after that, because I sent the track to 3 different labels and one picked it up (laughs).

So no music schools or anything like that? M - I played with some teachers in my school, in a jazz-band and they taught me some stuff.
H - I took some piano-lessons as a child for 3-4 years but I hated it. No, that’s not true, I only hated it in the beginning. Then I got a new teacher that was more of a jazz pianist, a really good and respected one that told me that everything I’d learnt before was bullshit! So we worked without notes and started from the beginning. I learned a little bit, but I’m not properly educated.
M - When I was 16 I played bass guitar, practising for weeks and months to be the best and quickest player. Then I realized that I wanted to do songs instead of being the best at just one instrument (laughs).
H - When I make music now I make it more from a DJ perspective.

"That’s why we only release vinyl, because we want it to last! If we were just interested in getting as many gigs as possible and playing in the biggest clubs, we would probably have to release at least twice as much as we do now and release digital tracks all the time. We can still be proud of all of our records we’ve released so far."

How do you decide when a track is ready then? M - I think over the time we've worked together, we’ve just learnt when to stop. I mean if you think too much about it you can sit there forever, changing small things in the track.
H - A good sign is when we can listen to it without getting annoyed by it. We just sent out this track that we finished to a label, a track that we are really happy about except that it’s a bit weird. We are a little bit ambivalent about it, but every time I listen to it I’m like, 'it works.'
M - But it is a little weird (laughs).
H - On the other hand, every time we have been a bit insecure about a track, the track has been really successful!

What did the label say about it then? H - Well, they like it too (laughs).

Do you have anyone who takes care about the boring stuff when it comes to the music-industry? H - No, not at the moment, we do everything ourselves. When we work with people we have to have a good feeling about them. We have to make sure that we don’t play for free all the time, and that we get enough money for making remixes and stuff like that. Same thing with our releases, it’s really important that they (the label) at least are interested in our music and don't just want to gain something out of it.
M - When we got together with Jimpster, he had already emailed us and had been supporting us long before we decided to do a record for him. We knew about him since way back, because both Hauke and me had a track of his that we always played and loved. One of our first common records! That record is where we knew his name from.
H - We work really well together, he’s been doing music since, I don’t know, 92 or something? We know that he doesn’t need us for anything, he just appreciates what we do and is very supportive. He’s such an honest guy.
M - Right now we're just learning from experience, it’s hard some times, but in general we’re just surrounded by good people. We are in a bubble, just working with good people and friends.. (laughs).

Well, there are a few creeps in this business. H - I’ve noticed! It’s really great to earn some money from the music we’ve made, but if that was the only incentive for us we would probably stop pretty soon.
M - Another reason for us to have other jobs, so we don’t have to depend on music.
H - Because then we can afford to say no.
M - And we don’t have to make moves that we don’t really want to.
H - We want to stay fans of the music! I hate those people that can’t dance at parties anymore; just standing around, scratching their beard analyzing every tone in the track and criticising hi-hats. I just want to go out, and if there’s a good track I want to dance! I still want to have fun.
M - That’s very important for us.
H - That’s why we only release vinyl, because we want it to last! If we were just interested in getting as many gigs as possible and playing in the biggest clubs, we would probably have to release at least twice as much as we do now and release digital tracks all the time. We can still be proud of all of our records we’ve released so far. That’s also why we don’t want to work with a big manager right now.
 

When you DJ or making music, what’s you most important tool? M- My most important tool is probably Hauke… (laughs) No, my favourite is vinyl and Technics!

Interesting that the music you makes still comes back to vinyl in the end, since you get your samples are from vinyl records.H- Well, it seems stupid to sample a vinyl record and then release it digitaly.
M- We made a track from a record we found in a vintage-store for 50 cents, a superold,scratchy and dirty record. I pulled it out from a pile of books and other records and bought it, took it home and then we found out that it’s a real old classic..
H-But we didn’t know this!
M-When you listen to the track we made you can hear all the dirt and scratches from the original record that we sampled from!

And which track is this? M- That’s up to you to figure out .. [laughs]

Isn’t also a bit about pride? H- Yes, of course.
M-We are very proud of just releasing vinyl.
H- We don’t really respect people who release digital.

Me neither. H-I mean, one can discuss this for years, but in the end it’s just about feeling. If you don’t have this feeling, there is no way I can talk you in to it either. Obviously, when you DJ, you want to play the best format there is; and that’s clearly vinyl.
If you go to a party where they don't play vinyl, there is something wrong with the party and the guy who’s playing.

Yes, it gets a bit flat and boring. M - I went to a party where there was someone who stood with two laptops and changing music by clicking on different Youtube videos!
H-We throw this party with Retreat and there is always really young kids coming up to us and really appreciate what we do! Obviously everyone has an ipod these days and downloads everything for free, but hopefully we still have some kids who see us and thinks "This is how it should be done” and goes out to buy their own Technics.
M: This surprise me, but it’s not only young people who do this digital thing, but also many older DJ’s that I’ve met who are so afraid of not catching up and what’s happening right now.
I meet 19-20 year olds that are saving money so that they can get their hand on vinyl-players.

It’s almost the other way around now isn’t it, more retro to a computer instead of records? H- Playing music is easy nowadays. Everyone can do it, you can just use your Ipod or laptop..
M- Or just press auto-pitch then put the bass out or in and you can drink for the rest or the evening!
H- DJing, or more serving music to an audience actually, can even my mom do. I could give her a Beatport chart and she could do a big rave. That would be cool, but I like to see people who put a bit of their soul in to it. That’s when there’s someone coming with their record bag filled with records that they selected and collected for many years, you know, when most of their records have a story behind it or whatever. Someone who has put an effort into it.
M- How long have you had your collection, Hauke?
H-I started collecting when I was 16?
M- Yeah, and someone could download all of this to their computer in a couple of days, but no one would know it as good as you! Same thing with my records since I spent some many months when I didn’t have enough money and could only buy 2-3 records a month, and I would listen to them nd spin with them. That means I practiced with the same records so many times that I know everything about the different tracks! So I think I can say I know my record-collection more then some guy knows his millions-of-MP3 collection in his computer.
H- People can do whatever they want, but we wouldn’t do it like that.

What has been the biggest moment this year? H- We where listening to a mix that Mr Scruff made, and he used one of our record! When we do our Retreat releases we just send out  three packages for promotion to DJ’s and he gets one of them.
M- We are his biggest fans (laughs)
H- Just knowing that he played our track in front a crowd makes us so happy! That was this summer, and now the year couldn’t get any better.

That means you can retire now then? H- It lasted for a few days and then you’re like: “Oh well, need to do something new”. I don’t want to measure our success in how many people we have on our gigs or the money we get paid, I mean at the Retreat parties we’ve had some really magic moments with a crowd of only 40 people or so.
M-Yannick or Hauke always get people there that really enjoy and listen to the music.

That’s makes the DJ better too, when they have an interested crowd, right? M- Sure! It’s great for the DJ to receive some kind of feedback, if he knows that the crowd is interested of what’s in his record-bag and what he’s going to play.

How do you prepare your live-sets? H- We have a live-set that we have been working on for 1.5-2 years, and we always update it and put in new songs.
M- We really need to practise before, because we are two people and the both of us need to be busy the whole set. I would feel really stupid if I came to the club, pressed play and pushed the hi-hat a few times.
H-Or, look like you’re checking your emails
M- We made it a bit hard for us and made sure that the set doesn’t work on it’s own. We de-automated it, because we knew that in a few times we would be bored of it. It looks so stupid when two people just stands in the DJboth and wait for something to happen.
We can also improvise much more, re-arrange and make breaks that we’ve never done before.
It also makes it easier to make mistakes, but I like that! It’s the same when I see people DJ, I want to hear and see mistakes; that means they dare to do certain stuff and maybe tries something new that makes the set special.

What do you prefer then, DJ or play live? H- We like both, it depends on the situation. We are a bit more flexible with records, if the guy before us decided to play minimal we can still take it down a little bit easier than with the live-set. It’s more personal with the live-set, you don’t want to perform it in front of a empty floor or empty a floor with your live-set. I’m more confident with DJing since I know that all of our records in our record-bags are good records, and if the audience don’t like them it’s ok and I don’t take it personal. But when it’s our own music you want make sure that it’s the right environment and the right crowd, because once we are playing live we can’t really change anything. I mean, we can adjust but just a little bit.

Have you ever had any awful experiences when DJing? M- Yes, sure! We were booked to a big outdoor-party in Hamburg, where the DJ before us (who is a great DJ) just built everything up so that the last 10 tracks he played were really energetic techno. Then we came on after with our live-set… We were surrounded by a group of guys shouting at us; “Faster, you bitches!”. After a while we saw some people dancing and actually enjoying it, so we could focus on them instead. Horrible.
H- Then it’s easier with records. Since we have been Djing longer then playing live we are more comfortable with that. I want to dance to all the records we bring to our gigs. If you play your records the way you think is the best way, then it’s easier to also convince the people on the dance floor. This summer we played at Cookies and then Bar 25 a few days later with the same records. And it worked really well in both places!
M- It was great to see that it worked in the same way for the two different crowds. We also played with some guys from Club de Visionäre, who are all about dubtechno-stuff and it worked well with their people too. Their crowd was really nice, and the other DJs were really nice and just enjoyed all the different kinds of music that night.
H- The two of us has the advantage that we are never alone at the gigs. I mean, if you playing in a club where you don’t know anyone and the promoter isn’t nice or whatever, we still have each other to talk to. Sometimes the party, the promoter or even the venue gives you a strange feeling and it’s easy to loose your confidence, but that doesn’t happen when you can share your thoughts about it.  But most of the times we get booked because the promoters really like our music and everything work out just fine.

Isn’t that how it should be, promoters booking you because they like what you do? H- [sighs] Well, there’s a lot of things that don’t work like they should…
M- For example, we get tons of emails from artists who want to exchange charts. Like “I'll chart your track if you chart mine” What’s that about? I really like to support my friends, but if I chart something shouldn’t I choose the track myself?
H- The whole genre has blown out of proportions, house and techno is mainstream and it’s what people wants to go out to. Not always the nice house and techno though, and I don’t think I would like to go out to the big clubs or I probably wouldn’t have fun there. Hopefully we will never be a part of these big mainstream parties. All the DJ’s and producers that I like and respect have been doing this for years, and kept it true all the time. They manage to reinvent themselves over the years and don’t get stuck. My favourites produce a lot of different kinds of music. bla,bla,bla, I talk to much (laughs)
M- It’s true though, it’s more interesting with smaller venues where you can do more experimental stuff. We love to spin records at Farbfehrnseher, because you can do more unexpected stuff. Some times you can put on a soul-ballad 3am, people start to slow-dance to it, then you can go back again and take it up a little bit more… people still dance! It’s more intimate and you have more connection to your crowd.

It’s very intense and nice in those small venues when you actually see the people you try to move. H- Yeah, we’ve had such awesome moments in those small clubs!
M- It also makes sense that you actually spin records instead of jerking around with your computer.. (laughs)

What made you go from Techno to House/Disco, Hauke?  H- When I came to Berlin I was a intern an Kanzleramt, and I ended up working there for 2.5 years. It was fun, I learned a lot especially about stuff I would never do myself. I like techno, and at that point it was interesting for me. It’s natural to discover new things, and I started to listen more to soul and funk and eventually that lead me into house and disco.
I appreciate all genres, as long as it’s a good track. I don’t play techno; right now I want to see more emotions on the dance floor. It’s nice to see people dance together, maybe play something cheesy and not be too serious about it. I really love music, and I like people like Mr Scruff since he obviously has humour. I love when DJs drop something unexpected, a little bit too cheesy! In the right doses almost all kinds of music makes sense.
Maybe not all kinds actually.. I was in a party a few weeks ago where my friend played on the second floor and it was minimal on the first floor and I must say; it’s music for idiots.

What else is on your wish list, except having you record played by Mr Scruff? H- Yes, but we shouldn’t talk about them.

So, those wishes will come true soon? H-Yes, maybe!
M-To be honest, I’m just really thankful for being where I am right now, to be able to have this range of labels that we can work with.
H- Yes, I’m really happy that it works out so well, for once (laughs)

Let’s talk about my favourite track of all times, Danish Daughters (Retreat)! M-That was a track we made in Denmark, which you can hear in the name of it. We put all of our equipment in a car.
H- We didn’t have any laptop at that point.
M- And drove to this place in Denmark where we had rent a house, started the fireplace and didn’t do anything else then make music and look for wood to keep the fire burning.
After we made it we listened to it every day and danced to it, just the two of us (laughs)

How does the plans look for an album? M- It’s a big thing to do an album, we are working on it right now, but we don’t have a clear vision yet. It’s important to have the right material. If it takes years, then I’m prepared to wait..
H- I don’t want to make an album with 10 dance-tracks, that’s for sure. Might have two or three dance-tracks on it, or actually it’s a bit early to talk about this.
M- I’m doing my second solo mini-album in December!
H- When we’re going to make an album, I think it’s going to be fairly similar to Mattias albums, with a few dance-tracks and not too many songs on it.
M- We’ve set the bar quite high for the album, it has to be special and the vibe has to be really good.

How about you Hauke, any solo-projects coming up? H- I’ve just finished a remix for a guy and I’m doing some tracks on my own, but it goes really slow. We are mostly focused on Session Victim right now.

Where do you find the time for everything? H- I don’t know!
M- Only six or less hours of sleep every night. I have to be grateful though, since I get do what I enjoy the most.
H- It’s just boring to spend time on stuff that doesn’t have anything to do with making music. Like administration, checking dates, making arrangements and those things. It all kind of turned in to a “real” job the past year. It’s always loads of things going on and you learn new stuff every day. We’ll see what happens, we don’t want to get our hopes up to much either..
M- RJD2 told me that he worked with his album for 5 years, and he got the chance to release singles from it before but he kept on working on it and finally released a massive record instead of a mediocre one. I suppose that’s the most important thing, to have patience.
H- Plus we want to produce music for many more years, then it makes sense to aim high and make it last.

Johanna Knutsson