Piemont

Piemont's Frederic and Christian have been working together under a number of different guises for the last four years.  Owning two labels, the pair released their second album, Sand Hills, to critical acclaim in April this year.  Helen S caught up with them and grabbed an exclusive mix for Pulse into the bargain. 

Piemont on Pulse

Pulse:  How has your year been so far? What have been the highs and lows?  Piemont:  So far this year went fine for us! Especially our album was received well and we've played some of the most exciting gigs of our career. Looks like 2011 won't get any lows!

How do you feel about the album looking back? Would you change anything at all?  We are still very satisfied with the result. The sound on this album represents our current sense of musical aesthetics and mirrors our mood while producing it. Despite this, our next album should not sound the same of course. In fact, we have already an idea of how our next album should sound: Less club tools, more songs!

Do you enjoy the album writing process? Is it much different to making 12's?  Yes, the process of making an album is much different than writing 12's. The main difference is that an album contains a bunch of unique tracks that all have to fit together. Beyond that our 12s have usually been clearly structured tracks dedicated to the dancefloor. But we always had a preference for emotional techno, ambient and abstract electronic music... This album enabled us to combine these influences and to finally create something different. This makes an album production so exiting.

Have you started work on a new one or any new 12's yet? Will your style change much?  We have started to work on a plenty of new 12s. Our forthcoming release entitled "Purist" is already finished and will be releaed in July on our second label Plumbum together with a remix by german Andhim! Some other 12s for labels such as Yellow Tail and MBF are in progress.  Our style has changed slightly indeed. First of all due to new equipment and sound sources. But also because our latest album production which still keeps influencing us.

What are the things that influence your music production most? Other music or people or parties or…?  Even though our home town Hamburg is a huge influence for us, the most essential impressions do we get while traveling to other places. That's why touring around is the most inspiring thing for us as producers!

What are your ultimate goals in this game?  Do you set yourself targets?  Well, we have no specific goals for the moment. We just want to continue the way we are going since a couple of years!

How much did your time as sound design students help you when making electronic music? Are there transferable skills?  The studies were quite essential for our production knowledge but most of today's skills are actually self-taught.

Does it mean you are more concerned with the tiny details than most people would be?  In fact we are very concerned with the details in our music. Before we finish a track we used to add a lot of elements that the listener might not even hear. Our aim is to create music that sounds non-transparent on one hand and not too excessive and exhausting on the other hand. For instance, we have been working a lot with field recordings during the current album production. Those were all recorded by ourselves at places such as airports, restaurants and streets while we were on the road. The use of those ambiances is a good way to lend a song and individual edge.

Do you think you will always make electronic music or would you go into ambient or sound design again?  For the moment it looks like we will always make electronic music. Perhaps we will start to focus on other genres in the future. Our music has changed gradually through the years and we have begun to create tracks which are not mainly dedicated to the dancefloor. These can primarily be found on our recent studio album, where we have tried to create tracks which are also compatible to home listening. We want definitely to continue to move in that direction, without completely leaving the trail of club music.

Do you each bring something different to the table when writing/performing? Do you have specific roles or is it more fluid than that?  We produce the idea and arrange the tracks together. As we have small studios at home we often look for track elements at home by ourselves and bring them to the studio the next day. Actually we have no fixed rules who does what, we decide it intuitively each time. Frederic takes care of the mixdown and final mastering, though.



Derrick Carter once said Americans make music with soul and Europeans make music with machines.  What would you say to that?  What he was saying was definitely true in early days of club music, especially Chicago house and Detroit techno. It concerns an era where there were no significant club culture in Europe. Today the Europeans have caught up! 

What else you working on?  Currently we are working on some upcoming releases. Amongst others we will release a special remix-vinyl of our recent album "Sand Hills" which contains remixes by Hugo, Jay Haze, Uner and Santé. The release date for that will be the 20th of July. Moreover we are doing some live set and studio improvements for the moment. This fall we will slowly start the production of our next studio album!

Piemont on Pulse