Trentemøller - Music is my Life

Trentemøller had our attention and the respect of the industry well before he'd even released his debut album, The Last Resort. Now five years later, two hit albums, a few world tours and an extremely popular remixed double CD compilation, it's time again for Trentmøller to return to the studio and make us some more magic. Before he does Emily Tullock caught up with him for Pulse to see what he has planned for us. We also have a free track download from Trentmoller here for your listening pleasure.  

Pulse: What are you up to at the moment? Trentemoller: I’m just in the studio after finishing our world tour. We just finished that about three weeks ago with a big tour in the States so now I’m back in Copenhagen working in the studio and slowly starting work on my next album so I’m definitely back in working mode right now.

Are there any previews you can give us of the next album? What can fans expect? To be honest right now I don’t have a clue actually because I’m just very slowly starting up and trying to figure things out. It is always the same thing for me when I start on a new studio album: I don’t have any plans for how it should sound or where it should go. It’s very important for me that it’s very open. It’s a very exciting time right now because I’m just trying out a lot of different things and trying to find out which way I should go with the sound. Also depending on what kind of tracks that I’m writing and how that may define the albums sound.

The Last Resort sounded almost like a movie soundtrack. It is important to you to create albums where the songs tell a whole story and it’s not just single tracks in isolation? Yeah of course. For me it’s about trying to put some feelings into the music but it is also important for me that it is not just great sound and atmosphere.



On my latest album Into the Great Wide Yonder I was working on also writing good melodies and writing something that is not only atmospheres and stuff but also musically challenging. So of course this cinematic sound is something that I use but it’s also great for me actually to have the opportunity to work with other vocalists and make music that also has some kind of melody going on.

On Into the Great Wide Yonder you seem to experiment with live instrumentation and a rock vibe – what was behind that? For me, I think it was just part of a natural development. My debut album was more electronic sounding. Four years past and I was just developing my sound without thinking too much about it. That is the very important thing for me as I also said before; I don’t really make any plans of what kind of music I should do. It totally depends on what comes up and for me it was great to go back to playing instruments. I was playing nearly all the instruments on my latest album because I started playing instruments and in bands before I did electronic music. I really missed the feeling of physically playing instruments and playing the drums or the guitar. That was great for me to work on that for that album and that is definitely something I will keep on working with on the next album.

I might also go back to making it more electronic but still mix it up with real instruments. I don’t really know. Maybe I’ll also end up with a 100% acoustic folk album (laughs). That is the beautiful thing about making music for me. If I already knew what I should do I would probably make the same album twice which is something that I of course don’t want to do.

What are some of the instruments that you play? My main instrument is the keyboard but I also play drums, guitar and bass. I’m not that good at playing guitar. It is definitely something that is easy to do in the studio because I’m maybe recording guitar for two hours then I might pick up only two minutes that I can use. I really love sitting in my studio and just playing instruments.

Actually it is quite a lonely process of doing the albums because I tend to work best and write best when I’m alone actually. Then it’s really good after working nearly one year on an album to then go playing together with my band and going out on the road. After one year you’re kind of getting a little bit crazy from spending all the time alone in the studio. It’s really good to also share your music with other musicians; they come with their own inputs. It’s really great to go out and play festivals but also venues and share the music with other people.

You’ve remixed a really wide variety of artists (the PetShopBoys, M83, Moby, Franz Ferdinand) – how do you decide who you’re happy to remix? Are you a big fan of everyone you remix? I have been so lucky that those artists have always asked me. I don’t think that I’ve ever actually asked to do a remix for anyone because in the beginning it was not something that I really wanted to do. Still my main focus is on doing my own music, but that said it is really fun for me and challenging to remix other artists that I really admire.



For me, it is not that important if it is that well-known a name like Depeche Mode or Franz Ferdinand. Maybe sometimes it is even more fun to remix those small underground not that well-known artists that you can also find on the remix album. We have a lot of really new, really cool bands like Chimes and Bells who are appearing on the album. That was a band that was really great to work with because they also did the support for our European tour and they have some really really cool songs so that track which was called The Mole on the album, it was definitely one of the remixes that I am most happy about.

Who would you love to remix that you haven’t yet? My biggest wish is maybe not to remix but to actually work with and write a song with, would definitely be Hope Sandoval from Mazzy Star. I’m a very big fan of Mazzy Star and they’ve always been my favourite band. For me, if I one day had a chance to do something that would be great because she has a really nice melancholic, really cool voice. That would be my choice.

Your latest release Reworked/Remixed, what was the idea behind that? For me, it was done out of the thought of combining some of my best remixes from the last three or four years. Then to also present some of the really good remixes other artists have done of me, like Modeselektor and UNKLE did some really cool remixes. Also this Danish band called Efterklang also did a really cool mix.

I thought it could be great to put it on one album but then it turned out that I did so many remixes and they were all quite long; normally they are seven or eight minutes long, so it ended up being this double album. I’m very happy that people who maybe don’t know that much about what I’m doing, had the chance to go into this side of my work because of course this is not a studio album. It is a compilation but it still shows some of the things I have done and some of the artists that have remixed my latest albums.

You recently produced Darkness Falls [download a free track from it, here] latest album, what inspired you to get on board with them? It was really fun to do with Josephine Philip; she’s the singer in Darkness Falls and she also sang with me while we were touring and she also sings one track on my latest album. I also knew their music because Josephine was often playing me demos while we were touring and I really liked what they are doing. They are really writing good simple pop songs in a kind of touching way. So I said to them that if they wanted me to produce the album I would love to do that. They were very much up for it. It was great to step a bit back and watch music from outside.



Producing other artists is a little bit similar to remixing because you are still working with great music but it is not your own music and you can sometimes see it more clearly because you are not that personally involved in the music compared to when you are writing your own stuff.

What are you listening to at the moment? Many artists. I’m very happy about a guy, his project is called Wild Nothing. I think he’s from the States. It’s kind of indie music that reminds me a little bit of Stone Roses actually and has this kind of British 90s indie sound like riot and slowdive. Then I’m also really happy about a guy who is calling himself Dirty Beaches, really low-fi that sounds like suicide. I was playing together with him when he played in Copenhagen and he’s a really nice guy. His debut album Badlands is really cool. Then I’m also listening to a band from the UK called Factory Floor, it’s a little bit more electronic sounding. For me it sounds like Joy Division and how they would have sounded today.

What do you think you’d be doing if you weren’t making music? That is actually quite hard to answer because since I was five years old my life has been music and music is my biggest passion. But I have also always been very interested in making film; I remember when I was a child, I thought it would be really cool to be a camera man. Filming and movies. I watch a lot of movie when I’m not working and am really into the more art type movies. Doing something with movies behind the camera. But music is my life and all my time and all my work goes with making music.

What’s next for you? Next for me is just staying in the studio for the next seven or eight months working on my next studio album. I don’t have any DJ gigs or playing with my band for that period. It’s a bit weird for me because we’ve been touring with a band so much for the last two years and playing a lot of festivals and venues. It’s a bit weird suddenly to go back to the studio and back into this isolated environment. Again, it is what I love to do most: composing and writing new stuff so it’s also a very interesting time right now for me because it’s all so open.

Are there any Australian tour dates on the horizon? (laughs). I think I am going to be spending a lot of time in the studio for the next while but after that who knows. I hope so. I have always loved coming out and playing gigs in Australia.

Download Trentemoller's Neverglade remix for free by using 'right click, save as' on this link.

Listen to Trentemøller on Pulse Radio