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Review Podcast Ian Simmonds - The Burgenland Dubs
3:31 minutes, 320 kbs, 8,5 mb |
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Interview Podcast Ian Simmonds
15 minutes, 320 kbs, 36 mb |
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housefloor.de: |
Hello Ian. |
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Ian Simmonds: |
Hello. |
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housefloor.de: |
I want to talk to you about your new album. It is called “The Burgenland Dubs” and its name refers to the place where you have produced it. You originally come from Wales and moved to the German city Jena two years ago. So how did the city Jena and the region around it called the Burgenland inspire you so much, that you chose it as the title for the album? |
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Ian Simmonds: |
Well, I originally came to Jena. After a year or so I was offered this place at the Unstrut valley, the Burg Wendelstein. I was looking for a studio space at this time. Jena is quite a difficult town to find cheap space, industrial space. So I got off at this place and it was perfect. It was very cheap, very beautiful in nature. And of course I lived in London for twenty years before, so this was the perfect chance for me to get back to nature because I was born in North Wales. It’s very similar: lots of castles, lots of valleys, lots of nature. So for the first time in thirty years I had gone back to maybe where I came from, or be it in a different country. But it was a very beautiful, inspiring place to be. |
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housefloor.de: |
So you lived in and produced the album in a castle called the Burg Wendelstein. How came up the idea to do this, to live in a place like this? |
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Ian Simmonds: |
I needed a good space to work, not so much distraction. So this was a really good opportunity for me to go somewhere where I can just focus on the music and not everything else. Because I’m a kind of person that needs a quiet place and not so much distraction. I really wanted to put everything into this project. And I wanted to give myself the best chance for it. So living at the Burg Wendelstein was a really easy decision for me. I mean, there’s only two or three other people living there and it’s a huge big old place. So I had a lot of peace, a lot of quietness, time to think about things. It was really the perfect place to produce a new collection of music and to mix it and record it and all the things I really had to do. It was not so easy in Jena. So I was there for a year and a half and now I’m back in Jena. So that time is in the CD. I have made the CD and now I`m back in Jena. The next CD will be called “The Jena Dubs” or “Lutherstraße Dubs”. *laughs*
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housefloor.de: |
I image there’s a really different atmosphere at a castle. How did this influence the sound of your album which has parts that sound… not cold, but they have a lot of melancholy in them? |
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Ian Simmonds: |
Well, I’m quite a melancholic person. Deep down in my heart I’ve been fighting this most of my life but now I’m kind of getting used to it and I can’t fight it anymore. That’s my character, that’s the way I am. As an artist that’s my form of expression. Maybe that’s the way I communicate best of all, through my music. Some people think it’s a little cold, a little dark, however. But it was cold at the castle last winter. It was very cold and you can probably hear this in the music. But it’s not meant as a negative kind of coldness. It’s meant as maybe a kind of beauty. I think there’s a lot of beauty in melancholy and maybe sadness. These are things I’m happy to confront and to put into my music. I just wanted to reflect the world that I live in and the things I see. I try to be as honest as possible. So yeah, I am a melancholic person, but I’m also a very hopeful person. |
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housefloor.de: |
I think your music reflects that.
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Ian Simmonds: |
Thank you. |
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housefloor.de: |
How do you work as a producer? How did the tracks on “The Burgenland Dubs” develop? Was there an idea for it or how do you work? |
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Ian Simmonds: |
There were some loose ideas and some first drafts for pieces. I work in many different ways. There are ways of working in a live situation recording lots of musicians or there’s just the way of producing, spending six months editing things together and sequencing. Over the last 20 or 25 years I have learned many different styles of working. So I’m lucky, I had many different ways I can pull in the music. I can call someone up and make them come and record or access my sound library. So as far as production goes I knew I would be working mainly on my own for this project. That’s another reason why I wanted to be at the castle, because I was on my own there. I couldn’t just jump in a car and come to Jena because I don’t drive. So I was pretty much cut off. But that was something I wanted to happen. I had that opportunity and because it was so cheap to live there it would have been a crazy thing not to. So many different ways of working. When I worked on the Wise In Time project I was doing the last few years that was a live project, no electronics or whatsoever. It’s based on acoustic, very silent music. So this is another very important thing to me. I was growing up in the late 80s and early 90s. Now the whole thing with the digital revolution is happening. It’s kind of looking for a new way, it’s trying to fit in. To have a career in music is becoming very very difficult. But it’s a challenge I’m still fighting. |
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housefloor.de: |
xYour music is a mixture between different styles like Nu Jazz, parts of House, Downtempo and even traditional sounds. How would you describe your music? |
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Ian Simmonds: |
Well, my music is hopefully honest, complicated. I just want to make good contemporary music that will fit in the times we live now. But normally I leave the describing of my music to other people. I just do what I do. If it touches somebody’s heart or something that they feel, that’s really great. I have so many ideas and things I want to do. Maybe it all completely changes, I don’t know. I don’t think anyone of us knows what’s coming in the next couple of years. I was talking to Thomas about this earlier. It’s a new time, a new challenge, let’s see what happens. |
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housefloor.de: |
To some tracks on “The Burgenland Dubs” you can dance to and to others rather not. When I heard that you also are a DJ I was wondering what kind of music you play in a club? |
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Ian Simmonds: |
Great music *laughs* I hope. I’m a very selfish DJ. I don’t mean selfish in a bad way. Since I started DJing in 1986 or 1987 I always wanted to play the music I wanted to play and I hope other people can go with me on this journey. And I’m still the same. So many people I know from this time are now playing such commercial music. I think there are enough people playing this. I want to support the smaller artists and producers who are making such wonderful music. For me this is their time because now we are in a situation where music is easily made by many people. So I want to go through all the stuff people are making at home, in the kitchen or in their bedroom or wherever. This is the music that really interests me. Because I think there’s enough people dealing with the commercial side of it. That side of it has never really interested me. Maybe my life would be a little bit easier if it had. I’ve never seen music in those terms. Music always is very tangible. Something that is making me feel really happy or really down. And when I hear music that to me means nothing it doesn’t inspire me. So what I want to do is the important people and the small people are the ones that make music that’s really interesting for me. |
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housefloor.de: |
When you came to Germany two years ago, why did you chose to go to Jena and not one of the metropoles?
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Ian Simmonds: |
Because I’ve been coming to Jena since 1995. Then I first met everyone at the label which had just started at that time. I’ve been coming here for years since I met a group of musicians about four or five years ago. I came up with this idea for the project I was doing called Wise In Time which is more of a live project. All the band came from Germany, so it made a lot of sense for me to be here. It’s the center of Europe and I can travel much easier than being in Britian. It was that big decision for me. Thuringia is very beautiful, the Thuringian Wald further south, all the nature and the valleys. I think it just reminds me of being a little boy in Wales and place where I grew up. I lived in big cities all my life and I really don’t want to live in a big city right now. Leipzig is a nice town. I like it. And Halle seems okay. I don’t know Halle but it seems like a big city but not so much people. |
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housefloor.de: |
Well, compared to Leipzig there are not many clubs here in Halle. In Leipzig there is a more vital scene in music. In Halle there is not even one single club that plays electronic music every weekend.
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Ian Simmonds: |
I think it’s a changing town. I see a lot of modern building but I also see a lot of old empty buildings which are probably left from the war, I don’t know. So that’s an interesting thing especially in east Germany. I came here because I was really interested in the political side of it. It has just been twenty years of Democracy and of course I grew up in a hardcore capitalist society. So for me to come here was really interesting. Every day I’m learning something about the whole system and what everybody had to go through, that’s very interesting for me. |
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housefloor.de: |
I like that you are interested in stuff like that.
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Ian Simmonds: |
Really, it is very interesting. I remember as a kid in school learing about the GDR and the whole experience, but you really can not understand it until you come here and speak with the people. People like Thomas who are a similar generation like me, who were in their early 20s when the wall came down, so they had a life under that regime. That’s very interesting and inspiring. |
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housefloor.de: |
What is it exactly that connects you to the label Musik Krause? Is it only a common sense of music or anything else?
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Ian Simmonds: |
It’s really not only for the music they make. It’s a very special little family and Thomas is the papa, the best papa. And there is such a really interesting community. Jena for a small town has such a big heart. People are making some very interesting music, that’s a very important thing for me. And they are interested in what I’m doing so that’s all I need to know. The rest we can make together, we can work things out. There are some fantastic people making music and that leads me back to the other question. The smaller people are really important to me because I see myself as one of these people and someone who has really deep love and passion for the music but is not so interested in all the other things that come with that. So the group of artists and producers in Jena is really strong and I think over the next three, four or five years as we are in this big change let’s hope it can rise to the top and we can really go places and take it international. |
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housefloor.de: |
Sounds like a good relation between a label and an artists.
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Ian Simmonds: |
Yes, that really is important. Otherwise it doesn’t work. |
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housefloor.de: |
And it wouldn’t be fun.
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Ian Simmonds: |
No, absolutely not. |
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housefloor.de: |
Last question, what are you up to in the next months?
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Ian Simmonds: |
SMS festival with Musik Krause and Freude am Tanzen artists. Just working on some new songs, new tracks. Waiting for some remixes to come from the LP. For me it’s every day. If I don’t work on my music at least a little bit every day I’m miserable, not happy. So yeah, some playing and some writing, trying to enjoy a little bit of the sunshine. |
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housefloor.de: |
Thank you for that insight into your life and your new album.
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Ian Simmonds: |
Thank you very much. |
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housefloor.de: |
Finally tell us your favourite track of “The Burgenland Dubs” please.
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Ian Simmonds: |
Well… it’s all my favourite but I will give you one specific song… can I give you two? |
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housefloor.de: |
Yes.
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Ian Simmonds: |
“Dance of Dancers” and “Sands of Tunis”. |
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interview: housefloor.com |
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www.iansimmonds.de |
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www.freude-am-tanzen.de |
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