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GUARDNER
- Marcus Schmahl
ELEKTROLUX ARTIST - by
Matt Skaggs
Access
Spotlight recently had the opportunity to talk with Elektrolux recording
artist Guardner, otherwise known as Marcus Schmahl.
Guardner has been topping the chill-out charts in across Germany
this year, and has followed up his latest release “Somedays
in my life” with a series of DJ and live sets.
Here is what he had to say about his projects, playing live, and
being infected.Welcome Marcus.
Tell
us a bit about your musical background and how you became interested
in producing electronic music?
Marcus:
My first real contact with music, tapes and vinyls was at my uncles'
living room when i was six years old. Yes, I've been influenced
by him or his music-library. It contained a variety of soul-, hip
hop-, 80's pop tapes and vinyl.
Some years later I've started to build up my own music-library and
began to mix my first mix-tapes with tapes, vinyl and cd's. The
interest in electronic music grew while programming sequences and
sounds on my old Commodore C64.
Soon after, I bought my first synthesizer-sampler-workstation, the
Roland W30 (sequencer, sampler,synthesizer), to expand my home studio.
Building tracks worked fine with the W30 in connection with my Amiga
500 or Atari 1040st. At this time I've started to learn playing
guitar for some years in a musicschool, too.
Now, working for years in my multimedia-studio, I'm producing songs/tracks
for jingles (advertising) and tv-scores next to my work on new tracks
for my own projects and on dvd- and video-projects for my and costumers
music/tracks.
You
recently followed up your chart topping Cascade E.P with a
full-length
release called "Somedays in my life" - can you tell us
a bit about the making of this record, the feeling and any challenges
you faced?
Marcus: After the work on the 'Rauschfaktor - Aquarium' (Elektrolux)
and the period of working on the tv-score of 'Powderpark' (Columbia
Tristar; tv-soap running all over europe) I had the time to create
new songs. In this time I've developed a new sound and production-style:
Guardner was born.
During the production of the Guardner album, I've started to play
Rauschfaktor live (with Frank Rückert/üNN) in Germany
and Switzerland. Of course I was influenced by this impression
too!
First of all I've created a lot of beats. Cutting, filtering, working
with effects, samples routed through the Virus,... After that I've
searched for special fx, vocalsamples or recorded them by myself.
Searching, programming and playing new sounds as pads, basslines
and melodies the next thing I had to do (a big moment for my Virus!
:-) ).
At the end there was the arrangement, mixdown and mastering... It
was a lot of fun and experience working on my solo-album. The E.P.
was a forthcoming vinyl-release of my album containing four tracks
of the album.
With the release of the E.P. the first Guardner-video started to
run frequently on german tv all-night-show called 'flowmotion' (concept
by elektrolux).
Guardner is my project for experiments with my kind of producing
music and combining different music-styles.Access: "Somedays
in my life" seems to weave between an electro, downtempo break,
ambient and future jazz sort of sound - what artists do you think
have helped shape and influence your sound?
I
think the whole crowd of artists i've listened to during the
production
time of the album has influenced my sound. In every song you can
find a lot of parts of the different "music-styles" you
named and even more.
Today it's not very interesting for the people listening to my album
to have albums that fit in only one style. I think it's ok for commercial
products but not for the expermimental stuff. ;-)
Along
with DJ sets across Germany, you have taken Guardner out as a live
act- Tell us about your live setup and the challenges of live electronic
music you have experienced.
Marcus: My live setup contains my Virus, of course, next to a Korg
Prophecy, Z1 and Kaosspad, an Akai MPC2000XL, a K5000S (for my keyboarder
Daan Apeldoorn (thanks!)), a mixer, FX, microphone (for Virus and
FX), percussion (shaker, tamb., etc.) and a laptop-system (pc, rme
hdsp, softsynth, fx).
Playing live is the only way to present people my music at a club.
Most of the people can't know that kind of music because it is not
commercial music (radio, tv, etc.).
It is a better way of presenting my songs and the music and I'm
closer to the dancing or listening people. Live I'm creating new
sounds, structures and melodies to my songs and sequences. Rauschfaktor
live is a music and video performance presenting live-music and
live-video.
With
this level of interaction with the music and the level of artistry
you are presenting with this live-act, do you find DJ’ing
rewarding in different ways?
Marcus: DJ’ing and ‘playing live’ are really two
different possibilities for me to present my projects and of course
the music to the listening people. As a DJ I’m playing for
clubbers or a dancing crowd. It motivates me making and playing
music, when I see the people dancing to my DJ-set. For my ‘club’-projects
it’s interesting working as a DJ. I can test my new songs in
the club for example. Live I’m playing as guardner two or three
slow songs in my set and that’s not very good playing 60-
to 160-bpm-songs in one hour set as a DJ, I think.
How
did the Rauschfaktor project with label-mate üNN come
about?
Marcus:
This is really a big story and too big to say! We both came together
to create an album without being under pressure by the whole machinery
of the music-business and without being criticized by anyone.
The final cd is now in the library of elektrolux. 'Aquarium' (the
title of the first Rauschfaktor-album) is a timeless song album
with many moods and a variety of electronic sounds, effects and
atmospheres. But Rauschfaktor is not only music! It's a real multimedia-project
working with music, video and graphic arts. Rauschfaktor tries to
combine the three multimedia parts to one finished product.
Many
of our users that are looking to collaborate with other artists
would love to hear how you and üNN work together - as
well as any advice you can share about electronic musicians
collaborating
Marcus: In a collaboration you can exchange a lot of ideas, critics
and of course new sounds. This is very important for my work. With
Rauschfaktor we've worked in two studios. The advantage is to write
songs at a different place with a different equipment. It opens
your mind, your creativity grows and doubles your equipment :) I
think it's a faster and more creative mode of writing songs and
building up a project.
So do you find that each of you tends to work more on a specific
section of your tracks, for example, one of you creating melodies,
or one of you creating the rhythm structure?
For the final arrangement of the collaboration, do you two meet
up in one studio and finish the piece? Or simply bounce the track
back and fourth until it is done?
Marcus:
Yes or no. We both worked on several parts of the songs. First
we’ve worked alone in our studios only to create layouts
for songs (beats with melodies and basslines). Then we built up
the song and the arrangement together. Some songs arised working
together in one studio.
At the end we both worked together in one studio to finish a song
and the whole album.
As
well as being a Producer - you also double as a remix artist with
remixes of label-mate Naoki Kenji and your own remixes of the Rauschfaktor
project - what do you find interesting or exciting about remixing
someone else's work?
Marcus: Remixing is another way of writing songs, nothing else.
It's interesting to combine your style and work with the soul, samples,
sounds and melodies of readymade tracks.
Especially the remix for naoki kenji was very interesting and a
lot of fun. I've worked with several Virus-programs such as arpeggiator-
and a melody-synth-sounds and input-vocoder/fx/filter for the vocals,
doubled with the original to sound a bit wider. The drums and other
synth sounds/fx were out of my logic (softsynth, plugs).
I think the Guardner-style is great for remixing other artists songs.
And get in contact with other artists is probably a fantastic start
of a new collaboration... ;)
Other remixes will come in the next month ...
Access:
How long have you been a Virus user?
Marcus: I started using and loving the Virus during the production
of the 'Rauschfaktor - Aquarium' album. I heard about it at the
'musikmesse frankfurt' before we've started to produce some of the
tracks and it was really a great new synth (...i think more than
a synth!!). Now i've got a Virus b and i don't want to miss it in
my setup and my songs.
Is there a certain role the Virus has taken on in your studio?
One specific thing you turn to the Virus for?
Marcus: First of all: the Virus is one of my favorite soundmachines.
Everybody using it knows: it is simple to create new fantastic sounds
very very fast! And I think, that's a big point. You don't have
to search for a long time to have the right sound before starting
to write your songs. It promotes your creativity. But on the other
hand, it's a great workstation for sounddesigner (listen to my album!)
:) and can be used for every music-style because of the variety
of possibilities the Virus has got.
The second thing is to use the Virus as a midi-controller for my
synth or soft-plugs and soft-synth. It is next to my computer-keyboard
for a fast and intuitive work. The Virus is very important in my
live setup. I'm using the inputs with the vocoder, fx or the fat
filter-section for my samples or live vocals and of course the virus-synth-sounds
triggered from my mpc. It's easy to use the Virus live because of
the possibility to change many parameters of a sound in realtime
very fast.
If
you could describe the Virus in a word - what would it be :)
Marcus:
'All-In-One-Machine'. Synth, realtime midi-controller, effect tool, "sequencer" (in
multimode with the arpeggiator!), vocoder, ....
What
can Guardner fans, including your newest fan - myself, look forward
to for the rest of this year?
Marcus: Have a look to my webpage for the news (releases, videos,
live-events, links to other projects ...). Now I'm working on some
remixes and new great album and dvd-projects (with new collaborations!).
Marcus, thank you for spending your time with us. For more information
on Guardner including music, his latest videos, and where to check
him out live or behind the decks, check out www.guardner.de
For information on the Rauschfaktor project click to http://www.rauschfaktor.com
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