Esce questa settimana, a tre anni di distanza dal precedente Lost, il nuovo album di Anders Trentemøller. A differenza di quel fortunato disco -al quale hanno preso parte tra gli altri i leggendari Low, Kazu Makino dei Blonde Redhead e Sune Wagner dei The Raveonettes- questo "Fixion" vede la sola partecipazione in veste di vocalists della vecchia conoscenza Marie Fisker -collaboratrice abituale del produttore danese- e di Jehnny Beth del quartetto britannico delle Savages. Con Anders abbiamo avuto il piacere di fare una lunga chiacchierata nella quale -con il suo consueto entusiasmo e la simpatia e l'espansività che lo contraddistinguono a dispetto di un sound a tratti molto cupo ed umorale- ci ha raccontato della propria evoluzione artistica, della sua collaborazione con Jehnny Beth e di quella volta che i legali di Bruce Springsteen gli hanno fatto passare un brutto quarto d'ora.
Years ago I had the chance to intervew you for a radio station, it was during the promotion of your first album The Last Resort. I can remember that in that occasion you told me that you were touring and a dj was following you, because the tracks of that album, that you were presenting with your live sets, were too deep and moody for the people that wanted to dance at the clubs and festivals. So the dj was there to play more danceable stuff. That made me think about your musical evolution, from an electronic, beats-based sound to something more song-oriented. You became a proper songwriter during these years, touring with a proper live band that includes a vocalist. I know that you have a background in rock bands and still, this kind of evolution is a peculiar, interesting one.
For me it´s still a very natural slow developement that happened year by year, not something that I really planned to do. It´s something that happened. The way that I write music changes, because I think that hopefully, as an artists, one changes and is not totally the same the person that he was ten years before. I can also understand that from the outside, for some people it might be very drastic, to go from something more electronic based to what I´m doing now, music that still has lots of electronic elements -and in the new albums I still play synths and drum machines- but it´s more melodic. It´s not traditional electronic club music, it´s much more my esthetic statement and it´s a very natural thing to do because I never wanted to produce the same album twice.
I think that all the collaborators, expecially the guest vocalists that during the years appeared in your records, played a big role in this musical evolution. A process that, I guess, began with the vocal version of Moan, an instrumental track that was originally included in your debut album and became a big dancefloor tune at the time of it´s release as a single. What do you think about it?
For me the collaborations aren´t something that I plan before I start working on a new album. I don´t think “Now it would be great working with Low, or with the singer from The Drums”. It´s much more in each song that I´m writing, it´s the song that demands who should sing on it. It is something that very much depends on the nature of each song. Sometimes it´s even surprising myself. For example, regarding the album Lost, there were five-six different vocalists on it. I knew that the songs where quite different from each other so I also knew that I needed different vocalists, and if you compare it to this new album it´s basically only Marie Fisker and Jehnny Beth singing on it because, this time, I wanted to do something that had a feeling of having only one voice taking the listener by the hand and guiding him through the whole album. I didn´t want to repeat what I already did, having a lot of different vocalist in one album. There´s a more natural flow in the new record and since Marie is singing on four songs, it´s easier for the listener to identify with it.
Since you mention her, I would like you to tell us something about Jehnny Beth. How did you get to meet her and start working with her?
It was funny, we were both playing on the same french festival and we had just finished our gig -Savages played the day before us- so hanging around the backstage we started talking to Jenny Beth and the Savages producer Johnny Hostile. I was already a huge fan of their debut album so we ended talking about doing something together, because they also were fans of my music. Afterwards I kind of forgot about it, but several months later I happened to talk again to Johnny Hostile and I asked him to join me, since he is also doing his own stuff, which is pretty cool, on an extended european tour. He was warming up for us and he invited Jehnny Beth to see some of this shows and she actually ended up on the stage to sing with us, during a show in Rome. After that appearence Savages asked me to mix their new album. That was of course very fun for me, being able to stay behind from my own music and trying to do my best with someone else´s music. And since I was a huge Savages fan it was something really challenging, also because they are a rock band with live instruments, it wasn´t electronic, and still it endend being a very easy thing to do, because we have the same preferences, we listen to the same bands. During those mixing sessions we talked about the possibility for Jehnny to do some vocals on my next album. As soon as I was back to Copenhagen and I started working on my own album, in one day I layed down with bass, drums and some keyboards a great groove that made me think that it would really fit to her. She was also totally up for it, so she joined me in my studio for two days. Very intense days because we had to write down the songs and record them but that also gave them a very dramatic and intense energy, and that´s hopefully what you can also hear, when you listen to the record.
Still, also the new record -as the previous ones- includes tracks that have a very atmospheric, cinematic quality. I know that some of your music was included in soundtracks too, but for what I know you never composed music especially for a movie, right?
Right. Actually only once and eight-nine years ago, for a danish movie. It´s not something that I really want to do, because I found out how much work there is in doing a score, having to work with so many different people, the director, the editor, the producer… But of course it´s very nice if directors want to use my music. Three years ago I was asked to compose the main title of the HBO series Halt and Catch Fire, the challenge was to compose and produce thirty seconds of music that should fit to the visuals and that give the idea of the whole atmosphere of the series. That was fun for me to do, but in a much lesser scale compared to the score for a whole movie.
And then there is the unofficial remix you did for a Bruce Springsteen track that have been used in a movie too, right?
That was really strange. It was something that I only did for personal purpose, and to give away to some people here in Copenhagen and suddenly someone put it up in Youtube. It was never meant to come out, I only did it to play it out when I was djing and also, because I wanted to pay tribute to the album Nebraska -a fantastic album that many people don´t know, because when they are thinking about Bruce Springsteen they think about Born in the U.S.A.- and suddenly the lawyers of Springsteen began to writing me asking if I was me that one that did that remix. At that point I started to be really scared but then they wrote that there was this french director that wanted to use my remix and his film company had contacted them, and for the first time Springsteen said yes to a remix of one of his tracks. It was a great thing for me, I was very honored and proud -even if it´s something that never been released- and also because I was convinced that he was going to sue me.
And then there is another cheeky remix of your, the Wicked Game one:
Yeah! That one is twelve years ago or so… It was actually the same story, I did it just for fun, because I really loved the Chris Isaak´s song. That was maybe the first time ever that I tried to do a remix, but in the same way as the Bruce Springsteen´s one I didn´t have the original stems, I just filtered out some bass and added my bass and the drums and other stuff. You can do quite a lot if you chose the right song to work with. But to be honest, I decided not to do anymore remixes, because I feel that they took up too much time, I really need more time to do remixes than my own stuff and I don´t feel that´s the way to do things. In many years I will start again maybe but now, I want to completely focus on my own music.
Talking about it, can you tell us about your own label, In My Room?
Actually it´s a platform for me to do my own my music, because I don´t want to be on a label where people tell me what I have to do. I want to have my artistic freedom and also it would be great to release music from artists that I find interesting, but the truth is that I have been so busy doing my own music so I really haven´t got the time to release so many artists as it was my plan to do. But the last release was some months ago from a guy called Tom And His Computer, an very old friend of mine that makes some really cool dark electronic stuff, like David Lynch on acid or something.
Can you tell us something about your own band and the way in which you are going to promote your new album on stage?
That´s always a big challenge. When I´m writing and producing my albums it´s´only me alone in the studio, playing nearly all the instruments so trying to translate to the band my vision is a big challenge. But having a background in bands it´s also easy for me to show the musicians the different parts, and the beautiful thing is that little by little they come back to me and give feedback, they bring their ideas and play the stuff in their own way and suddenly it´s not just my own music, it´s not just me with a backing band. We are making this music together, we trust each other. And still, even if we have a lot of electronic parts, it´s hand played, not totally quantisized, there´s always a human factor in it. And of course Marie Fisker is doing all the vocal parts and she makes this songs her own songs. I don´t want her to copy what the other vocalists did. I really want that Marie feels at home singing those songs. When we play live and she sings, I get goosebumps because she´s really great.