We meet with elusive duo, German producers Hiver & Hammer for a brief chat as to what they've been up to, what to expect and where they are from.

We spend a few moments speaking to German producers Hiver & Hammer, the elusive duo who has been putting forward their superb blend trance and house over recent years.

i:Vibes: Being as elusive as the two of you are, give us a line or two about what you're all about, where you're from and how'd you two come to working together.

Hiver & Hammer: ”Hiver & Hammer are DJ Pierre Hiver aka Pat Wintter and DJ Hammer aka Mario Hammer. We live in the North of Germany at the Baltic Sea. We joined our forces in December 1997 and created Tune Town Productions. Pierre Hiver finished his studies (Media- and Communication Economy) in November 1997 and Mario worked for a Production Studio till then. We met on a DJ meeting in Mai 1997. Both of us had many releases before that.”

i:Vibes: You two have been producing for much of the past 10 years, with releases under various guises so far, when was the first release from the both of you together?

Hiver & Hammer: ”The first release we did together was in January 1998 called Elastic Culture "La Musika" on Universal Records. It did great in Germany. We used a "cleared" sample of Ramirez "Hablando" on it.”

i:Vibes: Many people ask, about you two came up with the name Hiver & Hammer? What’s the story behind that?

Hiver & Hammer: ”Well it's quite simple: My full name is Patrick Pierre Wintter. As I am French I use the French word for Winter, which is hiver. Mario’s name is Hammer. So you add both and you get Hiver & Hammer :-)”

i:Vibes: But prior to a full collaboration with each other, the two of you have been in the circuit for a long time, with Pierre having DJed since the mid-80s. Having been in the industry for so long, what have you observed in the industry since you two started off in it?

Hiver & Hammer: ”Well we have seen lots of acts/producers and music styles coming up fast but also falling down again faster. When the electronic music came up in the late 80s there was like an euphoric atmosphere everywhere in Germany. I remember the time when people went to the parties for the music, only for the music without chemical treats. Today, especially in Germany, people go to parties mainly to get their chemical treatments :-) If you understand what I mean. The music and its movement have gone into the background. I think there has been overkill in the last years. Also the music industry, especially the major companies have killed creative outputs. They've been focused for years on making copies of current hits and not on artist development. Today, with all their problems the companies are starting again to do artist based signings not only track based signings. This has been a wakeup call and they have to learn again how a record company has to work to build up artists. I think this is a chance for the smaller independent labels.

We had this development twice before in Germany; around 1994 and 1998. Everyone said techno is dead but a few months later techno was born again :-)

Actually I would say that quality starts ruling again not quantity. The music becomes faces and characters again behind it. Germany has to learn a lot on this!

What definitely changed for the Producers and DJs in the last years is the Global Thinking. We have so many crap producers in Germany that think they're god but don't appear in any other territory than Germany. For us the world is much more important than Germany.

I think I could talk about this question for hours. I prefer stopping now!
Quality rules!”

i:Vibes: What have been your favourite personal remixes / productions to date?

Hiver & Hammer: ”Well I think our remix of Faithless’ "We Come One", "Crazy English Summer" and also of Kosheen’s "Catch" are three highlights of our work. On the production side we think that 5 Million Miles (our last Single) was great for us. It was amazing to work with Linda and her great voice.”

i:Vibes: You guys have a few upcoming tracks we should be expecting, including a much anticipated remix of M.I.K.E.'s "Turn the Lights Out", is there anything else in the works we should be looking forward to?

Hiver & Hammer: ”Actually we have made several remixes like M.i.k.e.'s "Turn the Lights Out", Holden & Tompson "Nothing", Hemstock & Jennings "Northern Lights", Six "Goldrush"...

Last year we did around 25 Remixes all around the world, so we decided to work more on our own stuff. We just finished two other Projects: M.u.t.e. feat. Sheryl Deane "My Mind" and Hiver & Hammer present Sun of a Gun "Everybody listens to Techno" (in cooporation with Alex Christensen, the producer of ATC and U96). We worked on the new Hiver & Hammer single which is planned for the end of August as well as on some album songs for a Hiver & Hammer album project. The only problem is that Linda (our singer) is pregnant and will have her child in the next 4 weeks. That makes it a little bit more complicated :-)

With Hi-Bias Records through Hush Music we just produced the compilation "A Trip In Trance"

And finally we are planning our new compilation, DJ Convention Vol. 17.”


i:Vibes: How about on the DJ front. You both started off in the DJ circuit, but seemingly you've both concentrated on the production front. What's the scope on that?

Hiver & Hammer: ”As funny as it sounds lots of people don't know that we love DJing and we do this a lot. In the last years we've been on tour with our DJ Convention Project with over 200 Gigs.

As we don't have much time to work on bookings we depend on booking agencies, but it's hard to find a good one. Hope this will change soon. We never played in the UK, Scandinavia or the Benelux.

We played in Japan (Velfarre/Tokyo), Paris, Cote d'Azur, Switzerland, Austria, Spain (Ibiza, Mallorca, Barcelona), USA (N.Y.).
We would love to play more so if any of you want to book us, contact us :-)”

i:Vibes: The two of you also recently did a compilation titled "A Trip in Trance". How did you find the experience of putting together a compilation CD?

Hiver & Hammer: ”Alex Hush from Hi-Bias Records (Canada) asked us to this compilation. A great honour for us. In the last 5 years we have been doing a big compilation in cooperation with Universal Music in Germany called DJ Convention. It's a double mix compilation. We are now at our 17th issue and we have sold around 1 million copies of this series. So we have practice with compilations!”

i:Vibes: Top tracks in the box at the moment?

Hiver & Hammer:
DJ Remy "Bang"
Dave Gaham "Dirty Sticky Floors" Junky XL Vocal remix
Oliver Klein feat. Tom Hingley "Shakedown"
Capoeira Twins feat. Marcia Mc Donald "Lose Control" O.Klein remix
Lambda "Hold on tight" Kaylab & Reloop remix
Moguai "Get on"
Filterheadz pres. Orange 3 "In your Eyes"
Goldenscan "Sunrise" Ronski Speed remix
Holden & Tompson "Nothing" all Mixes!!!
Hmestock & Jennings "Northern Lights" Hiver & Hammer remix
Echos of Sound "Need somebody" Wippenberg remix
Sascha Müller "Turbulance" Techno Mix

i:Vibes: Suggestions for producers who are just starting out? hardware? software? How should they play it?

Hiver & Hammer: ”Well I started working and producing on a Atari Computer with 0.5 MB Ram, no hard drive. So I am an "old school" producer. I love to combine software and hardware; as that brings out the quality. Only buy a Mac computer for music! I work with Logic 6.1 with the Controller and Extensions in combination with Yamaha Digital Mixers. Important for a smashing sound are high quality compressors, limiters and exciters. We use them as hardware (TC System 6000 and the red SPL Series). Also the software synths today are amazing Check the Native Instrument ones and the Spektrasonic synths. AMAZING!

Today it's much cheaper to get good equipment than it was 10 years ago.

So a good Mac, Logic or Cubase on it, good plug ins and software synths can be enough to start.”

i:Vibes: Brief comments on the continual spread of mp3s across the world?

Hiver & Hammer: ”Holy crap! This is a big well known problem that sucks for us. The new generation doesn't really know what they're doing to the whole music industry. In Germany the compilation and single sales went down around 80%! It makes no sense to spend so much work and creativity on a song that you can download all around the world one day after the start of the vinyl promotion.

On the other side, music can be too expensive. The industry has to find a legal way of offering the possibility for consumers to buy music cheaper. I hope that it's not too late to change the new generations opinion.”

i:Vibes: How about some final words of wisdom to our readers.

Hiver & Hammer: ”We want to thank all DJs, Producers and music movers and consumers for paying attention to us and our productions. We hope that we'll all contribute to bring high quality music back to where it has to be. In the last 12 years Europe has built up an amazing music scene with lots of talented producers, DJs and music styles. It's worth fighting to keep this scene alive.

We would also like to encourage people to work together not against each other. We are all part of a worldwide movement. Music is the only international language we have, that everyone understands. So lets communicate!

Cheers to everyone,
Hiver & Hammer

Check out the latest Hiver & Hammer compilation at Hi Bias Records!