[i:Vibes] i:Vibes chats with Downtempo Artist Ulrich Schnauss

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i:Vibes chats with Downtempo Artist Ulrich Schnauss

19:32 - December 26, 2003

by Andy P

© http://stat.discogs.com/A/22152-001.jpg Ulrich Schnauss has recently become a popular artist in terms of Downtempo music with the success of his Far Away Trains Passing By and A Strangely Isolated Place. i:Vibes sits down with Ulrich Schnauss to find out how he views himself, his music and what is planned for the future and other interesting things. Read On for the full interview

Ulrich Schnauss came to the attention of some in 2001, when he released his "Far Away Trains Passing By" on City Centre Offices. The CD showed the promise that this young artist had but not many of us took notice till Nick Warren included one of his tracks on GU024 - Iceland. In 2003, he released "A Strangely Isolated Place" which was also put out on City Centre Offices. So Ulrich Schnauss was kind enough to take time out of his busy schedule to answer our questions

i:Vibes: What town were you originally born in and which town do you reside in?

Ulrich Schnauss: I was born in Kiel, a small town located at the Baltic Sea & close to Denmark - I moved to Berlin about seven years ago.

i:Vibes: How did you get started musically? Who influenced you?

Ulrich Schnauss: I always wanted to be a musician and I´ve always been making music. As a child the first thing that influenced me was probably my fathers record collection - at that time mainly consisting of 70s jazz rock/fusion stuff.

i:Vibes: How did you get involved with City Centre Offices?

Ulrich Schnauss: I was producing drum&bass tracks in the middle of the 90s - back then Thaddi (who runs cco´s Berlin office nowadays) was a radio dj doing the city´s only drum&bass programme. We met there & simply stayed in touch after the show got cancelled...

i:Vibes: So why did the first album "Far Away Trains Passing By" seem like a mini LP? 6 tracks? What inspired you to make that album? Why did you name it "Far Away Trains Passing By"?

Ulrich Schnauss: There was no particular reason for choosing the 6track-format - it just seemed to work well this way. To me those tracks sounded best when mixed with the sounds of far away trains passing by - hence the title...

i:Vibes: Why did you name Blumenwiese Neban Autobahn (“Flowers by the side of the road”) as such?

Ulrich Schnauss: Just because I always really liked the green grass & occasional flower fields you can see next to the motorway - it´s an exciting contrast: a very peaceful, very lonely place but you´d still be hearing all the loud car noises...

i:Vibes: What was the reaction like to the first release "Far Away Trains Passing By"?

Ulrich Schnauss: Overwhelmingly positive - in the beginning I was actually quite worried how the album would be received as I don´t think it fits in that well with the German electronica mainstream - so it was fantastic to see that people are still willing to listen to stuff that´s not trying to follow the rules of a certain scene...

i:Vibes: Do you consider yourself an artist, a producer, a deejay or remixer or just something in between?

Ulrich Schnauss: I don´t really deejay anymore and I´d never consider remixing being more than an enjoyable side project. So far I´ve mainly seen myself as a musician, but I definitely want to get more into the production side of things...

i:Vibes: Not many people know that you produced under Hexaquart and Ethereal 77? Both are varied styles, are you still producing under those names?

Ulrich Schnauss: Not really, I´d love to do some drum&bass-tracks again, but I simply didn´t have the time to do it last year - that´s hopefully gonna change in 2004...

i:Vibes: Do you base tracks on things that happen in your life or places that you visit?

Ulrich Schnauss: Definitely on things that happened in my life - I always try to do stuff I´d call electronic songwriting music - doing stuff that´s about emotions and things that you can relate to on a very personal level although it´s mainly instrumental and done using synths rather than guitars...

i:Vibes: Certain people have called your music "Chillout", certain people have called your music "Ambient", certain people have called it “extraordinary". How do you define your music? What is it exactly?

Ulrich Schnauss: What makes me really happy about this project is the fact that I don´t have to think too hard about making what I want to do suitable to a certain genre´s rule book - it gives me the freedom to work with elements of every musical style that I like. I know that my stuff is being sold using "electronica" as a label, but I don´t really feel a big need to come up with any definitions, categorisations etc. myself.

i:Vibes: Has your life changed since Nick Warren put "Nobody's Home" on Global Underground 024 because I must confess that I was one of the people who heard that song when I bought GU024 and went out and bought "Far Away Trains Passing By". Friends of mine heard that cd and went out and bought it also. So has anything really changed since Nick Warren put one of your songs on GU024?

Ulrich Schnauss: Hmm, my life´s definitely changed since then although I can hardly say how big the impact of that particular compilation was...

i:Vibes: It’s rumoured that Sasha is doing an edit/remix of Noboby’s Home for his new Global Underground project. Do you think he has what it takes to make one? Or would you rather see him doing something else other then remixing one of your songs?

Ulrich Schnauss: Sasha recently send me a remix of "On My Own" that he did - it´s great because it turns the track into stuff that I can imagine would work really well in a club!

i:Vibes: What was the basis behind your second album "A Strangely Isolated Place", why the title and how did it come together and are the tracks named Monday - Paracetamol, In All the Wrong Places, are they named for certain things that happened or they just names you chose?

Ulrich Schnauss: All my song titles are just rather vague references to which emotions I tried to capture musically - a friend of mine once described the area in Berlin where I live ("Schöneberger Insel") as a "strangely isolated place" - I really liked this expression from the first second on: it´s got a sad if not sentimental undertone to it...

i:Vibes: Do you like the attention that your music receives or would you rather just release music and stay out of the limelight?

Ulrich Schnauss: The situation´s not like me being in any kind of "limelight" anyway - I am basically very grateful for attention & support that I´ve received: as I try to make a living out of music it simply means that I´ve got the freedom to concentrate on doing what I like!

i:Vibes: Where do you want to be 5 years from now?

Ulrich Schnauss: One thing I can say is that I´d really like to leave Germany - music-wise I hope there´ll be some opportunities to do production-work for other artists...

i:Vibes: What can we expect from Ulrich Schnauss in 2004? Any plans to release any remixes, songs?

Ulrich Schnauss: I´ve done quite a few remixes this year already - in 2004 I´ll mainly focus on recording the next album.

i:Vibes would like to thank Ulrich Schnauss for taking time to do this interview. We wish him all the best in the future. Both of his cd's are available from CCO and both highly recommended.