After a month of hard work with the podcast, music, progamming the contest and roadtrip with interviews it’s finally out! #Podgressive EP035 might be our biggest project so far and we truly hope that you will like the episode. This time with a 90’s classic techno set mixed by our swedish local veteran Marcus Stork and one of the biggest swedish trance exports mr Marcus Schössow! As always, #Podgressive is hosted by me, Tatsumi Suzuki and I have been collecting smashing tunes for some while for this show.
As you see on the banner, we have our first contest going on! Click on the banner to enter the contest. You have now the opportunity to win the Roland TB-303 Cushion and iPhone 4 case gold edition in collectors box by Analog Sweden!! The winner will be announced on the next months podcast, good luck!
We continue our interviews here on bejbi.se, this time with the talented Lily V Nine!
Tatsumi and I, Patric, got into Tatsumis car and drove through a colorful landscape, all the way from Stockholm to Hedemora.
When we got there we sat down with Lily in her studio and had a great interview.
Before we start can you tell us a little more about yourself, on a non musical front?
Where did you grow up? where do you currently reside?
I grew up South of Stockholm with my family, and about eight years ago we moved up to Dalarna where I currently live.
Besides my music I’m studying graphic design at college, and I work extra in a store.
I see myself as an ordinary girl, but I guess if I didn’t have my music, I would seem really boring.
It’s really difficult to make it as a successful woman producing especially when EDM is still reaching other parts of the world. When did the fascination with knobs and production begin?
It was early, I started to play the piano when I was nine years old, but I thought it was boring to play alone.
But then I heard my first EDM song when I was around 14 years old. It was Infected Mushroom, and I couldn’t help wondering how they did that wonderful music, so I started to research and I began producing music with Propellerheads Reason around 2005, not at a professional level but I learned a lot. But I switched to Cubase last year after a friend recommended it because I wanted to produce more trancier tunes, rather than the hardstyle and psytrance I did before, and Cubase has a lot more to offer with all synths and addons that is available than Reason.
Did your parents get bothered with your music making?
Yes they actually did! Since I grew up in a musical family, with my father being a rock musician. He thinks I should play the piano as it should be played, with Beethoven and such. He thinks that ”techno” just sounds like a lot of noise, but he doesn’t have any problems with me making the music on the computer. I, on the other hand, think it’s more fun to combine the piano sound with the trance-beats, it’s more my style rather than the classical tunes I’ve learned to play when I was younger.
My mother is very proud of me, she thinks I’m really strong to take on this all by myself.
Can you take us through your current studio set up? What does it consist of and what pieces of equipment/software would you say are most essential?
I use Yamaha HS5, it’s the worlds most honest speakers. In these everything sounds like crap if you can’t master the tracks right. I also have a M-Audio Fasttrack Pro, it’s a very cheap studio sound card but it works like a charm. The computer is a heavy loaded PC, and there is this (she says and points at a CME M-key midi-keyboard), which I won’t even mention because it broke down on me last week.
I really can’t live without my sound card and the speakers. It’s the most important part of a studio, you can’t make music without a pair of decent speakers!
We can see you have a old beautiful and huge Grand Piano in your studio too, tell us a little more about this piece.
Yes, this is a 200 year old Grand Piano made in Germany by Friedrich Wieck and I got it from my father when we moved to Dalarna.
I was a teenager and I really hated to move from everything I had back in Stockholm, so he bought me this so I could concentrate more on the music and less on the life I left in Stockholm. It has a really beautiful sound, but it can be difficult to play on because the keys are really hard to press down. I love it, cause the sound is so unique!
Everything I write I write on this piano, but It’s hard to get the sound of it to match the trance-style so I can’t use it in a faster track.
As a female Producer in the male dominated EDM scene, how do you draw the line with your productions? We’ve found your productions emotionally gratifying as well as banging too!
I want to be as characteristic as possible, and since I’m a classically trained pianist I want to show it in my productions with a lot of uplifting sounds. I don’t want to be mainstream as everyone else seems to want to be. I want to give the listener a emotional feeling of the track, just like the one I had when I produced it.
Diving into the creative process for a moment, can you tell us how long does it take to produce a track for you and where you get the inspiration from?
I get most of my inspiration from my life, people I’ve met and from places I’ve been to. Most of my titles comes from my everyday life. Like my upcoming track ”My love story” is about my boyfriend.
It takes about a week to make the production, if I’m in the studio for a whole week that is. But the mixing and mastering of the track could take longer. I’m not that good at that part yet, haha.
But music should take time, it’s about feelings, not technique.
If you get an idea for a track when you are running about in the city, how do you bring it to life?
It’s hard to write a melody down, so I record it on my phone, singing the melody. Then I go to the studio and listen through the recording and try to recreate it on the piano. Sometimes the idea isn’t a melody, like a feeling, so I’ll write it down like: It’s dark, lost in the woods.. just words that helps to create the feeling I got for the idea.
If you were given the opportunity to work with any producer as well as to collaborate with any vocalist who would it be and why?
I think Raphael Frost is a really good producer, he mixes his music with a emotional melody, but I also like darker music to, like Indecent Noise and John Askew.
There are some persons I would like to work with, but it’s a little hard since they’ve all been dead for the last 200 years. Names like Chopin and Schubert would be a dream to work with but it’s of course impossible. Therefore I rely on the talents of the modern times instead. I also listen to a lot of women to, just to see how they work, like Claudia Cazacu.
I want to work with vocalists, like Jonathan Mendelson. I love his work and I think his dark voice would fit my bright melodies perfect.
How do you define a beautiful voice and melody?
– Do you record your own vocals for your tracks, or have you made a vocal track?
I have humblings in productions that I’ve recorded myself. Although I have done one vocal track, I think my own voice is to dark to fit my own music and I really had to tweak the vocals with reverbs and such.
How do you feel about chopped vocals? Is it a cool effect or a butchering of the vocal talent of the singer?
I love it! I think it gives a better effect than a synth sometimes. I want to use it in some of my own tracks but I haven’t found any good vocals to use yet. I think it works as a teaser for the real vocals that comes after in the chorus. Really cool!
Since Hedemora is a small town in the countryside of Sweden, do you have the possibility to collaborate with other producers and do you have a mentor, or are you the mentor for someone?
I don’t have any mentor. If I want help I ask my old teacher, but he can only help me with the technical part on the computer, not the musical part on how I can sound better or do a thing differently. If I want to make a collab with someone, everyone lives in Stockholm so I have to plan weeks before to match their schedule.
I actually did a collab with Novaline, but that one is put on ice since we both got a little short on time.
Many artists find themselves stuck to one genre throughout their careers, simply because their fan base refuse to accept anything else. This can sometimes push our artists in to a corner that prevents future growth. How important do you feel it is for an artist to stand their ground, evolve and play around with as many genres as they can?
If the audience expects Armin van Buuren, for example, to produce one style, and he does something that doesn’t fit the expectations from the crowd.. he should change his name.
If you are a product, as most of the producers of today is, you should live up to it. And if you want to make another style, you should come up with another product name.
So when Ferry Corsten remixed Justin Bieber did he sold his soul to the devil or is he just trying out some new grounds?
I think Ferry Corsten is a great musician. I think he heard this song and made an remix of it cause he liked it wanted to do something with it.
Anything you would like to tell us on your upcoming projects? You actually have “My love story” open in Cubase on your computer in front of us. Can you tell us more about it?
It’s a really big production, it’s about the story of when I met my boyfriend.
I sat by the grand piano, just playing around, a normal day in the studio and the melody just came, my fingers did all the job and I didn’t have to think much at all.
So I thought it was love, and it is a really uplifting track, but with a lot of different parts in it.
It’s more like a story than a regular “trance” buildup, and I did it like this to tell the specific story of this track.
Regular trance is very much thinking inside the box, but this is a bit different, even if everything is in it.
It’s a nice track to listen to in your mp3-player, but it’s a little to slow and emotional for some dancefloors.
When I’ve showed this for people, they are both “too much emotions”, “it’s awesome!” and “I’ve got goosebumps from the piano melody”. It makes me want to continue and to eventually get it to be played on a club.
I work with both “happy parts” and “sad parts” in this track, since I love classical music from Mozart, Chopin and Schubert, and they work a lot with this technique. It took one minute to complete the piano melody and I think it’s really cool that my fingers did all the work, like if they were under a spell.
Here’s rather a strange question – do you aspire to spin behind the decks some day?
Yes, I really want to be a DJ someday, but I have a little stage fright. But I have no gear and I have to practice a lot before I go out and do it in front of a crowd.
If you could listen to just one record for the rest of your life, which one would it be?
Wow, that is a really hard question. It won’t be a trance track, but I think it would be Chopin’s Nocturne Opus 9 No.2. A classical piece.
Listen to music in the club or relaxed home listening, which do you prefer?
If I listen to music at home, I hear the details in the music and I can understand the story the artist is trying to tell, but I love to listen to music in the club to, to feel the beat and to just go crazy.
Do you attend to party’s to? Which do you prefer, the Swedish party’s or the party’s in other countries?
I prefer the Swedish party’s any day! The party’s outside Sweden is bigger, louder and cooler, but the Swedish party’s are more about meeting the friends and to listen to really good music.
If Electronic Dance Music didn’t exist, and you were given the key to create it and the scene around, would you make it as it was in the beginning with the PLUR (Peace Love Unity and Respect) everywhere, or as it is today where PLUR more or less doesn’t exist and a whole lot of different variations of styles, or would you do something completely different with it?
I think the beginning of the culture was really good but I think I would’ve made the scene a little bit more public, and not have kept it away from other people. The music would still be the same, the beat would still be the important part of the tracks.
If I could rewind everything I would do so much techno, I love every kind of EDM, but techno, I really love it!
But if I created everything I could never have guessed that it would be this big. I think it’s because other peoples preconception with EDM and the history of it that have made it so closed for the outside world, and I would have made it more open, so people would see that it’s more about the music and scene rather than the drugs and shit.
As you’ve grown and matured as a person, do you think this has reflected in your music? Why your style has changed for example?
When you start making music everything is fun, and you just play around. But when you grow older and listen to those tracks you think “Oh My God, this sounds like crap!”, and you think that no one would buy this.
When I make a production today, I feel that I have to be more critical to myself. I really want people to like my work. It hurts to hear other people to criticize your work but you can take the criticism and work with it.
If you were converted into a song, which one would it be and why?
Haha! Does it have to be a song, can I be a sound?
In that case I would be a base drum. Everyone would love me!
Do you prefer to use hardware or software?
Software, since I don’t have much hardware, but I would love to have a Virus-synth!
What is the best comment you’ve heard when you’ve uploaded a new tune on the social networks?
“You’re better than Swedish House Mafia!” hahaha.. It was strange to hear that.
But when someone told me that my music gave him goosebumps it was really satisfying for me.
Have you been given support for your tracks from a big DJ/producer?
No I don’t think so, only from friends here in Sweden who has their own podcast and smaller radio shows.
If we look way into the future, when you are old and talking to your grandchildren, what would you say was the biggest goal or achievement with your musical career?
That I wanted to show the world my music, and my feelings around it. And I hope I will get there.. I will! Someday!
Do you create other styles of music too, under another name than Lily V Nine?
Yes! I am the pianist in a recently created pop group, but I use my own given name in that group.
Have you ever done something music wise that you feel ashamed of?
I have done a lot of bad tracks, but I don’t feel that I have to be ashamed of anything. I’m only a beginner so far.
Which is the song that changed your life? Infected mushrooms “Frog machine”. It was the track I heard that got me interested in everything about making my own music.
When you are not doing music what can u be found doing?
Painting and drawing a lot on the computer, I edit and manipulate a lot of pictures that my brother and sister takes.
Name 3 things you absolutely can’t live without?
1. My computer and internet
2. Music
3. All of my family and friends and my boyfriend.
One thing you would like to change or develop about yourself?
I want to have more power to believe in my own music creations.
Most embarrassing moment?
I walked straight up to Sean Tyas and asked him to marry me. I was drunk.
What was his answer?
He just laughed. I think he is used to it, he has probably met a lot of crazy woman.
Hopefully he doesn’t remember me if I ever run into him again!
Best hangover cure?
An iced lolly called “Twister”, with fruit taste. I eat three of those and then I’m cured
What´s the first record you bought?
I think it was a Swedish group called Caramell, “Om du var min” on single. I was so young, I went to the store and listened to music every day and that was the first one I bought.
My father was a DJ back then, so he had a lot of music at home that I took and listened to it in my room.
I think the best Greatest Hits Cd I bought was “Replay Dance Mania 3”
Thank you so much for this interview!
You are very welcome, it was fun!
You can hear a short preview of this interview and the full version of her track ”My love story” in Podgressive ep. 35.
Hey there or as we say in swedish, Tja tja bloggeeen!
Welcome back to my second ”Pre-Podgressive” blog. I hope that you liked the last episode and my blog post. If you are listening to my shows and reading my stuff here and are from a place where the sun is shining and the temperature is above 20 celcius. Could you send us cold and wet sweedes a sun, Please?! Remember not to wrap it in to something that might be flamable. As I told you last time about the rain.. Yeah, it has been raining since then and we are not singing in the rain!!
Let’s just talk about some happy stuff and forget about the weather..
The Super Awesome Contest
I had an fantastic surprise for not so long ago. I was participating in a contest at Facebook where the task was simple. Just share a link and then wait a while for a random winner. The winner got a super cool Roland TB-303, TR-909 & TR-808 pillow bundle. So one day, just on an ordinary monday in my office. I was checking out some new tweets and got a really surprised. Analog Sweden (The Company behind the pillows) had sent me a tweet and asking me to contact them and claim my pillows. SUPERFRÄÄÄSHT! That’s a pretty awsome word in swedish btw.
I was talking to Patric about this and he told me to contact them again and ask if they would like to collaborate with us and have a similar contest on the podcast. Aand yeah, there will be a pillow contest in the upcoming podcast!
Question Regarding Podcast Subscription – What Is It, How Does It Work?
I’ve got many questions about subscriptions and I think it’s time for me to make this clear for you that doesn’t really know what it is.
So, the basics of podcasting is that you can listen when you wan’t and go back and listen to earlier episodes and so on.
But think that if you would like to just click a button for an automatic update when you are sitting on a bus, subway or by foot to check if there are any new episodes aviable on your favorite podcasts. Aaah! That’s the beauty of subscriptions. And the best part is that it’s really simple to set up.
I bet that the majority of you have a smartphone. An iPhone, Android device or even a Windows mobile. Let’s start with the popular iPhone. Simlply click on the ”subscribe on iTunes” button on my site (Click on the button ”Tracklists and Comments” button to get all the alternatives for listening) and it’s done. Follow instructions and the podcast will be downloaded and followed. The best part is that if you subscribe to several podcasts. Just click on the update button on your iPhones iTunes and it will check for new episodes for all your subscriptions. Great isn’t it!?
If you are on a Android device. Just get your favorite mediaplayer with podcast support for an example search for google listen on the google play market. Click, ”set up a new podcast” and write http://podgressive.com/feed/. Thats it!
Roadtrip To Hedemora
We have been talking about the interviews again. It’s always such a massive project and takes a lot of effort to get it really good. Patric and me have been planning to do some different types of them in the future. Some big and some small and more easy. Just to have them more often. Sometimes an article and other times just for the podcast. I have been following a fantastic talent and an really good pianist for some time and we just had to see her studio irl. So, this project got even bigger than before. We took my car and went to Hedemora (Small town in Sweden) to visit miss Lily V Nine. I’m really looking forward to the final result that Patric is actually working on it right this moment. There will be some of that in the podcast as well so don’t miss it!
#Podgressive EP035 – Artists
I’m really glad to announce theese two lads for the podcast. Both of them are seniors in the scene and has been around for a while. First up is our local artist, Marcus Stork. Dusting of his old techno records we will be pulled back in time to the very heart of the swedish techno era! Next up in line is our local super artist. I remember Kambiz booking him to his club Ambition for a long time ago and there where like 8 people in the ”crowd”. Well, his curve peak is in the top and by playing in huge arenas and touring around the world, delivering fantastic tunes mr Marcus Schossow is a lift for this show! As for me, well.. There will be a part of lovely progressive tunes that has been on repeat while working these past months together with some dark techno-ish beats and building up to uplifting. I was also listening to some old classic tunes and I just had to follow the stream and start to pick a classic tune for each month. Let’s see if it works :)
TOP10 – October 2012
So, it’s time for the monthly section where I have selected my top 10 tunes of this month. Some of them are released and some not. I’m not just after the newest stuff. This is just something that has made my month.
1. It took me some time for me to come into the right mood and decide this months nr uno. But this track is just faaantastic! It grows each and every time I listen to the tune! Jeremy Olander is a local talent from Stockholm, Sweden. He is born 1987 in the US and he’s truly a forthcoming star and has all ready a guestmix at the BBC Radio 1 show by Tall Paul. I heard this for the first time on the Eric Prydz podcast and just had to have it!
Don’t forget the release of #Podgressive EP035 on the 26th October (Share + Feedback = <3 ) and I will be back here with a new pre-podcast blog post 16th November!