Relaunch

Today we have another interview to all of you, we are honoured to have one of the biggest talents on the progressive house music scene with us. His music
speaks for itself but not much more is known by this guy. Time to give that a change we think. This time we bring you no other than super producer Relaunch.
Let’s get to know him a bit better. Enjoy the reading progressive brothers and sisters!

Hi there! It’s definitely time to get behind the name of Relaunch and find out a bit more who the mystery man is. Let’s introduce you to our viewers.
For a start, could you tell us, who is the guy behind the name of Relaunch, also how did you get in to the music industry and how did you go on to the producing part in your life?

Hi, thanks for the invitation. I’ve grown up in Mainz near Frankfurt in Germany. I think the need in DJing or making music comes from my childhood, where I was teached very early in playing instruments like organ and synthesizer. But when my friends and I got full age in the early nineties, we decided to
explore Frankfurt`s nightlife with its new sounds.

I can remember the first time I went into the big club of the Dorian Gray in the Frankfurt airport, where Thorsten Fenslau played a set. The first minutes
I thought: really interesting club & sound, but after listening the whole set on the legendary sound system of the Gray, I understood what a power, emotion
and vibe through this music can be transported. So I went almost every weekend to these clubs, middle of the 90ies especially to the “Paramount Park”,
with its incredible sound system and a light/laser show, supporting the music in a way, I’ve not seen so far. A bit later gave me the resident of this club the chance
to play there, from this point I was influenced with the dj virus. So I played as many gigs and warm ups as I could get, a bit later I got some residencies in my area and radio shows. I always wanted to implement my own ideas of tracks into my sets some day, so I bought step by step my equipment, concentrated on learning how the things work and discovered my passion in producing music.

You live in Germany, how would you describe the electronic dance music scene in general, and most important, the progressive house scene in your country? Is it played a lot out in clubs? Festivals etc?

There are a lot of electronic music lovers, excellent locations and events in Germany. Most of them prefer playing more minimal, (tech)-house orientated sound
at the moment, but if you search hard enough, you will find the right event. Definitely a great place to enjoy progressive house is the “Nature One” Festival.
It’s an amazing open air event, bringing together a brought spectrum of electronic music styles from several nations.

Having a great reputation for the quality of your music, how would you describe the sound that you produce?  To me you can get a bit of everything, but often your music a effected by deep and techy influenced sounds, do you agree?

Yes, its mostly deep/melodic touched music for the dance floor. I’ve always loved combining different sounds to transport all the experiences I collected as clubgoer or DJ through my music. I think this is why it sounds a bit of everything.

What are your influences when you produce your music?

I like a lot of parts of the actual Cocoon/Bedrock/Global Underground sound (just to name a few) and still many classics and tracks from the last years. But my best influence to produce music is to be in the right mood. Influences from other music are essential, but for me is more essential to produce what I feel without having any musical frontiers.

If we talk a bit more about your productions, could you tell us a bit about how you think while you start to produce a track from scratch? Do you always start from the same, like building a melody, starting up with a kick and move from there or you have different ways to go? Try and describe how you build
a track.

I always start in different ways. Sometimes I have a melody or ambiance in my head, which I record first, to build the track around. Sometimes I start playing a baseline or a groove to find the other parts later. If I think I have enough parts for a track, I begin to test them with each other, putting the monitors louder to
get a kind of a club feeling and to sort out the last disturbing parts and frequencies and to see which parts work best in an arrangement. If everything sounds fine to me I start with the arrangement. There are several steps between, but this would go beyond the scope.

We now see you more on remix duty also for other producers, we think it’s great. Do you see it as “receipt” that you are doing really good that a lot of others want to work with you?

Of course its great for every artist if other labels and producers are interested in the things they do. But as well important is the interest/feedback from the listeners, clubgoers and DJs.

Any secrets with the producing part? What programs & equipment do you work with? Any specific vsti’s you prefer to work with? Are you using both hardware and software?

I’m loving especially the Kore2 from Native Instruments, with its excellent layering and sound design functions. I`m also still a big fan of analogue sound sources, so my setup is a combination of hardware and software.

If we go in a near future, what can we expect from Relaunch in the coming months? Originals, remixes, touring? Tell us the news!

There’s really a lot of stuff coming out in the next months. In the middle of June my remix for 21st street-Stack Mode will be released on Stripped Recordings. Middle of July my EP “Bug Police” will be released on Hyline Music and my first artist EP on Mistique “Art of Ambiance” will come out. My actual remix projects are for John 00 Fleming, Basil 0 Glue, Agressor, Dynamic Illusion and Timewave. I haven’t found a name for it yet, but we are also planning an artist album on Hyline Music.
If you are interested in listening to my dj sets and newest productions I would be pleased if would you tune in every 4th Thursday on my monthly show “Art of Ambiance” on Pure.FM.

We see you on a regular basis on massive labels such as Mistique and Hyline Music, will we keep seeing you on those labels you think? Is that the sound that we can expect from you in the future also?

Definitely, its so important for me to have a basis. Its a fluke to work with Carsten from Hyline and Stiven from Mistique, who are really great guys, doing an amazing job with their labels.
I’ve also released an original track called “Dignified” on Andy Düx`s label Overdrive Records last year, which sounded a bit different to the things which were released from me so far. I was really surprised when it got support from Richie Hawtin, Jay Tripwire & Pascal Feos, so there will come more for sure, too.

We often see you work on your own and not on collaborations with other producers, is this something you have chosen on your own that you prefer to work on your own or is it just something that happened?

Its just something happened. I am always open for any kind of new music projects; perhaps this will happen in the future.

What would you say about the house music scene in general, is it possible to grow bigger or is it at it’s peak? if you get the chance to say something in general that you want to change on the electronic dance music scene, what would you say then?

The really great hype of electronic music is over since years and I think this won’t come back, because our music is meanwhile part of our day grind and just normal. But there’s still an unbelievable spirit in the scene and I am sure that there’s always the possibility to grow if we look forward and work constant in what we trust.

Its fast moving today and sometimes really hard to find my tunes for my gigs or radio shows in the mass of tracks in the online stores and promo portals today, because there’s so many stuff that sounds similar. But good music still exists and needs (in most cases) its time to be  produced, so the music industries have to be more focussed on productions with soul, not so much looking on each other, more getting back to assess the quality of music with the essential question: is it good or bad?

A lot of the music today is not sold, it’s spread through Internet and musicians hardly make any money at all on their productions. What are your thoughts about the sharing through blogspots, forums and all other ways for illegal sharing of music?

The Internet gives all newcomers and already successful musicians an unbelievable freedom to promote their music and open up new markets, but these possibilities have unfortunately also the big disadvantage, that music can be shared illegally with just a few clicks. I think it’s the challenge of the music industry, labels and all real music lovers to be watchful and prepared against illegal sharing. Money is not everything, but everybody who is hard working on releasing music in a legal way should be honoured accordingly.

If we move a bit further, where do you see Relaunch in let’s say 5 years time with your music in general?

That question is very hard. I really adore every artist who is constant upwards in the music business with new ideas and fresh sounds. So I simply hope that I will have enough ideas in the future and that I can develop my music furthermore to live my passions with DJing and making music.

Time to round things of for this time, any final words you want to say to all PHWW followers?

Yes, thanks to all for your interest, it was a pleasure to share my thoughts with you. Thanks to all followers for the wonderful replies and that amazing support of the last year.

Thanks for joining us here at PHWW, hope to hear loads more in the future from you