October 15, 2013
October 18, 2013
March 26, 2013
October 26, 2011
October 24, 2011
March 10, 2011
December 3, 2010
January 18, 2010
January 05, 2010
May 11, 2009
March 01, 2009
Febuary 14, 2009
December 30, 2008
December 26, 2008
September 29, 2008
June 25, 2008
March 01, 2008
january 05, 2008
JULY 11, 2007
JULY 11, 2007
June 18, 2007
June 18, 2007
Febuary 16, 2007
Febuary 08, 2007
December 08, 2006
October 18, 2006
June 28, 2006
June 27, 2006
November 27, 2005
|
|
November 27, 2006
Lump Interview
by Tatu Vuolteenaho
Lump is Arttu Snellman and he comes originally from Oulu, North Finland. Currently he lives in London, is a freelance animator, music maker and a DJ. He has a new album LUMPDUB out on March 2006 on Future Dub label in both double vinyl and CD formats.
T. Tell me about your musical background. What were you into as a teenager and how did you come across techno music.
L: I used to listen to blues mostly, old blues from the 50s and 60s. Then came the acid-house in -88 and it blew my mind. At the age of 16 I even bought DJ:ing decks. Generally I like and listen to all kinds of music, lately I have been into country music as well.
T: Oulu has a reputation for having a lively electronic and house music scene for a relatively small town of 100 000 people (That's big town in Northern Finland). Did you know and hang out with any of those electronic music producers over there?
L: I was Influenced by Vladislav Dealy (also known as Luomo) and I learned mixing techniques from him.
T: Do you have any formal musical training?
L: No, I can't really play any 'traditional' instruments but I can hear if music is off key.
T: When did you start making music?
L: From the mid 90's
T: could you tell me about your music making process?
L : sometimes I get an inspiration and idea, but when I start making it into a piece of music it never really becomes to be what the original idea was. I just keep on having fun with the music, play around and it just evolves from that. I have 16 track mixer, I play and mix live and play on top of tracks. Often I start with that "dum dum dum" base and start to play on top of that. It is often about amusing yourself and slowly that becomes in to a tune.
T: Often when I listen to your music I start to imagine all kinds of funny creatures going on there, knocking around, burping and farting. Do the listener (me) just create these kind of visions in their own mind or do you have these kind of visions in your mind when you create your music.
L: Yes, I visualize things and make up stories when I play around with the music, but those visions might be different for each listener. Once I got an idea of an assassination when I played with the sounds coming from pieces of jewellery and tweezers.
When telling about this Lump rattled a corkscrew on the dinner table and demonstrated that new interesting sounds and ideas can come from many things around him.
T: When you make music do think about themes or feelings you want to express trough your music?
L: Not really. The music comes basically from playing with sounds and experimentation and I only make music when I'm happy. Well, I'm happy most of the time anyway. I often think about a clubbing and dancing environment when creating music and then I tend to go more into stronger, beefed up sounds.
T: What do you actually do when you play live?
L: I have prepared sets of loops and parts of my tracks and then I kind of make remixes of them live.
T: How about Lump as a DJ?
L: I started DJ:ing when I was 16. There was a small cellar club called Zoom Zoom in Oulu where we played Acid House/Techno, sometimes to only a handful of people. I never really did it for the money. Now if I DJ as a Lump it's mostly techno.
T: When and what was your first release and how did that come about?
L: That was the Fume / Infume 12" on Substatic in 2002. I sent a few demos to a couple of different labels and Falco from Substatic liked it and decided to release it.
T: And the name Lump?
L: I used the name Lump for that first release and it just stuck. Funny thing was that I found out that lump in German means "someone not to be trusted with"...
T: How about your releases on Karloff, Süd and Textone?
L: The same people who are behind Substatic also run Karloff label and they asked me to release something on Karloff too. Jay Haze, who runs the Textone netlabel had heard my first release and liked it. He is friends with Falco from Substatic and got my contact details from him and asked if I would like to do a Textone release. Lakuti from Süd had also heard the Fume/Infume record and asked If I would like to give a track for their up and coming compilation. Back then she didn't even know I lived in London. Lakuti happened to live also in Stoke Newington, so we were practically neighbors and have become good friends now. Lakuti also collaborated with me on the LUMPDUB by doing quest vocals. She has a great voice. I'm also releasing a more techno type of record on Rrygular label. Dapayk who also does the Mo's Ferry productions in Berlin runs that label and Jay Haze is friends with Dapayk.
T: How did this idea of doing an album for Future Dub label come about?
L: It was Jay Haze's idea. Future Dub is one of Jays 4 record labels and he asked if I was interested in making a dub themed album for the label. It was exciting to make this album, kind of unbelievable too. Jay trusted me completely and didn't even need to hear demos at the early stages. He just said he knows it will be great. With this album he will kind of re-launch the Future Dub label. There will be a completely new website as well.
T: How did you get into the dub sound?
L: I have always liked reggae music and Basic Channel type of dub and I have been going to lots of reggae clubs here in London.
T: What kind of gigs do you have lined up for the future?
L: I'll play live at Run next weekend. I'll be also playing in Berlin, Moscow and in London at some big techno party. There will be more live gigs in the future. I was also invited to play at my old hometown Oulu in May.
T: Moscow?
L: DJ Helga invited me to play live there at some underground club. I have never been to Moscow before and that will be exciting. I have also heard that the music scene is happening over there.
T: Any tips for those who are planning to make music?
L: You just have to enjoy making music and it's good to keep in mind that it takes lots of time. It takes many weeks for me to make one track. I have become faster though. Before it used to take 3 times longer for me to make music.
T: many people say to me that they don't get this kind of minimal music. Any tips on understanding it?
L: I don't exactly know what the term 'minimal' means. I guess it is just that different people like different kinds of music. One person gets it and another doesn't. However, I think that the groove of house music combined with techno sounds is a great combination.
Last, but not least we enter into Lumps bedroom studio to get an idea of the technology he uses.
T: Even though your music is all done with technology it has organic warmth to it. How do you for example get those really lovely deep base sounds?
L: I use analogue synthetisators. I feel like there needs to be actual physical knobs and things to twiddle. I feel like the sound from analogue synths is more dynamic. If it's all done on computer the result tends to be almost too clean. This here is an old Akai and it's good for getting great base sounds. This synth is Transcended 2000 from the 70's. It is assembled from components and you can get some weird sounds from that. I got it from Finland for really cheap. It could cost 10 times more now. Here I have a half digital, half analogue synth. Then there is effects box that is good for delays etc. This is a vocoder, compressor, sampler, gate...
T: What do you do with a compressor?
L: you can make the sounds to have more kick power trough compressing.
T: What software do you use?
L: Cubase for sequencing and making the music. ProTools for final mixing.
Lump's Apple laptop that runs those programs was at that moment de-fraqmenting it's hard disc so we couldn't actually play more at the studio. Maybe that was a good thing. I might have gotten too excited about all this sound fun and he might have had to kick me out from there...
Links
http://www.karloff.org
http://www.substatic.de
http://www.kompakt-net.com
https://www.beatport.com
http://www.sudelectronic.com
http://www.runsounds.com
http://www.deepmix.ru
http://www.textone.org
http://www.minlove.net
http://www.mosferry.de
http://www.rrygular.com
http://futuredub.com
http://www.contexterriorbookings.com
|
|
|
|
|
