ANML MTHR.

In your biography, you describe Vienna and Berlin’s techno scenes of the ’90s as formative. Is there an evening or a sound from back then that you still think about when you’re at your machines?

Wow, there were so many nights I’ll never forget. But one evening has stayed with me more than any other. It was in May 1998 at Vienna’s Gasometer, when The Advent were still a duo and played their album New Beginning live. I was just 17, standing in that hall with a few thousand people. Up front were Cisco Ferreira and Colin McBean at their drum machines and samplers, and the sound they were making was just incredible.

I can still see it now. Cisco is tweaking his machines, Colin starts dancing at the front, and suddenly this huge roar goes through the crowd because Carl Cox emerges from the darkness into the strobe lights on stage. It was one of those moments you simply don’t forget. New Beginning is still one of my absolute favourite albums, by the way.

I think that was also one of the nights when I realised I wanted to do exactly that myself: stand on a stage with machines and play that sound live. It completely blew me away.

Vienna had an incredible scene in the ’90s anyway. Those parties in the old ÖBB railway halls, the Spiral Tribe parties – it was all completely mad. Several enormous halls stood side by side, each with a huge sound system, strobes everywhere and people dancing everywhere. At times it looked like an old Prodigy video, like No Good. Everything was loud, full of energy, ecstasy and a lot of love. You can hardly describe it properly now.

Berlin was a different story again. I went up a few times a year, usually for specific parties: the Fuckparade, hardcore and gabber nights, the afterparties on the Insel der Jugend or at the old Stellwerk. At Stellwerk, the U-Bahn rushed straight past the club. You’d be standing inside listening to music, and suddenly a train would pass right beside you outside. Completely mad, really.

Or that one acid party at the old bunker in Berlin-Mitte. We were standing there in our baggy trousers, and the bass was so brutal that everything on us was shaking: our trousers, our earlobes, everything. At times I felt as though I could barely breathe. It was incredible.

And, of course, the old Tresor. I’ll never forget nights with Lenny Dee or Manu le Malin. Back then, we’d take a taxi to the club, get out and just walk in. No enormous queues, no big performance. Just go in and listen to music. And it was loud, really loud. When the party ended, it was straight to the station and back home!

When I think back to it now, I still sometimes get goosebumps. They were simply incredible nights. And I think those experiences were what made me want to make music myself – especially that night with The Advent. I can still see the two of them at their machines, making that sound. It completely blew me away then, and somehow it still does.

Before ANML MTHR, you also made dubstep and hardcore. What from those different experiences is still present in how you approach bass and rhythm – perhaps somewhere we might not immediately expect?

Hardcore was really where I started. I still have an insanely large collection of old hardcore and gabber records at home, and I went to loads of hardcore and gabber parties in the ’90s and early 2000s. That sound had a huge influence on me.

What I always loved about hardcore was its brutality. I love distortion, that completely distorted sound: putting a 909 kick, hi-hats and other drums through distortion and suddenly everything sounds really dirty and powerful. I just love that.

Hardcore often felt to me as though a track would start and immediately hit this peak moment, which then stayed there the whole time. It’s hard to describe, but that’s exactly what I liked. Then there were those old synthesiser sounds, the acid lines and short vocal fragments that kept appearing in old hardcore tunes. I still love all of that.

Dubstep came along around 2009. My first proper dubstep party was a Deep Medi night at Berghain with Mala and other artists. It was an unbelievable evening: that bass, that sound system, the whole feeling. I didn’t really want to go home.

What still gets me about dubstep is that deep feeling of bass, and at the same time how little you actually need to make a track work. A massive bass, a simple beat and that one synthesiser sound that carries everything. Those old wobble basses always somehow reminded me of earlier music. Often it was just about one particular sound, a bit of a beat alongside it, and that was it. And I love the tempo around 140 BPM anyway.

What hardcore and dubstep also had in common for me was the scene itself. They were really tight-knit communities. People weren’t just wandering into those parties. They were there because they wanted to hear exactly that sound. And you could feel it.

I think quite a lot from both styles is still in my tracks today. From hardcore, that raw energy, distortion and directness. From dubstep, that deep bass feeling and the focus on individual sounds. But I don’t sit down and consciously try to put hardcore or dubstep elements into something. I simply love that rough, powerful sound. It has become so ingrained in me over the years that it now flows into my music automatically. It’s simply the sound I like listening to myself.

According to your biography, your tracks originate as continuous hardware recordings. Can you tell us about a take when something unplanned happened and afterwards you thought: that’s staying exactly as it is?

Basically, that’s how my tracks almost always come about. I go into the studio, switch on my machines and just start. Sometimes I’m working on patches on my modular system; sometimes I’m programming drums on my drum machines or samplers. Everything is generally connected and ready to play. I only have to press one button and it all runs. That’s really important to me, because I want to be able to use any of my devices at any time, without having to reconnect or set things up first.

Florian once said something to me that changed the way I work quite a lot. He said, “When you go into the studio, switch on your devices, press record and just record everything you do. Even if it’s three hours.” And that’s what I mostly do now.

I simply start recording and let myself drift, without knowing exactly what will come out of it. Sometimes that produces hours-long live jams in which I tweak sounds, bring in new elements, take others away and just see what happens.

Afterwards, I listen back and look for the moments that really grab me. Sometimes that’s just a few minutes from a three-hour session. Those are what I turn into a track. I cut out the best passages, try to give the whole thing a slightly better structure, perhaps remove a few elements or add others. But the actual idea always comes from that original jam.

That’s the beautiful thing about it. You never know in advance what’s going to happen. Sometimes you’re tweaking a sound, changing something, and suddenly you think: wow, that’s it! Those are exactly the moments I want to capture.

So I don’t even try to plan everything perfectly. What doesn’t fit gets thrown out. What’s good stays. Then I simply see what comes of it. That’s how I enjoy making music most.