ANSATZ DER MASCHINE - indietronica with sax from Belgium

After their great performances in Mochvara, Zagreb, Croatia and Pekarna, Maribor, Slovenia, here they are talking about stuff... Where are you now and what are you doing?

Right now, we are taking some days off and are relaxing! Because we're just back from our first Europe tour that was amazing but also very exhausting!

What does Ansatz der Maschine means?

It's something that "Karl Marx" said concerning the industrial revolution. He wanted to prove that mankind would become a slave of the machines and they would not be able anymore to control their own live! So, in fact we make music with a whole bunch of electronic machines. We are the slaves of the machines….. but, we are using all this machines for making our emotions clear to the audience. We use the machines to tell our story.

A brief history of how the band started?

In its actual occupation, we exist for one year and a half now, but we all know each other from other bands before.

In fact ansatz der maschine was founded 6 years ago to make some music for an art festival in Belgium, after that we didn't make any music for 2 years, but then our Spanish friends of the postrock band "Henry" asked us to support them on their Belgium tour, so we made some new music and also recorded our first EP (called "hide for the beast"), With this EP ,we won an electronic music contest in Belgium and got a lot of media attention.

After touring in Belgium with this EP, we spend a year in silence to work on our debut album (called: The postman is a girl). With this album we played a lot of shows in Belgium, France and Netherlands with bands like, Do make say think, Bonobo, The album leaf, Mono,…..

Tell us something about your music?

Some people say, we make "indietronica". But I think, it' better to say that we make electro-acoustic music, because we use a lot of acoustic sounds of everyday. Examples are: doors who make noise, flushing toilets, pieces of iron, saliva,…. We are manipulating this sounds to make click 'n cut beats, but we also use a lot of synths, saxophones, violin, voices, to add melody. Who were your influences at the start?

Squarepusher is one of my biggest heroes, but also bands like Sigur ros, Lamb, Boards of Canada, Bogdan Raczinsky, the classical composer Arvo Pärt,…. They are all great!

But I also try to listen to music that has very little to do with the music we make, like flamenco and mariachi or traditional ethnic music from Azerbeidjan……

Can you please write your favourite albums and movies of 2007?

Hard to say :), because I'm not so good in remembering titles,…. But, for me the animation movie "persepolis" left a big impression on me, I'm a huge fan of animation movies.

Concerning music, for me, the Norwegian Hanne Hukkelbergh and animal collective (cd" strawberry jam") were a discovery; for sure you have to check them out!

Tell us something about music scene in Belgium. We know about dEUS, ZITA SWOON but I'm sure there are some other great bands.

I think in Belgium, almost everybody plays guitar :)! There are like really a lot bands and also a lot of good bands who play underground music.

A great band from our hometown (and maybe you will know them because they even released a cd on moonlee records) is "Hitch", They play emo-core and live they are really an experience!! Also "Wixel" is really great, this is a guy from Brussels who makes Indietronica in his bedroom.

What do you listen when you're at home, on tour, right now…?

Right now, I'm listening to classical music,…. I always do this when I have a hangover :)

At home I often listen to Battles, also the American band "soulcoughing". I like bands who make a weird mix of electronic and acoustic sounds! Tell me something I would never guess about you?

Hmmm, let me think….. that I 'm a secret fan of the eighties band Europe and their hit "the final countdown". I become very emotional when I hear that song, man :)

Is there something that you would like to bespeak to audience in Zagreb?

Our concert in Mochvara club was the greatest gig we played on tour! It's nice to have such a club in town! Also the city is lovely, we were thinking to come back on holiday, so maybe see you soon!

pedja // 21/02/2008