Extrawelt Interview

German duo Extrawelt play a live set for Sabajaq this Saturday 23rd, joining a line-up packed full of techno and house stars including Ambivalent, Dinamo Azari (from Azari & III), new Sabajaq resident Just Her, Agent!, Photonz and many more.

First making a name for themselves with 2005's 'Soopertrack' on James Holden's Border Community label, the pair - Arne Schaffhausen and Wayan Raabe - have gone on to become a regulars on Sven Vath's Cocoon Recordings, as well as Darkroom Dubs and Traum Schallplatten.

Playing a techno sound that can move from dark and dirty, driven by wall of sound bass, to hypnotically melodic, we spoke to Arne to find out more of what to expect.

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Can you tell us a little of what your live set-up involves? Is it your preferred method of playing now rather than DJing, which is how you started out in the '90s?

“It’s a hybrid set up of analogue and digital stuff, which gives us a lot of possibilities. What exactly we do on a certain track depends on the track itself and how it can benefit. We prepare each track individually and try to improve it, vary it from its original recording or just mess around with its parts. Occasionally I do play DJ-sets and still enjoy it a lot too, it is just a very different thing.”

You're tracks often have a trippy, melodic edge, which you could call trancey. Does it feel like trance has come around again? It became dirty word in the new Millennium, but in the early '90s it was played by everyone from Carl Cox to Sven Vath.

“Trippy sounds better to me than trancey, but it actually doesn’t really matter to us. What sounds cheap to me might sound overwhelmingly nice to somebody else. The borders are fluently and often good stuff happens between those blurry lines of definition. For example, we use to say that we don’t like stereotype house music, but I guess there are plenty of tracks we like that other people would define as house music and it’s the same with trance. The early '90s were great for electronic music in all its facets and had a lot of freedom. I guess all of the early blueprints have a sort of come back from time to time and then get a make over in the newer developments of sound.”

Your website gives a detailed description of your past. How important were Delirium and Container Records? Are those stores still there or did they go the way of many record shops? Have you joined in the resurgence of buying vinyl again today?

“These were the only places to go back then if you want the real stuff. They were very important for us in many ways, it was the entrance to the background of this music; each corner, each box and even each employee represented a different style. I still remember how lost I was on my first visits and how difficult it was to find those tracks I wanted without knowing the names, labels and definition of styles. There was no other choice than to dig in and luckily discover plenty of unheard stuff on the way to what I originally intended to buy. There was a clear hierarchy that the famous deejays get all the rare copies of the newest and most sought-after records, which we found pretty unfair, but I guess it made us even more ambitious. Also, it was the only place where you could get some insights and maybe have a talk with people from the 'source', renowned deejays, or just get some information or flyers for the next party. And well, that’s where we met and got to know each other a bit. Unfortunately both shops have been closed for some years already but there are a few good ones that continue their legacy like Smallville and Otaku. I actually never stopped buying vinyl and have a serious space problem due to having thousands of them.”

Were you originally going to release a record as Die Drei von der Schnittstelle? What does that mean? And why did the label end up suing the pressing plant so that it was never released?

“Ha ha ha... The translation would be 'The Three Guys From The Cutting Point' I guess, it doesn’t really work in English. In German it makes more sense as cutting point and interface is the same word. The pressing plant fucked it up. The label tried to get a new pressing and as they didn’t come to an agreement the money was lost and so the label sadly died before its first release. In the aftermath, we're not really sad anymore that those tracks weren’t released as they were the first three tracks we ever made and nothing to be proud of. I am still a bit sad though that the artwork wasn’t released as it was my own.”

Your next moniker was Spirallianz. Is it important for you to have German names, rather than anglicised ones like many other acts do? It's very much in the spirit of Kraftwerk.

“As English is not our native language it’s always pretty tricky to use English names. We do it for tracks sometimes, but I’m pretty sure some of them don’t make sense at all or even have a dubious meaning in English. In German, unlike in English, many words can be made up of two single words and I often make lists with single words that I like and try to glue them together in a new way that makes sense too. Spirallianz was only created because back then the label Spirit Zone wanted to sign us exclusively and preferably as Spiralkinda, but that was actually a DJ-Team consisting of my fella Marco Schmedding and me. As a compromise we came up with the name Spirallianz (Spiral Alliance) for Wayan and me on Spirit Zone, and we used Midimiliz for every other release.”

It's now over ten years ago since James Holden signed 'Soopertrack' to Border Community. How much significance did that release have? Can you remember how quickly things changed for you?

“This release has all the significance there is for Extrawelt, simply because we spontaneously changed the project name to Extrawelt. The demo was still sent as Midimiliz. It was the perfect time and place for these tracks and it went better then we could ever imagine. We suddenly got a different kind of attention from DJs and mags, which felt nice, but after that not much happened at first. It was more the year after when 'Fernweh', '8000' and then 'Titelheld' came out that everything grew and our gigs as Extrawelt increased."

Can you tell us what is on your release horizon for the year?

“We are currently collecting and stashing away tracks and ideas to prepare the next album. In the meantime, Traum Schallplatten will release an Extrawelt remix for 'Mario Hammer And The Lonely Robot', scheduled for June, and we are still waiting for the long overdue release of the 'Breaking Bricks' EP on Halo Cyan, with remixes by Ulrich Schnauss, Vril and Joey Beltram."

What do you always want extra of?

“Extra subs are always very welcome.”

Photo: Sebastian Magnani