Catching Up With... Tiefschwarz

Following the sonic onslaught of their Room One takeover last October, Souvenir label brothers Tiefschwarz are back to shake up its foundations once more this Saturday night. As bastions in deep, raw house and techno, Ali and Basti Schwarz drive plenty of innovation into their sets, steeped in atmosphere and excitement from the opening five minutes warming the floor to the closing hour alive in full swing. We’re celebrating the rising success of their Souvenir label on Saturday as they invite integral artists and label friends, Re.You & Rampa (LIVE) and Meat whose recent releases on Souvenir have been causing serious dancefloor damage and you can hear why in our catch up with Tiefschwarz below. We also spoke to the busy brothers to get all other news on Souvenir including their new EP out in July, a new album for 2013 and a summer sampler- the second compilation on Souvenir bringing five brand new artists into the spotlight. On an audio tip, we’ve been taking ourselves back to fabric29: Tiefschwarz - a treasure in our CD collection, filled with good time memories lifting our spirits through to Saturday. We’re looking forward to having you back in Room One this Saturday. You’ve played for us in the main room a number of times, how do you make each return different from before? Has there been a most memorable night to date? Yeah! It’s a big pleasure for us to be back so soon. It’s always special so it’s hard to pick one night in particular, most of the time we’re playing the last set of the night so all of our friends and the staff join us in the booth to party till the very end. You’ll be joining Re.You & Rampa (LIVE) & Meat who both have recent releases on Souvenir. Tell us about what they’re bringing to the label? It’s so nice to see our little Souvenir family growing. Re.You is such an amazing talent - every release (and he works a lot!) sounds fresh and surprising and together with his buddy Rampa (who’s also part of the Keinemusik crew) they are celebrating one great live show after the other right now. You guys will love it. Meat (Carsten) usually plays alongside Chris Wood (who unfortunately couldn’t make it this time) and together they run Frankfurt’s famous Freebase record shop and they’re also a great couple in the studio. As Chris Wood + Meat they’ve released two records on Souvenir – ‘Triple S’ and ‘JR Junior’ - both releases caused massive damage on dancefloors all over the world. How is fabric29 still special to you? It was, and still is a massive honor to have been part of this world famous compilation series. To be honest we haven’t listened to it in quite a while - so actually it’s the perfect moment to check it out again before we come and play. The next single on Souvenir is a remix pack from Ruede Hagelstein off his electro indie album of last year 'Soft Pack' with his band The Noblettes. Tell us how you hooked up with Hagelstein and the different sound/ideas he delivers to the label? Ruede Hagelstein is definitely a special gem in the family - we love his music and wide range of styles – he’s always got tricks up his sleeve. We fell in love with his album right away and we can’t wait to hear more from him soon - he started with his new album already so there is much more to come from Mr. Hagelstein. What about your own releases/remixes coming out this year? We just released two remixes (found out) on Noir Music. A remix for Terranova (boogie for the dollar) on Kompakt will be coming soon. We’re finishing our new single this week - it will be released on Souvenir in July. Besides that we’re working on a second single already and we’re prepping layouts of tracks for our new album in 2013 - so a lot of stuff to do - it’s not getting boring over here. We heard Souvenir is presenting a special summer sampler bringing 5 young producers into light. Can you tell us more? The sampler will be called ‘In The City 2’ - the second compilation on Souvenir - Kasbah Zoo from Italy, Emmanuel Satie from Frankfurt, Sierra Sam from Belgium (he lives in Berlin now), Denis Horvat from Copenhagen and Theodoris Triantafillou & CJ Jeff Feat. Jessica 6 from Athens are the 5 artists on it - Europe in the house! It’s a fantastic selection of 8 fresh new tracks – you’ll be surprised. So we’re welcoming four new artists into our Souvenir family - CJ Jeff and his partner have already released on Souvenir. Living in Berlin, are you constantly discovering new talent or is it more complicated than that. How does it work? The internet helps a lot - so we get most of the tracks sent through by email but sometimes people come up to us at a party and give us their demos directly - to be honest I really like it like that - it’s always nice to see a face behind the music. Berlin is a big creative melting pot so of course you meet tons of people when you go out - and once in a while we’re lucky and somebody hands over the perfect new track. What’s new on Souvenirplus? What was the decision to bring in a digital only label and how do you stand by it today? Souvenirplus is a digital platform - like this we’re more flexible and it helps us to release tracks quicker and easier - it’s also the platform for new talents we discover. In Berlin, where do you like to go to get away from it all? I did a hiking trip with a friend last year - we walked with our backpacks from my house all the way from Berlin up north to the Baltic Sea - 10 days through beautiful and sometimes bizarre East Germany - it was an amazing trip and a great experience. It was quite exhausting but at least it relaxed my mind big time. I love to be outside of Berlin in the nearby countryside in general - there are beautiful little organic farms and stuff - perfect spots to spend a few days relaxing away from all the DJ craziness. If you had to pick one album only to save in your collection what would it be? Grizzly Bear - Veckatimest – Warp