Catching Up with Tobias About Sieg Uber Die Sonne

Currently Tobias Fruend is best known in the club world simply as Tobias. Part of Ostgut team he plays at the infamous Berlin venue of Panorama Bar and can mainly be found in the mastering studio but he began his musical career releasing as Pink Iln, mixing electro funk beats in an ambient murk of acid tones, which saw releases on Heiko MSO’s Ongaku imprint. It was in 1989 that he joined up with Martin Shompf, best known under his Dandy Jack moniker, to form Sieg Uber Die Sonne though; and styled as an electronic pop group, SUDS is best described a project that reached between the worlds of cerebral electronica and house and techno. Echoing the eclecticism of Lee Burridge and Craig Richards Tyrant soon saw SUDS go onto release on their label - as well as beginning their relationship with our musical director at quite an early juncture in our own story. In regards to the story of SUDS appearing this Saturday for our 10 Years of Ricardo Villalobos @ fabric celebrations, the link first came through Shompf’s Chilean heritage and a live show in the northern reaches of the country. Both Freund and Shompf went onto work with Villalobos in side projects Ricky Y Martin and Odd Machine not forgetting the Chileans’ membership of the shifting live super group Narod Niki. Over a decade long career SUDS released four albums for Dance Pool and Multicolour but put the project on hiatus to focus on other projects. This year, their live reformation, which was sparked by a remix request, has been timed well for the super special event here in Farringdon this Saturday. Ahead of their first London date in over 5 years, we spoke to Tobias Freund to catch up on his past activities and how we can look forward to enjoying SUDS again over the coming year. STREAM: Sieg Uber Die Sonne – Live at Panorama Bar April 2012 I understand you’re very busy at the moment in the studio? What is it you’re working on at the moment? Due to my profession as a sound engineer I am recently doing a lot of mix downs helping out people to get a better sound for their productions. I just finished a job and will start an album mix for a friend next week. Are you spending a lot of time on Sieg Uber die Sonne now you’ve started up the project again? Actually, no. Martin my partner lives near Geneva I live in Berlin, it's quite hard for me to work apart. Alex from Connoisseur recordings approached to me with the request of a süds remix, I started working on that and sent it over to martin, the pieces I received from him in return were so nice that I thought it can be possible and even fun to work again on some new Süds stuff in the future even if we are not together in the same room. You’ve got a long history with the club, and Sieg Uber die Sonne have released on Craig Richard’s Tyrant imprint – how did you first come to know Craig was it purely playing at the club? I can't really recall but Craig was a fan of our productions especially the song "hot" that was released later on Tyrant with a remix of him and Lee Burridge. I met Craig the first time in fabric when we had our first gig, he helped us a lot playing there quite constantly. Have you been working on new material – did some of this get aired in your Panoramabar set earlier this year? We didn't work on new stuff yet, the remix for Connoisseur was the only material we worked on. For the gig in Panoramabar Martin and I met in my studio to rehearse the concert or just to collect material that we both developed through our solo live gigs. The gig in fabric will be a mix out of older bits and pieces combined with new elements. Sieg über die Sonne - Gone (Feat. Jorge González) Looking around at write ups of Sieg uber die Sonne online you’re mainly described as an electronic pop outfit, how much were you involved in positioning Sieg Uber die Sonne that way? If you agree in what sense did you feel you were ‘pop’? We always liked pop, electro pop in fact. we liked melodies and verse / refrain structures in our songs, I am not afraid of the label "pop". On our third album we event went a step further and invited our friend Jorge Gonzalez to sing. Your first UK performance as Sieg Uber die Sonne since you reformed will be for our celebration for 10 years of Ricardo Villalobos - Can you tell us about how you came to know him too? Through the Chilean roots of Martin I got to know lots of his friends, I’ve known Ricardo since 1994, we met on a trip to Arica in the north of Chile were we played a Süds gig. I also met Luciano and lots of other Chilean friends at that time, so I am especially happy to play at the 10 years celebration together with him. Have you collaborated with him yourself? Yes, I worked together with Ricardo on a project called "Odd Machine" that I released on my label non standard productions in 2007, Odd Machine is an open ended collaboration with me and different friends of mine. Odd Machine - Phase Out What does Ricardo Villalobos mean to you as an artist and musician, how would you say he has inspired you and what do you enjoy most about his music and DJing? Well in the first place I consider him as a friend. I like his freaky need in electronic gear. He has a very special way to approach music, very controversial and inspiring for my own productions. Do you have plans to take Sieg Uber die Sonne further next year with an album or live show? What else do you have coming up? Apart of getting started on some new süds output I am working on a new release of my solo Tobias. project as well on a new album for nsi. together with my friend Max Loderbauer. Tobias. will be performing with Dandy Jack (Martin Shompf) this Saturday in Room One as Sieg Uber Die Sonne as party of 10 Years of Ricardo Villalobos in Room One. For more info and tickets go here.