Interview: Traumschallplatten’s Michel Cleis

Interview: Traumschallplatten’s Michel Cleis

26 September, 2008 | 8.38PM

• Written by: freshair
• Filed under: Videos: michel cleis, my best friend, traumschallplatten

Traumschallplatten has a number a different labels to cater for the different sounds within electronic dance music, with one of those labels being My Best Friend (MBF) on which Michel Cleis’ ‘Dixie on Monday’ was recently released.

Michel’s new to MBF and we wanted to know a little bit more about the guy behind the sounds.

Here’s an interview (questions by Riley Reinhold) with Michel, plus a video for one of his tracks on the release, ‘Deconstructed’.

What does ‘Dixie on Monday’ stand for? Is it Dixieland related?

Yes, my earliest memories of music were produced by the New Orleans band my father formed with some friends and I was struck by the sheer force of the generous and ultra festive sound.

I started to work on this track on Monday and that day was apparently a souvenir day.

You released on American labels in the past. On which labels did you release and why did you go there - did you live there?

I just released a remix and an electro pop rock track on a compilation for the N.Y. label Plant Music.

I met the label boss Dominique Keegan, in Paris.

Where do you originally come from?

I come from the Italian part of Switzerland, near Lugano and not far from Milano.

You have lived in Berlin and Barcelona. What was interesting about these cities at the time you were there and how do you think this influenced your music? How is the city you currently live in influencing the music you write?

Yes I lived in Berlin and Barcelona, I was a student and fascinated and interrogative about the differences you could find between Northern and Southern culture. 

I was the Swiss guy who wanted to know about living in big cities.

At this time I was collecting vinyl, and in Berlin and Barcelona I discovered sound material just waiting to be sampled.

When I went back to Switzerland I had an accident which stopped me for one year, then I bought a sampler and started to do music with two friends.

Lausanne, my actual living place, is very quiet and this has an influence on my feelings and on my work.

Your two tracks on MBF are fuelled with an intricate special way of programming beats. What gives you the inspiration for programming beats the way you do it?

I like to play analogue and digital sounds. I often use samples to warm up my music.

Sometimes I record patterns during a few minutes and then I listen and edit what seems cool to me.

You can have some great surprises and the patterns can follow in unsuspected ways.

I grew up listening to soul, rock, a lot of jazz and free jazz. In that style of music you have a theme and around it the musicians build their trips and colours.

I just try to work a beat-bass groove and to build my trip around it, but it would be pretentious to compare my music to jazz.

We feel the way you program beats gives a special groove and the feeling to the tracks are dark but also sensual. What does a track have to be like, after you have finished it? What needs to be in it so you can say it is a Michel Cleis track?

Hehehe…Everytime I’ve finished a track I’m totally bored with it and I wish it would be different.

Most of the time the version is not definitive. The arrangement is very important, details too, but first it must shake!

In which subcultural context do you see yourself in Switzlerland now? What is interesting, clubs? People? What is your motivation to play records today?

I like very much the Drumpoets community. Shaky deep house is coming back.

Otherwise if we consider Cadenza a Swiss label, I’m in it to promote the music I love and overall to have a lot of pleasure!

Pleasure is the word and it’s my only motivation in all of what I do.

With whom are you working on a regular basis, event wise etc.?

I sometimes collaborate with E. Borgo and S. Freda. Recently with Luciano we mixed one of my tracks, heh heh. His studio in Geneva is just a real one.

When did you record on Cadenza, and how did this come about?

I met Luciano trough his ex-agent Aminata Kaba.

I gave him some tracks, he liked them and then I started a collaboration with the label.

From what you said in the past I remember you were involved in producing different music. What are you involved in at the moment?

At the moment, as I started to work with Cadenza and MBF, and I probably will work with two other labels.

I don’t have any time left to continue to work on electro pop projects; I will see in the future.

Technically your tracks have heavy riffs and sounds to them. Do you play instruments? In a jazz band, maybe?

I had piano lessons for four years when I was fourteen and at the same time I started DJing one Sunday afternoon a month in a room under the primary school of Cureglia (my village). 

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With thanks to Michel Cleis and Riley Reinhold.

‘Dixie on Monday’ by Michel Cleis was released on 15.09.2008 on My Best Friend.

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