Jens Loden Interview

Jens Loden Interview

26 September, 2007 | 5.18AM

• Section: Music News
• Written by: nitzan

A man of many faces and even more musical outputs, Jens works are unique, sophisticated and challenging.

Not one to be easily pigeon holed, Jens is expected to release an album on Fine Art in the coming year as well as highly acclaimed 12s.

Your background is very different to the average dance producer. Can you hear it in the way you produce and arrange your music?

Probably but I’m really not sure how.

I think it’s for someone else to answer.

There are definitely elements of a lot of other things than only dance music in my producing, composing and playing.

But it’s impossible for me to listen objectively to my own music and since I really don’t know what the average dance producer is I can’t compare myself to it.

I have my own unique position, where I’m relating to club and dance music just through listening, reflecting and being in contact with other people in the business.

I have always strived to find my own angle on things and I’m pretty pleased with that.

I would say that the techno, club, trip-hop, electronica-sphere are just the musical place where I feel the most at home at, where I hear music that I love, and that suites me as a tool for expressing myself.

What was the shaping moment for you as a child when you realized the importance that music has for you?

When I was 4, I used to sit by the piano and started improvising.

Later on I played the piano in school performances.

I studied it from age six to about 13, and then I started playing bass and synth in bands with my friends.

I quit the more classically oriented piano playing then, and very soon the electric bass became my main instrument and my method of expression.

My influences in these early years were bass players such as Mark King (I spent hours every day for a couple of years learning practically all his Level-42 basslines).

Artists like Orbital, The Orb, Luke Vibert, Spacer, Jamie Odell , Portishead and Massive Attack. Gerald Veasley, who at the time played with Odean Pope Trio, is another important influence.

I studied and played jazz for two years at Skurups Folkhogskola in the south of Sweden, and that’s my only musical education, apart from some composition classes later on.

Just as important for my development was going to an art school for one year and being a sound engineer apprentice in a couple of studios.

In terms of shaping moments, there are some concerts that made a big impact on me: Prince and the Revolution - Parade tour 1986, Defunkt around 1988 I think, Zawinul Syndicate a couple of years later.

What are you main inspirations?

Art, film, TV, music, computer games.

I listen to my old vinyls too.

Most of Weather Report’s albums, Joni Mitchell, The Beatles, Miles Davis, Coltrane, some old techno 12’s, Prince albums and maxi singles from the 80’s, Defunkt.

But when I buy music nowadays it’s almost only from Internet download stores.

Now and then buy a cd but not very often.

I practically never go out on clubs, parties and stuff like that.

You have many musical outputs; you have released several 12’s and an album on Sonar Kollektiv under the Reunion moniker (with Mathias Landaeus), an own downtempo/electro-jazz-album on the Swedish jazz label Ajabu, and a 12” of minimal techno on Sunset Diskos. What triggered the exploration of the electronic sound?

Listening to techno in the early ‘90s, and feeling the need for more abstract but organized music.

I had been playing freeform jazz and other kinds of improvised music quite a lot but when listening to techno I really started to find that minimalist and repetitive music gives me as a listener more freedom to feel and think whatever I want.

1995-97 I had a hiatus from playing music.

When I started again it was with a very simple setup of an old mac, a midi-interface, a sampler and a DX7.

I felt no need for playing in a band and performing anymore, but was very interested in sound, programming and arranging.

I also had spent a lot of time painting and studying art and through that found kind of a new creative mode that I brought along into my continued musicianship.

Do you think that engaging in both creative processes has enriched your sound? Is it a two way process? i.e. do you use electronic techniques in jazz productions or is it only the other way around?

Working with different genres is definitely enriches the process, a necessity for me even.

I think that any producing technique could be used in any genre.

It’s all music, and almost everything I’m involved in is eclectic in some sense.

So, yes - it’s a two (or more) way process.

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