Music has always been around me. As a child, I remember I could spend hours browsing radio stations at home.

Rodriguez Jr. – Podcast Analogik – 01.2014

This is how I heard Kraftwerk, Depeche Mode or Jean Michel Jarre for the very first time – I am definitely an 80’s child.
I’d started taking piano lessons at the age of 6, and I eventually became fascinated with how one could produce sounds from outer space using electronic devices and computers. This is how it all began.
Years later, I produced my first tracks in my bedroom studio with a couple of synthesizers and an Atari computer.
Things became really serious when I realised that there was a chance I could fail at the university where I was studying Mathematics (at least I was trying to…).

At that time, I was gravitating in a network of musicians and artists in the South of France, and I was lucky enough to meet the right people. In the year 2000 I eventually got the opportunity to be signed for an album with The Youngsters – my former band – on Laurent Garnier’s imprint F-Communication, which was one of the biggest steps in my whole career.

What was one of your first musical inspirations? Did you have a group, performer or artist that was your favorite?

Jarre was the one who really changed my vision as a child with his blend of poetic electronic landscapes and melodies. I guess his influence is still very present in my music nowadays, as melodies are often at the core of my tracks. But it was also all about Kraftwerk, Tangerine Dream, Art of Noise, Depeche Mode. When dance music exploded in Europe in the 90‘s, I was the biggest fan of WARP Records: LFO, Aphex Twin, Boards of Canada… That was fucking insane.

Bittersweet is your first album? Tell us about some of the ideas and influences that went into the album and how making it differed from producing a single or a remix?

An album is a statement, since you have more space, freedom and possibilities to express yourself on a longer format. In my opinion, an album should be colourful, diverse and consistent at the same time.
On Bittersweet, I wanted to showcase a wide spectrum of influences – house music, techno, dub, pop, ambient… Before I began to record anything in the studio, I drew some kind of a storyboard on a sheet of paper, including the progression of the whole album and the different categories of sounds and textures.

Your release “Back To Back” on Mobilee. How did the project come up? And what was your approach to arranging the music?

Basically, Anja and Ralf asked me to do it! It was quite a big challenge to be in charge of it, after some nice editions and the big success of the previous one selected and mixed by Pan Pot, which included a video documentary about them. I knew I had to develop the concept and find a new way to push the label upfront. My original concept was about producing one hour of original music using loops, samples and sounds from the Mobilee in-house acts who had enough time to spend on this project – it would be like jamming all of it together. It’s been tough and challenging, as I had a lot of material to handle in a short period of time: only 4 months to produce the whole album. But in the end I am very proud of what all of us accomplished together!

What are your thoughts on the mainstreaming of the techno/minimal sound? What effect do you think this will have on the music?

Getting a wider audience shouldn’t be a shame. Some artists manage to be mainstream, while still being very consistent and inspiring: Bjork, Bowie… I mean, being ‘mainstream’ is not a shame if you manage to be honest with yourself and remember your roots. I obviously don’t talk about these DJs trowing cakes in the crowd here! But, all in all, it’s a good thing to have more people being attracted by this kind of music.

How did Laurent Garnier influence you, and what do The Youngsters mean to you?

Laurent Garnier has been a big influence since his first album ‘Shot In The Dark‘. I remember when I heard this album for the very first time – it has possibly been one of the reasons why I decided to produce this kind of music. Being involved in his label F-Communications has been a great experience.

Vinyl or CDs? What’s your preference?

I am still a vinyl fetishist and I have quite a big collection. But honestly, music is the most important, no matter which medium you use. I don’t mind playing with CDs, USB sticks or computers… That’s definitely a wrong debate.

There are a lot of trends in electronic music. What are your thoughts on some of these trends, for instance slowing down BPMs?

I’ve just listened to a live set I did in 1999 which was running at 141 BPM – that’s scary. I wouldn’t survive that today. Slowing down BPMs can have a positive influence on the groove.

What type of performance equipment and staging do you generally use, and how is it transported, set up and ultimately disassembled?

My setup is very compact, as it’s becoming more and more difficult to travel with equipment every day.
Furthermore, interacting a lot with a compact easy setup is much better than getting lost with loads of gadgets and shit.
I basically use a laptop computer running Ableton Live, a couple of controllers (Native Instruments Maschine and an iPad running TouchOSC with my own templates), plus a master keyboard which I am using more and more to play and improvise. Next year I might decide to travel with a second laptop running more synths and synchronised visuals.

What determines an individual as a live performer?

No idea! But you definitely have to enjoy playing your own music, and connect with different kind of crowds.

How did you connect with Mobilee and how would you describe your collaboration with Anja Schneider and Ralf Kollmann?

That’s an old friendship. I met Anja and Ralf more than 10 years ago when I got invited to Anja’s radio show ‘Dance Under The Blue Moon’ in Berlin. Ralf & Anja were already deeply involved on the German music scene, throwing parties and so. We have always been in touch since then. And they helped me a lot when I launched my solo project. Sometimes life brings the right people on your path. They have been awesome artistic advisers and I’m so proud to be part of Mobilee nowadays. It’s not only a label, but also a wonderful family. I am sure people could feel this unity during our several showcases.

Tell us something about RoofTop sessions in Hotel Diagonal. What’s the plan?

I guess it’s all about showcasing our music in some of our favourite arrangements: an open air rooftop, with a great sound system, amazing view, and the people we like. I love to hear my music in this kind of arrangement.

Your plans for 2014?

Basically, I am gonna keep on touring and working in the studio – I am currently recording new material for mobilee. And possibly a new album for 2015. It’s gonna be a busy year.

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How about we start off with a little background. Who all is behind the Pan-Pot project? How did you meet, and how did you start your career? 

• Thomas: We are Tassilo Ippenberger and Thomas Benedix. 2003 we met at the SAE (School of Audio Engineering) in Berlin, where both of us were the only ones who liked Techno music. This is how we started to get to know each other make music together.
• Tassilo: The starting point was when we booked Anja Schneider to one of our events in and shortly after in 2005 mobilee released our “Popy & Caste” EP.

How conscious was your shift in musical development? Speaking of the gradual change over the years from Berlin’s ever-present House and minimal techno to the tech house sound of today. Was that an organic development or did you sit down and decide to change at some point?

•  Tassilo: No that just happened. Everybody develops his style and skills right? For us there was never anything planed or a fix decision. When we think about music we just produce what we like.
• Thomas: …and we still are into Techno and are developing those sounds.

Did you have much in the way of help starting your careers? Did you have mentors or anyone to take you under their wing, or did you claw your way up from scratch?

• Tassilo: Mobilee was a big help in developing our career simply because they always supported us and gave us a great platform with the label. It was also the first booking agency that started to get us proper gigs.

You travel fairly often because of your career, correct? What are some of the more interesting places you’ve been to so far? Tell us some of your fun travel anecdotes.

• Thomas: It gets more and more traveling but we love to go to other countries! The mobilee rooftop events at Sonar in Barcelona always stick out as we have all of our friends around and a great time. Once in Hololulu we played on a sailboat party for 50 people and the shuttle boat, that was meant to bring us back to the island broke down and everybody was quite wasted so my brother and myself had to sail back ourselves to the harbor with 4 meters high waves.
• Tassilo: and in Gent girls started to throw their bras and thongs onto the stage and Thomas took one and wore it while DJing. We were young.

Fans are pretty much always curious what type of music their favorite artists enjoy. What are some of your favorite tracks or artists?

• Tassilo: I grew up with Hip-Hop but it luckily changed to Techno when I went to my first Rave. but I like all kinds of music.
• Thomas: same here. There is too much good music out there to be limited to one style but my heart beats for Techno and Tech-House.

Producing for Mobilee has allowed you to work with many different artists. Would you say that their influence has changed your sound in any way? How, if so?

• Tassilo: well, every influence changes our sound, not only other artists we work with. It can be nature, traveling and other cities, sad or happy moments and special clubs which influences what we do. But there is always this specific Pan-Pot style we want to keep and like to carry through.

Tell us about Slam. What was it like working together, and what’s your friendship like?

• Thomas: Slam and us met when we all were picked up from the airport in a tiny car and went on for a long drive. We had a lot of fun and it was a great honor that we were the ones to remix Lifetimes, one of my all time favorite tracks!
• Tassilo: And the whole Soma crew is great. They often ask us to play at their parties in Scotland and we invited Slam to Berlin. We will play quite a few gigs in Germany together too this year I think.

Walk us through building a track. What’s it look like?

• Tassilo: We use Logic and arrange our tracks all way through. There is no fix process though.

 How does your standard setup look like when you’re performing? What do you use, and how do you set it all up?

• Thomas: Right now we use Traktor, several X1 controller and the Korg Electribe app with an iPad. We like to combine live elements with a proper DJ set and this setup gives us all the possibilities to do this.

 Which of your records is currently the most played?

• Thomas: you mean in our sets? We play the new ones of course but also love to dig out the older ones and integrate them. And within some sets it is always exciting to test new things, which we currently work on but which have not been released.

 How were your SONAR experiences? Can you tell us a bit about them?

• Tassilo: the first time we played was at a beach party and we were afraid because we played much harder than the DJs before us. But the people loved it and we only got great feedbacks so that was a great start.
• Thomas: its always a lot of fun to meet all of our friends and party with them, especially at the Mobilee roof top party of course. We always stay there for some days and check out Barcelona and other great parties.

We can see that after the success of “Captain my Captain” you’ve gone ahead with the collaboration with Cari Golden. So what can you tell us about your new single, “The Gravity”?

• Tassilo: Correct,its Cari’s voice on “No Body Knows”, its the second track on our Gravity EP. We wanted to do something little less Techno with her so thats the result. And Gravity is the first track, pure Pan-Pot sound and some nice voice by G-Tech. Safeword did two amazing remixes for this one.

About Pan-Pot – The Documentary. What can you tell us about Sebastian Radlmeier’s film?

• Thomas: each year mobilee release the back to back compilation series where every artist does something special. Now that is was our turn to mix it and because we always have our cam with us when we are on the road the ideas came up to include a DVD.
• Tassilo: Sebastian started to follow up around and collect amazing footage, not only from us touring but also from where we grew up, went to sound engineering school, etc. It gives people a little insight into our lives and shows who we are and what we do. We haven’t seen the documentary ourselves until it was finished and are very happy with the result!

We have to ask. Do you prefer vinyls or CDs, and why?

• Thomas: We use Traktor and X1 controllers to be flexible and integrate live-elements but actually in our technical rider we also ask for turntables because sometimes we also bring vinyls.

We asked before about the music you like to listen to, but much of the time artists like to mix different types of music together. What music do you listen to outside of electronic? Who are your favorite out of genre artists?

• Thomas: right now Solar Quest and film music for me.
• Tassilo: I like classical music a lot right now when traveling and Alternative when working out.

How about if you tell us a secret? Something you’ve never let out before.

• Tassilo: then it would not be a secret anymore right?
• Thomas: there are some secrets at the end of our DVD.

Pan-Pot Back to Back Mix – 16 min teaser

Pan-Pot BerMuDa Special Radio Fritz 05.11.2011

Article by Anna Kec

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