We talk to Henrik Schwarz about his live show, collaborations and technology in the 1st part of 2 interviews with the artist ahead of his visit at Jaeger.
“I’m happy you didn’t ask – like everybody else – about the (decline) of electronic music;” says Henrik Schwarz through a wry giggle at the end of our conversation. “It’s in decline?” I ask, thinking that if there was ever a case for the prevalence and continued significance of electronic music, Henrik Schwarz would embody that.
We always make the case that electronic music, and specifically Techno, is the continued development of music technology with a view of the future of music and in his thirty year long career, Henrik Schwarz has been a fervent protractor of that original ethos.
Since even before releasing his first records back in 2002 for Moodmusic, he’s always been on the cusp of new technology and developments in music. He’s been channeling those elements into a distinctive sound he’s cultivated on some classic records for the likes of Innervisions and !K7 and a live performance that stands out as one of the best in the scene.
An early adopter of computer technology in music, Henrik Schwarz uses the tool as an instrument like few others can; a true extension of the artistic persona behind the music. He’s constantly developing and pushing the boundaries of his instrument and whether he is playing at a club or occupied in his many other projects extending beyond electronic music, he has become a singular artist in his field.
He’s worked with some of the most hallowed music institutions in the world and in his efforts to continue learning, and has crossed over where few would attempt today. From his work with Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw orchestra to his frequent collaborations with Oslo’s virtuoso, Bugge Wesseltoft, there is no musical dimension left uncharted in his musical scope.
Henrik Schwarz is one of electronic music’s most celebrated artists today, and whether solo or collaborating with others, he remains a constant intrigue in whatever he approaches. He comes to Jaeger this Friday for a live show in the basement and last week we called him up for a quick chat that stretched to an hour long conversation.
Starting with his collaborations with Bugge to his history with music, there was just too much to leave out, so we decided to include it all and split it up across two parts. Here is part 1.
You are coming to Oslo to play Jaeger, but I’ve heard you’re also taking the time to do something new with Bugge Wesseltoft while you are here.
Yes, it will be great to see Bugge again in his natural habitat. We’ve been working together for a really long time.
It started in 2011 I believe, when Duo came out. Was that the first time you two worked together?
Yes, it must be. We just had our 15th anniversary. I remember when I came to his studio for the first time, I was super impressed. There has always been a very strong connection between the two of us, and I still have a feeling that we will come up with ideas for the next 20 years to come. It feels very natural.
When you and Bugge get together, do you have an improvised jam to see where it takes you or do you usually have a concrete plan before you start?
For a long time, we played shows and part of the programme was usually two or three songs that we completely improvised. Sometimes we found a loop, a sound or a melody that we really liked and sometimes we even took the recording from stage, and made a record out of it. Very often this improvisation was the start for us. Much of the early stuff was made like that.
During the pandemic however, because we couldn’t do that, we were working with Zoom and that was very new to us. Duo II was made like that over video conference, and it worked because it was much more conceptual in a way.
Were you playing things over Zoom in real time or sending each other things remotely?
The real-time thing didn’t work. It’s a physical thing, so you need to be in the same room to really play together. It’s not only the music you’re listening to, it’s also the physical presence of someone. You need to look into someone’s eyes to see if there’s an agreement or see where we are going; a non-verbal communication in a way. That didn’t work with Zoom.
Is that the same process for working with other people too including your legendary collaborations with orchestras and institutions like Concertgebouw?
Not at all. It’s already difficult when it’s more than two people. The improvised thing only works with one, maybe two more partners and not more. The orchestra stuff, you really have to think about what you do, write it down and make it clear. The clearer you are, the better the results.
What was it like for the trialogue record with Bugge Wesseltoft and Dan Berglund; did you have to have that clear idea first?
Well, Dan is a genius. That was also interesting for me, because you have the two geniuses of Bugge and Dan, and if you bring them together, you have a thunderstorm of music going on. It was a delicate situation to find a place between those two with a laptop. Very often we had a musical frame or concept, with parameters and that worked.
I know you come from an informal musical education. How difficult, or easy, is it to convey what you have in mind in terms of music to these people who often have some kind of classical formal training?
With Bugge it’s simple because he is not trained. He’s a natural talent. That’s a very different experience from working with orchestras, which was very difficult. It was hard to communicate at first, because for me it was all by ear. For many years it sounded horrible and wrong. This was pre-internet, so it took me a long time to find out how all this stuff works.
But in a way I feel this is what I’ve been doing all the time; I learn. Over all those years working with great people, I had to improve to communicate with them. The first album I did with an orchestra I had no clue about music theory. I had to learn, because if you want to make it properly then I need to know much more. I spent many years learning theory.
What encouraged you to start working with orchestras and in that theoretical domain?
I thought this could be fun, but then I realised it’s also a lot of work. I think it’s this learning thing. That’s the appeal; it’s something I don’t know. This is why I did it.
Can you transcribe notation or sight read at this point?
Writing and reading is very slow for me, but I can do it. It’s more about the harmonic concepts; harmony I find super interesting.
Do you think it had an impact on the music you would make after that, specifically the things for the dance floor and your live sets?
Oh, absolutely. When I started learning theory, I felt my own music was getting worse, because it lost the complexity in a way. I just learnt minor and major chords and I started using them, but at some point I realised, it’s not enough. You need much more than that, to get back to that innocent perspective I had on music for many years. If you just follow your ear and not the theory you’re completely free.
Did the music become more complicated as a result?
This is something I can’t say. When people tell me something about my music, I can’t see that, because I’m in the middle of it. I might be more aware of it. I guess it has changed my music.
It’s funny you should use that phrase (in the middle of it), because when we talked to Frank Wiedemann (Âme), he used that exact same phrase to discuss his relationship to his own music. Another thing he said was that you are the person he still looks up to as a live performer. Why do you think your live show resonates with so many today?
Well, that’s super nice of Frank. It’s also the other way around. It’s interesting because we both do things differently, but it’s always nice to look over the other’s shoulder.
I don’t know what it is, but I am trying to push the performance aspect of it. I really want to play as if the laptop is a piano or a guitar. It’s a musical expression, dynamic and dramatic. The machines develop, the software develops and I work on the system every day to make it more reactive. Sometimes it’s just a tiny detail, but when it works, I have so many possibilities to express something.
It obviously works on the dance floor. Is it more limited than DJing, because it has to have more of a pre-ordained structure before you take it out?
No, actually not. The more possibilities I have in playing, the less pre-programmed something needs to be. Everything I have ever done is available in my live set at any time. I’m working hard to be able to call all those things in less than half a second. There are a lot of possibilities; I can switch from super soft to the hardest Techno.
There’s communication between the dance floor and myself, and it can go very quickly, so this reactive thing, I’m obsessed with it.
Is it technology-driven or is it your process using the technology that is behind this evolution?
I would say it’s constantly changing. I started trying to play live with a laptop before Ableton. That was very difficult, because the software was crashing all the time. When this new software came out it was a revelation, but since then it has constantly developed. Whenever there was a new piece of software or hardware I would try it out, and see if I could use it in any good way. It’s like I’m enhancing my instrument all the time.
For me, technology development has been a constant source of inspiration. I was raised with Detroit Techno, and for me electronic music has always been a music that dealt with an optimistic view of the future. This has always been my perspective; I’ve always been very positive about new technology.
…to be continued