Sandburgen

Interview

Musical Style

My style has its roots in the Minimal and Detroit Techno of the 1990s. Influences from deep Retro Electro, mournful Indie music and of course everything that I listen to on Audiotool have created the style you know me for. Artists like Dominik Eulberg, Stimming and Extrawelt and many more have been producing more melancholic dance music for some time now. So Sandy style is not really my invention. The outstanding soundtrack of the movie 'Drive' motivated me some years ago to dip into the darker 80s influenced Electro Pop. This was the foundation for Cripta's and my collaboration project 'Sandcripten' which is still one of my favorites.

Musical Background

Kids Drum Set - Skip - Recorder - Skip - Classical guitar - Skip - Bassguitar in the band of the Music School of my hometown - Skip - Drums in some Post Punk and New Wave Bands - Skip - And then finally the 90ies: After a few years as a guest at diverse raves and club parties it was just a matter of time till I wanted to take an active part in the Techno thing. So I started buying records - mainly crappy mainstream Trance anthems. The first DJ gig followed soon. And that although I didn't actually have the faintest idea what it was all about. That was to change when after an appearance at the AJZ Bielefeld I was introduced to a guy who had already made himself a name in the scene of the town. After the party was long since over André Michelle and I stood in the deserted club and took turns spinning records. Musically I would say that I gained more from this encounter cause from this day on it was clear that Detroit Techno and Acid was the thing not the Rave stuff that I had up my sleeve. After this our paths were inseparable. We invested in a small home studio which was not to stand still for a long time. Later my brother, who you may know as Olondro entered the scene. And so we published a considerable number of records under our - unfortunately rather short-lived - labels Matrix, TINT and Convenience. It seems marketing was not our main talent. At the beginning of the millenium, after our crew had dispersed across the country I started working with DAWs like Reason and Cubase and some of my tracks were published under a Cologne based label called Pinku. But that all petered out. I stopped spinning records and I turned to producing sounds for browser games and websites. That earned me a bit of cash but killed the last motivation to produce my own tracks. But then Something happened which was to put everything in place again: André who had meanwhile landed up in Berlin decided to come to Cologne, bringing with him a project that sounded like the fulfillment of his (and all our) dreams.

On Audiotool

To be honest, as long as Audiotool belonged to Hobnox I didn't play so much with it. The impossibility to save and publish and the restricted choice of instruments didn't immediately made to take it seriously. Not until the range of instruments grew and André converted me by showing me rnzr's "teeth" and his "8 Bit but a Bite" did I start to get hooked. Five years and about 250 tracks later I can say that I as an old hand was able to learn a lot.

Message to the community

I want to thank the handful of guys whose enthusiasm has made Audiotool possible. It plays an irreplaceable role in the lives of many of us. It has turned out to be more than just a DAW. It has become a platform for creative thinking in general and has inspired many users to start up further projects and collaborations. And that's what the community has achieved. Stay classy and carry on being awesome! And of course thanks for the vote!

“Oh lapaloma blanca”

— Sandburgen