Six years after his debut EP, André Lodemann returns with his sophomore album “The Deeper you Go’. We asked him to run us through the release track by track which showcases his emotional, reflective and deeply personal approach to making music.
The Deeper You Go
The idea for this track I developed on a sleepless night in a hotel in San Diego. I experimented with different samples using a long FX chain. The resulting texture I combined with a distinct bassline. The main mood is also the foundation of the complete album. On top of this, new stories are told accompanied by the lead synth which delves deeper into the track and is dissolved in the break.
From here the story takes a new turn. Slightly sudden changes are a favourite stylistic device of mine. I love morphing the elements and surprising the listener. Percussion and melancholic melodies feel like a complete new track. The basslines and some fragments from the first part of the track resurface as reminiscent elements.
Emptiness
As the title of the track suggests I started out here with a feeling of emptiness inside. A feeling that comes up every once in a while. This results in an ambivalence. On the one side a certain anxiety that I am unable to feel or to give something and on the other the relief knowing there is a white page for a new chapter in life.
This process is reflected in the creation of this track even though it’s difficult to retrace this for the listener. The track once again was created out of a sample with melancholic strings. A melody that was engulfed and smothered everything.
With a distorted percussion loop I initiated the change to a deep dance track. The melodic hooks come from Arturia Matrix and U-he Diva. I spent a lot of time getting all the elements aligned with the strings. In the end I took the strings out.
Voices from the past
Travelling inspires me a lot as I cannot sleep on planes and my mind is all over the place. I watch movies and listen to music in these moments but I also use this free time to develop ideas. Usually I start with the melodic parts. In this case I was inspired by a very percussive jazzy bass-line, which I used as a rhythmic draft for implementation of further percussion. I created the beat around the percussions.
Then I left the track on my hard drive for several months and almost forgot about it. On a tour to Brazil, I re-discovered it and further developed it using strongly altered samples. In particular, I used two sample loops to create extremely morphing pads which run through the whole track. They are the main cause of the dramatic movement.
Metamorphosis
Again, this tune was built out of a sample that I didn’t use in the end. I wanted to create a hypnotic techno vibe. A lot of the hi-hat and percussion sounds I built out of industrial soundscapes with real machines at work. I find it really exciting using noises to create rhythmic structures. The procedure I use here is working with volume-curves. Above this dark skeleton, hovers a melodic pad that I played with the U-he Diva. It hints at the warmth to which I return to in the break with the strings. Generating a strong contrast to the remaining elements of the track.
Lost In Your Eyes
This is the first tune that was intended for the album. I started the first sketch back in 2012. It all began with a piano sample and a harmony that touched me deeply in a moment of clarity. I filtered and distorted the sample so much that the result was a sort of didgeridoo sound.
This sound I then combined with a NI Monark sub bass. The groove totally defines the whole track. You can barely hear the piano only when I open the filter which can make it sound like a dark painful groan or a sweet bird (or should I say bittersweet.)
Connected
Several years ago, I came across a 10-inch on the Claremont 56 label by the indie band Torn Sail with band leader Huw Costin. Their music impressed me so much that I spontaneously wrote to Huw to ask him if he would collaborate with me. He was immediately open to it and sent me several song sketches. The acoustic guitar harmonies used on “Connected” were on one of these sketches.
I was fascinated by the calmness and vastness of these sounds. I left his sketches laying around a few years as I was constantly busy with the production of club music and remixes. I was afraid that Huw had lost interest in the meantime but fortunately he has a similar opinion about the creation of music in that some music needs time to find its way.
I felt immediately that something beautiful could be created merging our ideas, but it took me a few years until I was in the mood to finally touch the sketches. I produced the track around the guitar. The key element besides the guitar is a melodic pad that I played with NI Monark which runs through the whole track. Depending on the timbre the pad accelerates or calms down the song. The bass line and the synth hook which appear in the seond part of the track put Huw’s harmonies in a different light.
Birth
‘Birth’ is the only track I really created in one or two days. I usually work for several weeks to several months on my productions. I was so inspired by the forthcoming birth of my daughter that I worked 20 hours at a time in a way reflecting a birth. It’s one of my more straightforward tunes that is defined through a hypnotic vibe. The basis of the track is again a sample which runs through the whole track. As the synth arpeggio carves deeper and deeper the track gets more intense. The original version was released in 2017 as a single and is three minutes longer.
Treasure
I discovered the original Indie Folk song “Treasure” from Huw Costin a long while back. When he sent me the original vocals years later I was quite surprised. My first thoughts were why should I touch such a wonderful masterpiece that sounds so perfect?
So, I left the vocal-files on the side for another two years. Finally, I was too curious and excited about what I could do with them. My intention was to create an electronic version of the song, so I wrote a new bassline with the U-he Diva. The song starts calmly with a heart-beat kick, bass and vocals then moves on to become a fiery thunderstorm. The major role here is played by the crescendo of the distorted Rhodes in combination with the fast synth-line.
Misty Road
For most of my musical productions I develop multiple ideas. Many of them are not used in the final composition. For “Misty Road” I picked up some of these ship wrecked ideas and wove them into a bass heavy ambient track. Time-stretched samples and synth-pads flow slowly into each other and tell a story. It’s a sort of a meditative way to finish the whole album.
André Lodemann’s ‘The Deeper You Go’ is out now via Best Works Records.
Find him on Facebook and SoundCloud.