DD: How are you Mr. Airwolf?

A: I am very, very good! Besides being good, I am just really busy and overwhelmed with all this work I’ve managed to get myself into haha.

DD: Ok that remix you did of “We Run The Night” is phenomenal. I know this will be popping up in future DJ sets of mine here in Seattle. How did you approach this remix?

A: Thank you! Im really glad you like it! I’m not entirely sure when I first started it, it kinda just all plopped into place, which I was really happy about. Nothing worse than sitting on a remix that goes no where, when you’ve worked on it for so long (which is what I’m facing right now with another remix I’m working on for artist Urchins). 

DD: I’ve been hearing some radddd stuff from AUS, what’s it like down there?

A: It’s actually really good, I enjoy the whole oz music scene. I think it’s great. Theres obviously a lot of amazing stuff coming from overseas too, and from the stuff I’ve heard that should be coming out within the next few months out of oz. There’s so much more amazing music to come out just in time for summer (down here) which is great!

DD: What’s been your favorite song to produce so far?

A: Out of the tracks that have been released, I would have to say my remix of Sydney Band ‘Slicker Cities’ called Paradise. It’s kind’ve like two songs in one really. I kinda switched up the middle into more of an upbeat, fun tune. But it’s fairly old, so the production skills wern’t up to scratch back then haha. 

DD: How would you describe your connection with electronic music? 

A: Married for 48 years with a few fights over the years, but still in a strong relationship. On a producing point, I don’t play any instruments, just self taught. So i’m like a 1 year old, smashing keys on my hardware like a fool, hoping something will start to sound some-what musically good. Then I kind’ve take things to midi, to fix it all up really. On a DJing point, I love it. I play a lot of my tracks in my sets. On a listening point, Not so much a close relationship, Really just into my funky 70s and 80s. Really into My Brothers Johnson, and Chic etc.

DD: Plans for the rest of the year?

A: My EP should finally be out, just putting the final touches on it for release on the Australian label ‘Sweat It Out’. Releasing one track on a Compilation EP for ‘Common Trolls Recs’, and also releasing a single with Trumpdisco, which I’m super excited about! Such a really good club track! So, lots to release, lots to finish, and touring at the end, which I cant wait for !!

DD: Last words?

A: Check out my photo blog if you like drunk chicks and if you’d like to see random other shit I  do in my life – www.airwolfparadise.com . Like me, follow me, email me and thanks for sticking around and reading my rambling on xxx

Find Airwolf on Soundcloud and Twitter

Stay classy Seattle, 

Jimi Jaxon

DD: So I’ve gotten to know you through Rubix, he’s been featured on my blog quite a lot of the past few years. Very happy to see him hook up with you! What do you love most about your label, No Brainer Records? 

M: The good thing about your own label is you can sign exactly the music you love the most, unless someone else signs it first of course. For me it’s not so much about a pre definied style of music, but about a certain vibe I want in the music. This certain vibe can also be found in my dj sets. I know it’s not that common anymore, with most dj’s playing only one genre: only house, only tropical, only bangers, only breaks. Also, many clubs are forced to do these genre nights. I try to break these genre boundaries with the music I do on No Brainer. It’s a tough job to do it that way, but I still haven’t lost hope that people understand, and moreover appreciate the open minded attitude of the label.

DD: How did you come to build this roster of artist releases? Do you first connect with a lot of these people online, or maybe through shows? 

M: I got sent tons of demos before I even had a label. A lot of young producers asked for advice and I was always trying to help when I had the time to do so. I had some material laying around when I started No Brainer Records. Additionally, I contacted some people I knew to send me tracks, and encouraged people to send me demos if they thought it could fit on No Brainer. So send me your stuff and gimme two weeks to answer. But before you do please make sure it’s not something that doesn’t fit the label at all. No Brainer certainly doesn’t do trancy stuff, full on distorted stuff or dubstep for example.

 DD: How if any has your environment growing up influenced your current production style? I see your from Germany, and these songs have a very tropical feel.. 

My music never really reflects a german lifestyle. Even when I started with funky breaks in 1999 on my soon to be re-released first album ‘The Spirit Of Malente’, you wouldn’t notice that I’m from Germany. Also the name Malente is a city in northern Germany, but it doesn’t sound german at all. The name Malente fits to my music. It’s changed through time very well, and captures the positive vibe and fun gained from playing around with styles, synths and samples. Germany has a minimal impact on what I do. I feel far more european or global.

DD: What’s the most important to you as an artist? 

The freedom to put out what I like, when I like it. This is sometimes difficult. It can often be confusing to the listener and is arguably bad for my career. All this means I would recommend releasing a tropical and a techno tune and a re-releasing an old funky breaks album within a month to any other artist. But I am Malente and when I have the freedom to do it, I’ll just do it and don’t give a fuck. I do gotta say that I love all the fans who understand that attitude and dig all my releases.

Respect.

No Brainer Records on Twitter, Facebook, Soundcloud and http://nobrainerrecords.wordpress.com/

– Jimi Jaxon

DD: How are these wonderful songs put together? A lot of sampling? Hello by the wayyyy

IN: Wassup!? For me, this question is really about the way our minds perceive and structure music.  I’ve been experimenting with samples for 20 years now, and so the way songs come together for me first has been a process of working on my perception of sounds.  For example, music can be experienced by sitting and listening to a record in a small room.  This is the common way we experience music today, but this is a modern experience of music.  Conversely, take for instance when you sit in a park and listen to the ambient sound of birds and traffic and wind.  There is music in the perpetual knock of raindrops, in the sound of traffic ridden busy streets, and there are even other songs contained in songs you hear.  The way they come together is through re-interpretation.  It’s how an actor brings a character to life.  I’ve been working on my perception for a long time.

DD:  That sounds like where I’d like to go! I wanna be on your wavelength. What got you interested in producing?

IN: I am witnessing you on your journey and it’s a path you are carving.  Respect my brother.  

To be honest, the thing that got me most interested in producing I think was my connection to the natural world.  I have always been very interested in other animals.  I think life has always been sacred for me.  Life contains beings in different pieces of body technology that are all connected to one giant soul whether you are a frog, or a tree, or a human.  This idea that we are all permutations of oneness inside a macrocosm we call the universe, inspires me to work within the microcosm in my art and show how one piece of music contains all sorts of permutations.  My view is that it makes my existence a conduit for the creator.  The greeks called it the muse.  This is the essence of hip hop and I am proud to be a part of this vibrant culture.  I produce because it acts as a way to explore the depth of my spirituality.  The interest in producing music stemmed from a need to explore myself.

DD: What kind of mindset/drive do you wish to have as an artist? 

IN: I let it come naturally.  All I want to do is work and to be honest, it is all I do.  My mindset is a constant negotiation.  Emotionally, art is something humans use to express our being, but it comes from a deep understanding that our being is one with the natural pattern that all beings grow in.  Western science calls this pattern the fibonacci sequence in the microcosm of smaller beings and life that we observe, and labels this same expansion the big bang in the macrocosm.  The metaphor of inception is a common theme that connects us all in this reality.  Indigenous culture understands this inherently through daily negotiation and observation of the land, without needing the clumsy numbers of western science to understand the concept.  Therefore this pattern, which exists in the very root of our existence, expands outward in the same fashion as an extension of our selves.  Whether we band together and call it “culture” or a “gang” depends on the power of relationship in whatever manmade existence we are building for ourselves at the time.  Presently we are under capitalism.  The system cannot overwrite nature though.  Art will win.

DD: Yes it will. What’s something you refuse to lose as an artist? 

IN: Not sure I can even answer this one.  Art is about loss and change to me, because art is a metaphor for the process of life which ends always with a change of state.  Everything is created forever and remixed, but every being dies and turns into something else.  This fact is self evident in everyday life but, because art exists as an extension of ourselves, what is commonly misunderstood about art is that human expression reflects this natural life cycle.  There is no permanence.  For example, one of my favorite things about hip hop culture is that this self evident change of state is expressed through the creation of slang within the rigid rules of English.  Extending outward from English for example, are words which keep the language ‘brollic’ while also reflecting what is eternal about the natural world.  It’s our duty as humans to continue this process of expressive change in order to keep mankind civilized and in sync with the natural system that governs us, and steers us away from virtual reality systems that are manmade such as capitalism.  The artist and digital theorist Ahasiw Maskegon-Iskwew wrote, “The acts of creation and expression through metaphor and metonymy extend outward, as they do for everyone, to define and modulate all other facts of creation and expression.”  So if metaphor is the essence of the communication of nature’s pattern then it resounds in quotes such as Ernst Fischer’s “In a decaying society, art, if it is truthful, must also reflect decay.  And unless it wants to break faith with its social function, art must show the world as changeable. And help to change it.”  Further, artists have tried for eons to explain this concept which is why the oft quoted Marc Chagall said, “When I judge art, I take my painting and put it next to a God-made object like a tree or flower. If it clashes, it is not art.”  I like to think of my art, which I express through sound and music primarily, as a way for me to extend beyond a natural existence and color the world in a positive way that connects me with the same spirit that creates all.  With that experience of creation, I feel that I am blessed with a better understanding of my place as a being amongst many others in this reality while simultaneously losing myself and letting the great spirit of creation work through me.  As an artist I am trying to lose myself to find myself.

Impossible Nothing on Twitter, Soundcloud, and Bandcamp * 6 releases posted!

– Jimi Jaxon