Northern Wind _ Interview With Ida Matsdotter

Ida provides the latest podcast in the Technoise series and over the course of this interview, reveals another side to Swedish Techno.

 

Northern Wind _ Interview With Ida Matsdotter

Author: Esh

Having been hanging around the subsekt community for over a year now I thought it was about time I put something back in. The main reason I like to do what I do with music is to discover new music and share my findings with the like minded. I have lived in a few different cities since I have really become obsessed with Techno and it always intrigued me how different the scenes are from place to place. Not only that but the differences in how people in these places view the scene. The technicalities of music production is a huge part of what drives me to the music. But I never ignore the social interaction. I feel there is something to learn from asking others questions about how they engage with the scene and how they interact with their music.

For example, the last piece of writing I did was about a couple of the people behind some of the Compound parties in Amsterdam. To me there is no scene without people enjoying themselves in it. I like to meet people and ask a few questions about what they do and what they listen to, so on occasion, I share the results. Sometimes you come across something that you otherwise wouldn’t have found or wouldn’t have remembered. The contrasting views and opinions is something that helps induce conversation and can lead to innovation and experimentation. An aspect of communication not alien to a user of the subsekt Forum.

One thing I really enjoy about what we do is the discovery of something new and interesting. Every music scene I truly get into, where ever that might be, has always carried that element of growth and development. Something that for many of us is what pulls us to certain genres of music.

I came across a couple of Swedes recently that caught my attention. Not only did their mixes and productions seem to carry something I really like. But they had a certain attitude towards how they made and delivered the music that got me interested. So when I learned that Ida Matsdotter has just started her own label, I wanted to find out more about it and where it was going. There was an emphasis on the value of the music produced and it was important for the tracks and their producers to be recognised. There is more than one or two areas of techno pushing out of Sweden and the place seems to have something there. I caught up with Ida Matsdotter to try and explore at least one of the scene’s many sides.

The latest in the Technoise Podcast series is provided by Ida. A superbly executed deep dark and playful mix, I really enjoyed it’s trajectory and it really kept me guessing for its duration.

 

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Hi Ida, Up to much?

Not much, I’m good. I am just listening to some to some music from the 90s. Some really nice old trance tracks.

Nice. I also had a little trance phase a while back, what drew you into the scene?

I started listen to trance for real when I was 18 years old. Going to rave parties. (giggles)

I’m still going to raves of course. Yeah but I’ve been listening to this music for the last three days. Laying in the bed to 90’s hits with an epic and nostalgic feeling. Faithless, Phantasia, Inner lights. Liquid Skies also Kai Tracid & Andreas Krämer .

Faithless:The long way home from the album Reverence.

Phantasia – Inner Light

Kai Tracid – Liquid skies

Do you take some influence back into the techno?

I already did that actually in many tracks. Especially one track. But it’s very subtle. I don’t think everybody will realise some of the sounds are influences from the nineties. But I know for myself that these influences are from the 90’s. It’s a track called “Dark Love”. I had it on my Soundcloud but I recently took everything down so  I can start my label. I really like this track, and it’s unreleased.

What was the drive & influence behind that track?

It was kind of based on a love story. Which is both dark and light. That is where the name “Dark Love” comes from. It also shows my love of the deep, dark and melancholic techno. I have been really deeply into that kind of techno for the three last years. Before that, I was more into trance. Many years back, 10 years back, it was all about trance music. So in this track, since I started to make music 3 years ago, I have been experimenting a lot. I was trying with this really simple synthesiser in fruity loops. And I ended up with this sound that I felt had this 90’s trance feeling and I ended up putting it into that track.

It is a very simple waveform. I was learning to use synthesis, this TS404 Bassline Synthesizer. Because I wanted to learn the basics. I took this really basic, ugly sound and said this is like a rave party. It reminded me of when I went and danced in these parties with like 10 000 people and I thought haha this sound can be like that. But people don’t know that, they didn’t know that haha.