Northern Wind _ Interview With Ida Matsdotter

You mention instruments and starting in 2006 to mix. What did you get up to before then?

I started listening to electronic dance music at youth club when I was very, very little. I remember standing in front of the CD player playing “Dance 2 Trance – The Power Of American Natives” on repeat every time i was there and dancing alone in that room when the other kids where plying football or drawing. Then I started to record radio shows on cassettes and mixing them and putting them together in a DJ set. A little DJ already then. I never felt really connected to anybody when I grew up and spent a lot of time alone in my room collecting cassettes and CD’s with all my money and just listened to music and writing poetry. Really dark and melancholic poetry. When I grew a little older, I used sing in Swedish Folk music and in a choir in Church.

Yeah haha. This is where I started out and I loved to sing. I also played a little bit of flute. I don’t know what happened I was just young and crazy and I didn’t know what to do with music, I didn’t have any musicians in my family or in my surroundings. When I moved to Norway in 1998 I started to go to a lot of rave parties with the Hard House, Trance, Hard Techno, Schranz and it was really good. I was listening to this music on repeat, constantly. Bought all the new records. There were no female DJ’s there at all. I don’t remember seeing any during those years, in my surroundings at least. Then I started to DJ in 2006 and moved back to Sweden and I never actually thought. I could also become a DJ. It was more like I was consuming music so I started really hardcore into mixing and that is when I was able to express myself with music.

What other things do you use apart from the instruments you have mentioned?

I recently bought a Korg MS20 Mini and I am learning that now. I also use a field recorder, recording sounds outside and inside. When I was in school I recorded everything like the Grand Piano, drumsets, vocals.. All these instruments. I did that more like a producer thing, giving instructions to some of the musicians for what I want to record.

I also use a lot of VSTs, modular synthesisers. I love it. I have Surge and Audio Realism’s ABL 2. I am not very good with learning all the names, but when you get a different one you have to learn it. And I am learning by experimenting.

http://www.audiorealism.se/abl/abl2_announcement.htm

http://vemberaudio.se/surge.php

What made you choose the Korg?

I heard the sound of it at school from the NAMM thing and I just love modular synthesisers. They are so alive and I want to become more of a live artist. It is a process of collecting things that I want to use to make more “live” music and record things live. The MS20 is great for techno, or anything and it also has a keyboard. It is the beginning of me going modular. Donato Dozzy, Neel and Mike Parker seem to be using it a lot. Especially Mike Parker. Can’t name a specific track right now, but i am sure there are many. I am making a remix with it right now, but it is kind of new to me. I was using the VST lots before I bought the real one. I’m looking forward to interacting more with my real one. I have very big respect for instruments. Sometimes they even scare me. I need to get to know them, with a slow pace.

Learning the instrument is half the battle. The more you know about them the more you know how to use and abuse them.

Yes, I don’t really use them traditionally at the moment. You can use a piano as a drum, and so on. I used my Korg to make very strange noises. Twitching the knobs. It sounded like a bird out of tune. I love it. Very high resonance.