Edition Terranova are a German trio who fuses a variety of electronic styles with the intensity of punk rock. Using their DJ sets at the Berlin club Pogo as a testing ground, they’ve assembled a superb new album, “Hitchhiking Non-Stop With No Particular Destination.” Among other things, the disc features vocals from Stereo MC’s singer Cath Coffey and a cover of Bob Marley’s “Running Away.” Edition Terranova is comprised of Fetisch, Meister and Shapemod; the following is a combination of email interviews with Fetisch and Shapemod.
What was the timeframe of making “Hitchhiking Nonstop With No Particular Destination”?
Fetisch: “I started last year (march 2001). The first seesion was recording Cath Coffeys vocals @ Stereo Mc’s own Frontline Studio – Shapemod joined the job summer 2001. We took several breaks in order to write and record the score to 3 films. One of those films, “Jeansm” directed by Nicolette Krebitz (a former vocalist w/terranova) actually really inspired “Hitch Hiking”. We finished and delivered the album to k7 May 1, 2002.”
How did the process of making it compare to “Close The Door”? Were there any major changes in your approach or creative process, or are the differences just a result of the natural progression of what you like/wanted to hear?
Fetisch: “I started DJing at this club in Berlin called Pogo where i started mixing all styles… Like Black Sabbath, Juan Atkins, The Normal, Fischerspooner, Suicide, hardcore Jamaican Dancehall, Sex Pistols.. Really fucking people up. It worked really well and gave me a boost of energy to record this album – every track had to be good enough to work the Pogo dancefloor. I had plates cut to test the tracks. I wanted to rid myself completely of the “close the door” self pity. By the way i want to use the opputunity to announce how pissed off we are about Copasetic’s (our old record company) releasing this dodgy Terranova remix album with some really bad demos and previously released remixes-don’t buy it! It’s a rip off! Buy ‘hitch hiking nonstop…’ It’s the future!”
Can you briefly describe the backgrounds of the Edition Terrenova members? What had the three of you been doing musically before starting this project?
Shapemod: “I studied guitar in Los Angeles. After that I came to Berlin, bought an Atari and a sampler, produced my own tracks and worked in different studios. Two years ago I met Fetisch at the Pogo Club and we started producing together.”
What was the process like working with the vocalists? Did you have fairly complete tracks that they then recorded their parts for? Or did you sample them and use them as building blocks as you created the songs?
Shapemod: “Normally they sung on fairly complete tracks, we just arranged the song a bit afterwards.”
Fetisch: “It was fun and pretty spontaneos-the tracks were complete-in some cases we had to strip them down or rearrange them.”
In putting together the CD were you thinking an all in terms of WHERE the music would be heard? For example, was there any kind of conscious effort to strike a balance between being club-friendly and suited for home listening?
Shapemod: “The idea was that every track on the new album should pass the pogo-filter, the track have to fit in a burning DJ Set at the Pogo club where Fetisch was the main DJ.”
What’s your studio set-up like? Are there any pieces of gear or software that you think is particularly important to your sound or creative process?
Shapemod: “The whole record have been produced in two studios, Terranova 1 and 2, both based on Logic Audio running on an an Apple G4. What basically happened was combining old-School Gear like an EMU SP1200 with Plugins and special standalone programs just to get these sounds you can?t get from analogue or oldschool toys. So we rarely use vitual-analogue synthesizers but hell a lot of plugins with a non-analogue sound. The EXS Sampler is great because of it?s timing and it is so easy to restore and transfer Songs from on studio to another, the whole data on one CD. Yes, and of course we used that polish vocoder, called Vladice, specially build for Tangerine Dream in the early seventies. They did?t seem to like and so we bought it for 150 Euro from Jerome Froese who has a really interesting haircut. (Never seen something like this in my whole life).”
For those who haven’t had the chance to see Edition Terrenova perform, how would you compare you live sets to your recordings? What type of equipment set-up do you use when you perform?
Shapemod: “We are not so much into playing live, we prefer DJ Sets, it?s more satisfying for everybody, the audience and us.”
Fetisch: “Live sets died w/the sex pistols-we prefer clubs – we dj.”
Are any of the member involved in any other musical projects, or remixing or producing other acts?
Fetisch: “Shapemod and myself all do alot of remixing.”
Besides the release of “Hitchhiking Nonstop….” what’s in the immediate future for the band? Any touring plans? Have you started work on new material?
Shapemod: “We are working on a Remixalbum that?s going to be released in a few month.”
Fetisch: “We’ve almost finished recording “peace is tough” a sort of remix album…..maybe not really-actually it includes 6 remixes of “hitch hike…” tracks, 6 brand new tracks and a massive medley-we deliver in september and it’s released in feb 03-thanks…..could you please get a new president?”
