It wasn’t long ago that a combination of industrial, techno, and a little punk rock could temporarily stir up the club scene. And it was at this juncture that Grebenstein gained attention: in 2014 the German producer’s debut EP was released by the renowned British label Downwards.
Afterwards things were quiet for Jan Grebenstein. The man from Kassel doesn’t seem to rush. Grebenstein’s second EP, Strong, Proud, Stupid & Superior, was released by Downwards at the end of 2016. Another 12”, titled Gloss, came out in early 2017 on the Berlin kind-of-drum’n’bass label Horo, as did a track on the Downwards compilation The Immortal Eye, the aforementioned “Wufferfraction”. The latter was recorded with Christine Seefried, who contributed vocals on Grebenstein’s second EP and is now present again on Raging Tender.
After a meeting at Lucerne’s Klub Kegelbahn in late 2016, Jan spoke with Samuel Savenberg for zweikommasieben about the club, cooperation and Kassel.
Samuel Savenberg Boomkat wrote of your last EP, Strong, Proud, Stupid & Superior: “This one’s a total killer, especially recommended if you’re into HTRK, Raime or Fever Ray.” You’re a big fan of pop and were especially happy about the last reference. Not least of which is why I would love to talk to you about pop music. What exactly fascinates you about it?
Jan Grebenstein I wouldn’t say that Strong, Proud, Stupid & Superior contains many of the elements I identify as pop. It was more that I felt a certain identification with pop music and its habitus while the record was developing. But the Fever Ray reference still surprised me. It was as if someone had figured out what I felt while working on the record without actually hearing it in the result.
To me pop music has something conciliatory. I like the moment of inclusiveness in pop music. Pop often follows straight-forward rules, the structures are clear. The construction and motifs invite feeling without needing an education in music. In a hyper complex world I find this very conciliatory. In light of this complexity pop can sometimes serve as an answer.
SS Is this conciliatory element in contradiction with what constitutes club music?
JG That depends on the definition of club music. In its context I would see “Berghain-techno” more as pop. For me it fulfills the attributes of pop, where a lot of people come together for similar reasons—letting go and expanding boundaries, and at the same time, the celebration of a social ritual. In this respect, I would say that pop can take place with club music. But I also see a version of club music that isn’t as down-to-earth, in which one first has to find pleasure in listening, or maybe never will, rather there’s always a back-and-forth, the conflict and challenge are the goal. I see this kind of (club) music more as a mirror or counterpart of the hyper complexities of the “real world.” And if you can see that as conciliatory… I’m not so sure [laughter].
SS Or asked another way: what frustrates you about club music?
JG I find diversity very important in order to create a lasting experience… When club music—I’m not totally sure what this really means—lives only from itself, self-dissolution threatens. When one understands club music as techno, and techno is only understood as operating from its own tradition, remains in its existing habitus, that for me is very frustrating. I found the mixture of metal and techno that’s been talked about in recent years interesting. I find the mutual learning that happens with genre-mixing very valuable. The resulting music contains surprising moments that are probably lost to the “old techno.” Personally, I’m very restless, I don’t last long following a formula. Even the “metal meets techno” idea is getting old… For example, I hope that the next three years of the Atonal festival won’t sound as similar as the last three.
SS You used to play in bands. This career progression—from band member to solo musician—is becoming more common. I think that for many people—and I count myself among them—it’s due in part to a certain inability to communicate one’s own ideas when making music with others. Would you agree with that?
JG The biggest reason I became a solo musician is that I moved for school. Half of the band stayed in my hometown. I’ve changed too, of course. The band structure doesn’t interest me as much today as it used to. Now when I make music it’s in a sound laboratory, not a rehearsal room. I see the advantage but more in the set up as in the difference… Working with synthesizers, samples—electronic instruments in general—gives me a certain amount of control. Even while lying in bed I can put on headphones and make a track. In the studio, with adequate monitoring, I can access almost all frequencies. But when I’m standing in a rehearsal room it often just sounds like noise to me. It bothers me when I can’t hear exactly how the snare sounds, how “full” the guitar is, and so on. I’ve become very sensitive to this. When I have jam sessions with my setup at home I can directly intervene in a number of parameters. Working with a band, you’re confined to one instrument; and it requires communication with the rest of the band to agree on everything—not to mention dealing with the many differing opinions that arise.
SS Nevertheless, you continue to cooperate with other people. What’s the attraction for you?
JG I love working with other people. When I make or record music with Joscha Bauer, he is mostly using a synthesizer with his guitar effect board behind it. Whatever he does often sounds perfect for me. It doesn’t take much more to finish the track. It also lets me concentrate entirely on the drums and percussion. In addition, I can more easily accept his work on the synthesizer than if I were to use it myself.
With Tine [Seefried] it’s exciting to take a track that’s unfinished or undeveloped and see how it evolves into a cohesive finished track just by adding her vocals.
Last year in October I began to work on tracks with Stave [Jonathan Krohn]. Normally he would use his devices to record various loops that would land on my laptop and from there be modulated and transformed. From that we’ve arranged songs. I can also say that I’m happy to trade expertise with others. Of course, this can essentially be compared with the prevailing structure of working with a band.
SS You reside in Kassel—what can you tell us about the city? Did you grow up there? What keeps you there?
JG I grew up not far from Kassel; so the city was familiar to me. I built a true relationship with the city when I started studying at the art school. Many of the students left after their studies to go to Berlin, etc. At the moment that’s not an option for me. I love having distance to the “scene” which I’m actually a part of. There are hardly any music venues here that interest me. This encourages my creativity. When something happens here that I find exciting there’s enough space to absorb everything. If I’d be living in Berlin, I’d be worried that I would experience too many powerful moments, that each is too quickly overwritten by the next. Of course, that all has to do with my personality. Berlin is idyllic for some. But I enjoy playing shows there and visiting on the weekend and during the week having the space and time to recollect and focus on myself. To have silence. The small, the rural. On the whole, this contrast or balance is, I think, the element that I feel quite comfortable in and the place from which it’s possible for me to make things that I’m happy with.
SS Besides music you’re involved in a lot of other projects…
JG The projects I’m working on alongside Grebenstein speak strongly for what I like about Kassel. For example, the collective Tokonoma. We’re a group of cultural creators from diverse fields who run an art off-space. We invite people, mostly from outside Kassel, to put on talks, concerts, performances, or club nights. Or take the group Formal, which I regard as an open collective. Everything can happen with everyone, as long as the collaboration feels good. The project is still very young. I have no idea where I’ll land with it. The first event done with Formal took place under the title “Freak Beat Happening.” I spent a week with two friends at our Tokonoma off-space. Equipped with a four-track tape recorder, we did everything that didn’t find a place in our solo music. At the end of the week there was a public happening. Though admittedly the idea of the happening was, in the end, a concert, but I think another level will emerge from the editing of the 4-track and video recordings. The results of the events and collaborations with other artists as Formal will be published on the platform Archive Formal. Like the name already says, I see it as an archive to for conserving and making accessible Formal’s output.
SS The group Formal describes itself as a “group for discourse about and performance of music in context. What is “music in context”?
JG Is a drone-ambient considered punk in small towns, while it has long since become a soundtrack to fashion shows in large cities? Music in the context of its surroundings, its audience, etc…. What does it say about a place when certain music doesn’t find an audience there?
Maybe also music in the context of time? I recently heard that we live in a time of “depressive hedonism.” Negative feelings are mostly articulated in private spaces. It can be felt in the music. Even now when everything’s going too shit we talk about “Feiern” in German. I have the feeling that there’s less public space for showing emotions today. In the 90s our collective anger and resignation could be felt in grunge. In the 2000s, cultivated sadness found its expression in the emo scene. For me that’s what “music in context” means. You can read more from it than whatever message emerges at first sight.
SS I’m just wondering how it can be determined that genre X conveys a more authentic feeling than genre Y… But maybe that’s just me. I’m not so interested in authenticity within a composition…
JG Since my last answer, I’ve been going into musicology/the historical and for my understanding find myself on thin ice [smiles]. To be honest: I don’t know if, in a historical context, one genre can have more authenticity than another. I’m speaking from a subjective perspective and when in doubt simply from my own nostalgia. Nowadays I sometimes just miss music that really evokes feeling, like when I first heard Nirvana, for example.
SS Personally, I sometimes find the contextualization of music a very complex matter. Especially in regards to electronic music, club music. You don’t seem to be afraid to broach this. For example, Strong, Proud, Stupid & Superior is a great title. You can’t not not-contextualize it. How did it come about?
JG The title is a quotation from Don DeLillo’s Cosmopolis: “He smoked and watched, feeling strong, proud, stupid and superior.” For me this sentence became a kind of slogan. The group of people, the society that’s surrounds me—myself included—is almost exactly reflected in these four words. In one way we’re very strong, enlightened, have a certain pride in our accomplishments as enlightened young adults. We feel superior—you can see this, for example, by how many people in my circle like these “sound bites with pictures” on Facebook, or use this “1elf!”… These are only two examples of how seemingly enlightened and thoughtful young adults who strive to be politically correct can be absolutely stupid. There’s a whole “class” of adults laughing at another level of society, taking advantage of their weaknesses to take pleasure in their own good fortune to not be so dumb.
Grebenstein & Seefried – Raging Tender is available now.