Andreas Saag: Sonic Smorgasbord

Andreas Saag is one of his country’s foremost house music exports. A native of Sweden, he’s caught the eye of some of the scene’s most pivotal labels in his time, with Rebirth, Freerange and Trunkfunk all playing host to his talents over the years. Indeed, his latest is a perfect example of what he’s all about, as he returns to the Trunkfunk fold alongside the label boss, NIBC. We picked his brain recently as their latest EP, the emphatic Sleepless in Zimbabwe, was just about to drop…

Tell us about the beginning of your career, what were the sounds/parties that got you started?

At the age of 14 I was listening to crap euro techno stuff, E-type, 2 Unlimited etc. My father got fed up with it and recorded a live set from the radio; Samuel L Session and Max Reich live. I fell in love with their polyrhythmic techno and pictured two massive guys – one from the UK and one from Germany- teaming up and touring the world. Six months later I went to a local record store and played them my demo. The guy said he was only into trance but that a true techno head was on his way and that he would be able to give some feedback. Some 30 mins later a blonde, not so massive guy came and listened to my song and said “This is really good you should come to my studio and I’ll help you with the mixdown”. I asked him what his artist name was and he said “Max Reich”. I laughed and said “Yeah right”. Later in his studio I realized he wasn’t joking and that Reich n Session were actually from Gothenburg. Today Max Reich is part of Shapeshifters and Samuel L Session keeps making great techno… we’ve collaborated on quite a few songs during the years and I just had a release on KMS with a remix by Samuel.

What were you into before house? Anything amusing from your youth you’d like to disclose?

Since I got into techno early I only really listened to my father’s record collection that included jazz, psychedelic rock and some early 80’s synth pop. I played jazz on the piano when I discovered electronic music but it wasn’t until some five years later that I started combining the two. The result became my first release as Swell Session in 2001.

Do you think your sound has changed since the beginning? How has it evolved?

I’ve always been a little bit all over the place, for example I released some pretty basic techno on Samuel L Session’s label under my real name parallel to my jazzier Swell Session releases. The biggest conscious change I ever did was in 2008 when jazzy club music was almost extinct. I had tried to go to the monthly Co-Op night, the melting pot of UK broken beats and jazzy sounds, only to find a freshly printed note on the door of the venue (Plastic People). The note was presumably from IG Culture and pretty much said something like “this whole thing was great but is now officially over”. One week later I found myself in that very venue, enjoying the sounds of a Henrik Schwarz live set. The hype and the vibe was as vibrant as the many times I had been to Co-Op and the jazzy elements were present as well. The guys who had invited me to join them to this Innervisions label night were Jimpster and Tom from Freerange records. I had been the jazzy kid on their deep house label for almost ten years. Now they were the biggest label of the genre, alongside Innervisions and I thought to myself: “Hey I always loved deep house, I can do this!”

How did you get started with making tunes? At what point did you realise that you were getting somewhere with it all?

I started already at the age of 11, trying to copy the 2 Unlimited sound. My father came home one day with an Atari ST1040e and what was then called Cubeat, a predecessor of Cubase. I guess I knew I was getting somewhere at the age of 15 when that techno demo that Max Reich had mixed for me got played on a radio show on Swedish national radio. The show fostered a lot of young Swedes. Calle Dernulf, the host, travelled the world and interviewed the who’s who of electronic music. Instead of listening to Best of Trance compilations my generation got to know about Aphex Twin and Drum n Bass, even getting into Daft Punk when they had still only released a few singles. That show is a big reason to why Swedish electronic music has been on point already from the early years.

What would you say is your greatest achievement?

That’s quite hard to answer. I guess just choosing music in general, getting to do what I truly love. But touring Japan within a year of my first release and finding an entire shelf dedicated to only my releases in the biggest record shop in Tokyo is something I’ll always remember. Getting my tracks chosen by Jeff Mills and Rolando for their mix compilations and officially remixing “The Good, The Bad and The Ugly” and getting it approved by Ennio Morricone himself are also highlights. I’m also proud of the fact that “Let me Decide”, a track I made with my friend Jonatan Bäckelie aka Ernesto was the first real broken beat track to come out of Scandinavia (at least that I know of).

You have a release due out soon on Trunkfunk Records alongside NIBC. How did that come about and what’s your relationship like with the label?

My relationship with Trunkfunk is my relationship with Fredrik aka NIBC. He’s been my main man since I moved to Berlin in 2011 and we shared a studio the first year in a squat building full of crazy artists and bats. It’s great to have been part of something as overtly Berlin-esque for a while but it was effing cold in the winter.

Could you describe the EP to us? What can people expect from it?

The fact that we started making some beats in that cold studio and that they got frozen in time for at least a year is kind of symbolic. When we revived them this summer they turned into something really African sounding which was totally surprising but uplifting for us both. That’s what’s so great about collaborations, I don’t think any of us expected to do an epic sunny slow roller like this when we started out.

The remixes are really cool too. Do you have a favourite on the package?

It was a brilliant idea of Fredrik that we should ask my new flat mate Man Power for a remix. His recent album on Correspondent is smoking hot and within days of sending him the parts he had nailed it! I remember he said something like “I’ve been hearing that melody from your room for a week now so I need to get it out of my system… so yeah I’d be happy to do a remix!”

And what are your favourite remixes of all time? And why?

I think my favourite remix of all times is Mark de Clive-Lowe’s remix of Shirley Horne’s “return to Paradise” which was on a Verve Remixed compilation. MDCL kept so much of the original while also adding his own groove and perfect arrangement. That’s what remixing is about for me! Another great example is Seiji’s remix of “Lero-Lero” by Luisa Maita.

If your house was burning down and you could only save one thing what would it be?

It would be to hard to choose which piece of music equipment to save so I’d probably just grab something like my wall calendar with screenshots of my girlfriend doing stupid stuff on Skype.

Finally, what have you got coming up? Anything else exciting we should know about?

I just released on Local Talk’s techy sub label, Telefonplan, as well as Kevin Saunderson’s imprint, KMS. I’ve also got stuff coming up on Mule Musique and some secret stuff under a new alias too so keep your eyes and ears open!

SAAG & NIBC’s Sleepless in Zimbabwe (with remixes by Man Power and Casino Times) is out July 29th on Trunkfunk, check it out below.