Interview: Going deep into Stimming creative process and live set-up for his new album "Elderberry"

Master of his craft, Stimming has joined the ASW family in 2023 by showcasing an all hardware LP and live techno album that goes by the name of “Elderberry”. With distinct atmospheres from beginning to end, the well-established Stimming steers you on a journey of ethereal techno, melding genres as he moves blissfully between the ten tracks. We sat down with Stimming to discuss and go behind-the-scenes on his live direction, set-up and more…

First of all, welcome aboard Awesome Soundwave. It is a pleasure to have you with us and we’ve been so excited to share your “Elderberry” LP with the world. To get things going, where does the title come from? 

There was an elderberry bush on the terrace of the house in which I grew up. And I still remember me sitting there with my first ever hardware gear (the Korg ER-1), finding my way of building grooves and energy from a machine. My father looked at me, not really understanding what I was doing, haha. 

So - this, and the fact that elderberry is a quite specific fruit, juicy and delicate, not loved by everyone and the colour-palette on top, it just fits here. 

I’m happy to be on Awesome Soundwaves! Thanks for having me! An album, which has been made live, released on a label that focuses on live-acts - fits very well, doesn’t it?!

Throughout the album you wander gracefully between genres and vibes. Is it important for you to capture this when creating an album? Do you have a different outlook when releasing an EP? 

Of course, the length of an album alone invites much more colours and perspectives, but, to be honest, I found this album more straightforward than the other five I did. Yes, I have some ambient works in it, but the overall tone and texture is very streamlined I believe. 

The artwork was created by the amazing Juli Jah. Is this someone you worked with previously or just for the album? 

She did a cover for my EP “Die Luft, der Garten und das Meer” and yes, I really like her style. Having a handmade cover is important to me, as it reflects the craft of the music itself and is a statement against the actual machine learning fashion. 

Of course, let’s dive into some tech talk. Tell us about your creative processes with “Elderberry”, what gear were you using for this one? What made you go hardware only? 

The core setup always consisted of a 1010music blackbox as the main sequencer and sampler, the 1010music bluebox as the audio path “organiser” and stem recorder (it can record all six stereo tracks separately) with a little controller from intech attached for live-tweaking, the specular tempus reverb and my DOCtron IMC mastering box at the end of chain. From here, I added different gear for each track but not more than three or four, as I figured this was my limit for still being able to (somewhat) control everything. 

I used the tasty chips GR-1 a lot (actually, almost on any track) as it gave the grooves an interesting, modern sounding texture and it works incredible for dramatic live effects. The Moog DFAM I used a lot as well (the blackbox spitting out ultra tight audio triggers into the dfam), the op-1 field, the model:samples, the moog grandmother all play a part on the album. 

The weirdest gear I’ve used is the nozoid OCS-2 - a digital synth from france, around 8years old, with which I discovered simple acid tones like in Sandwurm and People Do. Weird to use with very narrow sweet spots but once a spot is found, its actually quite nice. 

Once I found my “band” for each track, I played around with it as long as I needed to get an idea of how the performance or dramaturgy could look like. And then, I recorded that path a couple of times and chose the best one. I recorded all six inputs from the bluebox and the master out from the IMC - this is the one the listener gets to hear but I used some of the stems to add things up a bit or do some tiny digital trickery when my favourite take wasn’t that fulfilling in the end. 

How is your live set-up looking currently? Anything you are looking to add in the coming months? 

My liveset is a variation of what I used for the album, or, the other way around - the way I did the album was a track-specific variation of my liveset. Here, I use two blackboxes instead of one so I can do transitions and have a masterclock, but also the Bluebox with the Intech controller and the DOCtron IMC at the end. But instead of using different machines for different tracks, I play a lot of stems in combination with corresponding one-shots and use the dreadbox typhon and op-1 field on top of it for improvisation. This is a bit like a hybrid approach - the main path is set (I can play around 45 tracks immediately and decide spontaneously which ones and when) but I can leave the main path and improvise a lot if I feel confident enough. Actually, that's where the fun starts…

As an artist you have travelled to all corners of the world, can you tell us about some favourite experiences, and places you loved to visit? 

Yes, I’ve seen a lot which I am grateful for and one of the places I always love to visit is South Africa — since more than ten years, I play there every December and it's always something special. But its not so much the place itself, from my experience the evening alone is what counts — often I come to a place with no expectations and it ends as a very beautiful evening, no matter where it actually is. 

Anything else you can enlighten us about in the world of Stimming? 

On two of the tracks of the album, I put the main one-shots from the track at the end so people are invited to use it for themselves. If you ever wanted to use a Stimming bassdrum, buy the album and steal it at the very end from those tracks. You’re welcome :)

Thanks for joining the ASW family, and for  and for this incredible body of work!

And not content with this stunning output, this year will also showcase Stimming’s latest project: a body of work combining electronic beats and soundscapes to the harmony and glory of the choir, which takes him as a producer in an entirely new direction. 

▶ STIMMING's ELDERBERRY is available now from all the platforms. Listen & buy it here.