Digitalism’s debut album ‘idealism’ is already one of the most highly anticipated releases of the year. Although it’s still early days, the Hamburg-based duo have three eps under their belt (released on the franco-japanese label kitsune, and featuring ‘Zdarlight’, one of last year’s hottest club anthems) plus several critically acclaimed remixes (of tunes by Depeche Mode, Klaxons and Daft Punk, Among others). There has not been an electronic act with the potential to cross over on such a scale since The Chemical Brothers. Figure it out by yourself!

How did you meet?

We met seven years ago in Hamburg, where we both grew up. Jence was working at a record store to get more in touch with the local DJ and club scene, Isi was a frequent customer and sometimes helped out when Jence had to learn for school exams instead. The store owner did parties from time to time and put us onto one floor once, as we were the “youngsters” in those days. That’s how we started playing together.

Were you making music before meeting?

Both of us were DJing, apart from that, Jence had done some hobby stuff at home throughout the years, mainly trying out silly stuff with tape decks and a cheap Yamaha keyboard and his brother.

At what age did you start making music?

Isi started as a teen by DJing for parties, that’s where he discovered his love to providing the sound for a night. Jence went to music school as a young kid for a year or two to learn keyboard and electronic organ, but that was really long time ago. DJing started around 16 or 17. Disco and HipHop first.

What acts influenced you when you started making music together?

We set up our studio within a WWII bunker, so the atmosphere was really raw, naked and edgy. This was actually the biggest influence ot our music. A lo-fi touch and garage band punk attitude that comes up in that world on its own. We started making music together because we were pretty bored from the general vinyl output, so we felt forced to do the kind of music we’d love by ourselves. Which was pretty loud music actually.
Soundtracks, also classical ones (John Williams f.i.) and those big old school hiphop legends like Dr. Dre and RZA, and other acts or producers who don’t take everything too seriously, are influences, as well as wave bands like Depeche or the inventors of instruments-destruction The Kinks… And UK emo bands like The Verve and U2.

How do you work together, who does what in the studio (what instrumenst do you play)?

Although we use pretty much live elements in our music, we’re not professional guitarists or drummers. The stuff’s just lying around in the studio and we use it, sometimes also in an unconventional way, and process it afterwards. We don’t really care about perfect record takes and stuff, ‘cause we’re pretty impatient and cannot wait to go on quickly. This way you also get a good evolution in your works.
Jence has a huge melodic output which he usually hammers into the gear and Isi is directing everything. It’s very complementary how we work. It turned out to be quite effective.

How would you describe your sound?

Digitalism do edgy, emotional and melodic electronic indie music, which is really loud and anthemic.
 
Did people understand your music immediately, or did it take a while to take off?

At the very beginning, when we started sending our music around with the help of a friend, people weren’t really immediately interested. The first ones to pick our output were Kitsuné from Paris, which is why we landed there instead of a German base. We started with “Idealistic” and it took us actually nearly half a year until we discovered that “Zdarlight” was pretty huge on the floors.
 
I’ve read that you don’t care about your sound, but tracks like Zdarlight and are well produced. Does it take you long to get the right sound and structure to your songs?

We’re pretty impatient always, this is one reason why we don’t care about perfect record takes or something. We have tons of layouts and ideas floating around in the studio. We get bored pretty quickly, so we can’t really deal with a song that would take us longer than one or two nights to finish. Actually, Zdarlight was done in only one night, and it may sound pretty well produced, but that’s an exception, because the whole song only exists only ‘cause we tried out some new cablings and mixing techniques. Lots of our music comes up by accident when we’re trying out new stuff.
And then there’s Isi, who’s the best inhouse A&R, who very quickly directs everything into the right channel on the fly.

Your sound is very popular at the moment. Why do you think this new wave of dance music has taken off now?

It’s a natural process, like, there’s always a trend and an anti-trend or contra-reaction against what’s existing. For a few years, clubland has been dominated by minimal, deep techno sounds, and it feels like people are a bit fed up with it now. Also, with all the Web 2.0 sites, everyone is much more informed about movements, ideas and what’s happening than before. The demand for music that makes you jump and combines the best of different genres, like, electronic elements and song structures, concerts on dance parties or techno sets at rock festivals, has risen a lot. People want to be set into a positive mood again nowadays. And that’s a global thing.

You’ve become associated with the Ed Banger crew, LCD Soundsystem. MSTRKRFT and Simian Mobile Disco, do you see yourselves as being similar to any of these bands? Did any of them influence you?

What combines all of us is that we’re all more or less the same age, a new young inventive generation of acts growing into the musical scene, coming from everywhere. This can be Canada, London or Sydney. We went to school with Boys Noize, exchange a lot with Justice and actually wrote the next single “Pogo” with our friends The Presets. So, we feel pretty much in sync with everyone. As these acts are new, they didn’t really influence us though of course. We still do our same Digitalism sound since we started 2002, and that’s just music which we felt was missing so far.

Which acts do you like at the moment?

This changes daily. We listen to lots of New York stuff always, and Joy Division and The Smiths are on the current playlists again. Also, we re-discovered Snap and The Prodigy for our DJ sets…

People are more familiar with the Berlin scene these days than Hamburg, what is going on in the Hamburg scene now?

Hamburg, where the Beatles have actually been discovered, has been big in the late 1990’s for garage and house. Some years ago everything split up into electro, minimal, and soulful scenes. Germany has always had a huge tradition for techno, this is now represented by Berlin. Lots of people move there to join the scenes. Hamburg is more a bit independent from that, there’s no current “Hamburg sound”. That’s quite cool because your not channelized into genres, scenes or tags then. Also, Hamburg is big for German hip-hop and indie music.
This is why Hamburg producers like DJ Koze, coming from a hiphop band originally, mix up genres so much. You might know “International Pony” and “Egoexpress”, who do a kind of song-based electronic techno funk hop or something.
Clubwise we can’t really tell ‘cause we’re always outside of the city on weekends. There’s pretty much competition between clubs here, as everything is concentrated around the world famous red light district The Reeperbahn near the Hamburg seaport. That’s why clubs usually don’t survive more than half a year. But there are good ones.

What do you think of the term New Rave?

We think this term is more about a cultural phenomenon than a certain kind of music. It’s not new music, it’s current music paired with party culture from times of the “old rave”. This is really interesting though. People are in a collective positive mood, flood warehouses, present DIY stuff and want to get loose as much as they can. Cool.

How would you define what is going on in music now, what would you say is the defining features are?

There’s a big euphorism around. People are better informed about where they go. They select their nights harder but also know why then. That’s pretty much due to the internet and all this new media stuff. Everybody can exchange and tell everything to everyone. This boots the merging and crossovers of genres as well as the attached scenes and crowds. It’s a very good vibe at the moment. Everybody’s up for it.

Who did you collaborate with on your LP?

The only collab was with Kim of The Presets. They are very good friends of us. Jence and him wrote the lyrics for Pogo. Apart from that, we did everything on our own. We didn’t want to make a “featuring-LP”.

You’re playing at Sonar, what do you know about the festival and have you been before?

We haven’t been there before, but everyone says it’s really cool. Barcelona as a city is also amazing, we have lots of friends there. We’re really looking forward to it.

What are your plans for other summer festivals?

People should check our schedule on mySpace.

Which acts are you looking forward to seeing at festivals and clubs your playing this summer?

The Beastie Boys, Chemicals, The Cure, The White Stripes and Daft Punk for example.. Plus of course we’re looking forward to seeing Justice and our friends The Presets on stage again. Yippie!