Artwork borrowed from a piece by Austrian artist & graphic designer Herbert Bayer.
CF: how and where was this mix recorded?
I’m not a DJ, so I neither have a mixer nor the skills to operate one, though at the same time there are currently five turntables in my flat. Recording this was a bit of an odyssey, mostly because my equipment wasn’t good enough. Once the setup was sorted, I went through my vinyl collection looking for records with a very melancholic feeling. It was very important for me to get the flow right and being not too familiar with Ableton it took me a considerably long time.
CF: tell us a bit about yourself. how did you become obsessed with music in general? are you into any other art forms aside from music?
That’s hard to tell really, I guess music was in my life from the very start. I remember falling in love with the music my parents played to me as a toddler. My father was a sailor, so he had music from all over the world, Japan, Central America, Indonesia, France. My mother had a small collection of surf rock and beat music. When I really got into music, as a teenager, my first records where from The Cure, Siouxsie and the Banshees, The Charlatans, Stone Roses and even some heavy metal bands. However, there were always some twists in my listening habits, I started listening to early hip-hop, Public Enemy and Boogie Down Productions, then started buying my first vinyl records with the rise of drum & bass, a bit of grunge, some trip hop… I guess once I learned about sampling, I developed an interest for finding the originals and that opened a lot of doors. From there on I’ve been interested in hearing things I didn’t know about be it old or new music. I think I could possibly be happy for the rest of my life just by discovering old music.
Apart from music, I’ve always been interested in furniture, graphic design, photography, animation. I’m using Tumblr as a scrapbook to collect some of the things I like, that probably gives a little insight to what I’m into. After music, my biggest passion would probably be movies, mostly old ones from the fifties and seventies. Stanley Kubrick, Orson Welles, John Huston, Elia Kazan, Terrence Malick, Fritz Lang, the great masters. I just went through an extended phase of film noir and black&white samurai flicks.
CF: what about your website Nutriot. how was that project born and what keeps it going? what would you say is the mission statement of your site?
Technically speaking, the site has been around since 2003, but it took five years until it was filled with content. I’ve always been active on music websites, mostly forums like Beyondjazz or Omniverse, radio shows, newsletters etc. so I was exposed to a lot of different content. When Nutriot was finally launched, it became my spot where I’d bring together all the stuff I’ve come across, my platform where I’d share those things I like. There’s no big mission statement, music-wise I write about everything I like, no boundaries. What I do care about is providing some background information on the artists I write about, I don’t want the site to be just another Tumblr that leaves you alone with a video or a song. Everybody does that and I think if you like music, you’ve got to give people some kind of starting point to discover more things they might like.
CF: what do you normally listen to at home? which are your top three favorite albums?
I’m very much an album listener, so I listen to a record from start to finish. Or I listen to a mixtape. No playlists, no shuffle. I think it’s impossible to nail down a definitive top three. Change the weather, change the mood and that list will change for me. There’s new music to discover every day, this year I mostly listened to Soft Machine, Madvillain, and Dinosaur L. I guess there are a couple of records I always return to, like Secrets by Gil Scott-Heron & Brian Jackson, all Neu! albums, Dark Side of the Moon, but these are just the first three that came to my mind. Ask me again another time…
CF: what is your favorite thing about living in Europe?
I only got here about a year ago having lived in São Paulo all my life. Since I’m constantly moving between two cities, I’m missing the feeling of having a permanent home. But I do enjoy travelling on the train, watching out the window for hours, trying to figure out the geography. When I’m on the train, I don’t need any distractions, I don’t listen to music or read a magazine, I can watch out the window for hours and fall into a trance by the rhythm of the rails. There are practically no trains in Brazil, so this is very exciting. Also, I love the grey skies and the cool temperature in autumn and winter. I then often wander by the canal, letting the cold fresh air flood my lungs, clearing my head. I love that!
CF: where would you like Nutriot to be looking a few years ahead? are there any plans behind the curtains aside from running the website?
We’re currently looking for contributors to write for the site. This is a bit of struggle, as I’d like to keep the site’s general direction but at the same time I’d like to bring in some new influences. Plus I’m having less and less time to write about the music people send me. We also formally set up a label this summer and hope to have our first releases ready some time next year. Can’t say much about that, it’s still a long way to go and it’s gotta be right.