German producer/DJ Danilo Plessow has accomplished an astounding amount in his short time on earth. At age 24, he’s released music on as many labels as he has years, found success with two acclaimed acts, and recently started his own label (MCDE). His professional career first caught the eye of critics with Inverse Cinematics, a broken beat/house project Plessow started with Joachim Tobias in 2002. More recently, Inverse Cinematics has been put on hold so that Plessow can focus on the MCDE label and latest project, Motor City Drum Ensemble. And although Motor City Drum Ensemble is undeniably influenced by the electronic sounds of Detroit, the name is a reference to Stuttgart, Germany’s own Motor City and Plessow’s hometown. We recently got Plessow on the line to discuss clubs, deep house, and what the future holds for Inverse Cinematics and MCDE.
Who are you and where are you from?
I’m from the German Motor City Stuttgart, home of Mercedes Benz and Porsche. You should definitely come check it out. It’s nice here.
What have you been up to/working on?
Honestly at the moment I’ve got so many requests for remixes or tracks, like studios and labels asking me to do stuff, so I don’t have the time to think about properly doing an album. I guess that will be the case in 2010. For this year, it’s probably going to be some more remixes and maybe one more single, we’ll see.
Have you been traveling?
Yeah, things have been crazy, and it doesn’t look like it is getting any less so. Lots of traveling, lots of shows.
How did you get your start in Electronic music?
Well, I first got into jazz when I was in my school’s big band playing drums. When I realized that hip-hop was using jazz samples, I was all about hip-hop in the beginning, trying to learn the aesthetics of sampling, stuff like that, and I wasn’t really into house or techno until I first visited the nightclub, around age sixteen or something. Soon as I went through my first nightclub experience, it all changed to a more floory sound.
Yeah, and a lot of your work with Inverse Cinematics is more hip-hop and jazz.
That’s true, but at the same time that I was in Inverse Cinematics I was already doing a lot of house music and techno stuff, I just didn’t release it. So there has always been some kind of Detroit and New York influence on the music. But yeah, back then I was just a little bored by the current sound of electronic music, all the minimal stuff that was big like five years ago. I wanted to do something different, so that’s why I ended up doing jazzier, hip-hop, broken beat stuff.
What do you think about the current resurgence in deep house music?
Well there’s lots of good stuff, but like everything that comes up, every trend that is generated, there’s also some weak stuff. And you can’t really tell if it’s going to last. It’s definitely surprising how much good stuff is around. Because usually, it just gets exploited, or a lot of people jump on the train and you can hear that it’s not something really original. At the moment, there’s an awful lot of talent from the US, the UK, new people who weren’t on the map three years ago. It’s quite interesting.
Could you name some of your current favorites?
There’s this guy from New York called Levon Vincent that I really enjoy. Or stuff like Patrice Scott or the Smallville guys from Germany, there’s good stuff around all over.
What do you think about the overall electronic scene in the US?
So far I’ve only been to New York, so I can’t really judge the whole thing. But apparently I’m going to do a tour next March to see some more parts of the country. In New York, it’s quite developed compared to the rest of the country I would guess, but still you have the feeling that it’s not as big as it is in Germany or Europe in general. And, yeah, the clubs, they differ quite a lot from the German or let’s say European view of the club. You have a lot of very posh, or trendy places (in the US), but not really anything like Berghein, or at least I didn’t see it.
What kind of equipment do you use to make your music?
I’m working on Cubase for arranging stuff, and I use a lot of hardware gear just because I think it is much more accessible for me, and I get results far faster and better sounding like old school analog stuff, drum machines, analog synthesizers. And working with this kind of equipment, you sometimes end up making mistakes that turn out to be really cool, y’know, some noise because the oscillators are not calibrated correctly and you get just some kind of weird sound [laughs].
Is there a notable difference in your creative process between working with Inverse Cinematics or making music as Motor City Drum Ensemble?
Yeah, well first of all when I started Inverse Cinematics I was not on my own, I was with another guy for the project, which made a big difference. But he became a daddy and switched cities so in the end it was pretty much just me doing it. I mean one definite difference is that back then I didn’t have all the equipment, and I was just working with samples. So now I have a lot of studio gear and I’m being a little bit more electronic. And also with Inverse Cinematics I would spend ages on tracks, like with every sound. With the Motor City stuff I try to keep it very raw, keeping the sound very simple, striped down.
Do you think you’ll ever return to doing a project as Inverse Cinematics?
I mean sure, I’d like to do something, but at the moment it’s a time problem. There’s been so much interest in the Motor City project that it’s impossible to work on other stuff. If I did all the stuff that I was offered now then I would be occupied for the next couple of years. So I’m just trying to pick the best and not release too much.
