Henry L & Ingo Sanger INTERVIEW
How are you everybody? Here we have an interview made to Henry L & Ingo Sanger, artists of the last EP of I Hate Camera Rec. Tunes For Food - FFF. We sent them a bounch of very interesting questions to know more about their lifes and how they make such a good music together as a couple or alone. So, take some minutes to meet them and have a nice week!
♥ How have you met each other? How long ago?
Henry: Back in the day I used to run Drum & Bass parties and Ingo got booked to play House on the other floor. This must have been five or six years ago. The linkup between us was our friend an labelmate Matt Flores, who was also part of the DNB night as an MC but who also had releases on Farside already. When I started getting into House production a little deeper, Matt was the first person who got his hands on the first tunes. He passed them on to Ingo and happily he was really excited about it. The outcome of this was the first Henry L EP on Farside.
♥ Why have you decided to make music together?
Ingo: In the first place we didn’t seriously intent to write music. We thought it would just be cool to just hang out together in Henry’s studio. Besides having a chat Henry warmed up his machines and without really noticing some nice beats were almost finished ;) From that moment on we both knew that this should happen more often. Shortly after we were requested to do a remix for Ron Deacon on Oliver Deutschmann’s Falkplatz label. Besides the passion for drinking coffee and having some convience food together, the similar soul & rap influenced background and a like-minded imagination how the vibe in the music should be like, are a good premise to have a great time in the studio together. In my opinion Henry is a groove monster and also a very good technician. I am always fascinated & interested in Henrys’s sound as well as his other projects.
Henry: Besides this Ingo has an even longer DJ experience than me. This results in an enormous record collection which is also helpful in terms of inspiration and picking a little sample here and there. I was a big fan of the Treibhaus radio show on the german WDR station which Ingo used to do with Steffen Irlinger. It was the first of it’s kind on public radio and really huge at that time. I was taping it whenever I could. It was really an honour for me to release music on the man’s label that shaped my taste in house music. I really respect him for his extremely large knowledge in contemporary (pop) music history.
♥ Tell us what your influences are. How would you describe your music?
Ingo: Difficult question. I grew up listening to lots of different styles of music. For me there was Pop, Punk/Wave, Industrial, Wave, Indie Rock or the Boogie / Dance / Funk tunes of the early 80s. I loved listening to all this equally just depending on how my mood was like at that time. I was also a maniac in collecting tapes from a lot of different radio shows. For example John Peel, Günther Janssen (german radio Indie specialist), a dutch show called Frontlijn in the early 80s and later on Tim Westwood on BFBS. As Hiphop took over in 85 / 86 I was totally off the hook and started collecting lots of records. These 12s are still the most important ones in my collection. Later on I was totally into Acid House, the early Detroit/US/UK House, Dancehall as well as pre-Drum & Bass Breakbeats. Even though I am mainly djing House music I am still listening to lots of different music. Lately I prefer some more quiet stuff thought. Might be my age ;) The description of the music is not easy at all. i would call it hip hop & disco influenced house music with a soulful, deep & sometimes melancholic vibe…
Henry: As a kid I was fascinated by electronic sound by likes of Kraftwerk, Paul Hardcastle, Sigue Sigue Sputnik, MARRS, Jean-Michel Jarre, Soundtrack stuff like Miami Vice and Bladerunner but also stuff like Pink Floyd. My mom used to buy me records and tapes which were available at a small grocery store in the village we used to live in. Due to the fact they weren’t specialized in selling music they had a very small selection. But coincidently I got fascinated by two colorful cover artworks. It was an Acid House LP and a Hiphouse Mixtape which had Fast Eddie and Tyree Cooper on it. I think all these are my earliest influences. Later on I got into Funk, Soul and Hiphop as well as Jazz and after a certain time I rediscovered the Chicago/Detroit stuff again. But just like Ingo I listen to almost any kind of music.
How should I describe our music? Good music!? ;) Just call it house music. The world doesn’t need more pigeonholes. Nowadays where all kinds of electronic music are labelled ‘electro’ and people don’t even really know anymore what ‘real’ electro is. So why confuse the people with more labels? ;)
♥ Is it difficult to mix both styles?
Ingo: Not at all! It’s always an inspiration when Henry comes up with some ideas & layouts. As we feel the music in a quite similar way, we always find a way to create a tune with a personal signature.
Henry: Since our musical backgrounds are similar it’s an easy thing to find the right groove together. Both of our influences and experiences complement quite well in the studio. We both share the urge to create a dirty little funky groove all the time.
♥ How do you work together?
Henry: Even though we don’t live in the same city (Ingo lives in Dortmund and I live in Cologne) we prefer to work the oldschool way. I used to work totally in the box but I got bored of it and wanted to move away from using the computer. That’s why I started getting some external gear. Ingo brought all his stuff which he hadn’t used for years and now it’s happily merged in. I guess the project wouldn’t sound the way it sound when we would send via internet without being in personal contact.
Ingo: Henry is the maestro in his studio. I am always happy to visit him in Cologne. Usually I have some ideas or samples in the bag and we see what happens ;) …
Henry: … after we had our pre-studio ritual (coffee and sandwich) ;)
♥Which are your next projects?
Ingo: Next up is a four track release called “Dreadnought EP” on my Label Farside, forthcoming in November. Some other things are in the pipeline but nothing’s confirmed yet since we just got started.
Thanks a lot Henry and Ingo, we hope to have you both soon again in some of our EPs!
Agostina, I Hate Camera Records Team.