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The Finnish producer known to most as Vladislav Delay, has created some of the more individual and distinctive sounds in modern electronic music. He is one of the few who picked up on the influences of the Basic Channel / Chain Reaction school of submerged techno and really took it somewhere new, creating sprawling masses of sound that slowly develop in a way that’s hard to predict or sometimes even take in.
The more ambient aspects of his approach were revealed through releases on Chain Reaction (two 12″s compiled on CD as Multila) and Sigma Editions (the first full length, Ele and later Kemikoski released under the name Conoco). Around the same time harder, jagged techno sounds were surfacing on labels such as Phthalo (as Sistol) and Thomas Brinkmann’s Max Ernst. Very popular experimental label Mille Plateaux got in on the party, and Vladislav Delay’s reputation as a producer of intriguing, often moody soundscapes was cemented.
Then, just when listeners thought they had got the hang of what Vladislav Delay releases were about, the first Luomo 12″ came out, and it was a vocal house record. Some were baffled, others thrilled. His personality was still very much in evidence; the Luomo records are still filled with unpredictable bursts of sound, sudden reversals and structures collapsing and re-forming. As with the more ambient work, tracks shift structure almost imperceptibly so at the end of 7 minutes you’re somewhere quite different from where you began.
This year saw the arrival of the second Luomo album, The Present Lover, and the more pop elements of the earlier Vocalcity are even further to the fore.
Michael Upton, Igloo Magazine Contributing Editor, got in touch with the largely anonymous Delay down in Berlin for a question and answer session.
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Igloo: I understand you come from a jazz background. What instrument(s) did you play?
Vladislav Delay: I mainly played drums / percussion. This whole thing with jazz is not so irrelevant today; it’s more about the mentality and style for me rather than specific scales or other jazz things in general. I was a jazz freak and I still am one. I just try not to compromise anymore with precious things, you know like fine wine. You either collect and stress about it or you just enjoy it and work for something else. Some passions I still have, one being jazz and drums, I try not to mix up with business. I’d love to be a wine dealer, same as I’d like to be a jazz drummer or fisherman –but to do those things for more than enjoyment. I also still play drums. I guess better than ever before.
Igloo: Why did you make the move from jazz to electronic music?
VD: The basic thing was that I went on to electronics to produce music, to compose. Going way back, there were some occasions where people from different backgrounds would get together to make music, downtempo, dub, trip-hop whatever (DJs, synths, normal instruments, samplers, etc.) I was part of these experimental groups in Finland and was trying to find new sounds via samplers and percussion, and above all had begun to compose and see musically beyond my own instruments. 
This lead very fast to a conclusion that (at least in Finland), the best and probably only possible thing to do, was to do it myself. One day realizing this technical heaven and MIDI shit kind of blew my head off. Being a gear whore, I just decided to sell my huge collection of percussions and stuff, skipped working and earning money as percussionist, and bought some digital gear while having no idea whatsoever what to do with it. It was just intuitive and whatever, a clear and necessary thing to do in order to be able to create music.
I moved away from suffering within restrictions which were there from being a jazz percussionist with an open and experimental mind in Finland trying to earn a living from that. I moved to something that I still considered as jazz in many ways, but I needed to be able to speak fluently in my language, express myself and to get my ideas produced. It’s quite obvious that I’d be one of these millions of people who would go for a home studio, for these flashing lights, sitting alone and trying to make music.
Igloo: How does writing music with a computer compare to writing jazz?
VD: I use computer/software just as a tool to capture my ideas, and to produce the stuff in the end like you do in the studio. I am sure that people who do proper jazz use computers in their studios. There’s no music production of any kind where a computer wouldn’t be misused and over-praised. I try to be the careful one. Having a home studio with computers and software allows me to have the freedom to do whatever I want but also poses the biggest problem: what the fuck to do with it all; How to make something that’s deeper than the latest shitty trends and endless blather. All this stuff comes out more and more when it’s easier to forget all the main issues and be fascinated by easy-to-swallow-shit –as with computers.
Igloo: More generally, what is your usual process for writing a track? When you sit down to write a piece of music, what are you 
trying to achieve? Are you attempting to express a particular thought? Do you have an idea that it will form part of a certain project (eg. Vladislav Delay or Luomo)?
VD: I usually have a concept on what to do when I begin working on something, be it just an influential mood or strong idea. Nowadays it’s so fragmented and fucked up anyway, regarding time which I can spend in the studio, that I can’t even give you more than my corrupted blast on it anyway. If I had time it might be more spontaneous and less focused on doing something, but nowadays it’s much more about already knowing what to do next. Even if it’s something that came out spontaneously and so on, perhaps some time ago, and it had to fight for its time and whatever and then it had to be done.
Igloo: Some people were surprised when you released the first Luomo record. I remember some friends being unsure that it was really the same person who had done those more ambient records on Sigma and Chain Reaction. What inspired the Luomo project?
VD: Luomo was inspired by love.
Igloo: How do you feel about the idea of releasing music in a range of styles, perhaps with the knowledge that that means you do not have just one group of listeners or fit within a certain scene?
VD: For me it’s natural to do what I feel like, and I’m happy and fortunate that I feel like doing various and challenging things just by my nature. I really don’t care if I fit into categories or not. I try not to do what has been done already and sometimes what I do stays within one genre, but then another project comes along that touches other people, and sometimes these two genre’s mix well and sometimes badly. I hope I can keep it like that.
Igloo: Thinking about scenes, last I read you were based in Germany, I think Berlin? What has been your experience of being based in such a place? I think of Germany as a very trendy place to be based if you are writing electronic music at the moment.
VD: Yeah, I’ve been living in Berlin for approximately a year and a half. The move was based on personal reasons, not musical or whatever, career opportunities etc. That’s been more of a negative thing until recently when I got more accustomed and used to this tekno-metropolis thing, this city full of people who you normally only meet in traveling and touring. Here they are your neighbors. I like this place for practical reasons and my relationship is over here, and no matter how much I miss Finland, I’m planning to stay here and base my work here, and also to use what’s available here.
Igloo: The earlier releases you did didn’t have any vocals (or none that could be heard), but in recent years you’ve done more and more work with vocals. Vocals to me are quite different from other sounds because I think most listeners 
automatically try to hear lyrics and think about what a song means. With an instrumental it’s hard to know what something means. How have you found working with the singers on Luomo and with Antye Greie-Fuchs? Have you found it different from earlier Vladislav Delay work?
VD: Vocals challenge and inspire me most as an instrument, because it’s the instrument everyone knows best and is accustomed to and also because you can get out the message or whatever you want more precisely than by any other means. Now that I’ve done lots of stuff with vocals, I’m also into doing more instrumental work. But same as with music styles, now that I’ve found the vocals as an instrument, I’ll keep on exploring that as well as instrumental shit and hopefully will find new discoveries along the way.
My current fascination is the Steinway grand piano. My girlfriend and I did a recording session with Craig Armstrong, the pianist/composer. We had a grand piano from Steinway in our flat and recorded that session for many days, and it sounded very good.
So far it’s always been me dictating the way I’ve been working with singers, because they’ve mostly been my projects which I had to get done no matter how. Mostly it hasn’t been any fun for anyone working in collaboration, but nevertheless (almost) everyone has been happy with the results.
Igloo: On the Luomo album The Present Lover you were working with whole vocal parts, much more than just the repeating phrases that are on most of Vocalcity. How was the writing process different from the first album? Did you write the vocal parts?
VD: I wrote most of the lyrics, Antye collaborated on 2-3 lyrics. In general I just took a completely alternate approach and felt completely different; this kind of album came out of all that. I was influenced a lot by pop and RNB and that kind of stuff, and wanted to explore combining the pop thing and my kind of club feel.
Igloo: One thing I really enjoy is the moments where every piece sounds quite spontaneous. Sometimes there will be a little sound or event that will only happen once, or is slightly different each time it comes around again. Could you please tell me a little about what you think about improvisation in electronic music?
VD: What I think about improvisation is that no matter if it’s electronic or any other music, there should be some level of humanity, soul, whatever, in there, otherwise it sounds, at least to me, very boring and 
inconsequential. Of course, there are some people who have made some nice stuff out of using that lack of humanity in machines in interesting ways. For me personally, I need some challenge, personality, care and meaning in music.
Igloo: What do you do when you are performing live?
VD: I mostly remix my old songs, try out new songs and, more and more, entertain people in my shy way.
Igloo: You’ve released a lot of music in the past few years, even ignoring the overlap between certain albums. How much time do you spend writing music? Would you consider it your work?
VD: I haven’t been releasing much music in the last years, and neither have I been working much on music, actually. This is because I founded a company with my friends in Finland to do something other than ambient for my living, so that I wouldn’t be dependent on my music and all the sensitive politics to pay my bills. That has given me the musical freedom of not having to release something or remix somebody just to make my living. On the other hand it’s been some 2 years now since I’ve made serious music in peace. But now it’s looking like I can again do some music since I’m settled in Berlin and all that.
I consider my music something much more precious than work. I try to cherish and celebrate it.
Igloo: What things influence your music? (other music, things outside music such as visual art or movies?)
VD: Music rarely inspires me, but I am inspired by some of the older stuff. Traveling, cultures, politics, reading, movies, design, wines, gear, fishing, frisbee, food, etc.
Igloo: What music interests you most at the moment?
VD: I’ve been getting more into rock and that kind of stuff lately, I don’t know why. I listen to a lot of hip-hop. Mainly I still find myself listening to old jazz, and some Caribbean stuff as well.
Igloo: What are you working on now (or planning on doing next)?
VD: The main thing that I’m doing is starting my own label next year called Huume Records. I’ll start releasing various stuff of mine and collaborations. I’m planning to be more at home / in the studio. There are lots of plans for new music. Doing some weird shit. Also a new Delay album is almost ready. Some Delay hip-hop.
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