Name: Automat
Members: Achim Färber, Zeitblom, Ingo Krauss, Max Loderbauer
Interviewee: Max Loderbauer
Nationality: German
Occupation: Producer, composer, improviser
Current release: The new Automat album Heat is out via Compost. Heat features not just the new Automat line-up but also a string of guests, including Scott Montieth (Deadbeat), Barbie Williams, Gemma Ray, Prince Alla, and R Zee Jackson. Max Loderbauer also has a new solo album out, Petrichor, via Marionette.

[Read our Achim Färber interview]
[Read our Zeitblom interview]
[Read our Scott Montieth interview]

If you enjoyed this Max Loderbauer interview and would like to stay up to date with his music, visit his bandcamp account.

Over the course of his career, Max Loderbauer has collaborated, performed and recorded with a wide range of artists, including Samuel Rohrer, Vladislav Delay, Tobias Freund, Paula Schopf, Danielle De Picciotto, Thomas Fehlmann, and Lucio Capece.

[Read our Samuel Rohrer interview]
[Read our Vladislav Delay interview]
[Read our Tobias Freund interview]
[Read our Paula Schopf interview]
[Read our Danielle De Picciotto interview]
[Read our Thomas Fehlmann interview]
[Read our Thomas Fehlmann interview about Production, Technology, and Creativity]
[Read our Lucio Capece interview]



Where does the impulse to create something come from for you? What role do often-quoted sources of inspiration like dreams, other forms of art, personal relationships, politics etc play?

To produce a work that resonates and contains all that we have to offer we need patience. Sometimes letting go is the best way to keep going.

I don't start with an idea or a concept, but with nothing and feel my way forward.

For you to get started, do there need to be concrete ideas – or what some have called a 'visualisation' of the finished work? What does the balance between planning and chance look like for you?

For me, instinct and subjective choice are the only guarantees of the value of my work.  

Is there a preparation phase for your process? Do you require your tools to be laid out in a particular way, for example, do you need to do 'research' or create 'early versions'?

No. I react intuitively to my analogue machines.

Because actually my music is not about anything at all. There is no political agenda, there is no social debate, there is no reference to literature. There are simply sounds that excite me. And there is the confrontation with time and space.

Do you have certain rituals to get you into the right mindset for creating? What role do certain foods or stimulants like coffee, lighting, scents, exercise or reading poetry play?

My stimulants are weed and beer.

What do you start with? How difficult is that first line of text, the first note?

I start where I left off.

Composing follows a thought process, an in-depth means of creating new virtual spaces, acoustic structures and models, but it is also a process of questioning and seeking answers. Without risking failure, nothing of value is achieved.

To quote a question by the great Bruce Duffie: When you come up with a musical idea, have you created the idea or have you discovered the idea?

To this I respond with the great Theodor W. Adorno: Make things of which we do not know what they are.                                   

Once you've started, how does the work gradually emerge?

Listen to your material. Let it decide.

Many writers have claimed that as soon as they enter into the process, certain aspects of the narrative are out of their hands. Do you like to keep strict control or is there a sense of following things where they lead you?

The point of the processes that open up is to endure them, to allow them to open up imaginary spaces, whereby a search movement is always to be achieved.     

Often, while writing, new ideas and alternative roads will open themselves up, pulling and pushing the creator in a different direction. Does this happen to you, too, and how do you deal with it? What do you do with these ideas?

I let the sound set itself free so that it can lead its own life.    

There are many descriptions of the creative state. How would you describe it for you personally? Is there an element of spirituality to what you do?

I try restraint and I deal with the nuances of differentiation.

A kind of denial of the ego and the individual personality; a kind of hypnotic state of empty consciousness.

Once a piece is finished, how important is it for you to let it lie and evaluate it later on? How much improvement and refinement do you personally allow until you're satisfied with a piece? What does this process look like in practise?

One can let movement continue and at the same time understand the nature of standstill. And one can keep standstill intact and still find the energy for movement.   

What's your take on the role and importance of production, including mixing and mastering for you personally? How involved do you get in this?

Extremely important. In the production of Heat, we were involved in all production steps right up to the end.

After finishing a piece or album and releasing something into the world, there can be a sense of emptiness. Can you relate to this – and how do you return to the state of creativity after experiencing it?

It's just closure and not emptiness. It just goes on again afterwards. It is, after all, fortunately a truly tremendous journey.

Creativity can reach many different corners of our lives. Do you personally feel as though writing a piece of music is inherently different from something like making a great cup of coffee? What do you express through music that you couldn't or wouldn't in more 'mundane' tasks?

I want to create a landscape, I want the music to live for itself, to create an in-between space with it, I want to create a landscape, to represent a state.

Accordingly, sound is not to be explored with physical, social or historical criteria and rules, but ontologically out of its own regulation, in its particular being as art, to be exposed and determined.