Names: Thomas Lemmer, Adrián Marquez aka Oine
Nationality: German (Thomas), Spanish (Adrián)
Current release: Thomas Lemmer & Oine's debut duo album ONE VISION is out now via SINE.

If you enjoyed this interview with Thomas Lemmer & Oine and would like to stay up to date with their music, visit their official Instagram profiles: Thomas Lemmer; Oine.

We also have an earlier 15 Questions Interview with Thomas Lemmer, a conversation about his creative process, and a feature with him about the Roland Juno-60.  

For a deeper dive, we recommend our ealier interview with Thomas Lemmer and Oine about their collaboration.



Thomas, you said that when you first music by Adrián, it felt like it had something that you thought was missing in your pieces. Can you describe what that is?

Thomas: So for instance, in the drum programming, you have all these fine-grained elements that make it pretty complex, to my taste - but not in a negative way, in a very positive way. This complexity and the sound design elements that Adrián used in his productions impressed me – as someone who comes more from a classical standpoint. As in: crafting good melodies and interesting chord progressions.

Oine: I feel exactly the same with Thomas, actually. Sometimes when I am working on a song, I feel like something is missing, too.

The way we would work is that I sent him the demo of of a theme I was producing. He'd then spend a week or less on it. And when he sent me back what he'd done, it worked. And that's because he has really good skills in melodic composition.

Why do you think trust is so important in collaboration?

Oine: I think that for me this wasn't actually so much a consideration simply because I didn't have any reason not to trust Thomas. I don't know if you had some reservations ...

Thomas: No, I also, I had no doubts. O course, it could have turned out differently – it could have been difficult to work with each other, or we could have different opinions all the time. But this wasn't the case at all.

I'm used to working alone, completely alone. So you just have to trust yourself that what you're doing is somewhat cool. But if you work with someone else, you give your music in the hands of someone else. And he could either destroy it, or he could make it even better. And with Adrián, I had the feeling from the beginning, that when I give it to him, he will make it better.

And he always confirmed that with everything he did. And then the trust gets bigger and bigger. We're actually working on new stuff already.

Oine: Maybe he sent me back something once and I felt the need to destroy something in his contribution. But it's only with the purpose of making it more interesting – like maybe breaking up a melody or a bassline.

Thomas: I remember a few few occasions where you did that. For instance, I wrote a piano line. And then you you changed it to make it sound more electronic. It was manipulated but in a very good way. And I would have never come up with such an idea on my own.

Oine: It's worth going through disagreements and many different visions if it makes you believe in something - even if it may be hard to get to the results.

Thomas: That's true. I had many different experiences with with collaborators in the past. 90% were positive experiences.

What about the bad experiences?

Thomas: It could be that you plan a session, and someone arrives an hour late, for instance. Or the person is absolutely unprepared, while I'm fully prepared. It's still a brilliant person to work with! But the work ethic is so different and that is hard for me to handle.

And then, with some people you have an almost perfect match, like I have with Adrián. You don't discuss too much about things, he'll just suggest something and I'll say it's perfectly cool. Whereas I had the experiences in other collaborations that when I or the other person suggested something, that we had very different opinions on it.

What I learned from that is that when you're used to working alone for a very long time, which I which I was, then you you believe that the things that you're doing are always the way they should be. But that is absolutely not the case, it's just my personal view. And I have to give the other person more space in that collaboration.

When you're working with machines a lot, which never complain, does that give you the idea that you can do the same in a collaboration?

Oine: In the end, what matters are your ears and the ears of the listeners. When you are working for a long time on a song, do you lose the global view of the music you are making? It's pretty easy to become deaf to some parts of the music you are making.

So if you send your work to another human being, who can take the music you are making, it can be pretty easy for them to see that something sounds really bad, or even if something is out of tune, which could happen too.

Thomas: If you're working with a computer, it doesn't give you any feedback. And yes, if you ask someone else for feedback, a person that you trust and who maybe has a similar taste, their input could take further. But you must actually be open to that!

There's a balance there: The main purpose of being an artist is to show what's inside of you, to show the world how you see the world. At the same time, it's always good not to get stuck in that position, to develop and and go someplace else.

Oine: You have to be pretty humble. You have to be able to say, okay, I have to accept what the other person is telling me. Because they're your reference point.

It's an exercise in humilty, to have a friend take care of the music you are going to release.

Thomas: Or you could say, thank you for your opinion, but I'm not gonna change it. I actually really liked my version more.

It's a valid option. In the end, it's your piece of art that you're crafting. And ultimately, you must be happy with it.

I guess that's why people still go to mastering studios: To get a second opinion which they could still object to.

Thomas: I was working on an ambient track on my own. I had already given it to the label, and they thought it was cool. To me, the work was done, basically. But then two or three days later, I listened to the track again. And I thought, the piano could be a little bit louder, the mix could be a little bit more open ... stuff like that. And I was confused.

I know that Adrián has a very good sense for the quality of the mastering and what may be missing. So I asked for his advice and he basically confirmed my assumption that the piano was a little bit too low. And so I reworked everything. I opened the mix again, changed it, then I had to master it again and ask Adrián for his thoughts again.

And, to get back to the topic of trust, I trusted his ears in this case, and it actually made the track better.

You spoke about surprises before. I thought it really inspiring that the album starts off really fast and with full energy and then suddenly slows into a more meditative state. That certainly was a nice surprise.

Oine: I think we try to keep a balance between something that's easy to listen to and something new. If you make something that's pretty predictable, there's always the danger of boring your audience. But you have to balance out the extremes.

Thomas: Yeah, sure. If you're too experimental, most people would scratch their head and say, Oh, come on guys. What are you doing?

I think the intro track is is a good example for being very experimental. There's no song structure at all behind it, it's just pure sound and excitement.

Thomas. I remember when we worked on that song, Adrián did so much processing on the audio files.

I just provided my typical basic basic ideas but he completely shaped it in a way that I would have never expected.