Through their unique blend of warm, melodic techno and old-school house, Blindfold Recording’s label heads Mikael Melander and Jens Christian Nørgaard, better known as Baime, caught up with DMCWORLD about the birth of the label, their unique duo and emergent electronic music scene in Copenhagen…
Hey guys, how’s it going and what have you been up to recently?
We are doing really well! Although it’s freezing here in Copenhagen at the moment, luckily there there is a wealth of parties at the moment so we stay warm by dancing behind the booth. We’ve have been playing a lot, locally supporting some of the bigger djs coming to town such as Joris Voorn and George Fitzgerald. Other than that, we’ve spent a lot of time recently in the studio preparing our new live set. Loads of new unreleased material will be premiered very soon. We are very excited to show the world what we have been working on.
How did ‘Baime’ form and where did you get the name from?
The project was initially setup as an outlet for Mikaels new found love for melodic techno. His previous projects were also in the realm of electronic music but more housey-vinyl stuff. Jens hans has mainly worked with music production as a private hobby until now. The “band” name was created after playing around with the letters from Mikaels name so there is no deeper meaning. Afterwards we then found out that the word ‘baime’ means fear in Indonesian. But fear not, we are actually nice guys.
So Jens, why did you decide to form your own label, has this always been a dream for you?
I have always loved music in all its shapes and forms, and also the business side of it. Besides the creative output I have a degree in music management. The label was initially setup by myself and Pete Oak. We were parred for a b2b DJ night and have been friends ever since. This was back in 2012 so we do have a bit of history together. I’d always dreamt of having my own label and Pete helped push me out of my comfort zone and get things started. I didn’t know what to expect starting out, but I knew that we would have a long journey before we had any form of impact out there. Mikael has since joined as a partner in the label, so you could say that we keep it all within the family. The ambitions are still very high but our concept and ethos hasn’t changed. “no eyes all ears”.
So your latest EP, ‘Forgiven’ blends a wide range of melodic techno and hints of deep house. Did you both share the same musical influences or have you both attempted to combine your inspirations?
The playfulness is really important for us when we produce, so many of the ideas stems from jamming and playing around in the studio. The reason for the wide range of sound elements in our tracks is probably because we have a wide taste in music and we feel like it doesn’t need to be so stiff and genre orientated.
How did you get into producing and gain your musical wisdom?
Well Mikael started playing guitar when he was 9 and later on played in a rock band. Many years later he studied to be a sound technician. Music has been a big part of him ever since. Jens had a nice little keyboard as a child but never had any piano lessons. It wasn’t until later that he started studying sound and light engineering that the productions started taking form. We are both in our mid 30s but have been making music since our teens. YouTube has been a great inspiration and we would like to thank all the great tutorial uploaders for our continued learning.
Walk us through your studio setup, are you more hardware or software based?
We suppose this question is strictly for the fellow musicians out there so here is a list of some of our favourite stuff. We have a good deal of analog gear in the studio but we also use a lot of plugins both soft synth and fx. This is what we use:
Moog Model D
Moog Sub 37
Moog Voyager
Novation Bassstation 2
Korg microKORG XL
Vermona drm1 mk3
Roland spd-sx
Native instruments Maschine jam
Arturia Beatstep pro black Edition
TEIL1 Keinedelay
Eventide Space
More to come…
What one piece of tech you cannot live without in the studio?
The computer is the heart of all productions. Other equipment would probably be the Moog Sub37. It is easy to use and has an amazing sound. You will find it on almost all of our tracks.
What is one piece of advice you would offer to upcoming producers?
Try not to measure your success to your peers or even other higher level producers. Your journey is different and if you focus on “you” we promise you it will be worth it. Something less profound would to go out and network with people at parties and do collaborations with other producers. You might learn something and even make new friends. Making music is not a competition so you might as well try and enjoy it whilst making and playing it out.
How is the music scene in Copenhagen, do you feel it’s grown over the last 10 years?
The scene in Copenhagen has grown immensely the last couple of years. More punters and more promoters. The quality is higher than ever and we feel like spoiled brats at times. Off venue parties have become very popular and they are super fun. The bastions of clubbing in Copenhagen such as Culture Box and Distortion Festival are still around and doing a great job. The new kids in town tend to do off venue parties and there is a lot of fresh energy here. Denmark in general is kicking off in with a lot of new amazing producers and DJs such as Denis Horvat, Nandu and Courtesy.
What else is lined for the rest of 2018?
We have been booked for Roskilde festival, the biggest festival in Northern Europe. We will be performing our first ever live set for this occasion. The expectation is high and the excitement is hard to contain at the moment. For the next couple of months, we will focus our energy in the studio, polishing off the live set and practising so we completely ready. Gig wise we will visit Oslo for the first time and have plans for Berlin as well before the summer ends.
Cheers, It’s been great talking to you guys.
Baime’s upcoming EP, ‘Forgiven’ is out on 6th April
