Timo Jahns

As I saw Sade performing ‘Pearls’ in front of this amazing red sun, I was totally mesmerized”

Interview by Dan Prince


Timo welcome to DMCWORLD…where in the world are you right now?

“Hi Dan at the moment I’m at home, I’m living in a small village near Göttingen in the center of Germany where we have a lot of green, wood, cows and little mountains. I enjoy living here  – it is relaxing.”

Well young man, it is not often that Buzz Chart boss Guy Garrett gets overly excited when hearing a record, but stone the crows has he been raving about your Remix of Sade’s ‘Pearls’. I believe it took quite some time for Sade and Sony to give you the green light…please talk us through why you wanted to remix this piece of beauty, how long you have been on this and your thoughts behind your work…we love it.

“Firstly I have to say that I’m a big Sade fan. I totally adore her voice and the ‘Pearls’ original is one of my all time favorite songs. Listening to the original makes me get goosebumps all over my body every time, even after so many years. My wife and myself have been living together for 18 years, at the beginning of our love she had a present for me on Valentine’s Day – it was the ‘Best of Sade’ CD because she knew that I really like Sade. We listened to the CD over and over and ‘Pearls’ was my absolute favorite. At this time I thought ‘I would really like to do a remix of this and be able to play this absolute beautifulness in the clubs’. But I lost my attention on it over the years because I didn’t have the technical possibilities to realize my ideas for the remix. Then in early 2013 my wife and myself watched a concert of Sade on TV. As I saw Sade performing ‘Pearls’ in front of this amazing red sun, I was totally mesmerized once again and remembered my idea of doing a remix. So I started one Saturday morning with the edit and worked the whole day till late into the night on it. I wasn’t able to drink and eat anything because I was so into doing this edit and was lost in time. After some hours of sleep I did the final polishing and finished it on Sunday evening. I uploaded it on Soundcloud and sent a private stream link to some people to get some feedback. The feedback was so massive that I decided to show the edit to the public. Because of this the remix was first called: ‘Sade – Pearls (Timo Jahns Secret Edit)’. I actually never had the idea of showing the edit to Sade or Sony. There’s a high amount of Sade bootlegs on the internet today, but I personally don’t know any official house remixes of Sade songs…so I thought that I didn’t have any chance of being heard. But a good friend of mine had contacts to Sony Germany and sent the edit to them. Nothing happened for a long time but after one year waiting, Sony UK contacted us and told us that they showed the edit to Sade and they were giving their okay for a proper release. Get Physical was really interested into releasing this on their sister label Poesie Musik so the digital release has been out since mid January. There will also be a vinyl release for the vinyl lovers. It`ll hit the stores on February 23rd.  I never thought that my edit would ever be an official remix of ‘Pearls’ so a dream has become true for me! It’s been an incredible journey.”

https://soundcloud.com/timojahns/timos-secret-edit

Love it! Well another Timo Jahns’ production that has been on repeat in the DMC office is your edit of Timmy Thomas’s ‘Why Can’t We Live Together’. Another perfect piece of production. Again, please talk us through your work…

“I only do edits of songs that I really love. ‘Why Can’t We Live Together’ is one of them. So I also wanted to do an edit of this to play at the clubs during my sets, but I didn’t want to cut it into pieces. The original is a wonderful piece of music so I wanted to do a respectful remix. During the time I did the edit I had to play at an open air party where most of the people where my age, so I knew that most of them would know the original and I wanted to surprise them with this in my set. In total, it took me three days to give the original my own imprint.”

https://soundcloud.com/timojahns/tt-why-timos-edit

When I told Guy I was interviewing you today he shouted down the phone…”we love Timo at Buzz Chart HQ. He is like a walking Back To Mine compilation!” Thoughts on that little comment?

“I would say that we have the same taste of music and I`m really happy that he likes what I`m doing!”

When did the idea of a career in music start to form in your mind…and what was your first break into the music industry?

“In 1989 there was a small club in my hometown and there was a DJ mixing tracks together but it was more hip house stuff. I watched him doing this every weekend and I loved how he led the crowd with this throughout the night without any interruption and how the crowd reacted to his mixing. I had never seen this before and was really fascinated. So I decided to try it myself. A friend of mine had two turntables and a little mixer at home and I practiced there for some time. Later on I bought my first own equipment and did tapes for my friends. My mixing was horrible at that time but I practiced more and more and got better. I drove to a lot of different record shops in Germany to get the maximum of hot tracks and people liked what I was doing at that time. I gave my tapes to promoters of the parties I attended and happily got the chance to play at the famous Hanomag warehouse in Hannover. This was my start into the music industry.”

Who were the producers/artists/DJs that made an early impression on you?

“In the early 90s the only real possibility to listen to house and techno music was to go out to very rare or illegal parties, or to listen to some radio shows. We had to drive hundreds of kilometers to go to parties because there was nothing like this in the region where I lived and house and techno music was totally underground and was not played at normal nightclubs. At that time I listened to two big radio shows: Hr3-Clubnight and to BFBS – the Steve Mason Experience. Together with getting new musical inspiration at the parties this was the only way to experience new music because there was no internet in those days. Playlists were sent via fax or you had to call them live in their show to get the names of the tracks. So my first heroes were Sven Väth, Thorsten Fenslau, Mark Spoon and of course Steve Mason. So I was more into the ‘Sound of Frankfurt’ and the UK sound Steve Mason played in his shows.”

So we come back to yours after the club…what is the Timo Jahns Back To Mine Early 90s selection you spin us…

01. Jam & Spoon – Odyssey to Anyoona

02. Pete Lazonby – Sacred Cicles

03. Age of Love – The Age Of Love

04. Joe T. Vanelli – Playing With The Voice in Germany (Paul van Dyk Remix)

05. Humate – Love Stimulation

06. Marmion – Schöneberg

07. Massive Attack – Unfinished Sympathy

08. Dee-Lite – Groove Is In The Heart

09. Jungle Brothers- I’ll House You

10. Felix – Don’t You Want Me

Okay lets rewind for a moment. Have you hailed from a musical family, what are your earliest memories of music?

“Yes, my parents gave us the opportunity to get a classical music education at an early age. My sister played violin in an orchestra and I started playing piano at the age of 4. From there I was always into music because with music I was able to express my feelings. This has never changed till today. But there was one situation where I didn’t like to play the piano when I was a child: at Christmas for my family before getting my Christmas presents!!”

Your proudest career moment to date?

“The honor to remix Sade.”

You surely must have a huge bank of un-released material…what else is lurking beneath?

“Besides the Sade remix I did an edit of Melody Gardot – ‘Our Love Is Easy”. At the moment it’s at Universal, so let’s see what they decide on for a proper release. We are also checking the rights for my edit of ‘Why Can’t We Live Together’ and of course there are some new edits and remixes of mine which I don’t want to mention just now. They sure will be a surprise!” 

https://soundcloud.com/timojahns/mg-our-love-is-easy-timos-secret-edit

Some DJ dates you are looking forward in the coming months?

“I`m really looking forward to go back to Dubai. I had never played outside Europe before and it was really amazing when I first played there this year.”

What are the 5 big tunes in your box this weekend…

01.Kiasmos – Looped

I LOVE this track! Nothing more to say!

02.Nils Frahm – Says (Edit)

A danceable version of Nils Frahm’s beauty!

03.Massive Attack – Unfinished Sympathy (Edit)

Also a great edit which takes me back 24 years! It’s a timeless track!

04.Rico Puestel – As Far As We Could

Rico is one of my favorite producers at the moment and this is his newest release

05.Plastikman – EXpand (Tale of us Remix)

This one is MASSIVE. Glad that it’s out now and I can play it!

When was the last time you pressed rewind and listened to a track over again because it was so damned good?

“When I first listened to Kiasmos – Looped.”

Tell us 3 bucket list adventures you wanna do in your lifetime?

“I have only one adventure that I really want to do: Diving with white sharks in South Africa.”

A tune nestling in your set that just won’t go away from last year?

“Dennis Ferrer/Jerome Sydenham – ‘Timbuktu (Pan-African Electro Dub)’ – it’s older than last year but this one really won’t go away!

Some producers doing it for you at the moment?

“I really love nearly all stuff from the Innervision guys: Dixon and Âme. Rico Puestel and Christian Loeffler are also very talented. Playing a lot of tracks from them.” 

And finally…what is coming out next from you studio wise…

“I was very busy producing this last year. Apart from my edits, I did a lot of my own new tracks too. So there’s a lot of stuff that will be coming out in the summer. The next release after my Sade remix will be Timo Jahns – ‘Find A Love’ together with a lovely remix of my friend Rico Puestel. It will be out in March on my own imprint FREUNDCHEN Records. Here’s a sneaky peek…

https://soundcloud.com/timojahns/t-j-find-a-love-work-in

Links :

https://www.facebook.com/timo.jahns.official
https://soundcloud.com/timojahns

Latest Radio show: https://soundcloud.com/timojahns/get-physical-radio-183

Contact :

info@freundchen.net
Latest Radio show: https://soundcloud.com/timojahns/get-physical-radio-183