When did you meet ? When did you start working together ? In what kind of circumstances ?
thaddi herrmann (half herrmann und kleine) : we met some years ago, i think around 97. i was working for kiss fm at the time and christian came round to the studio to give us some demo tracks. i was doing a drum and bass show back then and christian was producing drum and bass. he was living around the corner from the studio and i used to visit him before the show started. i had done music before, had released some records and christian, too, had done music for a lonng time. however, it took i think 2 years until we started recording together. the circumstances were dark, gloomy, bad, hopeless. life still feels the same by the way to me. i had done quite different music before but it felt absolutely neccessary to record the tracks which ended up on the transalpin e.p.

How do you work together ? Do Thaddeus rather usually bring the melodico-synthetic side and Christian the instrumental hip-hop side, or is it the inverse ?
it is neither one way or the other. some tracks we do together, some we do completely on our own. sometimes i come up with a melody, sometimes with a beat. generelly speaking, melodies or melodic elemenst are always first.

Why have the gestation of this first album Our Noise been so long ?
we were just lazy, i guess....
Compared to your previous works on 12" singles like Transalpin or Kickboard Girl, the presence of singer Arianne Hensel is considerable. Where does the idea of working with a singer come from ? How did you met her ? Did you consider this experience as something interesting and do you now want to privilege this kind of collaboration in your music ?
ariane is christians girlfriend. we wanted to try out vocals and she has a beautiful voice. it was hard work. the beauty of electronic music is that you do not have to rely on good acoustics in your studio. but when you record vocals, you suddenly have to think about good mics etc. also, it feels much different if you have to mix a voice. we recorded another track with her for the recent morr music compilation (v/a blue skied an’ cleared) and will hopefully record more stuff with her.

We notice that Christian was interested in pop structures as he released Valis, featuring highly melodic bass melodies. Do you think that releasing Our Noise let you explore the pop side of Herrmann & Kleine’s music, abandonig its breakbeat side to privilege a more shoegazing approach, being helped in that way by the presence of singer Arianne Hensel or by covering Slapp Happy (a song already covered by Mazzy Star) ?
our noise is not really shoegazing, is it !? it is just a track we both liked and we were trying out. there are still many tracks in the "old flavour". we’ll definitely carry on doing this kind of stuff, but also trying out new things.
On this new album you used guitars, marimbas... Do you wish, in the future, work more in the usual way of a classic rock band ? Or will Herrmann & Kleine still a punctual collaboration ?
i think h+k will never be a rock band. i mean the main reason why i started to record electronic music back in the days was to have an alternative to classic rockbands. as i wrote before, the beauty of doing electronic stuff is that you do not rely on rehearsel rooms etc. it is all in your machines. at the same time, exploring new things and integrating acoustic instruments is a challenge.

Christian is releasing solo albums, while you are publishing differents artists on your own label City-Centre-Offices and write critics for german magazine De :Bug. What are the consequences of those activities dealing with music on Herrmann & Kleine ’s music, and the consequences of your "noise" on those activities ?
as far as i’m concerned, music is all around me all the time. running a label and being an editor for the most important german music mag for elecronic music makes you listening to music all the time. sometimes it is very hard to detach yourself from that and concentrate on what you wanna do for h+k. i think it just slows things down a bit, so it is not a big deal. it is great to work as a music journalist, because sometimes you get things sent you never would have bought but which you really like. so you are confronted with much new, unheard music. a fact which of course influences you.

Herrmann & Kleine gave several shows in the last few months. In what do you think it influences or will influence your music ?
again, i can only speak for myself. what i realised is that the straighter the set the better. so maybe our upcoming stuff will be straighter as well. who knows !?

Can you tell us what represent the Kickboard Girl to you ? Who is she ? Why don’t you develop a little much more your website ?
the kickboardgirl was my personal starting point for the project. of course, back then, i did not call her kickboardgirl. she is a very special person. all my tracks are for her.

In you compare to what you wanted to do first in working as Herrmann & Kleine, what do you think of the whole evolution of your music ?
it developed very nicely, i would say. it is exactly what i wanted to do. i am very happy, but have still many things in mind.

interview by stéphane/denis
via internet
2002, november