AD:keY interview on new ‘0609’ album out now via Alfa Matrix
AD:keY
Last September, Alfa Matrix released the 7th studio album from AD:KEY, “0609” (available via Bandcamp): a release full of energy, strong old-school EBM basslines, catchy synth melodies, and addictive choruses, all highlighted by their unique male/female vocal interplay. NITZER EBB’s power meets KRAFTWERK’s melody for a smashing album evoking AND ONE or FRONT 242!
S. First of all, congratulations on the release of “0609” and your wedding anniversary! September 6th must hold a lot of personal significance for you both. Can you share how you spent your anniversary this year and what this date means to you in both your personal and professional lives?
R. Thank you for your kind wishes. September 6th has a very big meaning for us indeed. We wanted to show the whole world that we wanted to spend the rest of our lives together. This year we spent our 16th wedding anniversary at the NCN Festival. The night before I performed at the NCN with Orange Sector. Andrea and I met at a festival 17 years ago, married 16 years ago and gave our first AD:keY concert in Kassel on that very day. So a wedding concert!
S. “0609” is described as your most personal album to date, reflecting your deep bond as a couple and bandmates. How did your relationship influence the creative process behind this release? Were there any moments that felt especially emotional or cathartic during the making of the album?
R. We are married, but at the same time we are best friends. We can tell each other anything and don’t shy away from criticizing each other. Because we have set up our studio at home, we can work on music at any time. Alone or together, whatever suits us. Of course there are emotional moments. Especially when a track gives us goosebumps at the same time. I think especially with the songs “Your Eyes” and “Two Souls” we felt a sense of deep connection…
S. The male/female vocal interplay is a core element of your sound. How do you approach balancing your voices and perspectives in the music? Are there specific tracks on “0609” where you feel this dynamic really shines?
R. That’s a tough question! My favorite on the album is “Your Eyes.” The song is based on Andrea’s voice. My voice can only be heard in the background during the chorus. Where a female voice is needed or rather a male voice, we also use it. Andrea finds the outro of the album, the song “0609”, particularly successful. Here both voices appear in a balanced ratio…
S. This album celebrates not only your relationship but also your dedication to the EBM genre. How do you see your sound evolving on “0609,” and what were your main influences or inspirations while working on this album?
R. I think we have undergone a lot of development in the last few years. Our songs seem (at least we think so) more grown-up, more mature than on the first albums. They are more classic, melodic old school EBM songs with a somewhat rough instrumentalization. We only use hardware synthesizers, many of which are analog devices. This makes the sound warm and rich – and somehow everything sounds a little like electronics from the end of the 80s. I think this is a new quality feature of “0609”. We like that sound because we grew up with it. These are our sources of inspiration. Our song “The Evil God,” for example, makes me think a little of Bigod 20 with its sounds and samples, for example the tracks “Kreusch” and “The Big Bang.” I’m a big Bigod 20 fan. Or the sequencer runs on the songs “Heartbeat” and “By Your Side” could perhaps have come from Nitzer Ebb. Andrea has been a Nitzer Ebb fan since she was a child. Some of the sounds on “0609” sound a bit like Armageddon Dildos, which I was a keyboard player for on stage for years. Uwe Kanka, the mastermind of Armageddon Dildos, finally insisted on contributing the vocals for our song “Feel the Beat” in the chorus. We have been friends with Uwe for years; after all, Uwe is originally from Kassel, just like Andrea. They even attended the same school, except that Uwe learned there a bunch of years before Andrea (laugh). I would perhaps mention Terence Fixmer and Miss Kittin as further influences – and of course Front 242 and Kraftwerk.
S. The album comes with a bonus CD featuring remixes by artists like ORANGE SECTOR, ZWEITE JUGEND, and even your side project RECTOR SCANNER. How did you decide which artists to collaborate with for these remixes, and how does it feel to have your music reinterpreted by others?
R. First of all, thank you again to all the remixers. Almost all of us know each others personally and are mostly friends with each other. Whenever we hear a remix for the first time, we are amazed at how different such new recordings are from the original and what new ideas the remixers have contributed. Since we know what our friends’ music sounds like with their own projects, we could already guess in advance which direction the mixes could go. With the Bodewell (Orange Sector) remix we knew it was going to be a club number that was going to be a blast. The TC 75 mix would be more ambient – and “Zweite Jugend” will sound like “Zweite Jugend”. “Aktion:Fiasko” definitely had to be there because the project is new, crisp and fresh. Franzi (the front woman) lives a few doors down from us. But we didn’t know that we would be presented with such a bright mix of “The Evil God” that will certainly attract attention in the club. The Miseria Ultima remix was also a big surprise because we had only known this band for a short time.
S. Considering the intimate nature of “0609” and your long-standing relationship as both partners and bandmates, how do you manage to maintain that balance between personal life and the creative energy needed for your music?
R. For us, making music is part of our private lives. It mainly takes place on the weekends, after dinner on Friday or Saturday evening. If the creative energy isn’t there, we do something different: we meet up with friends, go to concerts, or go to readings in my favorite bookstore “Otherland” in Berlin Kreuzberg where we gather strength and find new ideas.
S. As you celebrate this milestone with “0609,” what does the future hold for AD:KEY? Are there any upcoming projects, collaborations, or special plans that fans can look forward to?
R. Of course we pause for a moment when a project like a new album that we have been working on for almost 4 years is finished. It’s like closing a book you’ve read. And then you look around for something new, you look around and start the next project. We will definitely play some concerts, for example in March 2025 at the E-Only Festival in Leipzig. We have some remixes in the pipeline for other bands. There are already a few song ideas for our Rector Scanner project. In the future there will be a new Rector Scanner album. At the moment we are planning another AD:keY single from the current album, which should be released in the next months. Another AD:keY song is also finished, which was originally supposed to be on the album “0609”, but ultimately didn’t fit thematically. This song was sung by Martin Bodewell (Orange Sector). We also want to release this song somewhere! Andrea has also been active as a guest singer with VillaBorghese (side project of Ex Trial / Trilogy) in recent months and will certainly be heard there more often. In addition, Andrea is planning a project that she would like to launch together with exclusively female musicians, including Franzi from Aktion:Fiasko and Lily from MDS 51. Female Electronic Music – “FEM”.
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