Not content with producing groundbreaking dub experiments under his long-running Vladislav Delay guise, Sasu Ripatti helped re-define vocal house for the 21st century with his first two Luomo albums, Vocalcity and The Present Lover .
Following the cool, inward-looking Paper Tigers (2006), Luomo is back for this year’s Convivial, which, as its title implies, is a comparatively warm, collaborative affair – with guest vocalists including Robert Owens, Cassy, Apparat and Scissor Sisters’ Jake Shears. We called him up to find out more…
Tell us about Convivial...Where does it sit in relation to your previous Luomo albums?
“It suppose that in many ways it’s a summing up of what Luomo is about; it’s also probably a more mature work than my previous albums. When I did the first Luomo album, I had no idea about club music; now I probably know too much. I don’t think of what I do as club music; I think of it as pop…experimentation. Whatever thast means…
So you don’t consider it to be dance music?
“It’s definitely dance music, but then for me Michael Jackson is dance music…There’s something appealing to me about 4/4, even though I’m very fond of more complex rhythms. The simplicity of 4/4 kind of challenges me to make a groove around the beat. I don’t make music simply because it will work on today’s dancefloors – because it’s minimal techno or French Banger (sic) stuff or whatever…
“Of course, I have the dancefloor in mind when I produce music, it’s just not the main consideration. Dance music can be constrained by what is fashionable and what is allowed. I just make the kind of dance music I want to hear.
“I lived for quite a long time in Berlin, and looking back I think the album reflects my life there: social, collaborative, surrounded by people who make music, club music. Even though I consciously tried to avoid all that, it still had an influence…
You seem to play a lot of live Vladislav Delay shows; Luomo shows are relatively rare. Do you enjoy taking this music out, or is it all about the studio, the work?
“It’s not just about being the studio, no. This is very social music. Not party music exactly, but celebratory…Of course, I can’t just play anywhere, clubs are very much ruled by…style police. But when the mood is good and people appreciate an open-minded approach to dance music, I really do like to play and to bring that atmosphere to the dancefloor for an hour and a half. But I’m quite sensitive as well; if there’s an awkward mood, I just find it a pain in the ass…
Where did the vocalists on Convivial fit into the writing and production process?
“Well, all the music was done first, and then I started looking for suitable vocalists for each track; in some cases I would send a couple of tracks to a vocalist and ask them which they prefer, but usually it was one particular vocalist I had in mind for each track and that was what ended up working.
“I wanted more variety, musically-speaking. The last album I did was a very heady, introverted record, and had only one vocalist. When I started doing the new album I really wanted to go more extrovert and also simply use more voices, a greater variety of sounds. And also to absorb a little more influence from other people: it was the first time in my own productions that I actually really collaborated with people, getting them to bring lyrics and that kind of thing. Less of a control freak situation.
Did you worry about the “baggage” that a vocalist like Jake Shears might bring to the project?
“I really can’t afford to care about that kind of thing…The important this is that the integrity was there for me; I was very convinced that it was the right thing to do. After that I didn’t care if there was some Vladislav Delay fan who got offended because I worked with the guy from Scissor Sisters – it’s just life, you know. I like Jake, I respect him, and it was great to work with him. If Convivial was on a major label and they began pushing it in the wrong way, then it would be uncomfortable for me. But I’m bringing it ut on my own label so that’s less of a concern. It feels comfortable. To be honest, this is the first time I’ve even thought about it in these terms.
Why did you first move to Berlin, and why did you move back to Finland?
“I move to Berlin for personal rather than artistic reasons… I moved to Berlin almost eight years ago with my girlfriend; she’s from Berlin and we were trying to work out whether she would come to Finland or I would go to Berlin. We didn’t think about it too much, it just happened; we got a place and ended up living there. I never went there for the music scene or anything like that.
“Now we have a daughter, she’s two years old; we just got fed up of living in the big city, being surrounded by concrete. So we’ve come to Finland to one of the most remote places there is, to help give her what I think will be a more natural upbringing. We live near the airport, so we can still travel easily.
“I wanted to escape Berlin for creative reasons as well, actually. It got a bit too trendy, too fashionable. I mean it’s great, but not as a place to work. We still go there often and have a place there. But I had to confront myself and ask, where should I really be based? Here, in Finland, is where I find writing most enjoyable. It’s just more what I need.
I heard somewhere that lyrics of Convivial are informed by your own personal travel diaries. Is this the case? And is travel an inspiration for you?
“I enjoy travel, I get a lot if inspiration from that. You’re meeting people, seeing different races doing the same thing – I think that’s key to an open mind to begin with. It’s not like when I go to America I get inspired to write one or other kind of song, but when I travel for a couple of months, going here and there, I get this urge to bring something out. “Travel diaries” – that’s a little bit romantic. When I travel I have my laptop with me, I just really like to work on planes and so on. There’s no travel diary per se [laughs]…
How do you juggle your different musical projects?
“I only work on one project at a time, and I really have to take a break between projects. After Luomo I started writing acoustic stuff – I needed to do something completely different. It’s quite intensive when I’m working on any given project or album; I really get into it emotionally. When it’s over I need to do something different. But then again, collaboration with other people, I do that more and more. But after a while collaborating with people, I really need to go and do stuff by myself; when I’ve done stuff on myself for a while, I begin to miss collaboration. When I work with Moritz [von Oswald] in the [Moritz von Oswald] Trio it doesn’t really reflect or influence how I would work with a Luomo or Vladislav Delay album.
Any other collaborations on the horizon?
“There’s a quartet which I started; I play drums and it’s more like free jazz noise – that’s another outlet. There’s also an album which I’m finishing with my girlfriend – AGF – we’re going to release it on B-Pitch Control in February. That’s the most intense collaboration because we live together, and we work together too.
And raise a child together.
“Exactly.”
Kiran Sande
