An intriguing new recording project from Ricardo Villalobos is alluded to in an in-depth interview with the producer by Resident Advisor.

The Chilean techno icon has teamed up with Max Loderbauer – a member of Sun Electric, NSI. and the Moritz Von Oswald Trio – to work with elements from the back catalogue of ECM, the legendary jazz and "new music" label founded by Manfred Eicher in 1969. With unfailingly terrific cover art, the best ECM releases explored the fertile ground between classical minimalism, jazz, ethnic music and ambient, and featured such luminaries as Keith Jarrett, Jan Garbarek, Terje Rydpal, Ravi Shankar and Art Ensemble of Chicago. Nothing more is known about the Villalobos/Loderbauer project at this time, but we antcipate a full-scale "reconstruction" approach to ECM compositions, in the vein of Von Oswald and Carl Craig’s Deutsche Grammophon release from last year.

In the interview, with RA’s Todd Burns, Villalobos also talks of more general ambitions with production and recording.

"For me, my biggest challenge is to reach the sound quality of acoustic recordings with electronic instruments," he says. "That’s why I have the modular system and things like that. The goal is to use all frequencies, the whole range.

"Electronic music is still far away from acoustic recordings, the guy behind the instrument, the guy who has played for 40 years, the guy who is mixing it all, the placement of the microphones, everything having a history. Like a jazz recording. [turns on stereo] There’s an incredible room, an incredible atmosphere in a pure analog recording. It’s amazing. Every day, that’s my goal. To reach this richness.

"Electronic music is still far away from acoustic recordings, the guybehind the instrument, the guy who has played for 40 years, the guy whois mixing it all, the placement of the microphones, everything having ahistory."

What of his current listening habits?

"If electronic music is interesting, then of course I listen to it. But compared to everything else, it’s not very inspiring. To listen to inspiring electronic music, you have to meet the person, then you have a different approach to the music, then you have a very nice situation sometimes after a gig at a private thing, then you have a nice approach to electronic music that is beyond the dance floor. On the dance floor, all you listen to is dance floor-related music. Most of the time, you play with some very interesting friends, and there is a big exchange of music. But in private, I listen to more classical and jazz music."

Villalobos also explains how technological differences have made it harder for him to play back-to-back sets with Richie Hawtin:

"With Richie [Hawtin] it was super nice at the beginning. Especially when we had a different approach, and we would meld this together. In some situations, it would be divine. But sometimes it was also a very artificial situation. We had to play together, blah blah blah. But, you know, he’s making technological steps with his gear and his things and I’m still playing records."

Read the full interview here, which touches on Sei Es Drum, politics and plenty else besides.