hey there welcome to a brand new episode of music express my name is tuan and in today's vlog you will see my interview with matthias hoffman about the sickness x track the orange team but before we start with the interview please make sure to subscribe to my channel and very important also make sure to click the bell button because then you will get a notification the next time a new vlog is online all right here it is the story behind the orange team by sickness x my interview with matthias hoffmann enjoy sickness x was a
project from german producer and composer matthias hofmann sickness x was mostly known for tracks such as super string positron turnaround kinder elite and of course the orange team that one came out back in november 1994 via iq records for this week's vlog i sat down with matthias hoffman in his studio to ask him about the story behind the orange theme and more my first question to him was if it was difficult to come up with a follow-up for the trek super string because of the massive success of that one because you know we were it
was not so it felt not like a huge uh success you know it was like because our tracks were played in the clubs uh or most of the tracks were played in the clubs and if you have we had like a magazine here and like the heart house and the actual stuff was always in charge you know like between one and five or so so we hadn't had the feeling that this was like an extraordinary thing i think it turned out to be more when it come to in the netherlands it went very big you
know in england it was big you know this was but it yeah this was a kind of cool yeah but for us it was not the big thing it was like an okay track for you yeah so the track uh the orange team is based on the classical piece of music okay tell a bit more about that the thing is you know it was about eight 1982 or the two or 83 because i finished school 83. so we have we the movie clockwork orange was shown us you know in school and you know we saw
the film and we were scooped with sandy cooper i could never saw something like that before you know it was really and most of the music is ludwig fanbeeto because alex is like a big keynote we got the guy in the book or is like a big ludwig fan but the intro theme which was was played with them really with a poor cinti sound was not ludwig von beto and it wasn't played in the original it was just light blade on a keyboard with a really poor hd sound synthesizer track so far so good ten
years later i was sitting next door here in the studio and we i was thinking about what to do next and i got 10 years later i got this theme in my head and i said to the piano and played it somehow i like i had it in my head i didn't know that it was i thought it was like the score music of this because the other music was a little bit fun in the movie so i tried this could dance which was like i had in my head it was it reminded me for
johannes bastian bach like you know you go like a which goes endless and you know in endless building up you know it doesn't stop getting bigger and bigger but be close to god you know matthias universalis you know the endless you need to be as close as god yeah and this was so burned in my head that i made this uh i made this track you know and um yeah and it was real i felt that well that's just big because it's like the theme is very strong and i call it the orange theme because
it's from clockwork orange yeah so i did you it was henry purcell you know i i years later i was reading an article about um classical music influence techno or electronic music like that and then i i said yeah i saw my name and it said oh yeah he was saying by henry percell and damn this funeral of queen mary and i i would say damn you know but the funny thing is i had this i heard it just i saw the film and i had it in my head 10 years you know and suddenly
it has to come out you know it's not i did not exactly like it is on the hundred percent because i you know i can't remember so well but it's exactly the same thing and people still put it on henry purcell you know fantastic piece of music yeah so what kind of equipment was used for the track yeah the same like we did on uh superstring it was like the a lot of you know stuff a lot of roland stuff a lot of atari stuff s thousands uh overhand keyboards um and then mix it was
and we had like a tear console like a for the air track a tear console i don't i think it was mozart called was mozart or something like that was yeah this was an analog stuff so what do you remember how long you were working on the track yeah it just was going like buff you know i think i i made the track in three hours yeah yeah because you had the main idea i had the idea i just had to yeah it was really it was going quick yeah so a few years after the
original release of the orange team the track got a second life when it got licensed to several big labels such as hootsuite's idnt and bonsai records yeah and it came out with some new remixes as well was this an idea from you guys no they came up they come up you know i this rank one thing this is what's 80 but which label was rank one yeah idmt idnt and you know this is because i did a lot of uh remix for uh rank one as well and for idnt and so it was like kind
of a swap thing yeah yeah they said other they didn't pay or we didn't pay i made remixes for them and they made remixes for our tracks and somehow it came up to me you know yes exactly yeah so yeah speaking of remixes during the early years to track out remax several times fairy question did a remix under his movement alias who whose tunes label both red jerry did a remix rank one day remix under their own name solar stone mark vandal i think it's the most the most remixed track yeah there's like a lot
of remix so there are also several cover versions of the track um how do you feel about all those remixes and remakes you know i rank one stuff you know it's really amazing it's and and a lot of them you know is it's it's something you know which but this track was put in another time you know because i quit then and a lot of those remixes that they asked me nowadays and if they can make a remix and say do whatever you like you know it's like and you know they put the theme into
i think the rank one thing was pretty cool um and yeah i was uh i was not honored but you know i was wondering you know because there's a lot of remixing and and covers and you know and yeah it's like a good theme it's not my it's henry um do you think you would do a new remix yourself one day no i don't think so i've you know i i thought about you know to go to kind of electronic music back but um to be honest you know you have to be so into it
to be a cutting edge or to be to to do something which makes sense in time you know and i'm not you know and it's i don't have the energy to go back and um i'm not interested in electronic music so much you know not to do it of course i listen to it a lot you know but like more not like the club things but more like the energy the sound these aesthetics what they what they develop with electronic music nowadays you know there's such all this craze crazy crazy stuff and really things i
love but to go back as and to work on them it would no i don't think so yeah yeah you're you're busy already with your own stuff yes yeah so at one point uh rolf left the project and you did continue with sickness x you know the thing is like i didn't left it okay cycles x was always my project we did the first song together and then because i was in a i had a weird situation you know i'm a studio guy i'm a musician but when the iq records and heart house and recycler
died it turned out to be bigger than anyone expected and we had like a londoner office and we had an la in office and then heinz roth who was managing director said i need you in the in the office i need an a and aring i need you have three labels we have someone has to do it and then i would say okay i move to or leave my beloved studio here and go to uh go to a shitty office you know and uh doing phone calls and things like that i was suffering a lot
but i had to do it for the company because when was anywhere you know so someone has to do the job okay and i did and rife was into the studio then you know because he took my studio then i moved to the to the office here to the second big studio that we have which was exactly this studio on this other floors right and then i was like a hobby musician i said i just said okay let's do a track and then we did this one together and then when i finally after one and
a half years i said heinz forget it you know i'm you know i'm better in the studio i you know i have the company more if i'm in the studio when i sit there and then i had my studio back and then i turned to make the cycles x thing for myself but what the good thing was arrived was very much into sound he's very much he mixed the whole um uh zeitgeist ex album you know i did the pre-production then and then he was really and he's if you hear the album nowadays you know
he's really he who was far away his time yeah with his mixing uh skills you know and this uh the hypermetrical album you know i made the album you know we were mixing it together and he put some really like from the sound with it he was very much and he was into it i was in the office yeah you know for years so he helped me a lot there yeah yeah yeah gold is also still busy active in the music scene right yeah right he's a very successful film composer you know and he's uh
his thing and he's a great music a lot of with orchestras and things like that you know he's very very good find his his thing uh not in techno i think he's was producing now or makes a record with chris leaving yeah i saw something on instagram yeah yeah yeah so you still catch up sometimes or yes we see uh from time to time because we have like this uh the after the iq we we quit with the eye skew later we found a company called chalbao and we still um have uh business to do
with the shuttle even though we don't work for it but there's yeah you know um so what's your favorite memory when it comes to the sickness x project i find the cycles x i i try to you know i have like this little samples like this uh quite the like the boys choir i have like this thing's going i have a lot of classical influences and i have a free you know for example i i wrote the lyrics for kinder elite you know which which is so weird and i have we had this this uh
singer here which exactly is this was a girl it was a woman you know but could sing like a girl and i was like i have to do this and this i don't know if you know the the lyrics here it's about ecstasy it's about what happens to you that's about adorable situation then this this whole massive it was like it was for me it was cyclist's egg it was so many drug musical experience everything and everything and this is how i yeah i felt it you know it's my my this is my com how
do you say it's yeah my reflection of time in in music is this hypermetrical and even the the cover you know everywhere and even saw that and it was in a hotel and i saw this painting and i said i have to have this artist you know who's the artist i call the artist they listen i have a record and you made the you made the the cover for it you know you didn't know it but you made the cover i saw it and i said yeah take it okay and i played the record and
said yeah cool take it he just gave me this picture you know cool yeah so you just mentioned kindly is that also your favorite sickness extract one of my favorite exercises extracts yeah yeah it's difficult to choose just one right yeah so yeah there have been some live performance as well but but were you part of that or like on sensation and i think transcendental no no no no no no i'm not i'm not the guy to you know definitely what i said you know if i would have made or wanted to make a dj
career you know at that time you know it would have been perfect you know but i had a lot of tracks which were worked quite well in clubs but to be honest you know i always stood beside sven is like the dj really and he got every crowd i was in manchester in the early 90s you know where we stood there you know it's complete club you know and i was like he will never get them it took some 20 minutes you know the whole club the club was freaking out and it doesn't matter which
which crowd he has you know it took him 20 minutes to freak them out you know he's an entertainer yeah he's but he has the feeling for which track on which you know it's really he is a dj and i was always to stand there and to turn like just to show because you don't do anything you know it's just not looking totally stupid you know you should stand there and you know i'm a musician i want to make music and that's you know like fake i'm oh what are you doing you know it was
it's so not for you no it's not my thing so you did a lot of other projects as well such as uh brainchild and you're also part of odyssey of noises they were involved with like a lot of uh yeah production for lots of other tracks as well so is that what is your all-time favorite production that you ever did i think cyclist x the album was like at that time i remember from the electronic part i think a lot of a lot more records every after my electronic music career you know and there are
some of course but in the um i think the best thing i do is like i did five albums now with words which is a rock band gym like i think from from from the lyrics and from the intenseness of the music con year with the vocals i think that's my best work or the latest aldene things which was a german pop act you know which i was working on after uh iq from the production from the music and what how it reached people and on which level it reached people and you know this is
this is for me it's like like your biggest achievement yes but in electronic music it was the second section for sure so where do you see yourself in 10 years from now dead let's hope not with a white beard i don't know i don't know you know how all is going on here now with this corona thing and with this life and how it changes the club culture you know it's not even sure that the club you love more so you go it's still open or it still exists you know so it's really nice times
yeah strange times yeah you spent more time in the studio now you know for me like they have to have to go and current in it i'm always a character you know because i'm alone in the studio i work alone you know i go with at my home i go here just i see my wife and that's it my kids and that's it yeah so for you not much change besides like this not about change because now it's because we have to cancel the tours and everything now you have like the the feeling you know
that it's a little but i guess everyone has that now it's too long yeah it takes so long nobody knows when it goes if it goes on like it was or how it turns out to be no no one knows well fingers crossed for the future yes well thank you very much you're welcome thank you all right that was it this week's vlog my interview with matthias hoffman about the orange team by sickness x matthias thank you very much for your time much appreciated thank you for watching i hope you enjoyed the vlog if you
did make sure to give this video a like leave a comment in the comment section below and very important make sure to subscribe also make sure to click the bell button because then you'll get a notification the next time a new vlog is online i did another interview with matthias and in that one he talks about the story behind the sickness x classic super string you can already find that one on my channel so make sure to check it out once again thanks for watching and until next time bye
