At the tender age of 21, Norwegian Andreas Kleven Rasmussen is fast making a name for himself as a producer and electronic musician – and that name is Pandreas.
Already on to his third EP with this year’s Beluga, following the Pandreas and Rås EPs from ’12 and ’13 respectively, Rasmussen makes involving, cinematic electronic music that mixes house, ambient and disco to wonderful effect. Pandreas doesn’t worry about time constraints when he’s creating these jams – they are very much experimentation in long form and the sound of someone who’s unwilling to settle into one groove or genre.
As the young man is part of this month’s Ja Ja Ja Club Night lineup, we decided it was the perfect time to get to know Pandreas a little better… and he left us (as I’m sure you will be) reeling with some disappointing news concerning the possibility of an album…
Get tickets for the Ja Ja Ja club night on Thursday 22nd May by clicking here!
Spotlight Interview : Pandreas
For those that haven’t met you yet, could you please introduce yourself – who are you, where are you from, and how would you describe what you do?
I’m just this guy making electronic music and releasing it on SellOut! Music, in Norway. It’s hard to describe it any more precisely than that!
Your last track ‘Rube’ wasn’t what you’d call short, but at nine minutes it never feels wearying – do you enjoy or prefer creating music in that longer form?
Yeah it is quite long, but I feel like it suited the genre and type of song pretty well. It can be fun making long tracks, because it gives a lot of room to build the intensity up gradually and create tension. Hopefully people can stand to listen the whole track through!
We’ve heard a couple of EPs so far, can we expect an album soon, and what might it sound like?
I haven’t got any album plans, I’m afraid. I just don’t feel like my music is suitable for that type of format, nor do I have enough good ideas to fill 40 minutes of album time.
Do you have any particular musical favourites or inspirations? Also, your music seems fairly widescreen… do you find your music being inspired by cinema and art?
It varies, lately I haven’t been listening to that much electronic music. I am quite fond of expansive pop music and when I was younger I used to listen to a lot of post rock and shoegaze type of music, which probably is a big influence.
Norway seems to have a fine dance/producer heritage given that apart from you we’ve got Lindstrøm and Todd Terje, so what is it about the country that it manages to produce these artists?
Hard to say! But you know, Norwegians have a lot of spare time, and not that much work to do, so I guess it makes it easy to just sit around making electronic music all day.
You’re from Bergen – is it a city you love? Do you have a favourite place there?
Well, I’m actually not from Bergen, I just live here. I come from a much smaller town called Ulsteinvik, which is a great town! I really like the parks in Bergen, there’s a lot of nice parks here.
We’re really taken on a journey on the Beluga tracks; how hard is it to create a narrative in dance music when it’s generally vocal-less?
That can be a real issue, keeping the music exiting without vocals. I think 99 percent of the music I listen to has vocals, so it can be hard translating that vibe into my own music. I suppose it’s just about finding some form of hook that can serve the same purpose as a vocalist.
When it comes to creating your tracks, how much is done on computer, and how much is real instrumentation?
Lately I have used a lot of hardware; most of the tracks on the EP were made on two synths, as well as some sampling. I also sampled my own sounds a little bit. But the whole thing was put together on a computer in sort of a best of both worlds scenario.
Do you have any good new music tips to share with us?
My label mate Torkelsen recently premiered two really nice tracks. I urge everyone to listen to them.
And finally, what does the rest of the year hold for you?
Haven’t got that many plans, apart from some concerts, writing new music and going to school!
