Philipp Thimm

“I come from a church music background. I studied cello and worked a lot with other people in studios, mostly performing strings. Sascha somehow found me so I started producing with him – we did a musical adaption based on a score for a theatrical production of WarandPeace.

“We wanted to be more minimal and create something with a very dry sound, but we also relied on session playing. With our theatre, music and film compositions we always had deadlines to meet; this time, we didn’t want to overthink but also wanted to just listen back and let the results unfold.

“I brought a Celtic harp, orchestral harp, mandolin, ukulele, and of course the electric guitar and bass. We also used acoustic guitars, these weird marimba-style instruments and a Moog Theremin, which I got for my birthday. We went to a recording studio where we had room to set up an entire band and jammed ideas. Then at some point we incorporated parts of those jams into the record.

“We’d process a lot of the sounds. Sascha is more of a modular synth master now, so I’d reverse sounds, sample them back using a normal sampler and then time-stretch the reverb as far as possible. We also used the Roli Seaboard. Being a string player, it was fascinating to make these vibrato sounds using a silicone-based keyboard. I guess we wanted to find that transition where you can no longer tell whether a sound is acoustic or electronic – to trick people. I’m still inspired by Sascha, he’s a powerhouse. We have a master/ apprentice thing going, I can learn so much from him.”