Your music-making experience now covers a time-span of more than two decades. Could you describe how the ways in which you produce and perform your music has changed over the years?

When I started out in the early eighties the use of noise and loops in so called popular music was considered a revolutionary technique. We would gate and trigger subsonic bass frequencies or white noise onto drum sounds in order to enhance them. Usually there were tape-loops running around the studio on a construction of multiple microphone stands which would contain edited material of complex rhythmical matter. We were using samples before there was samplingmachines by "flying in" various snippets of sounds with a quarter-inch tape-machine. Sounds were constantly chopped and ducked by using noise-gates. With the ongoing development in electronic equipment and also the ever changing habits of listeners, most of these techniques are now obsolete; or to put it differently: are part of the current musical culture. Even the most commercial pieces nowadays make use of these elements. To interrupt the constant flow of information we get hammered by on a daily basis, injecting silence in order to re-vitalize concentration and intensity is the most disturbing and therefore effective thing the creative mind can apply today. The task is, I believe, to make use of the given tools in a non-conformist way and basically stir the shit up real good in all ways possible.

Besides the technical development of tools and endless options for producing music, the means of distributing that music have also changed dramatically. What's your perspective on these constantly changing music formats (vinyl, CD, mp3)?

[When I was a child] I would skip school and hang out at the Zensor record-store in Schoneberg. I discovered a completely new world there: Very small editions of 7 inch singles, with obviously hand-designed covers, bagged individually. Music so entirely weird and adventurous like you would never find in the "regular" stores I used to frequent before. This experience basically opened my eyes, got me acquainted with the artists which were to influence me up to now and gave me the motivation to try and produce and distribute my own material by myself. For me it started with cassettes, compact-cassettes that is. A format to be totally extinct and forgotten by the time my sons generation turns, say 20, which is very soon. I copied batches of these tapes and went door to door selling them. I travelled as far as London to sell them at Rough Trade and financed my stay that way. Eventually, when the initial creative rush of the early eighties was fading I also stopped buying records and just taped everything. This lasted until I got my first cd-player in 88 if I remember correctly. The discussion back then about the sound-quality of tapes and records was a lot like today's ongoing quarrels about mp3, digital and analogue formats. It bores me no end. Cassettes and mp3 are cheap, available to every one and therefore fine by my book. Back then there was already networks of mail-art communities for example. People would exchange cassettes, drawings, photocopied pamphlets and the like. I appreciate the fact that communities like that have been popping up online in a massive way lately.

There have been some very creative decades in the history of electronic music. How can artists endevour to keep themselves sounding "fresh" and original - is technology the answer?

I like the concept of current generations picking up old structures, concepts and technologies to create something fresh and new. Like rhythm-boxes and bass-sequencers where invented in the late 70s to accompany "traditional" musicians while rehearsal and such. This didn't really work out for the industry. The machines ended up in pawn-shops and on flea-markets. The house- and techno generation then picked up these items and created a brand new style of underground music by misusing them. Same thing with myspace: It started as a dating-portal and now you have all these unsigned bands and artists relentlessly promoting themselves on it. In addition to that you get something like design-anarchy. People get to learn HTML-codes and just make everything look the way they want to. Again, perfectly alright.

You are an 80s kid - back then there was a dust-cloud left by movements such as Punk and all the social changes of the 60s and 70s. Who would you cite as highly influential projects from this period? What gave you the motivation to do music and start working with the likes of Einstürzende Neubauten?

Punk, after all wasn't that revolutionary of a concept. Yes, it had a tremendous amount of energy, and I am a sucker for that. I'm an energy-junky. But it was still using the same old instruments and structures. People like Throbbing Gristle and Suicide really took it one step further. I remember first listening to this music, staring at the grooves on the vinyl, thinking: "What the hell is going on here?" First it shocked me, then I was amused, chuckling to myself. Eventually I was convinced of the radicalism and exited. Very fond memories, indeed. Feeling so glad to be alive. So, most events and decisions in my life were, and still are, if not influenced by, at least accompanied by music. I am very grateful to each and every one of these artists. If what I do has only a fraction of that effect on my listeners, that's something to make me very proud. It is so important for your development as a human being to be able to get a kick out of, say music. Be a fan and don't be ashamed of it. I'm certainly not.

What are the main differences between Einstürzende Neubauten and Alexander Hacke the solo artist in terms of musical process and working methods?

Neubauten is a band, a group of individuals that communicates and develops music in a fairly democratic manner by simply playing together. No matter how conceptual or heady our work might seem, it is mostly the result of the creative process based on interaction with each other. When I work by myself, on commissioned pieces, in collaboration with other artists, or on my own stuff, the music is conceived in a different rather solitary way. I tend to gather information, analyse it, try to distil the essence of it and then go to work by processing, re-arranging or simply mutilating the various materials. Of course it all comes back to the old playing process when a performance is called for, but I like to stay in total control as a solo artist. That goes without saying.

In the film Crossing the Bridge by Faith Akin we could see and hear you travelling and guiding us through the musical scene of Istanbul; capturing all the sounds. We all remember you having set up your workspace in an old famous hotel with windows open towards the Bosperus.

That's the Buyuk Londra Oteli, The Grand Hotel Londra (London) in Beyoglu.

Would you describe yourself as a nomad musician? If so, what are the needs of such an artist? What are the advantages and drawbacks of this kind of freedom?

When I started working on my recent release a Sanctuarya, my intention was to make a record in the same way a film director would do a road-movie, which is a format where a small team

goes on a journey with not a lot more than an expose as opposed to a finished script. On that journey the people the team meets are to be incorporated as characters in the story. I did a similar thing by travelling around for a period of three years, recording music with friends all over the place, processing the material on the way and by these means, getting artists of many diferent backgrounds and genres appearing on the same record. Generally I don't feel very comfortable in traditional recording-studios. I very much prefer to work in different rooms and atmospheres. Luckily the modern times make this way of working possible and in fact that is one of the reasons why the traditional recording-studio is a dying breed. With the exception of very few places, which do house a certain spirit, I do not feel sad at all about this trend. Also, it is a lot cheaper to just move myself and my equipment around than to fly in artists from remote places, accommodate and feed them in order to, on top of it all, produce great music together.

In addition to being constantly on-the-go, you are a familiar face in Berlin. The people of Berlin see you, not only as a musician performing concerts of wildly-varying genres, venues and styles, but equally as a frequenter of these events. How do you see this town and your way of participating heavily as a musical consumer?

The city I was born and raised in doesn't exist anymore. It's name was West-Berlin. It was a small elitist community of artists, musicians and basically outsiders of all types. We all knew each other in the narrow circles of this village and spending your time as part of the nightlife felt like a never ending ride on a merry-go-round. This was the only place in western Germany where there was no obligation to do your service in the army, so young men from the mainland who wanted to avoid the draft moved to the island behind the iron curtain which was well erect back then.

I may be sentimental, I may be wrong but I have the feeling that there was more solidarity between people at the time. Also, in those days there was a strong air of local-chauvinism amongst all German cities, so you where proud to be hated by the scene of, say Hamburg. The 80s were a very creative period, as has been celebrated time and time again, and I was part of many innovations launched then. But Berlin was also integrally important in the rise of the techno-movement in the nineties, only that personally I was experimenting with completely different genres at the time. Still, I acknowledge and appreciate each and every development coming out of Berlin. But my life-style has somewhat changed. I don't go out a lot and if I do I get easily impatient with all the talk. In fact to me it seems to be all talk these days. I know that people from all over tend to complain about their home-town sooner or later, but it is a fact that what I do, I can do now everywhere I want.

Alex, you are using the Lemur as a center-piece in the studio and live. Could you describe the difference between the ways in which you use it in both contexts - or do you not make a distinction? How does it aid you from day to day?

I am just so grateful for the ability to express myself and create art with my hands. Well, I do have quite an alright voice and can hold a tune but it is my hands that make the instruments sing. In addition to the fact that I consider myself an Anarchist and I am never short of questioning any given rule or concept, the Lemur allows me to actually touch the parameters of software in an almost sensual fashion. I am not reduced to having to fiddle with buttons some corporate drone has designed based on terms that I am happy to ignore altogether. But if my spontaneous decision is to raise the volume or change the pitch or reverse the direction of the playback with a grand dramatic swipe of my left fist or a subtle tap of my right pinky, I can very well do so and program it myself even.

What do you see in the future?

I just want to be able to support myself and my loved ones by doing the things I love. Of course, if there was a way to annihilate stupidity, ignorance and cowardice from the face of the earth, I would be all for it. Until then I wish you a very nice day indeed.