Kruder & Dorfmeister interview – “Please send us the real shit. Then we can talk about it.”
How Vienna’s Kruder and Dorfmeister created their million-selling ‘The K&D Sessions’
“To hear all the stories that people have with our record has been amazing,” says Peter Kruder, one half of Kruder and Dorfmeister, architects of The K&D sessions.
The album, featuring exquisite reworkings of Bone Thugs-n-Harmony and David Holmes among many others, is a musical landmark in dance music culture. On release in 1998, it raised the bar for what a remix could be and transported electronic music into new sonic pastures. The pair – Peter and co-pilot Richard Dorfmeister – are celebrating the album’s 25th anniversary with a beautiful six LP box set and gigs around the world.
With the new edition containing previously unreleased music, including an epic 11-minute, shimmering remix of Madonna’s ‘Nothing Really Matters’, the musicianship levels are as esteemed as the ongoing reception to the record. It’s a collection of tracks that means a lot to many with the re-release seeing a renewed outpouring of love.
“We’re both dedicated music fans and have amazing memories of our own favorite records. One of the most important for me was ‘Wish You Were Here’ by Pink Floyd,” says Peter.
“It blew me away when I listened to it when I was 12 years old. So to hear from fans that we have had such an impact on them as we have with this compilation – it’s just your ultimate goal as a musician.”
The original version sold well over a million copies, capturing a moment in time where the ambience of the day after was as important as the hedonistic release of the night before. Now Peter and Richard are taking it out on the road, performing it live in venues around the world. In the early days, K&D would DJ regularly in Vienna before their debut EP ‘G-Stoned’ in 1993. From dubby bass to deep soundscapes and more mellow sounds, they won over music lovers with their own productions and 1996 DJ-Kicks mix for !K7 Records remains one of the series’ highlights. ‘The K&D Sessions’ came two years later following an interview where a journalist was astounded at their popularity.
“We played a big show in Munich and afterwards, we had this interview with a journalist who couldn’t understand why there were so many people there,” remembers Peter. “We only had the ‘G-Stoned’ EP out but I was really upset as we’d made about 40-50 remixes. So on the way home, we decided on this compilation to bring all these things together.”
“At the end of the day we have to be rather thankful to that man for asking that offending question,” laughs Richard. “Otherwise ‘Sessions’ might never have happened – so in some ways, it was a good thing.”
The initial remixes came through the pair’s ability to connect with like-minded individuals and producers. During the nineties, they would often visit London to contact labels like Ninja Tune and Wall of Sound.
“We would just go to the phone booth and call up these smaller labels,” says Peter. “Then we would go to their offices and introduce ourselves – that’s how connections with Giles Peterson and many others came together.”
One of their earliest remixes was for a band called Sin and their track ‘Where Shall I Turn?’ who they were affiliated with. The duo went from this to reworking the likes of Madonna – and a lengthy version of her track appears on the re-duxed ‘K&D Sessions’.
“We were in contact with this guy called Jason Bentley in Los Angeles and at the time he was the A&R for Maverick Records, Madonna’s label,” recalls Richard.
“He was always constantly sending us music to remake something. We eventually said, “Okay, Jason, listen. Please send us the real shit. Then we can talk about it.” And that’s when he sent us the Madonna track.”
Many high-profile rework requests came to Kruder and Dorfmeister but they would only agree to work on it if they believed they could take it to the next level.
“That was really important to us,” says Peter. “For example, Air sent us ‘Casanova 70’ but it was already such a great song, we wrote back to them to say we couldn’t do it as it was already so good.”
This wasn’t the only rule the pair followed. They both agreed that the vocal would be the only remaining sound from the original.
“We would then put something completely new around it,” Peter explains. “That’s what we did from the first remix until the last. Apart from the Depeche Mode remix [of ‘Useless’], that does feature something from the original there.”
“It was funny because I thought at the time it would be great to sample some guitar from another Depeche Mode track,” laughs Richard. “I just thought it would be a good move to steal something from the earlier recording as they wouldn’t be able to sue us.”
Many of the remixes were made using a limited palette of gear in their studio. According to the pair, they had a sampler and desk but didn’t use any compression in their process.
“What stood out to us was how well the vocals of the artists we reworked had been recorded,” Peter remembers. “It was always interesting looking under the hood of these tracks and hearing how great they were recorded by some of the brilliant engineers that people used.”
The process was different for each remix – and it’s something you can hear in the range of moods the music taps into, running from drum and bass to Brazilian samples.
“For the Lamb remix, if you listen to the original, it is like a weird 303 distorted kind of sound,” says Peter. “It’s really strange, but her vocals are so beautiful. When I heard that, I saw the vocals immediately in a small club. In the remix, you hear some people walking up some stairs, then you open a door, you hear a crowd, you walk in, and then the band starts. That was the whole idea.”
Others would see the duo working through a process of trial and error to find something that would fit the artist’s mood and aesthetic. Both are clearly methodical in their approach with some of the remixes featuring upwards of 80-90 tracks.
“Most of the mixes took at least four weeks to six weeks to do,” says Peter. “Some even longer but it was also due to the equipment back then. As we’ve recently reopened the originals, it has reminded us of how just a big operation some of them would be.”
The comparative simplicity of the gear compared to the huge array of options producers now have meant that the duo had to be innovative and think creatively with what and how they could sample.
“When we started we had so little sampling time on the small samplers, it meant we had to somehow figure out a way to do a track with just nothing,” says Richard. “We came up with certain tricks to make something longer, we just developed this completely by ourselves for ourselves, there was no school for that.”
By contrast, today’s tech has advanced to a point where the options and decisions producers can make are almost limitless. From hardware to software and beyond, it means today’s music-makers need to think differently to before.
“It doesn’t make it easier to be honest,” says Peter of the tech production landscape. “The endless possibilities that you have are more of a hindrance to finishing a song. Back then, we just had a sampler, a mixing board, a delay and a reverb. Now you have these amazing studios inside your laptop for free.”
“But what’s interesting is the music isn’t as creative,” he continues. “It’s a wonder to me somehow that with all the possibilities you now have, music sounds more and more alike than ever before. Even though you have these machines that could be so much better, you can do so much more.”
Now the pair have released their compilation, the box set is beautifully put together with a look and feel that defines them both – whether it be in our conversation to their remix approach, everything is carefully considered.
“We are really happy about what we did with the box set, it was a lot of work to get into shape with the materials and extras we did,” says Peter.
“If you work with us, then we make every effort to make it as great as possible,” adds Richard. “We don’t rely on anything from anybody else and this process takes time. But the results are much better this way.”
Now with more shows planned over the next year and the plaudits for the ‘K&D Sessions’ record and its influence echoing around them, the pair are clearly in a great musical space.
“Our plans for the next year mainly involve playing the album live,” says Peter. “We just played two nights at the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg, which is this spectacular concert venue, probably one of the best in the world. And after the show, we signed records and spoke to fans. It’s really, really great to realise what it means to people.”
Jim Ottewill