Cologne based DJ, live-act and producer Peter Pardeike scored ‘big time’ with his track ‘Love Supreme’ last year, which was released on Connaisseur Recordings. Almost one year later the original gets the ‘transformation’ from Fred Und Luna, Love over Entropy and Andre Hommen. Perfect timing for Torture the Artist to have a little chat with Peter about his hometown, subcultural preferences and much more.
Torture the Artist: Your heart belongs to Cologne, because…
Peter Pardeike: … because I was born in Cologne and I like the atmosphere of the city – it feels small and comfortable even though it’s one of the biggest cities in Germany.
Torture the Artist: Besides being the stronghold of carnival, Cologne is perceived as a city of diversity and openness when it comes to its residents. Name a track that expresses how you perceive the city and its inhabitants?
Peter Pardeike: Ultra Naté ‘Free (to do what you want to do)’
Music was more my ‘safe room’ to escape from my design business.
Torture the Artist: Being a graphic designer and a producer means you must have a lot of unexpected creativity slumbers within you. Does one field complement one another?
Peter Pardeike: I tried to keep my profession as a designer and a musician separate for a long time because I didn’t want them to interfere with one another. It’s difficult to explain why I did this, except that perhaps music was more my ‘safe room’ to escape from my design business. But as my music is getting more and more important I’m now starting to think of ways that I can start combining both disciplines. I recognize that music already has an impact on my work on motion graphics in terms of timing and dynamics. I am now working on a track while simultaneously developing a visual concept for a music video. This is kind of new for me and I am curious myself how things turn out in the end.
Torture the Artist: The fact that you more or less have to be creative every day can be exhausting or tiring. How do you give yourself a treat?
Peter Pardeike: Even though I’m quite a busy person I also have a very lazy side. So if I feel that everything is just too much I like doing simply nothing, meeting friends or spending time with my girlfriend.
Torture the Artist: What subculture would you like to be part of, if no one could see?
Peter Pardeike: That’s a tough one, but I think I would like to do some underground political street art like Banksy.
(http://relacionesinternacionales.media/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/1_030416011403.jpg)
Torture the Artist: ‘Love Supreme‘ was released on Connaisseur Records last year and got the remix treatment from Fred Und Luna, Andre Hommen and Lover over Entropy. Which of these three remixes do you feel most comfortable with, and why?
Peter Pardeike: I really have no favorite remix of this package. They all stand out for themselves in very different styles, which was my main intention when Connaisseur and I looked for possible remix artists. Maybe the Fred und Luna version is a bit special for me because I saw Rainer performing live at the Muting The Noise store in Berlin last autumn and really liked his sound and attitude.
If I had the time, resources, and the copyright permission, I probably would do a music video with a group of Transformers singing to my track!
Torture the Artist: What would your video for ‘Love Supreme’ look like?
Peter Pardeike: I have a favorite comment on ‘Love Supreme’ on Youtube which is: ‘The Decepticons trying to be romantic.’ For those who don’t know: the Decepticons are the evil ‘Transformers’ from the famous blockbuster movie. My intention with ‘Love Supreme’ was to create a robotic vocoder choir ensemble, which in contrast is singing an epic and warm, or even ‘romantic’, hook line. So if I had the time, resources, and the copyright permission, I probably would do a music video with a group of Transformers singing to my track!
Torture the Artist: You have released on labels such as Innervisions, Connaisseur, 2DIY4, Suara and more. What’s the strapline of your choice to advertise your next release?
Peter Pardeike: ‘Eventually Peter Pardeike goes Techno, and it’s very good news!’
Torture the Artist: You have many releases with different artists. Who would you like to collaborate with in the future?
Peter Pardeike: I don’t want this narrowed down to one person or artist group. I’m open to more or less every artist as long as we have a personal connection and also connect on a music level. The more different the better! An example of this is my quest to find a rapper, mc or poetry artist to collaborate with. It’s not that easy because I don’t want to produce the typical hip hop style, so I’d have to find an artist who is open to house or techno music.
Some say there is too much music in my tracks.
Torture the Artist: How do you think others describe your music?
Peter Pardeike: Some say there is too much music in my tracks, while others say my music is too underrated. Some tell me they love it and get goosebumps when they hear my sound, and even one person once said that I should do something else because my music sucks – this was actually a real comment on my Facebook page! Haha. <winks>
Torture the Artist: Which new tracks have made you furious and which have made you endlessly happy within the past few weeks?
Peter Pardeike: Generally every track makes me furious which is an obvious copy of some mainstream sound or artist without adding anything original. In contrast I am totally overjoyed when I discover something new or different to me, for example Knower and their hyper-funk sound which I recently discovered.
Torture the Artist: Show a picture that describes you the best.
Peter Pardeike: This picture describes me quite well: a mixture of Arthur Dent (representing just an ordinary guy) and Marvin the robot (depressed because of knowing too much) from Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy watching the endless possibilities of the universe in front of them while waiting to get a lift.
(http://www.douglasadams.eu/h2g2-for-beginners)
Torture the Artist: When coming into your apartment, going straight to the kitchen, opening the fridge and pressing play on the music device of your daily choice, what food dish would you cook out of the groceries and what track would accompany the dish?
Peter Pardeike: As my girlfriend is a way better cook than I am, I would kindly ask her to make her super delicious Spaghetti Bolognese. I would start to listen to some newly discovered tracks, but she likes to listen to funk music while cooking or some older music from the 90s – and I better would not stop her from doing that. <smiles>
Torture the Artist: If you could borrow someone’s identity, who would it be and what would you do?
Peter Pardeike: Hmmm… maybe Hans Zimmer, because I really would like to see and feel how it is to create music for big blockbuster movies.
Peter Pardeike’s current top5
- SBTRKT ‘Wildfire (Objekt Remix)’ [Young Turks]
- Yotam Avni ‘If You Still Want Me’ [Hotflush]
- Funk D’Void ‘808 Planet’[Soma Records]
- Knower ‘Fuck the Makeup, Skip the Shower’ [no label]
- Holly Herndon ‘Chorus’ [RVNG Intl.]
Torture the Artist 
