A member of the German music community, GitKlar is an emerging producer who stands out with his inspired remixes (listen to the retro, synthwave remake of Washed Away by Sirius Delta) while also experimenting with original music of his own. This is only the beginning! Read our interview with GitKlar below!
Describe your sound in three words please!
Dramatic, cinematic, atmospheric.
How did your engagement with music start?
I started playing bass-clarinet & guitar in various Jazz- & Big Band-ensembles during school-time. Meanwhile, I used to play locally in a Metal-band between 2010 & 2014. I’m also taught in both, Classical- & Jazz-theory, since my parents are both musicians, as well. Now, my main-focus is more leaned towards Soundtracks & Electronic Music. For my own music and remixes, I tend to fuse all elements that made my up musical development, so far.
You have focused your energy on making various remixes. How do you select the songs you will use? What kind of requirements do they need to fulfil?
Most importantly, I’ve gotta know what to do with the original. In my opinion, there are two main-reasons, when I’d consider remixing a track. First, if I can improve on various aspects of an original, and second, if I get an inspiration to do something else with it. In case of Washed Away, the latter was definitely the way to go.
In Washed Away, one will notice that the remix is very much different from the original song, in style and ambience. Which were your inspirations when working on this song?
A lot of soundtracks, I would say. The intro e.g. was heavily inspired by C418’s The End of the Minecraft Soundtrack. When the beat drops, there are definitely lots of TRON: Legacy-, Blade Runner- & No Man’s Sky-vibes going on. And then, there’s deadmau5. I’ve always considered deadmau5’s sound design to be related to the Synthwave-genre, especially his track Snowcone. So, some of the sounds, like e.g. the kick and the arp in the break are derived from there.
Do you think that remixing songs has the potential to shed light to parts or elements of the original song that might have been overlooked and therefore make the listener love both the new version as well as the original?
Absolutely. That’s of course an essential thing to keep in mind, when you’re evaluating the stems of an original song.
You take a closer look on what’s already good, and what needs to be amplified or modified. And so, it also has a huge impact, on how your approach on your remix is gonna be.
Are you looking to create more of your own music in the future?
Sure, that’s still one of my main-goals for this year. 😀 By the way, I just released an original-song with Sirius Delta recently, called Blood Moon. The release also includes four remixes. So it’s nice to see, what other people make out of your own tracks, as well.
Who is one artist (old or new) that has influenced you in terms of aesthetics?
Most notably Ulver. They really left an imprint on how I approach my song-writing, as well as finding an original sound, whilst staying genre-wise as open as possible. Some of my favorite-records of theirs are Themes from William Blake’s The Marriage of Heaven & Hell, Perdition City and Messe I.X–VI.X.
Tell us something about you that not many people know!
I love listening to a lot of music, that not many people know. That’s how the whole remix for Washed Away actually got started. I’m a member of the German music producer-community Futorial, where there was call to turn the original Chill & Thrill-album into a remix-album. This way, I made a lot of connections, and also found a lot new artists. On the one hand, I came across lot of new music I enjoy, but on the other hand, this opened up a lot of opportunities to work with these people on various projects. So, I’m happy to be a part of it.
Thanks GitKlar!
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