moni Posted July 7, 2006 Share Posted July 7, 2006 Hello! I’ve had the pleasure of meeting online Omar and Jason from Tegma, and I found out that they are some pretty nice guys, a little bit crazy and with a good sense of humour. I thought it would be pretty interesting to get to know them a little bit better, so I asked them a few questions (36 pieces). Here’s what came out, have a pleasant reading! *** Psynews: Hej Tegma, hur mår du? Hi Omar, hi Jason, how are you on this fine summer day? Tegma: Hello Moni and Psynews, we are doing just fine, enjoying the sun and the nice weather after a long and cold winter. Psynews: What music are you listening to? Right now. Tegma: For the moment we are listening to a lot of different stuff, so it’s hard to name any particular artists or genres but as long as it’s grooving and moving we’re up for it. Psynews: How do you feel about interviews? Tegma: It’s always nice to answer questions, especially if they haven’t been asked in the past, just like this question. Psynews: I would like to know a bit about you. How old are you? Tegma: Omar is 27 and Jason is 26. Psynews: Your marital status? Tegma: No plans to get married in the upcoming years, but you never know what happens. Psynews: What languages can you speak? Tegma: Well, we both live in Sweden so we speak Swedish, and we’re answering your question so that means we also speak English. But since our parents have other origins than Swedish we also speak their languages, so that means Jason speaks Greek as well and Omar speaks Arabic and French. Psynews: Do you have other jobs too besides Tegma and music production? Tegma: Yeah, our favorite occupation next to music is to sit in cafeterias drinking coffee and discussing current events. But we do also work part-time to pay the bills, since we don’t sell millions of records. Psynews: Did you study music in school? What did you study? Tegma: We didn’t study music in school, but we studied other stuff in University like languages and engineering. Psynews: Tegma is labeled as a progressive trance project. Do you aggree, or disaggree, or have anything to add? Describe shortly your music style per general. Tegma: Sure why not, as our goal is to progress with music we can agree that we can be labeled as a Progressive act. To describe our style is difficult, because we tend to change a lot. We can only predict what we will do in the next couple of months, so for now let’s say we are going slower and more into a groovier sound. Psynews: Some years ago, you were just listeners. Who or what made you decide that you wanted to produce your own music? Tegma: In 1998, we started playing around with some simple software like Rebirth and Fruity loops, in the beginning we didn’t take it seriously. It was a period of getting to know how to make certain sounds or drums. One day around the end of 1999 we realized that we wanted to take the music further, so we started buying equipment and slowly, slowly we started to build up the studio. Finally one day we sent out some demos we thought had some potential and to our luck the labels were positive to our sound. Psynews: Your musical products so far have shown that you have influences from other musical styles/genres, and yet, the foundation of all your releases is still "progressive". What made you decide that progressive trance was what you wanted to produce? In other words, why progressive? Why not other style? Tegma: This is the sound that has been closest to our hearts, since we have listened to Psytrance for many years. But when the new wave of Progressive Trance came in 1999 we felt that this is the thing we really want to do. We have tried some different styles, but whatever we produced we always felt that the Progpsy sound is what we do best. Psynews: So far you have released 3 full albums, each one has its own very distinct style. How come they are so different? Do you do it on purpose? Maybe this is the Tegma trade-mark? Tegma: You can say we did it on purpose, we don’t think it’s fair towards the listener to produce an album with the same sounds all over again. It has always been our goal to develop our sound and to constantly try different things. Besides, we believe an album should be varied but still every track should have something in common, so that each album has its mood and feeling. Psynews: Sometimes it happens that, when artists change something in their musical style from an album to another, they loose some cathegories of listeners and gain new ones. Do you aggree? Do you consider this as a big risk to take? Or even a risk at all? Tegma: It is a risk ofcourse to change, but how can an artist progress by not taking risks? Psynews: Taking into consideration the scene we have today (the size, the variety and diversity, the demanding listeners, the little money, the many gigs, the competition), what does an artist feel when getting ready to release an album? Is there any fear/worry besides the excitement? Tegma: Yes absolutely, we are nervous every time we release an album, you always tend to wonder how the reception and the feedback will be. But you get as excited every time you release an album, because you have put so much time and energy to produce it. Psynews: Some people "read" the music, some people "feel" it. In the process of making music, what is more important? The brain or the feelings? Tegma: Why not both? A mixture of feeling and understanding the music… Psynews: While creating your music, what are your roles in the studio/at gigs? Who does what? Tegma: In the studio we don’t have any “fixed” roles, it varies depending on who came to the studio first and took the best chair No, but seriously the “role” depends from time to time, sometimes Jason creates the main ingredients, sometimes Omar comes up with the main lead. And sometimes we just hit the random button in our sequencer and let it do all the work When it comes to performing we do have fixed roles, since we run 2 laptops with the program “ Ableton Live”, Jason is then responsible for the mixing between the 2 units and Omar concentrates on the live synth work and arranging of loops. Psynews: Congratulations on the release of your new album! How long did it take you to produce an album like "Around The World in 80 Minutes"? Tegma: Thanks, well the album took us around a year to produce, a ton of coffee cups and many sleepless nights. Psynews: What's the mood you're trying to transmit to the listener with your new album? What's the message in it? Tegma: Well as we explain in the cover of the album, we are trying to take the listener through a landscape of sound of different cultures and locations. We wanted to create an album that would unite the experiences we have gathered in the last 5 years we have been performing as Tegma. We have basically had the chance to visit many exotic and different places, so the concept was to incorporate the sounds of many cultures into this album. Our goal was to create an album that would appeal to the diversity of cultures and ethnicities that the trance scene consists of today. Psynews: What or who were your inspirational sources for this album? Because it expresses a very good energy, it's very positive and self confident, and it's full of variety. You must have had quite some inspiration sources. Tegma: We try to find our own sound and in the same time develop it. In this album you can hear that we were inspired by World music and also a little bit of old school electro from the 80s. But our main source of inspiration has always been playing out in parties, especially those moments when you connect with the crowd and you are just washed over by good vibes. So we tried to incorporate this “energy” into the album… Psynews: Please name your favorite track(s) from your new album and explain why. Tegma: A night in Cairo, because we changed it so many times, it took us ages to get the sound what we wanted. Desert Tale because of the fellow musician who gave us some live recordings to use for the track. Psynews: Considering your musical career so far, we could conclude that Tegma releases one album per year, with changes in style on each album released. Should we expect a new album in 2007 with more changes in your style? Tegma: This is a very good question and we’re sorry but we can’t answer it right now. We have talked about it several times and it’s hard to tell. We spend a lot of time and energy to produce an album and that’s a problem sometimes because we both have our day jobs also. If there will be a new album we will for sure change the style again into something fresh and unique. Psynews: How is it better to call these changes of style? "Experimenting" or "maturing"? Or both? Tegma: Experimenting together with maturing leads to the new style. First of all u need to experiment to discover the new style u want to create, and in the same time you need to use your knowledge. Psynews: I'll name three tracks of yours, please tell me which is closer to your musical preferences. - "Myth Of An Angel", from the album "002 Avant.Garde" (2005) (note: powerful and melodic, the type of outstanding track that would be called "a hit" in other scenes) - "No Time", from the compilation "Inner Circle" (2005) (note: fast, dark and non-melodic, bouncy, aggressive, firm track) - "Our World", from the album "Around The World in 80 Minutes" (2006) (note: trancey, melodic and uplifting, bouncy, firm track) Tegma: Nice question; we would prefer the third track cause we really like to work with the nice groovy slow progressive with the fat basses. This is the sound we have been into for a long time and we think this is what Tegma stands for from the beginning. Psynews: Can you tell me some of your favourite artists? From our scene and/or from other scenes. Tegma: Well there are a lot of good artists we listen to these days, too many good ones to mention Psynews: Do you find inspiration in other artists from the progressive/psytrance scene? Tegma: Hard to say because there are not so many artists that produce this kind of music right now. But there are a few that are very talented and sometimes we try to get some inspiration when we produce. We hope this scene will grow up again like before. Psynews: What do you plan to do this year? Can we expect any collaborations with other artists? Tegma: This year we have a lot of remixes coming out and probably some collaborations with well known artists if everything goes well. We’re also planning on releasing a remix CD for the album with remixes on most of the album trax by many interesting artists. Psynews: Do you have any other musical projects going on besides Tegma? Tegma: Besides Tegma we have Homer&Lazon. It’s a more progressive house project and we will for sure come out with something in the future. Right now we had to concentrate on the Tegma. Psynews: Why the name "Tegma"? And who designed your logo? Tegma: Tegma is a funny name we got from a company that made first aid kits. The logo is designed by a Japanese guy who made our first album cover Encoded/Decoded. Psynews: Where can you be seen performing this summer? Tegma: We start the summer performing in Germany in the Natraj Temple in Munich, continue touring in Brazil and ending up in Moroccan festival “Rhythms of Peace”. Psynews: What do you like better, indoor parties, or outdoor parties? Tegma: We prefer indoor parties like clubs or underground basements but we really like big festivals with huge crowds as well, especially if the weather is good and it’s not raining and muddy. Psynews: Can you tell me any unforgetful stories from your gigs/parties? Tegma: After every Tegma gig, we always have a discussion about what happened, because crazy or funny things tend to happen in every place we play in. But of course we have some highlights, not to mention them all here but let’s conclude by saying everything from being deserted by promoters in the middle of nowhere to being threatened by “Mafioso’s”. Psynews: If you were to move to another country, which country would you choose? Why? Tegma: I think we would move to a warm country with nice weather throughout the whole year, but still close to our roots so probably around the Mediterranian see somewhere. Psynews: What would you tell to the people that want to start making music? Tegma: Practice makes perfect, take your time and try to learn everything slowly and thoroughly. Read articles, magazines & books. Be patient if you can’t create the sounds you like, you will get there eventually if you try hard enough. And the most important thing, try to find your own style and sound, something that you identify with and have a passion for. Psynews: What would you tell to the artists that want to quit making music? Tegma: Try to see the music as a hobby if it’s hard to live on it. Music is probably the best thing you can do on your spare time, it makes u feel good and relaxed. Psynews: How do you see yourselves in 10 years? You think you'll be still Tegma'ing? You think maybe the scene will become commercial and we'll see Tegma on MTV among other artists? Tegma: We think that we will always be involved in the process of creating music, whether it’s under Tegma or some other project. If you ever start making music, it’s very hard to quit. So we plan to continue as long as possible. We definitely believe the electronic music scene is here to stay, however the styles and genres within this scene will change as we have seen in the past. Music will always be developed with new sounds and instruments. Psynews: Is there anything you would like to add? Tegma: Thanks for the interview and hope to see you on a dance floor or in a party sometime. *** Thank YOU Tegma for the interview, have a very nice summer, good luck on your upcoming gigs and lots of love and cute smiles from girls! I’ll definitely see you on a dance floor, somewhere, some day! With this occasion, Omar and Jason offer us a bonus, a live set for us to download and listen to, click here to check it out! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts