BnB Interview: Alex Niggemann

Written by Marijn van Laerhoven

We recently went for a chat with German DJ/producer and owner of the hotly tipped Soulfooled label Alex Niggemann, who is rapidly becoming a household name in quality house and techno... Click below for the full feature!





After having made the switch from hiphop to techno in the early 2000s, Alex Niggemann has grown out to become a respected producer in the field of global electronic music. As a producer, Alex has released chunky cuts on respected label such as Nick Curly's 8Bit and Supernature, while his DJ skills have taken him as far a South Africa and Ibiza as well as Europe's hottest venues. Both his productions as remixes continue to receive full support from the likes of Audiofly, Booka Shade and Loco Dice. In early 2010, Alex launched his own Soulfooled label, a platform aimed at mutations of tech & deep house, Detroit techno and general house music. And judging by its impressive artist roster (that included Audiofly, David Durango, Till von Sein, and Phonique amongst others) we can expect to hear a lot more juicy stuff in the very near future.

We recently spoke to Alex for some first hand info on his life as an artist, his label, and his future projects.  

Hi Alex, how's life?
Pretty busy at the moment. Got a lot of projects and still some heritage things at the same time.

For those who are not yet familiar with you, can you tell us a bit more about yourself please?
I’m pretty bad in talking about me… Well, I’m just  a 26 years old music enthusiast, trying to live from what I love. First of all I’m a producer. I mean, I started DJing in 1998, but recognized very early that it would be easier to be well respected, when releasing my own music,. Especially, when I tried to get a residency in own of the clubs around my hometown at that time. I started producing when I was about 16. I moved to Berlin in 2005 for my studies of Audio-Engineering and to get a better chance of networking. My first public release was a remix for Booka Shade in 2006. So far I released or remixed on labels such as Tsuba, Freerange, 8bit, Get Physical, Dessous and Supernature to just name a few. In 2010 I also became the label owner of Soulfooled, which I found with my mates Superlounge & Marc Poppcke..

Can you tell us something about how you came into contact with electronic music, and how that lead up to becoming a DJ/producer yourself?
From the very beginning of my life I was caught by music. I was playing the piano for about 10 years, but I always knew that I didn’t want to be a professional piano player. As a teenager, I tried to find a way to express myself through music and went through a lot of different styles. I was dressed in typical hip-hop fashion and spent my time focusing on rap and style- writing, before electronic music hit me. When I was fifteen, my older brother took me to a techno party. This became the turning point me and pointed the way in a new direction.

Perhaps this is a silly question but what made you move from Dusseldorf to Berlin? How did that work out for you?
There are no silly questions… there are just silly answers, as I keep saying. I was living in my hometown for about 21 years. It was time to see something different. Berlin seemed to me like a really interesting city, as it is European’s capital of electronic music and creative arts. After high school graduation, I was aiming to increase my technical knowledge of producing and recording. So I definitely had to move. There were only two options: Either to Cologne, which would be very close to Düsseldorf or to Berlin, which offers me a lot more than only my studies. This is why I moved to Berlin. I never really had the feeling that I made the wrong decision.

You've completed a course in audio engineering in Berlin, can you tell us something how that affected your productions?
At the point I was that time, I was at a creative dead-end. I knew that, my productions could only get better, if I increase my technical knowledge. Creativity is a big part of being a producer, but technical know-how the other. So when I started my studies I already knew a lot of things, but there were a few lessons, which helped me a lot to understand, how to make sounds more clear, fad or even how to place elements in a certain space of a song. I also learned a lot of things regarding analog and digital recording, when it come to instruments or voices.

Earlier this year you started your own label called Soulfooled. Sales pitch please!
Honestly, I’m really surprised how well our plan worked out. We sell all records we press, with artist like Audiofly, Phonique, Solomun and Roberto Rodriquez we got some really know artist from the day we found Soulfooled. With Terje Bakke and David Durango, the label also signed some of the hottest talents this year.

The brand Soulfooled gets know more and more. We established it pretty fast and could make some awesome deals with well know artists and organized label-parties at clubs like Watergate (Berlin), D-Edge (Brasil) and Privilege (Ibiza) to name just only a few. This all in between just 6 months...

Talking about the scene, where do you think electronic music trends will take us in the years to come?
As it is a circle, I think electronic music becomes more techy, as we are already went through deep-house and already got to rough oldskool stuff.

Do you have any exciting releases or gigs coming up that you'd like to share with us?
Well, there’s just the first collective EP out on Soulfooled, where all the label owners  did their own track on. I’ll do a remix collaboration with Marc Poppcke for the 20 years anniversary pack of Soma records beginning of next year. My remix for Phonique will be released on Dessous and I’m just working on a EP with Diynamic’s H.O.S.H.. Regarding gigs the most exciting will be my business/holiday trip  to Canada and Mexico form NYE to mid of January and the first Soulfooled tour to the US- and South-America in February/March 2011.

Do you have anything else that you'd like to share with our audience? Anything goes!
Just focus a little more on quality music instead supporting the quantity. Stay healthy!

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