In the late ’90s, Riley Reinhold’s Traum Schallplatten label emerged from an embryonic German dance scene that decided much, much less is more. Renowned for having produced the first efforts of many minimal legends, Traum is also home to the pounding percussive tracks of Gabriel Ananda and nature nut Dominik Eulberg (who frequently names his spacy tracks after plants, animals and other forces of the forest).
While Kompakt, the label down the street in Koln, Germany, has received most of the hype amidst minimal dance music’s surprising recent explosion, Traum Schallplatten and its sister labels Trapez, Trapez Ltd., and My Best Friend remain favourites for techno heads.
Recently SEE got hold of Traum bosses Jacqueline and Riley Reinhold from their HQ in Koln to celebrate their flagship label’s 100th release.
SEE Magazine: You receive boatloads of demos daily. How do you decide which tracks go on which labels?
Jacqueline & Riley Reinhold: Traum is a rather personal and romantic label with lots of melodic structures—it can be a real composition rather than a track. Trapez is a more tool-based record label for DJs. Trapez Ltd. is a label for DJs that like to take risks, and MBF [My Best Friend] is a house label with a strong old-school touch, using vintage drum machines and electro basslines that are more bold in sound and less quirky and glitchy than, for example, Trapez.
SEE: You have released music by a number of Canadian artists: Jesse Somfay, Tomas Jirku, Akufen, Jeremy Caufield. Whose talents have surprised you the most?
J&R: Jesse is still starting and learning—his steps are promising. We have remixed on the TRAUM 100 box a track of his which has the best melody written for ages.... He has super talent. Akufen has been a role model for 10,000 kids who thought that just cutting up samples was doing it. Tomas Jirku is an incredibly nice person. I have in my life seldom met a person with such a humane quality. Whenever I see him he puts a smile on my face. Jeremy is in Berlin and the city is a monster, so I never know what he is doing. He was working with the same machine we used to make the track “Cosmic Sandwich,” so we though that was kind of funny since everyone hates Yamaha machines.
SEE: What’s your favorite Dominik Eulberg track title? Translate, please.
J&R: “Die Rotbauchunken vom Tegernsee.” The fire-bellied toad from the Tegern lake.
PROSPER PRODANIUK
