MFM Mix 037: The Zenmenn by Music From Memory published on 2022-03-08T14:18:48Z Up next are our dear friends The Zenmenn (@user-847972032) with whom we have a new 7" and more coming up soon. For the special occasion they came up with an unexpected mix extraordinaire while being generous in answering our questions. Interview (excerpt) down below. www.musicfrommemory.com MFM: When did the first idea for The Zenmenn project present itself? Did it start with a few existing songs, or is it a conceptual project? ZM: A couple of years back we got the opportunity to join this cool studio run by a gentleman called Franz. We did some stuff with friends and at the same time we just began jamming and recording what we did, and eventually we had a couple of songs in our hands, that we thought sounded interesting, and it dawned upon us that we should spend our time working on our own stuff. The name The Zenmenn came later, probably most of the album was recorded by then. There are still some old jams on the Zenmenn hard drive filed under Pharaohs Lounge, which is one of the earlier name ideas stolen from an alcohol free coctail bar near the studio. MFM: Quite some fans refer in their comments on the LP to the '80s and include terms like 'melancholic' and 'nostalgic'. What are your thoughts on comments like these? ZM: Oh that’s nice. It’s generally very nice to hear people describe our music. Today a guy told us he thought we sounded like an Ethiopian band played on 45 with John Mayer on top… could be something to it. But true - it’s not really a party record and some of the songs like topaz or homage to a friendship certainly have a nostalgic, melancholic tone. Also the 80s vibe is well helped along by the Dx7 that features on every song. The presets we use are mostly the legendary e piano which features in all the 80s power ballads and the amazing fretless bass that still sounds better than any of the other fretless bass presets we’ve come across. Harp and steel drum are also great. MFM: If all your current equipment would break down and you'd have to work with newer instruments of modern technology instead, how would that affect your music? Do you think you'd still non-mistakenly sound like The Zenmenn? ZM: Most of our keyboards are from the 90s or even early 2000s, like the Triton Le and the Casio Ctk900 with which we recorded this whole mix. The 90s stuff is way more affordable. In some way we would probably sound the same cause we don’t loop, quantize or produce music in a contemporary fashion, and we’re into certain chord progressions and grooves. If we wanna play one pattern for 5 minutes, that’s what we mostly do, and then you always end up with some embellishments and quirks. But making music comes a lot down to workflow and if we had some fancy new synth in your hands with a thousand effects, sequences and menu diving we would probably do something different. That could be cool too, but at the moment we prefer the old school approach. MFM: Thanks so much for this very special "mix". Tell us about it please?! ZM: We made a mix of tracks we liked but it didn’t really come across too original so we decided to take another approach. Magnus plays around on keyboards whenever he can, and the way we make music is mostly just jamming something and then giving it structure as we go along. Magnus made 2 jams and we put them together and chopped out things that didn’t seem to fit, but mostly everything is recorded in one go. Our friend Helen Wells came by and played some harmonica, guitar and tweaked some pedals. We overdubbed some Casio, cool voices etc. Ben had a couple of curatorial suggestions in the end and did some great spoken words. Since our first little tour this summer Magnus has been carrying around some small drawing books and has been noodling away. This has been a great influence on this mix where all the decisions have been quick, with a loose hand and not too many layers. We’re happy to have the opportunity to make a mix and we’re very inspired to do more just like this. Comment by Lago beautiful version of this classic 2024-01-26T20:39:39Z Comment by Isabeau Fort sweet! 2022-09-25T11:21:31Z Comment by kiki bouba soooo nice 2022-07-06T08:09:58Z Comment by natalie yeah looove it! 2022-06-21T14:43:10Z Comment by 22HotDuck Mix of the year? ❤️❤️ 2022-06-02T20:05:30Z Comment by Valdis Kokhan Прослухав разів 10 це топ! 2022-05-11T18:31:07Z Comment by Toni Buletti awesome mix! 2022-05-11T08:51:56Z Comment by Vanessa Bettina <3 2022-04-16T15:58:45Z Comment by psor + 2022-04-12T10:26:17Z Comment by psor + 2022-04-12T10:07:40Z Comment by Telmo Trenor <3 2022-04-11T17:07:53Z Comment by Life Is Music... track id ? 2022-03-30T16:47:21Z Comment by Phonographe Corp (FR) It's beautiful ! What's the name of that beauty please ? 2022-03-29T14:44:05Z Comment by jellphonic Tam gave me a copy of your LP and we are thrashing it! 2022-03-09T04:05:03Z Comment by Appx <3 2022-03-08T15:27:14Z