Reuniting a creative partnership responsible for the billion-streaming Because You Move Me, the new track deliberately avoids revisiting past successes, instead capturing where Tinlicker, Helsloot and vocalist Hero Baldwin find themselves today.
That same desire to keep moving forward runs throughout Tinlicker’s fourth album, Dreams Of The Machine, their darkest and perhaps most expansive record yet. With Baldwin now an integral part of the live electronic trio alongside Jordi van Achthoven and Micha Heyboer, Tinlicker are taking that evolving sound on the road, including a 21-date North American tour with Helsloot.
The Night Bazaar caught up with Jordi van Achthoven to discuss friendship and collaboration, creating music on the move, escaping the shadow of a billion-stream hit, the darker ideas behind Dreams Of The Machine and why challenging yourself remains essential to Tinlicker’s evolution.
You and Helsloot have a creative relationship stretching back years, “Because You Move Me” for example went on to become an extraordinary success. What keeps bringing you back together creatively and what felt different about making “Edge Of Forever” at this point in your respective careers?
Our friendship keeps getting us back together. I think me and Thomas are very similar/lookalike when it comes to creativity. What’s interesting about that is that we actually challenge each other when we are creating music together. And we didn’t create anything together for quite a while. So in the tourbus we took the advantage sitting together and writing music, which kind of worked out great haha. When we are creating it always feels the same, even looking back on our ‘careers’. Creating music is something very special because in a way you’re not really thinking when you’re really creating something.
A lot of Edge Of Forever was conceived while you were travelling around Europe together on the tour bus touring your new album. How did that environment shape the record? Did being removed from a conventional studio give you a different kind of freedom?
An environment does affect the creativity. Sitting in a driving bus, watching the beautiful scenery outside when we were driving through Germany and Denmark added a great vibe to the music. But when I think of it, most of the music I personally created was never created in a studio. Most of the ideas come to mind after doing a certain routine, like brushing teeth, showering, sitting in the bath, walking, or getting bored in a good way.
When you have a previous collaboration like “Because You Move Me” that has now passed a billion streams, is it possible to completely ignore the analytics when you get back into the studio together or is there inevitably some pressure to create something that connects in the same way?
Tinlicker
Basically if we want to choose that path we can feel pressure. We can also choose to not feel pressure. It is really a choice to feel pressure of not. And I mentioned earlier, when we’re in a certain ‘zone’ of creating we don’t really think too much. In a creative modus you let your intuition speak and not the brain. The only reason we need our brain in making music is after the creation, to give the song a proper mix down, or the right kind of kick or synthesizer.
What is interesting about “Edge Of Forever” is that it doesn’t sound like an attempt to recreate your previous huge/popular collaborations. Was it important that the new collaboration represented who Tinlicker and Helsloot are today rather than revisiting something that had already worked?
I actually, personally never want to recreate what I’ve already done. I want to challenge myself instead of making the same things again. I will definitely become dull, and bored, and too comfortable repeating myself, and I think that’s a big downfall as an artist. I think not just only in music, but in life I want to get out of that comfort zone, learning new things to keep a healthy brain. The problem I see is that a lot of people don’t operate like this in the world, and these people are afraid of change.
Edge Of Forever begins in this beautifully restrained, almost haunting space before gradually accelerating into something much more physical and euphoric. Was that transformation built into the idea from the beginning, or did it emerge as you worked on it?
The song started with the melody and a baseline. I remember we started off way more slow in bpm. After working on it the next day we opened the project and by accident the bpm was way more faster. And we decided to keep it. Most of our ideas in the song were created in the moment.
Hero has become increasingly integral to Tinlicker, now joining the band ahead of the live show and Dreams Of The Machine. Has bringing a vocalist directly into the creative unit changed the way you approach songwriting compared with the earlier Tinlicker records?
We created all the songs for the album together, physically together in the studio. That was a fun period when we look back. So the creative proces already changed during the writing proces. We wanted to make sure the songs really feel that we are all three equally involved in the process of creating. I think in general what it changed most is creating a song without any vocal. That was the hardest part, cause you get used to having vocal tracks on a song very easily. So for example tracks like Spirit of Time are created without the idea of having a vocal on it.
Dreams Of The Machine pushed Tinlicker across a much wider musical spectrum, from melodic electronic music into dub techno, acid, indie-influenced textures and more. Do you feel that freedom fed directly into a track like Edge Of Forever?
Maybe Dreams of the Machine is our darkest album to date. And that’s because I/we as an artist get influenced by the state of the world, whether I like it or not. And human society is quite a mess at the moment. There is lots of division happening in the world which creates fear and anxiety and all that. And there is quite a seriousness in this album about our state as humanity. Edge of Forever feels more light, as a light at the end of the tunnel, and in a way we needed that. Some sort of relief that it’s ok to feel serious, but it’s also ok to enjoy little moments.
Your live show now involves an enormous 250-piece production set-up. Has building music specifically with live performance in mind started to influence the records themselves, are you imagining how a track will translate on stage while you are still writing it?
While in the creative process I don’t think of it. But after, when the song is finished I try to edit the song so it’s more suitable for playing live. Most of the songs we make are not really the same on a stage. We build more around the songs, to create tension.
You’re about to cover roughly 9,000 miles together across North America. Considering Edge Of Forever emerged from the European bus journey, should we expect another record to have been written by the time you reach the end of this one?
Yes, definitely. I’m recording a lot of material to bring along in the touring bus. I decided to make like a bunch of songs during the tour. That gives us also something to do between shows, and it should be fun to do so. So one of our dressing rooms will be a recording studio. I cannot wait for that.
Tinlicker has evolved considerably from being primarily viewed as a production/DJ duo into a live electronic trio. Does Edge Of Forever feel representative of where Tinlicker is heading next?
At the moment we enjoy our album tour very much and do not try to think so much ahead yet. This is the time to give the creative mindset some rest after an album. So instead of rushing with new things we enjoy this part a bit more.
Tinlicker
After four albums and some records that have reached audiences on an extraordinary scale, what excites you creatively now? Is it becoming more important to surprise yourselves rather than think about what people expect a Tinlicker record to sound like?
I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately. because as a human being you evolve during your life. So you are kind of never the same. And when I make music it works the same. I make certain music in a certain period of time. And after that I’d like to move on and make new things. For me personally it’s very important to challenge myself, otherwise I get bored. And a dull mind is the worst. It makes me lazy. But I do know that people love the music from an artist from a certain period. And I do see that people are very scared when an artist changes his music. But I can name so many examples of musicians who changed or reinvented themselves for most of their career. One of our biggest fans John said, David Bowie is a great example. And it’s true, he reinvented himself in his musical career many times.
Finally, when you look at the journey from those earlier sessions with Helsloot to four of you now travelling across North America with a full live production, does Edge Of Forever feel almost like a marker of how far that friendship and musical relationship has travelled?
Looking back on the friendship I have with Thomas and Hero, and I’ve known them both for quite some years now. We all worked together in the past years with each other. And now when we’re in the tour bus and performing on stage together I feel that it totally makes sense. It’s great that we didn’t really plan this all out, but that it worked out like this! Much love to them.
Tinlicker & Helsloot – Edge of Forever is out now on Remember The Future/[PIAS]. Get it on Beatport HERE. Watch the video HERE.
Tinlicker – Dreams Of The Machine LP is out now on Remember The Future/[PIAS]. Get it on Beatport HERE.
Head to Beatportal to read The Night Bazaar exclusive interviews in partnership with Beatport HERE.
