Fireside Chat

Atom TM

Raster-Noton, Santiago de Chile

Uwe Schmidt, aka Atom TM, got it right when he called his label Rather Interesting. Along the way, quite a few of the musical sideroads he chose to travel turned into congested highways, whether it was the pop artificielle he released under the LB moniker, the absurdly brilliant exotica of his Senor Coconut project or even his early techno releases as Atom Heart (and dozens of other names). His collaborations with Burnt Friedman or the Yellow Magic Orchestra have made him even harder to pin down, but despite his restlesness his love for the essence of sound has always been at the core of his releases. Reducing samples until he finds the essence of a sound, the very atoms it takes to evoke a feeling, define a rhythm or, well, create music he has created a massive body of work that, despite the seemingly academic approach, rarely lacks in soul or humor. We caught up with him for a chat on his addiction to ever changing aliases, the differences between his native Frankfurt and his chosen home of Santiago De Chile and the moment he realized producing for real and perceived needs of the dancefloor started to bore him.