Konx-Om-Pax
Glasgow has a rich pedigree in electronic music and, until moving to Berlin a while back, Tom Scholefield was an active part of that. Scholefield’s Konx-Om-Pax guise garnered a deserved reputation for producing excellent brooding, underground ambient electronica. Moving to Berlin, however, would seem to have given Scholefield a whole new palette of influences and a desire to take Konx-Om-Pax onto the dancefloors of Berlin, Berghain and beyond. Ways of Seeing, his third full album, is Tom’s most accessible and dancefloorfriendly offering to date and sees him fuse his love of Detroit techno, hypnotic beats and bleeps with the more experimental aspects of his music.
Tom Scholefield has another string to his bow too, however, as his talents as a graphic artist have seen him create graphics and videos for the likes of Hyberdub, Kode9, Hudson Mohawke and Mogwai. Indeed, Ways of Seeing also allows Scholefield to flex his audio/visual muscle further and his live performances are accompanied by his synapse-enhancing visual creations.
FM caught up with Konx-Om-Pax at his new Berlin home to talk about making music in the box, Berlin vibes and the process behind the wonderful Ways of Seeing. Oh, and the small matter of being involved in a reboot of cult classic, Akira.
The new album sounds as if you’ve been very influenced by your move to Berlin
“Yeah, I wanted to step out of my comfort zone of Glasgow and try and experience some new things. I was inspired to come over here because of Leisure System, my friends’ night at Berghain. I’ve known Ned (Beckett) who co-promotes it with Sam (Barker) for years from doing parties at Glasgow Art School and he looks after lots of the Warp artists so I got to know him through that. So, I
