Tommy Four Seven
Berlin-based Brit Tommy Four Seven has long been one of the most interesting producers on Europe’s underground techno circuit. His debut album, 2011’s Primate, took the standard genre template of pounding drum machines and atmospheric synths, stripped it down to its bare bones and rebuilt those textures out of unique field recordings and mangled samples. As one half of These Hidden Hands, alongside longtime collaborator Alain Paul, he’s pushed that idea even further – creating music that entirely blurs the line between pounding club music and textural ambient sound design.
His newly released second album, Veer, is his most accomplished work to date. On paper, its combination of industrial, reverb-soaked techno and sci-fi like soundscapes might sound like nothing new for the genre. In practice though, Tommy’s detailed sound design and creative, Eurorackpowered effect processing combine to form one of the most distinctive electronic releases of the year. FM caught up with Tommy in his Berlin studio, to find out how the record came together...
How has your music-making evolved over the years? Are we right in thinking you first started out working purely with software…
“I got into making electronic music around the age of 13, when I was using a Playstation games console with an application called Music 2000. After my parents bought a PC I began experimenting with Propellerhead Reason, which led to me using my student loan to buy a Mac Pro and Logic Studio.
“Today, I still work with Logic, though over the
