AN AUDIENCE WITH… Karl Bartos

“When we introduced a computer in the studio, we didn’t play any more”

FOR a musician synonymous with the interface between music and technology, Karl Bartos’s Hamburg home studio is surprisingly spartan. “I have a piano, a Martin D-28 guitar and a computer,” he reveals. “The core of my old equipment like the MiniMoog and the Arp synthesiser is still there, but they seem to retire now. Usually I go out and record something in the streets.”

Rather than creating his own sounds, Bartos is currently concerned with paying deeper attention to those that already exist around us. “Ambience is really great. I’ve learned a lot from John Cage about that – he said, the great symphony is if you go to a crossroads and listen to the rhythm of the cars. Around here, you hear ships all the time. But basically anything makes a symphony. It’s really a great variety of noises in this world.”

Bartos was always a versatile musician. In his memoir , recently translated and was broader than you think. “I always listen to music as a whole,” says Bartos, settling down to answer your questions. “It’s all the sound of being human.”