Austria’s Simon/off has been producing a variety of music since childhood. Dividing his time between production, dj’ing and live PA shows, Simon/off views music as a component of life, not just a hobby. Most recently, his 2009 gigs have included opening slots with such notables as El Rakkas and DJ Madd, and Sigha. Floating around in that nether region between, dubstep, techno and house, Simon/off’s music has been getting warm reception across Europe including airplay on Bun Zero’s FOB show and support from Distance, DFRNT and many others. This year is looking to be another great year, starting with a show with Roska in February. {Feb 26 2010 DJ-Set @ COTN w/ Roska Club Niesenbär / Graz / Austria}

What inspired you to start producing music and what are some of your influences?
It goes back when I was a young kid. My brothers and my sister and got a double tape deck including a microphone from my grandfather (rip) and we started to used it to record collages. We took parts from radio broadcasts, vinyls (our parents had a good collection), made our own “samples” with little keyboards and percussions; we just used whatever we could thought about. It was just pure fun.

Unfortunately when I was getting older the school was stealing most of my time .. so I kinda lost this pleasureful playing with sounds. Around 16 I started to play a bit guitar – my brother had some lessons .. and I tried to keep up with him. Around 17, when I started to go to my first raves and techno parties, I got my first software sequencer (Fasttracker) and from that point on my “old” passion came back. We had some really good promoters in my hometown Graz in the mid ’90s. So we had the chance to see a lot of the big names from that time like LTJ Bukem, Richie Hawtin, Squarepusher, Matthew Herbert, to name just few. Jungle and drum&bass was the sound of the hour and I was completely obsessed with it.. I started to buy records like the first Metalheadz Platinum, a lot of Reinforced Records, Warp and Rephlex stuff. And then I started to absorb almost every kind of music style.. later I was working for some years in a record shop which gave my music collection and taste a big turn into jazz + soul + dub + early electronic stuff from the ’60s and ’70s.
So influence-wise I can say there is a big melange of everything in it.. sometimes the elements really collide … it’s difficult to have catchy synth melodies like “Kraftwerk” had in their songs together with “Reinforced” influenced jazzy / broken / dark atmospheres combined in a techy dubby feel.

So over the years beside constant dj’ing i had a lot of different music output. i did a lot of experimental live things.. also a more IDM-oriented project called “winterstrand” together with my brothers. And a lot of small projects which never came to release, or liveshows.

What is one of your best ‘music moments’ (ie concert/show you attended, gig you dj’d)?
Almost all the parties and raves I had between ‘95 and ‘97; in 2005 Autechre live was an just awesome show, and Kode9 and Spaceape this (2009) autumn. For my own gigs: in 2000 dj’ing before (a kinda boring) Bukem and bringing the crowd to a complete freak out with strange, broken and heavy drum&bass was fun!
But generally the “next” gig is always the one I’m looking for, the one where I try to have my “best moment.”

What inspires you, musically or otherwise?
Besides a lot of music like I mentioned before, it’s mostly feelings and ideas I’m getting because of daily life, politics and society -issues, or watching films and documentaries. but in fact I never think about this inspiration thing because to me music feels like being a daily part of my life like eating or pissing ..
Sometimes you have a lot of bad food. Sometimes you are not mindful and you have burned onions and a bitter taste, but sometimes you just have cooked on the right balanced flame .. haha

ADDITIONAL INFO:
+ myspace.com/simonoff
+ forthcoming 12″ on Surface Tension
+ “Think For Yourself/Realize It” [HAR 101] out now on Haunted Audio Recordings
+ winterstrand.net AND myspace.com/winterstrand (for the idm stuff w/ my brothers)
we had a lot of “free” releases on different netlabels like Kikapu, Miga, Laridae…