It’s important to have a relaxed atmosphere in the studio.
Image: Sebastian Kite What atmosphere do you try and create in the studio? Both have their place but I value the former in my own creative process. It’s a very different experience playing an instrument in front of you than programming it on a computer. Sound quality is important but creativity is more important – this is why I love having as many real instruments as possible. Through my experience of witnessing so many great artists at Vox-ton, I realise that it’s important to have as few barriers as possible to being creative. I have everything plugged into a small Audio Developments desk and a microphone is always setup for my violin, which allows me to create quickly and make spontaneous decisions about what to use. I run a hybrid setup of analogue synths, keyboards and acoustic instruments alongside a Universal Audio setup on my computer. My experience at Vox-Ton definitely influenced how I set up my studio. Image: Sebastian Kite How do you use your studio? The studio is centred around a Cadac G-series console with a great collection of vintage microphones and outboard gear so it was a dream place to learn and grow my abilities in the studio. This is where I developed my engineering skills and made a lot of records, including the soundtrack to Chernobyl with Hildur Guðnadóttir. When I first came to Berlin, I started my studio career as an intern at Vox-Ton Studio which is run by Francesco Donadello. It’s very much built to facilitate my own creative process as positively as possible. During the first COVID-19 lockdown in 2020, I decided to build a studio in my apartment and this is where I am now working, mainly composing and producing. Image: Sebastian Kite Tell us a bit about the studio. We wanted the music and the vocal to take centre stage at different times and then at times sit equally with each other. The vocal sits in different places on different songs on the record. As someone who mainly works in the instrumental world, experimenting with this was fascinating. There is something about hearing someone else singing that dives deep into the heart of so many people. The human voice has an unparalleled ability to connect. Image: Sebastian Kite This is the first Simon Goff release we’ve heard with a vocalist. The thing we found exciting was the way in which the violin and the vocal interacted and, even now, I think we have only just begun to scratch the surface there. Sometimes they would go on for over an hour.
She would bring some lyric sketches and I’d have my violin, a couple of synths and my pedalboard and we’d just press record. Katie and I wrote the bulk of the material for the record by beginning with long improvisation sessions. Image: Sebastian Kite What was it like melding your styles together in the studio? It was while working on this together in the summer of 2021 that we started discussing different writing and composition styles and decided to get in a room together and make some new music.
After a two-hour conversation, Katie asked me if I’d be interested to collaborate on an acoustic reworking of her last album. One of my management team knew her A&R at BMG and he passed the record on to Katie, which resulted in us jumping on a Zoom call. The collaboration came about after Katie heard my solo record Vale which was released last year with the Berlin label 7k!.
Simon, we’ve been swept away by the dream state that is the collaborative album made with Katie Melua, Aerial Objects.
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