Dimitri: Are you going to remember 2010 as a good and positive year for the progress of electronic dance music or as one of the worst? For instance, have you found many good tracks, new ideas, new talented producers and newborn labels that have excite you and make you feel more addicted with your favorite music?
Store N’Forward: In general we think that there were better years in the history of trance than 2010. Especially in Germany the so called electronic dance/trance scene seems to degenerate to an underground phenomenon again. Just the strong commercial oriented tracks have a real chance to get airplays in special trance radio shows. The Music-Television-Channels have already dropped the dance-music out of their portfolio years ago and coupled with the weak radio support may this is the reason why the populace doesn’t have any chance to get in touch with trance and liking it of course.
Nevertheless 2010 brought out a couple of beauties, no doubt! One of the most outstanding newcomers since years is “ARTY” really convinced in 2010 with quality originals and a lot more Remixes!
Dimitri: Is it possible to list for us your personal accomplishments music wise that you achieved during 2010 and maybe you consider this year as one of your best helping you to go a step forward in your career?
Store N Forward: Well, 2010 wasn’t the best year for Store N Forward as well. Even if we were continuously doing our weekly podcast radio show and got strong guest support (e.g. Lange, Ronski Speed, The Thrillseekers, Kyau & Albert, Super8 & Tab, Ronski Speed, Stoneface & Terminal, Cressida, etc) in our “trance formation”- radio show on Di.FM, we just made it personally to one Single. The good is that our so called “comeback” single “Manga” got supposedly the biggest support of all of our singles yet . It was chosen as the “Tune of The Week” at Armin’s ASOT and got plays by e.g. Tiesto, Marcus Schössow, Leon Bolier and most of the so very well known Tops of electronic trance and dance music.
Just 1 single in 1 year looks pretty bad on the paper, but we needed this time to just get back on the track and we prefabricated already 2 Singles in the late 2010, gives us the peace of mind to just produce new stuff without any pressure now.
a) Best Full Release of the year(that means that you think that the original and the remix package was the most appropriate for it)
Store N Forward: To make it short. There was a release in the beginning of 2010 of Mike Shiver and Aruna on Anjunabeats. “Everywhere you are” came along with a strong Duderstadt Mix and a Mike Shiver’s Catching Sun Mix. Both were and are still outstanding!
b) Your personal Full release of the year (if you had any releases of course and give us the kind of feedback you get for it)
Store N Forward: There’s only 1!! MANGAAA! ;-) See above! Thanks for all your support out there!
c) Best Single track of the year(only original versions)
Store N Forward: Yuri Kane – Right Back
d) Your personal Best Single track of the year(if you had any releases of course and give us the kind of feedback you get for it)
Store N Forward: There’s only 1 Original !! MANGAAA! ;-) See above! ..and again, can’t thank to much, thanks for all your support out there!
e) Best Remix of the year
Store N Forward: Short and simple ;) D-Mad – She Gave Me Happiness (Arty Mix)
f) Best Remix on personal production that you released this year
Store N Forward: None – sounds strange isn’t it?
g) Best Producer of the year in your style that you play or any other that you may like
Store N Forward: ARTY, for his most outstanding quality output on every release he was involved.
h) Best New Talent/Big hope for the year
Store N Forward: ARTY! ;-)
i) Best Remixer of the year on personal or others peoples tracks
Store N Forward: ARTY! ;-) it’s getting a little bit boring – yes we know. But we cannot mention this name enough – so here is it few times more:
Arty, Arty, Arty, Arty, Arty, Arty, Arty, Arty, Arty, Arty, Arty, Arty, Arty, Arty, …
j) Best Established Label of the year
Store N Forward: Even when it sounds a little bit selfish! Afterglow did a great job overall. I can’t remember a bad release – so thumbs up for Afterglow and Elef, the label owner and head behind the scenes.
k) Best Newborn in 2010 label of the year
Store N Forward: Hmm too many by the way. But our friends Michel (Reminder) and Matze (Cressida) started with a new label called Tool Records. They did a good job as well, signed a Remix of us for 2011. We really keep our fingers cross that Tool will go well in 2011. Let’s see.
l) Best promotional tool of the year(ie labelworx/fatdrop/releasecenter or others that you may use)
Store N Forward: Hehe… absolutely no idea ;) we received promotional material by labelworx and fatdrop. Systems are working so we cannot complain.
m) Best dance album and mixed compilation of the year in the style of music that you work with…
Store N Forward: Gareth Emery – The Sound Of Garuda – Big one!
n) Best social network of the year that has been amazing for the promotion of your work
Store N Forward: Even if we finally made it to facebook since a couple of weeks now (http://www.facebook.com/storenforward), for us myspace (http://www.myspace.com/storenforward) is still rank one. Let’s see how 2011 is developing. ;-)
o) Best new software or hardware that you introduced in this year and you recommended it to others.
Store N Forward: Hmmm in 2010 we kept the setup we have and upgraded just the studio acoustics besides some small VST plugins like the Vengeance side chain plugin which works pretty well for us!
p) Best and worst dj experience that happened to you in 2010
Store N Forward: Best experience – we finally had an experience!
Worst – we hadn’t enough to complain ;)
q) Best country that you performed this year
Store N Forward: Please ask us again this question in 2 years.
r) Best club or open air festival that you attended or you even performed this year
Store N Forward: We like the “Hühnerposten” in Hamburg. Great location and they are still doing Trance events and very nice sound system.
s) Best hobby or other activity for 2010(game/movie/book/going to gym to keep fit or any other hobby )
Store N Forward: Here it comes…. Racket Ball!
t) Best radio show of the year and Best radio station that you always check out(fm or online)preferably that plays the kind of your music
Store N Forward: NDR2, a German FM Radio Station brings just pop & rock stuff of the moment.
u) Best online or ordinary record shop that you use to get your music of the year
Store N Forward: Beatport, because they have what we need, and they have a lot of it.
v) Best electronic dance music video of the year
Store N Forward: As above mentioned, we don’t have Dance-Music on TV in Germany
w) Best CD player or any other equipment that you use for djing.
Store N Forward: Ehm… are there any other than Pioneer CDJs? No no just kidding. Pioneer works so far, we have a smaller version CDJ800 in our studio.
x) Best vocalist in a dance track of the year
Store N Forward: Too many to pick one out. Maybe in 2011 there will be less good singer and we answer next year. But no guarantee. ;-)
y) Best magazine or web site that you always check out for music related stuff(releases and technical equipment)
Store N Forward: For musical equipment we use “Future Music” for new music we stay in contact with many friends and producer and listening from time to time to internet radio stations like pure.fm and di.fm.
z) Best fan of your music of the year or best crowd in your performance(perhaps you don’t know the name but you can describe when you met or why you consider this person as your best fan of the year)
Store N Forward: Tough question. The best crowd was our regular listeners of our Podcast Show. We receive a lot of feedback on the show and that helps us to find out what our listeners like and helps us to keep the musical quality as high as we can. Also the critical words we’ve got were good for us and is welcome every time.
Dimitri: Can you please let us know your plans for 2011 that your fans should look out for from you?
Store N Forward: That’s pretty easy! Watch out for more Singles and Remixes starting in January with a STORE N FORWARD Remix of RAPHA’s “Dark Temptation”, our weekly podcast radio show and again hopefully 12 high class guests in our monthly trance formation show on Di.FM !!! ;-)
Dimitri: On the other side are the worst things of the year. Is it possible to tell us the track or album that you believe is the worst of the year and why?
Store N Forward: Even if there were some worse, it wouldn’t help anyone to tell it here. We respect everyone, who has an honest intention to produce ‘music’. We don’t need to like it though and we don’t need to speak about it too… ;-)
Dimitri: Please give us your wishes for 2011 and your small piece of advice for anyone that reads this interview and love to get into music production or djing.
Store N Forward: We wish everyone health and energy, without that many other things like money and material stuff don’t really matter!
When you are really interested in music production, just start it!
Playing an instrument helps you out creating new songs of course, but it’s not a barrier, if you can’t. Furthermore, buy a computer and a sequencer. Get yourself some hard- and/or software-synthesizers, some samples and just do it! ;-) There will always be moments of despair while you are trying to get the best out of it, but that’s part of the plan to make it guys! Good luck!
Additional info:
http://www.storenforward.com
http://www.facebook.com/storenforward
http://www.myspace.com/storenforward
Many thanks to Elef at Afterglow offices for his support to organize this interview
Additional info for Afterglow records:
www.afterglow-records.de
www.myspace.com/weareafterglow
www.myspace.com/thisisplasticangel
