We Are Modeselektor

Hello.

We are probably the most popular

pop duo from Berlin.

This is Basti Szary

and this is Gernot Bronsert.

And we have known each other for

quite a long time, round about

Wait, let's do that again:

Do I actually look into the camera

or do I look at you?

For the first time I met

Szary was over there,

by the chimney.

That's where our first school was,

where we went together.

And I have seen one of his binders once

with his name written on it in graffiti.

It was on the table of

the teacher in the music class

and it said Sebastian Szary in

graffiti writing and I thought:

Woah. Cool dude.

We both grew up east of Berlin.

One town is called Woltersdorf,

that is where Gernot is from.

I, Szary, am from Rdersdorf.

Early childhood memories

are quite happy ones.

You biked around a lot,

and spend a lot of time on the water.

The entire region is crisscrossed

with canals and lakes

and there was a lot of forest.

Basically, you spend a lot

of time out in nature.

Until Techno arrived.

Woltersdorf is kind of a spa town,

you could say.

It's like a place of pilgrimage

for all the people from Berlin

who want to put their feet

in the water at the weekends.

Rdersdorf has always been quite industrial.

Here, where we are now,

used to be the limestone-open-pit mine,

the cement-chemical plant,

so this was kind of where the industry was.

Woltersdorf had no industry at all.

They maybe had an industry of gastronomy,

but not really.

That used to be the difference

between Rdersdorf and Woltersdorf.

That the world of electronic music

in which we work now,

that that works for us

is due first and foremost

to certain circumstances have led

to the possibilities that we had.

It was definitely an important period here.

When I got to know Gernot, know properly,

with hanging out afterwards...

With getting naked!

With getting naked was:

It sounds late,

it was 1996.

I was working in construction back then.

I was up on the roof and had to nail.

A friend passed by, I don't even

remember who else was there.

Anyways, Gernot stood there too and he said:

'Ey, Szary, when will you finish,

come down for a moment. '

And I said:
'Half an hour to go. '

And you guys waited

down there and I came down

with my chapped hands and a blue nail

from hitting it with the hammer.

And then we drove off.

I think we went to my place, my shed.

In any case, we chilled out

and listened to music.

- I had records with me.

- You brought records.

This is where it all started.

I can show you,

to trace out the dimensions

...a slightly ruinous attic.

Anyway this used to be my studio,

it was full of instruments.

Keyboards, drum machines, Atari.

Back then it was still pretty clean.

The shed was originally a workshop,

a storage for building materials

that his Dad put there and

at some point we started to use it,

rebuilt and insulated it,

took out some pillars,

put down a concrete floor

so we could have parties in it

and were able to sleep over.

It was like, at about 10, 11, 11.30

in the evening the party up there started

and music blared,

basses were turned up

and those basses permeated

through all the walls.

So I came out to the shed in

my nightgown at midnight and said:

'Turn off the bass,

we can't listen to it anymore,

we can't sleep!'

Well, that's how it was.

When it comes to music you

couldn't see it coming with Sebastian.

He was experimenting a lot,

had new ideas everyday,

but none of them was music.

He couldn't really sing either.

He got a "satisfactory'

I think in musical education.

And for being able to read sheet music,

since no one in the family

plays an instrument,

he couldn't do that either.

Well, but with that music today

you don't really need that at all.

Basti listened to the radio.

What was it?

DT64, Monika Dietl as well

and he tape-recorded it all and analysed it,

and that was electronic music,

Rave.

I don't know what you used to

call it back the exactly.

Immediately after reunification it was like that:

I finished school after ten years,

without the A-levels

and went immediately on to do the apprenticeship

in the concrete factory in Rdersdorf

and earned my first money

that I went on to spend immediately

every Thursday in a record shop called Hardwax.

I still lived at Mum's place.

And at some point I wanted to know:

How do you make that kind of music?

A relatively short time later you knew with

what kinds of devices you made that music.

There were only two of them:

TR 808 and TB 303.

Of course, some time later you

had a whole armada of devices.

In those days you still ordered

the devices by telephone somewhere.

Until then you could keep it secret,

but then came the package.

And you also had to pay the postman.

I was just shocked

and thought that cannot end well.

It cannot end well with all the records

and equipment and keyboards and

what else the stuff was that he bought.

It was pretty upsetting for me.

However for him it was his hobby

and very important to him.

We drove to Berlin,

to Tresor in late 1990, early 1991,

and then also to Frankfurt/Oder, to Rauen...

...wherever we had enough petrol to go to.

Influenced by that Techno hype

that had been growing in Berlin as well,

we tried to establish our own

stinking cellar in Rdersdorf.

Since there were so many vacancies,

they had in the old buildings

We are in one of those areas right now,

this is the Seilscheibenpfeiler,

an old building in which in the 19th century

the lorries filled with limestone

came up from the pit

to be put onto ships

or over into the cement plant.

So right there were three empty houses

that were completely broken-down,

without windows, roofs partly collapsed.

And since it was my way to work,

I cycled to the cement plant every day,

I passed the houses every day,

and some day I went in there

and had a look and thought:

Perfect, here in this basement

we should really have a party.

So me and my friend, Thomas Richter

I drove there, didn't call,

back then you actually met in person.

And said:
'Come on Thomas,

we have to clean up the basement. '

There was lots of coal dust

and old metal shelves.

So every day at about 3 pm, after work,

we started sowing the shelves

apart with makeshift hacksaws.

and nobody noticed

even though it was really loud.

Then we shovelled all the stuff out

and then came the D-Day.

So, today is the 30st October

and Seilscheibenpfeiler happens

for the last time this year,

so let's go up there and have a look, right?

Come on!

It was completely dark in there.

There were two floors.

A House floor.

And a Techno floor.

A Gabber floor.

Exactly.

Hardcore.

There were only strobes and haze.

Those were great parties.

People got excited.

And in the end the feeling was:

It was pure.

Pure Techno.

I perceived the Seilscheibenpfeiler parties

and the following parties

from a completely different perspective

than Szary for example.

I was a guest.

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