Sinchi & Friends 127 comes from one our favourite producers of the moment …. Chinaski.  Stefan has been delivering bomb after bomb over the recent years and made a killer remix for us (the Sinchi label) last year for ‘Je Palpite’ which you can check out here.  With the restrictions over the past year, he’s been locked in the studio and we’re excited to hear new music coming up on the likes of Live at Robert Johnson and Dischi Autunno in the new future. In the meanwhile, the Robert Johnson resident serves up an eclectic podcast inspired by ‘Game’ music he’s been digging. Enjoy…

1) Please Introduce yourself?

I’m Chinaski aka S-F-X a sound and visual artist, producer, and performer based in Frankfurt am Main.

2) How have you been spending your time in recent months? 

I have the luck to have my studio at home so I spend a lot of time the last months working on new projects.

3) In terms of new music / releases , what do you have lined up for the coming year? 

A new S-F-X Album “2021” comes out on cassette in April on “A Futura Memoria”. It’s a new label I run with my buddy Michael Satter. A lot of new Chinaski Stuff comes out in the next few months on various labels like “Ritmo Fatale”, “Dischi Autunno”, “Live At Robert Johnson” and I work on a Chinaski album.

Plus I recorded a whole Soundtrack for an old David Cronenberg Movie called “Stereo”. I hope to perform that live in the pandemic afterlife.

And I also made a Single together with Lauer only available on Bandcamp.

4) What can you tell us about the podcast? Do you have a favourite track in there?

It’s a mix of Game Music I listen a lot to it nowadays and some cool music friends have sent me. Hard to take my fav but I think Queen’s “Football Fight” is a real classic.

5) How have your listening habits changed over the last year? 

I listen to music every day but for the fact, I also work a lot on more dance stuff I love to look for music in different genres. I’m hard into more 90s game music world at the time. There’s so much offside the well-known.

6) Who or what are your biggest musical influences?

Honestly hard to tell. I think YMO – and the whole environment around them are unbeatable. Their approach to mix commercial pop and Avantgarde appeals a lot to me.

8) What is your favourite Venue or Festival to play at and why?

I miss the Robert Johnson in Offenbach. It’s my base and friend hood. I played my first gig there.

9) Do you have a ritual before you start playing or straight after?

Before I start playing live I simply try not to overthink, what I might have been forgotten to check or what will be going wrong.

10) What is your favourite bit of kit? 

My production way changed a lot over the years. For  3 years I only use old vintage Samplers and Synthesizers for the instrument part and process it with more modern effect plugins. This works really well for me. I always compose on the outboard, sometimes I use Soft Synth’s for lying some ideas down but in the end, it appeals a lot more to me to record some audio. I use a Lintronics Minimoog, Oberheim TVS-1 and Prophet 5 a lot. This combination gives me anything I need. If I want more color I use a sampler like the E-MU Emulator 2 whose pure archaic sound and workflow I just adore. This vintage fetish brings a lot of problems with it of course like heavy servicing and costs. I try a lot of new analog synths but for some reason, they sound not alive to me. I love the fact every time I turn on an old synth and the same settings sound slightly different. It’s way more an instrument should be with an absolute character.

11) What is your favourite film score?

A lot! I recommend the Videodrome Soundtrack from Howard Shore. Very avant-garde and interesting. He writes the score and they put the papers in a Synclavier which is an early Digital Synth. Then they blend the Synclavier with a traditional Orchestra. The result is wonderfully strange.