Having traded the pulsating beats of Germany’s healthy electronic music scene for the tranquil rhythms of Aotearoa, electronic producer and DJ Sanoi – AKA Jonas Fisher – has released his second album, Echoes of Home.
A new signee of local indie label Loop Recordings, Sanoi blends his German heritage with his new Kiwi home across the largely instrumental record, partly inspired by Berlin’s dynamic house and techno scene.
The result? Eight melodic tracks that Fisher says are “as at home on the dancefloor as it is on headphones.”
Never one to overlook his surroundings, Sanoi adds local touches and collaborates with Ōtautahi/Christchurch artist Beacon Bloom on the standout track “Silver”.
The album, created at Sanoi’s Auckland home, underwent testing in clubs across New Zealand and Australia over the last two years, and now he’s ready to bring it to Nest Fest, Electric Avenue, and Splore, and many more summer festivals.
Rolling Stone AU/NZ asked Sanoi to detail the exquisite technical craft behind each track on his new album, which you can check out below.
Sanoi’s Echoes of Home is out now via Loop Recordings.
“Life Is Good”
For “Life Is Good”, the track started with building a “carpet” of textural sound recordings to create a sound landscape that feels almost touchable. Once the kick drum and tom groove where established, the basic groove written and a rough outline created, I had a recording session with Tom Broome at his studio in New Lynn, Auckland where we recorded a whole bunch of exotic percussion instruments to add even more texture and groove elements like shakers.
To round off the track, we did even more additional recording for the piano parts on that track, and used an old Roland space echo to massage sounds and add some unpredictable little blips here and there.
“Zero Gravity”
Working on “Zero Gravity” was a different experience completely. Me and my partner went to a beautiful beach close to Piha and stayed in a small holiday home for a weekend. We took a car load of speakers, microphones, percussion instruments, and drums I borrowed from a friend. Getting the right swing and groove to it all, but still being deep and melancholic, was a big challenge, but after some extra shaker recordings with Tom, all the elements were there.
In addition to recording real piano, I love to use a free library, Decent Sampler, someone created over the pandemic and uploaded to an incredible community-driven website called Pianobook.co.uk.
“Midnight Stroller”
The third track of the record is where I’m trying to not write in the same way I am most conformable with. That resulted in a constant push and pull of rhythms and different grooves – where textures take the role of sounds that crackle in the underbrush, synths become stars in the sky, and the kick drum is like rocks that get kicked away from time to time on your midnight stroll. My favourite element is the bass that was created by letting the filter of a Korg MS-20 self-resonate, and then using the filter knob to “play” the pitch.
“Silver”
On “Silver”, Ryan from Beacon Bloom and I worked very close on creating the dichotomy of the abstract, deep, brooding atmosphere, and the sorrowfully-longing vocals. We tried to incorporate the vocal in parts more like an instrument, using delays and pitch shifting to make it more part of the overall instrumentation than a vocal that just sits on top of the instrumental.
On top of using a modular synthesiser to create the baseline, we also felt this needs some more real life instruments, so additional drums where recorded with Tom that really brought the track together, especially in the later half.
“Together”
The modular synthesiser also plays a big part in the fifth track. You can hear it playing a repeating pattern that’s going all the way through the track and through various uses of FX turns, from supporting the track underneath to creating a sense of urgency. Overall, the approach here was to break out of the usual four-to-the-floor patterns, and play with the spaces around the beats to convey a feeling of discombobulated unity.
“Flickering Lights”
Continuing to try and push my own personal boundaries, I approached the sixth track with the question of how to create different ways to rhythmically “feel” a track. I tried sticking to a traditional house-style beat, then layered it with unsynchronised percussive textures.
The synths and bass pulsate to a more delayed tripled syncopation feel, helping the track come together where multiple ways of feeling the groove are possible. Here, we also find the Piano Library again that lays itself through the use of the Valhalla vintage reverb, over the boiling and rumbling texture soup like a soft, silky blanket.
“Mountain Pass”
“Mountain Pass” was one of the first tracks written for this album, but took the longest to finish. I actually was super inspired by some video of a drone flying though the Alps. Using spitfire audio strings, my favourite Piano Library, the very old and not good piano inside my old studio and recording sessions with Tom, I was able to make it all work and have the track flow in a way that creates a journey and tells a story.
“Moon Boy”
The last track of the album is written for my little boy. Over the process of writing the new record, I became a parent, which inspired me to write something simple, somber and calm without any beats. This track was entirely recorded at Tom’s studio, and we used his piano mixed super close for a very intimate feel so you can hear all the little sounds around the piano.
At the end, we felt it needed something more in the low end, so we ended up using a Fender Rhodes for the bass. I took the recordings home and crafted the soundscape that the main chord progression sits on to create the feeling of being frozen in time, inside a combination of happiness and love.
