We recently interviewed Matthias Speck, who has been launched Mancha Recordings in 2008 to release own music as well as music from friends and musically likeminded people. Diversity and expressiveness are the most essential criteria for Mancha´s music. Apart from that they pick up the ” early days “ sound of electronic music and try to integrate their own impressions into it.
Check out the interview :
Tention Free : Let’ s talk a bit about your music and what is the secret behind your success ?
Matthias Speck :
I started making music already in 2004 with Djing using records and CDs. It took me more than a year to learn how to beat match correctly but afterwards I really enjoyed mixing manually without using a computer. I like it this way down to the present day because Djing without computers gives me a more direct connetion to the music. Pretty soon after I started Djing I also began to produce own music. My first track was finished in 2005 and became released two years later on vinyl. Also in 2007 friends of mine and me started a small festival in a quarry near Leipzig named Gratwanderung Festival. This was a lot of fun and we learnt a lot from it. Artists like Ricardo Tobar, Steffen Bennemann, Nathan Fake, Daniel Stefanik, Lauer; Erobique, Luvless & M.ono, Filburt and others played at Gratwanderung. One year later in 2008 I started my own record label Mancha Recordings to release own music and tracks of musically likeminded friends. Later we also launched another label named Gratwanderung Musik were we also released records produced by Gratwanderung- artists from time to time. But currently our focus is releasing music on Mancha Recordings again. The next EP will be a record by Rik Elmont. He is a friend of mine for many years, has already released music on Aura Karma Records and is also a long – term member of the nachtdigital festival team. He is currently doing some really warm and dirty sounding analogue stuff that I really like. All the tracks have been recorded with an old AKAI tape recorder.
Tention Free : Please tell us about your “Back For Good – Hello Again – EP “?
Matthias Speck :
Back For Good is a project I started to release kind of old school sounding music influenced by 80s New Wave, Electro, Chicago House and Detroit Techno. We called the EP „Hello Again“ because we had a „short break“ with Mancha Recordings and haven´t been releasing music on this label for some years. The „Hello Again EP“ is the first record after this break and is some kind of a „reboot“ for Mancha. That doesn´t mean we want to change everything completely. The main focus is still on having fun with it but our sound has changed a bit over the years and there also is a greater focus on the artwork now. Some years ago we just stamped the records and handnumbered them. This was funny but after a while you tend to repeat yourself because you can only change the colour of the stamping ink. Now our artwork is done by Belorado, a long-term friend of us who is doing collages based of old books and photos.
Tention Free : How did you feel when you released your first album „Matthias Speck – Zehn“ in April 2014?
Matthias Speck :
I use my real name Matthias Speck to produce music that connects Electronica with classical music based on instruments like pianos, cellos, violins and contrabasses. After ten years of making music and releasing tracks I felt it would be time to make my first album. The intention was to bring the range of the music I´m doing together in one album. Some of the tracks are more related to classic Techno and House like the tracks „Alte Tante Techno“ and „Bauhouse“ , some others are more experimental like „Konzertreise“ and „Voggenreiter Drum Ensemble“. I like doing both but I think in the future I will do more of the experimental stuff :-).
Tention Free : Where would you most like to perform?
Matthias Speck :
Currently I´m mainly focused on producing and releasing own music. In March I have released a new EP on Mancha Recordings and now I work on some remixes of 80s New Wave tracks. Djing or playing a live act I do just from time to time. When I DJ I prefer to do it back to back with my buddies Belorado or Benjamin Schneider. For me there is no special location where I would like to play but I prefer playing in the morning when the sun comes up. I also like Djing for more than 3 or 4 hours and making music on the radio because you can play more experimental music there.
Tention Free : Do you set goals for yourself and how do you do that?
Matthias Speck :
I don´t set goals I just do music for fun to be honest. I also have an „ordinary“ job that I really like and that also makes me financially indipendent from selling music. This helps me to make exactly the music I like. For me the music – thing is only a passion. Of course I´m happy if there are people who like and buy it but I´m not planning to make a regular income out of the music.
Tention Free : What motivates you to do your best work ?
Matthias Speck :
For me it´s always the moments when you get the records from the pressing plant and put it on the turntable to hear how it sounds from „a DJ point of view“. Probably this sounds strange but it is alwys a different listening sitiuation from producing the music using gear, guitar and computer to the moment you play it from a real record for the first time. Probably it is because you have heard many other records beeing played from a turntable and you can directly compare it to your own stuff. This is „the moment of truth“ and I´m always a bit nervous about it. 
Tention Free : What hidden talents do you have?
Matthias Speck :
Up to now I thought there wouldn´t be any hidden talents. Two weeks ago I started cooking. My collegues enjoyed the meal but probably they only where on the brick of starvation. 😉 What I´m definitely not able not do is drawing and calligraphy ;-).
Tention Free : Tell us about your achievements as a founder of Mancha Recordings ?
Matthias Speck :
I like to release own music and tracks of musically likeminded friends on Mancha. This is fun enough but of course it´s always a good feeling when you see that music released on Mancha Recordings is beeing played by the heroes of our youth like Âme, Osunlade, Stacey Pullen and others.
Tention Free : How can people find you and follow you online?
Matthias Speck :
Everything new related to Mancha Recordings can be found on this site: mancharecordings.de
For my own music projects I have two websites:
www.matthias-speck.de and www.backforgood.eu .
The site of our former “ Gratwanderung Festival „ is also still live: Gratwanderung-festival.de
And of course you can also follow all our activity on soundcloud and diverse social media platforms:
Mancha Recordings
Mancha Recordings
Matthias Speck
Matthias Speck
