We have been lucky enough to talk to Satoshi Tomiie about his new Renaissance ”3D” compilation a few days after his first gig promoting the release of the mix.

Sound Revolt: Last year you released two compilations under your SAW label, namely, “Electronic Soul” and “Electronic Soul-B”, you have also put together the “3D” compilation for Renaissance, you do gigs all over the planet and you are building your own studio and apartment. How do you have time to do all that?
Satoshi Tomiie: Well, fortunately I don’t have to build the apartment myself, I hired somebody to do it for me (laughs). Hector Romero, who is the label manager has been a lot of help, too. In fact, I have been able to do all that thanks to the people who I work with and who are a great help and who I won’t stop thanking.
I like very much what I do and I think that is the only way to do it. Surely, it takes a lot of time to put together one project. It can be compared to the preparation for a concert which itself may take two or three hours but there are also hours, sometimes hundreds of hours of rehearsals, production and hard work which precede the concert itself. And so, even though mixing itself does not take a lot of time, all the work which has to be put into collecting songs and rights to the songs means hours and hours of work.

Sound Revolt: How long did it take you to put together Renaissance “3D”?
Satoshi Tomiie: I started only in September because during summertime it was impossible for me to do anything else but touring. I worked for two full months on the project. I also toured but the tour dates were adjusted so I could first of all concentrate on completing the project.

Sound Revolt: Geoff Oakes from Renaissance said that you were “the most obvious choice” to start the new series. Why do you think he said that?
Satoshi Tomiie: That’s something you’ll have to ask Geoff. It was an honor to be chosen as the first artist and DJ to do it. I also found it quite interesting as a concept.

Sound Revolt: What do you think was the concept behind the series?
Satoshi Tomiie: The concept was quite amazing. Three dimensions of music favored by one DJ. Nobody did that before. Three CDs can be boring if you put similar music on them, or if you limit yourself to just one style of music. There were supposed to be three different angles to music proposed by one artist, which could allow people to get to know the artist better. It was something which made it really interesting.

Sound Revolt: I admit I had a kind of nostalgic feeling when I listened to your CDs because you included so many classic tunes. I was also confused because the three CDs are so totally different in their styles and the tracks represent so many different genres.
Satoshi Tomiie: Basically, the music I put on the three CDs is what I like and I don’t really care about uniformity of styles. At the end of the day good music is just good music. It’s not that I try to give people any message that the sounds I put on my compilation are what I play in clubs right now. Also, the CDs do not entirely reflect my style. I’d even say I don’t have a particular style. Generally, I like housey tunes but I am not talking about a very narrow meaning of house, I am talking about something which is melodic, groovy, funky but, on the other hand, not necessarily the funky house. It’s like with fashion, they may have a new trend every year but in reality it’s all the same, all the time and it can be a small change, which suddenly makes things interesting. To begin with, the club CD1 is not the stuff I make, it’s the stuff I play. It may be similar in style to what I make, though.

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