Interview with Alex Ranft - new ideas from Münster

Date: June 10, 2004
Text: Interview by



Hey Alex! You surprise many people with your various activity: Label Owner (Mindsound Rec.), Artist (The Osmotic Effect), Partyproducer (Mindsound Easter Festival). Tell us a bit about your history!

I think MindSound activities started at the same time when Chaishop started.

As you know for sure, things just grow as you keep on going with it. - flowing with it.

We started organizing smaller events of various kinds and released a Compilation with our own productions in a small edition. Everything very undergrounded and mainly not accessible for people without any personal connection.

- So it looks like MindSound is now ready for the rest of the World!

Myself, I actually can´t remember when I started eating, because I always did.

I guess whisteling was my first kind of musical expression and its the `instrument´ I really know how to play.

Many of my friends are real maniacs in collecting all kinds of music and so I was always nicely fed.- and I´m still being fed.

Concerning music I´m definitley not a vegetarian ... and if you like eating you start cooking, open your own restaurant and create your special menu.

- I don´t like fast food! But I like it spicy, sometimes pure, international kitchen, good mixtures, sweet deserts, strong coffee and after all a good pipe - and organic food is the best for sure!

Your music on the label and as a artist is quite refreshing chill-out to dance music. How would you describe this music and what is the aim about it?

The Music on `Food for the Spirit´ with my project `The Osmotic Effect´ is defintley more related to the Trance-Scene than my other stuff such as One-2-One (Downbeat, NuJazz) ,Orangepeeler (handmade SpaceFunk`N´Jazz)...

`The Osmotic Effect´ is about exploring the psychedelic horizons, especially in electronic dance music.

The label MindSound Records is about bringing varities of styles together. Especially non-electronic-sounding elements are being fused into our soundspace - If you listen to our compilation `Imaginations´ you´ll find out that all boundaries are illusion.

- Its all about good music from our hearts. For all the connaisseurs around the world!

On your „Mindsound Easter Festival‰ you offered a very mixed musical selection to the people containing Punk, Tribal, Techno and Trance. Why?

I guess we´re ready for it.

To me music gets boring if I listen to the same thing all the time.

Best thing about festivals like ours is that there are so many different people from different backrounds coming together and they all share the same vibe and they get catched by it.

People start loving music they never had any close relation to and so things start infecting each other, creating a more universal consciousness. ... and actually the true spirit of the early goa-parties was not to create a certain goa-style ... to me it´s more about finding the mindexpanding elements in any kind of music, which are not strictly 4 to the floor beats or delayed synthpatterns.

There are allready a few good festivals presenting various kinds of music - The `Fusion Festival´ in East-Germany showes what is possible in this sense.

Parties in smaller cities like Münster (where you are coming from), Bielefeld, Osnabrück, Bremen lately seem more successful than those in the „Trance-Capitals‰ like Hamburg, the Ruhrpott and Berlin. Is there a decentralization going on?

Centralization forces decentralization. But I think most people in these places started doing there thing some time ago and now they just show up with it.

Trance itself is the state were things become decentral - knowing within that everything is connected eternaly.

So, there never can be a Trance-Capital - just Trance.

What do you think of digital distribution of music?

Distribution changes - distribute in any possible way! - so everyone can listen.

But it is most important what kind of vibe you distribute. Its like communication.

Is Trance a positive development for our planet?

How can anything be positive without the consciousness of oneness?

Tell us about your future projects!

Right now we are working on introducing MindSound Records to a larger audience.

We are planing 2 new compilations, one more 4 the floor dance orientated, the otherone more NuJazz, Breakbeat, Electro-Pop.

I´d love to do a few more Live-DJ Gigs to present my Album and my own interpretation of Trance.

Everybody is very welcome for booking!

I´m working on my second `The Osmotic Effect´- Album and I think I´ll finish it by the end of the year.

And there will hopefully be a `One-2-One´-Album soon ... and of course my other projects don´t sleep as well.

It´s about creating the most delicate menu - and as you keep on cooking there will always be a better one.

Anything else?

Thanks a lot for the honor - giving you this interview!
I ´ve been watching the Chaishop all these years - Big Respect and Thanks!

Alex, thanks a lot for this Interview!