Bachmann’s bio harkens back to the ‘80s, when he spent time listening on his father’s Tesla tape recorder. The analog medium is fundamental to his music making—in performance he uses a tape machine and the AE modular synthesizer.
About his unique approach to rhythm in electronic music, he explains: “I have a professional drummer background and for a long time I was only concentrated on my career as a sideman. But growing up in Berlin and not also getting into electronic/ambient music is simply not possible. So this kind of music was always in my mind.
“One day I decided to give it a try and quit some bands to focus on research for how I can create my own sound. By that time I was listening a lot to William Basinski, Basic Channel, and GAS. I was always thinking, how would Basinski sound if he made music for the dance floor?”
HAND’s combination of enveloping soundscape and pulse reaches into the listener’s body. The style came to Bachman as a question: “What is the first sound we ever heard? What do we listen to in our mother’s belly during pregnancy? In my imagination we heard a big pulse from the heartbeat surrounded by a droned sound from the outer world. I like this picture in my head. It is a perfect concept for ambient music, because I want to make the listener calm, and the sound like in a mother’s belly works on various levels to comfort and calm.”
Sascha Bachmann aka HAND, Berlin, Germany, october 2020
