Jogging House (Interview)
Today we’re listening to Jogging House, a German ambient musician based in Frankfurt. He grew up listening to pop and hip-hop, and his first musical endeavors were on the MPC. He then veered into beatless productions and started putting out his own ambient records in the mid-2010s. He’s also the founder of Seil Records, started in 2017, which has put out music by KMRU, Sofie Birch, and (who recently had a great conversation with Jogging House). We’re playing JH’s incredible new ambient album Whisper Glyphs, a collaboration with American ambientist The Lifted Index. And second we’re playing his earlier 2024 record, Rendezvous. A conversation with him follows the streaming links.
Whisper Glyphs - Jogging House & The Lifted Index (43m, no vocals)
Spotify / Apple Music / YouTube Music / Amazon Music / Bandcamp / Tidal
Rendezvous - Jogging House (44m, no vocals)
Spotify / Apple Music / YouTube Music / Amazon Music / Bandcamp / Tidal
What's your earliest memory of music?
Sitting in the backseat of my parents car, listening to some ‘80s pop music. Simpler times, I guess.
Tell us about your journey to creating your own original music.
I’m a huge hiphop fan and originally just wanted to make beats. I was very inspired by DJ Shadow’s Endtroducing and loved the idea of creating sample-based instrumental music. I got an MPC but soon realized things were way harder than they seemed from afar. Still, sampling always remained my first love. For years, making music was just an on-and-off hobby of mine, and it took quite a while before I started to take it more seriously.
Which artists pointed you in the direction of richly textured ambient music, which appears to be your wheelhouse?
Sonically speaking, there is no artist that led me to what my music sounds now. But Mark McGuire’s (from Emeralds) solo guitar releases he put out in the later half of the 2000s made me want to explore beat-less instrumental music. Yet, I’m not a guitarist. So it was more like, how can I do something similar with synths and samplers. The whole texture thing came later on by just exploring the instruments.
On Rendezvous you cite various tools, including a few pedals from Chase Bliss.
In general, my music is not too effect-heavy, at least for an ambient artist. Usually there are just a couple of background sounds on each track that I use the pedals for, often to create some ambient bed to compose to. That either means smearing sounds, or making them sound more gritty and lofi – or both.
It sounds like Couleurves sent you tape loops for Rendevzous – how did that collaboration work?
I wouldn’t really call it a collaboration. It was more like one friend helping out another. At some point, after working on a lot of different projects, I mentioned on my discord that I felt a bit tired and empty. A few hours later Couleurves sent me a message with a link to some tape loops he made but did not have a use for. It turned out that I absolutely loved working with those loops, cutting them up and putting them in different contexts. It rekindled my passion for sampling. You would not recognize the originals by listening to the album. But each track is based on one loop.
How did your collaboration with The Lifted Index go?
This was more of a traditional collaboration. It was also very fast and focused. For each track, Daniel sent me some sounds he made with his guitar and pedals. These could be several minute-long drones or melodies. I then either messed with those sounds, or just added to them. I layered them with synths, shaped everything into an arrangement and recorded all parts to tape.
Tell us about Seil Records.
Seil Records is a label I started in 2017 with the goal to share some optimistic ambient music. That does not mean that everything sounds happy and is full of smiles. But I like to think there is a glimpse of hope on each release. It has a mixture of more established artists (within the margins or our tiny scene) and some hidden gems.
Name an underrated artist from the past 50 years.
Well, I guess it depends on how you define underrated. Because I would say every ambient artist on my label or labels of a similar size is underrated in the grander scheme of things. I feel they all deserve more attention. But singling one of them out would be a bit lame. So I will go with Little Willie John, even though that was more like 70 years ago, simply because “My Love Is” might just be the best song ever.
What are you working on next?
I recently finished a new album which will come out later this month. For the first time in a longer while, I filmed the recording of each track to tape – they’re all made in single takes – which was fun to do again. It’s quite warm and floaty. I feel it will fit the colder season quite well.
