Since the release of his debut Last Resort, Dutch producer ANDERS TRENTEMØLLER has become one of the most intriguing and successful figures on the minimal techno scene. Subsequent to his next Australian tour – his first time in the country with a live band – he caught up with ALASDAIR DUNCAN to talk about plans for the future.

“Some of the tracks on the CD have only been released on vinyl, in lots of three or four hundred copies,” says Anders Trentemøller, telling me of his somewhat audacious decision to release The Trentemøller Chronicles, a two-disc rarities and remixes compilation, barely a year after issuing his debut album. “A lot of people didn’t have the chance to buy it, and a lot of people would come up to me after shows and ask for tracks they’d been looking for but couldn’t find in their local record stores or online. I thought it would be good to put all of those hard to find tracks together, along with some of my remixes, and people have been really happy to get their hands on it.”

The second disc of set includes a selection of Trentemøller’s remixes from the last half-decade, taking in everyone from Röyksopp and Robyn to Moby and Sharon Phillips. Putting these tracks together, though, represented something of a line in the sand for the producer. “For the last eight or nine months, I’ve been saying no to all remixes, because my passion is my own music, and it felt like I was spending a disproportionate amount of time working on other people’s. I’ve been saying no to a lot of big names – even a couple that might have been really exciting – because I’m concentrating on putting my own album together.

Trentemøller’s 2006 debut, The Last Resort, was highly praised, landing in the top spot of many critics’ polls. It also spawned a hit single, Moan, which featured a video based around Laika, the first dog in space, as well as a set of heart-breaking vocals from Ane Trolle. Moan was one of the first tracks on which Trentemøller experimented with vocals, and its success has led him towards more vocal collaborations for his second album. “I’m conscious of only waiting to use one or two guest vocalists,” he tells me, “because there are a lot of electronic albums that feature six or seven people and it just gets too complicated and impersonal. I want a consistent sound.”

One of Trentemøller’s biggest ambitions is to work with Hope Sandoval, the voice of nineties drone pop group Mazzy Star, but she has so far proven impossible to track down. “She has this unique, melancholy voice, and I’ve been emailing her and emailing her label and have thus far heart nothing.” The list of collaborators, though, is still very exciting, including Karin Dreijer of Swedish electro group The Knife, as well as Roxy Music front man and living legend Bryan Ferry. “He emailed me out of the blue and asked if I would do a remix for him,” Trentemøller says, “and it turns out he was a huge fan of my last album. We decided that I would do that if he would do some vocals for me – it’s a really big honour, as he is one of my musical heroes.”

TRENTEMØLLER and Booka Shade will appear live together at Family on November 29. THE TRENTEMØLLER CHRONICLES is out now on Poker Flat/Stomp.

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