Jan Wagner: The Feeling You Carry Is Fleeting
Jan Wagner
Records that blur the line between acoustic piano improvisation and electronic sound design, built around emotional directness rather than ornament. He lets the piano's mechanics, the clicks and creaks and percussive weight of the keys, sit right alongside the music.
Who is Jan Wagner?
Jan Wagner grew up in Sigmaringen, a small city in southern Germany, in a house that doubled as a music school. His father ran it on the ground floor, and Jan started sneaking downstairs to play the piano at age five. His older brother's rap records were his first real musical influence, and it wasn't long before Jan and his friends were down in that same studio space building their own beats out of samples. He's only half-joking when he says he never really left.
What pulled him in wasn't performance so much as process: the knobs, faders, and instruments themselves, and the strange pull of a single piano chord released into a room until it disappears. His records blur the line between acoustic piano improvisation and electronic sound design, built around emotional directness rather than ornament. He's known for letting the piano's mechanics, the clicks, creaks, and percussive weight of the keys, sit right alongside the music rather than underneath it.
Tell us more about how you got into music, Jan.
"When I was 17, a friend of mine told me about a crazy musician and his amazing studio, so I went there and met Hans Joachim Irmler and saw his legendary Faust Studio. He became my mentor, and I spent several years in that space learning about production under his wing. I had the chance to work with so many fantastic artists, Jaki Liebezeit, FM Einheit, Gudrun Gut, and learn from them."
"In 2010, I decided to move to Berlin to study audio engineering at SAE. I never wanted to study any instrument or producing per se; I only wanted to study the technical side. You can't really study music or production; you have to practice and discover it while playing. After finishing SAE, I met Pola Roy from Wir Sind Helden, and he invited me to work with him in his Hitipapa Studio. During that time, I started mixing a lot of techno tracks for Ostgut Records and began producing my first solo album, which became Nummern. I worked with James Varghese on that, and then started working with artists like Rosa Anschütz and Tobias Preisig."
- Nummern 2018 · with James Varghese
- Kapitel solo
- Energie Braucht Zeit solo
Greatest inspirations or influences?
"The greatest inspiration is life. You have to go out and discover life to the fullest. Every good and every bad incident forms into the person you are; my inspiration comes from that. I take all that energy and transform it into something new. I remember sitting with my friends at home watching MTV Cribs. I only watched it to see the studios these artists built in their mansions. I was so fascinated by having a studio in your own house that I started building a home studio with my father in his music school."
"My father influenced me a lot, because he made it possible for me to become a producer. Later, it was Hans Joachim Irmler and the entourage at Faust Studio. In recent years I've been more and more affected by artists like Bruce Hornsby, Brian Eno, and Ryuichi Sakamoto."
Tell us about your creative process.
"My creative process is simple. I sit down, press record, and just play, without judging. In the first phase, everything should be as simple as possible, no technical distractions. You have to let your energy out without thinking about the setup. You can always re-record tracks, but the feeling you carry with you is fleeting, so you have to capture that in the first part of the process."
"You can always re-record tracks, but the feeling you carry with you is fleeting."
"I have a daily ritual called morning pages. I write three pages straight through, without thinking, right after I get up. I make myself a coffee and just write whatever comes to mind. It clears my thoughts, dispels my anger or excitement, whatever I'm carrying around."
"Overcoming writer's block only works when you reflect on yourself; even the block itself can be inspiring. Question yourself: why is it that you don't have anything to say in this particular moment? And always remember that creativity is like a muscle. You have to train it, and it needs rest too. So don't stress yourself; meditate, and reflect on yourself."
Anything you'd like to say about these times we're living through?
"To be honest, it took me three days to even start answering your questions. Not because I didn't want to, I just wasn't able to. We had to postpone our tour of Poland and went straight back to Berlin before they closed the borders. It's a new situation, one that involves all of us. I'm not disappointed or angry at anyone, because there's no one to be angry at, except maybe at all of us, as a society."
"This crisis shows us how connected the world really is. We should start thinking as one planet, because that's what we are. No more ridiculous cheap flights to play a single gig on a different continent. We need eco-friendly touring plans and routing, at least four or five gigs per territory, otherwise it's just too wasteful. Right now, we have time to rethink how we've functioned, and when this blows over, it will be our duty to support the venues and artists who got us here."
Anything else you'd like to share?
"I'd just like to wish everyone the best of health. Take this time for yourselves: meditate, rethink, reorganize. We finally have time for all of that. And: stay positive. Anything else is really a waste of time."
"We should start thinking as one planet, because that's what we are."
Jan Wagner is a Berlin-based pianist, composer, and sound producer. His solo records include Nummern (2018), Kapitel, and Energie Braucht Zeit. Listen on Bandcamp and SoundCloud, or visit his official site. (Not to be confused with the classical pianist and conductor of the same name who teaches at Shenandoah University.)
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