bambinodj: An Interview

An interview with bambinodj.

Feb 04, 2025

Madjestic Kasual’s ‘A Mix’ and ‘The Premieres’ series are considered by geniuses and culture heads to be the “best” music mix and song premiere series in the world. They are considered by morons and dunces to be the “worst”. This should speak volumes.

It’s time to do ‘A Mix’ / ‘The Premieres’ but for interviews. I ask relevant figures and cultural individuals to respond to questions. Some comply. Introducing ‘An Interview’: a text-centric series featuring only the best artistes in the world.

‘An Interview’ Number 8 is with bambinodj.

As a stoic and a male adult, I fear beguilement. To be beguiled is to be vulnerable. To be beguiled is to allow the meticulously reinforced stronghold of my inner world to be penetrated by some chaotic external force. I have no need for new inputs. I have achieved equilibrium, the perfect mind, an optimal state of internal harmony. To ‘feel’ is to jeopardise the hard-won homeostasis of my being. It is weakness.

The music of the artist bambinodj (otherwise known as Henry von Roenne) beguiled me. It continues to beguile me. I’ll admit it. It beguiles me! I am beguiled by the music of bambinodj. It was never the plan, but I felt something powerful seconds into the first time I encountered his music, damn near half a decade ago. It was ‘LOODi [Remix]’ a tune on a then-disturbingly-underfollowed Soundcloud account, now canonised as Legendary in my personal pantheon — alongside such songs as Boston’s ‘More Than a Feeling’, Spaceghostpurrp’s ‘For the Love of Money’, and Idaho’s ‘You Were a Dick’. Yeah, I’m thinking that’s high praise.

The formula was perfect. Some called it “trancehall”. I call it a real heartbreaker: a disembodied Vybz Kartel + Alkaline vocal suspended over air-walking Prof. Stranger-sampling pads, body-overriding drums, tightly calibrated bass hits, and an ineffable, deeply emotional X-factor that defies replication. It’s a formula Mista Bino has refined and evolved and expanded over the years, and one that’s placed him at the heart of an exciting and quietly unfurling constellation of Berlin-based artists like ANTHEM, blastah, cephimix, Chickenmilk dot com, Sodomland, softworld, windowseeker, and Yorck Street.

So now we’re here, on the eve of his first fully formed Album Ass Statement. It’s called Silent Dispatch, and it’s dropping on Ian Kim Judd-bossed label OST. The album recasts bambinodj’s style in a wholly new light. One might say:

“Where much of his previous music dwells in strobe-lit shadowzones, Silent Dispatch basks in a crisp, edenic glow — a barefoot slow whine in a dewey, otherworldly meadow. Praise be.” — Madjestic Kasual

Kinda fruity, no? And yet… it’s just facts…

He answered questions. We pair the resulting interview with a premiere of the track ‘Missin’ You’, the album’s third single after ‘Carrier’ and Phillip Jondo collab ‘Auf Log’.

Silent Dispatch drops February 14th on OST. Make it yours here.

Now you will read.

What are you wearing?

Flared jeans, a knitted jumper, my grandfather's old winter shoes 🙂

What are your three most marketable skills?

..making sexy cute riddims

..doing tall people stuff like reaching things that are high up to hand them to you

..being quiet and leaving the stage to others <3

Fuck, kill, marry. Songs from Silent Dispatch. Go.

I’d make love to ‘Highest Praise’ because I’m in love with this one. The track is in the middle of the LP for a reason, it's the climax. I love it because it's where I best managed to hit the sweet spot between my musical preferences and influences. It’s bouncy, groovy, storytelling, multi-layered, spiritual, questioning, vulnerable…

I would kill ‘Fanta Bay’ to make it a widely revered martyr, whose passing and legacy would inspire many other artists copy that particular kind of vintage pop dancehall.

‘Spiegelkabinett’ would be the song I’d marry. This track is the most innocent and most grown-up of the LP, in a way. Even though it's relatively raw and simple, it carries a silent, powerful message that is bigger than me. I want to get closer to this meaning, this wisdom, and surround myself with it for the rest of my lifetime.

The artist bambinodj, no doubt pondering music or some such thing.

If you could have instant virtuosity on any instrument, what would it be?

The organ probably. The huge sound range and sheer power of a large church organ always blows me away when I happen to listen one during church services that I sporadically visit. I am also fascinated by the abstract, jazzy, obscure music organists bless me with in moments I don’t expect it. Also, you can use organs in all styles of music without them seeming out of place. Classical music, choral music, house music, jazz, fusion, dancehall - I can imagine the organ with its sound variations in all these genres. That's why I would choose the organ.

Gun to your head and inside your mouth. You have to sing/recite the lyrics of one entire song from start to finish, without error. Failure will result in death. No cheeky loopholes like selecting a really short song or a song consisting of one line, you can’t choose ‘Tequila’ or ‘You Suffer’ or whatever. The gun will be removed from your mouth for the duration of your performance for ease of articulation. What song do you choose?

I’m so bad with memorising, let alone understanding lyrics acoustically. But I randomly have to think of a song that I used to sing along to a lot, when I played this iPod touch game called Tap Tap Revenge in middle school back when I lived in Jakarta. I even won a Tap Tap contest (for which I was rewarded a black iPod Nano ) at this stand at a big Jazz Festival in Jakarta back in like 2007. The song I’d choose to sing by heart would be the game’s theme song called ‘Tap Tap Revenge’ lol.

Valeria, Linus, Madjestic Kasual, Henry. A meeting of minds per se…

Berlin’s nightlife scene is known. Berghain and the like. There are drugs. People do them. It has a reputation for celebrating individuality, creativity and inclusivity. It is by all accounts a “hub” for music and music scene. What are your reflections on the state of Berlin culture, circa 2025?

I may have dj in my name and I might make music for people to wine to at a club, but I have to say that I have very-little-to-nothing to do with clubs.

This is partly due to my somewhat shy and moody nature, but also to the fact that 90% of the time I don't enjoy club experiences because of poor sound quality or boring music.

The more low-key, half-privately organised events by befriended DJs and artists are an exception. It's different when I'm surrounded by lots of familiar faces and it feels like a family gathering. There, I get more of a sense that the event has a real purpose, a soul, and is not just done for mindless entertainment purposes.

You have unlimited resources to assemble a band to perform a live rendition of the album. Who you getting?

Mikey Enwright on the organ. 70s Herbie Hancock on the piano. Ben Bondy on the guitar. 80s Frank Zappa on the bass. Myself on the e-drums.

You can bring one fictional character to life. Who? Why?

Chihiro from Spirited Away. I’d love her to accompany me for a while. I love her for her sincerity and I could learn from her bravery and her caring nature.

The artist bambinodj with Linus, known to some as the artist Chickenmilk dot com. To think of the thoughts exchanged…

Some of your older music has been described as “trancehall”, a term I know you have a somewhat contentious relationship with. What are your thoughts on the classification, and about the human need to categorise in general? How do you categorise your thoughts, haha?

Categorising is necessary to understand and map out our complex, information overloaded world. Categorising is also completely arbitrary and reinforces ideologies and power structures. Therefore I am ambivalent about categorising. So much for my Wikipedia style answer.

Trancehall, the word in itself, sounds intriguing. It's also true that a few of my tracks take references from trance influenced music as well as from dancehall and its descendant FDM. For my part, I prefer to be careful and not throw around terms like that. I can’t help but think: Who am I to appropriate these sacred terms?

Investigation has revealed you’ve been on a lounge music kick recently. What’s hitting for you? Does lounge, a widely derided style of music, deserve critical reappraisal?

This style of music has certainly earned its share of ridicule. Nonetheless, when I recently found myself on a mission to dig for music again after ages, there were a few lounge tracks among the titles that touched me. And I couldn't help but hear a similarity between these and my music or that of some of my contemporary peers: The soft, super sensual synths and percussions, and the music just being super smooth and calm. We still make lounge in a way, we haven't really developed away in that respect. So there is still a lot to learn from the lounge of the 00s.

Bless us with some fire introduction-to-lounge tunes for the curious entry-level listener.

Klangstein - ‘These Days’:

Vargo - ‘Precious Part One’:

Café Del Mar - 'Moments In Love':

Describe the optimal circumstances for listening to Silent Dispatch.

Depending on the song, that would either be dutty wining at a summer beach party in southern France or just at home lolling on the sofa/bed feeling horny.