Mattias Olsson is a musician and producer. In his studio, Roth Händle in Stockholm, he has collected analog music gear for more than 30 years. This film is a deep dive into how he works, and it's about creativity and integrity, whether you make music, animate cartoons or paint.
This film is No. 2 in 100 Documentaries. Read more on the film's own page: The Unexpected Turns of Analog Sound.
Looking for the quirks
Mattias doesn't just accept the quirks of old gear. He looks for them. Vintage instruments are unreliable, and to him that is the point: when a machine doesn't do exactly what you expect, you end up somewhere you wouldn't have gone on your own.
Limits as a tool
He believes creativity grows within limits. When you can't have everything, you have to make something out of what you have, and that is often where the interesting sounds come from.
Where it started
Mattias was born in Hong Kong. His first memory of sound is an old man selling ice cream from a bicycle, playing a small glockenspiel. Sound and feeling, connected from the start, and it still shapes how he makes music.
Not against digital
For all the analog gear, Mattias isn't against digital tools. He thinks the best music today is probably made on a cheap computer. The analog machines are simply the colours he likes to paint with.
Every machine in the studio has a story, and together they make a place built for experiments.
