Mousse T. is a legendary dance music producer whose hits back in the 90s paved the way for a three-decade – and counting – career in remixing and production. It has taken him everywhere from the top of the charts to Eurovision, and co-writing a Tom Jones smash to being a judge on the German version of Pop Idol. Here he gives us a couple of lessons in remixing, three decades apart…

Photo by Jens Koch

Mousse T.’s earworm track, Horny 98, and his equally memorable collaboration with Tom Jones, Sex Bomb, were enough to earn him producer fame (or indeed infamy), but rather than rest on these successes he has spent the last two decades spreading his wings into all aspects of the music business. He maintained his chart presence in the early 2000s with tracks like Is It ‘Cos I’m Cool? all while continuing his first love of remixing, twisting tracks by artists ranging from Diana Ross to Kylie Minogue. His production credits read like the proverbial who’s who – the aforementioned Sir Tom for a start – as well as lending a guiding hand to massive acts like Germany’s answer to the Spice Girls, No Angels, in his time. And this experience has now led to his most recent gig as a judge on German TV’s Deutschland Sucht Den Superstar – their equivalent of X Factor.

That hasn’t meant an end to his hands-on remixing and production though, and in this exclusive Producer Masterclass, Mousse T. runs through two remixes – one recent, one classic – from his huge studio complex in Hanover, a space he shares with other creative companies.

And as if all this isn’t enough, Mousse T. also recently teamed up with CR2 Records to release two sample packs, Volume 1 and 2 and he has also embarked on some online masterclasses – see p47 for more on these.

But before we get into Mousse’s working methods – which are remarkably similar, even though he is detailing remixes of very different tracks that are more than 20 years apart – let’s find out a bit more about what got him into music production in the first place, and go back to his very early years growing up in Germany as Mustafa Gundogdu.

The early Mousse years

“I was born in Germany in 1966, and had a dope childhood,” he recalls, “and since my dad was a doctor, I thought that this was the route I would also end up taking.”

But as worthy as that career could have been, his parents were also influencing him in more musical matters as well. “They were listening to a lot of music at home,” he explains. “My mother loved Tom Jones and my dad was vibing to Turkish music. Both of these musical styles weren’t for me back then, but I always loved music and started to collect records as a teenager, more on the rock side of things at first. I had a bit of a music education playing the organ and then later on experimenting at home with basic equipment and playing in bands as a keyboardist.”

However, after hearing Donna Summer’s I Feel Love, Mousse suddenly found what he was looking for. “I knew instantly that I wanted to do music for the dance floors. After finishing school, it became very clear to me that I wanted to be a professional in music but my dad wasn’t very fond of that idea at all. Still, I started as a DJ and also developed my songwriting and production skills. I started my career writing songs, without knowing I was writing songs, when I was 18. I then started producing and remixing other people’s records.”

In 1993, Mousse founded Peppermint Jam Records with partner Errol Rennalls and the name lives on in his current recording studio, part of his Peppermint Pavilion, a complex also used by record companies and other studio owners. (“There’s even a rooftop restaurant! Basically it’s a beautiful oasis for creativity for music.”) And it was also back in ‘93, that he started making proper money from his music.

“I had to move faster and try new stuff. I started using the Atari in 1990 and knew it was the way forward”