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Music

Super Flu Has the Best Kind of Peter Pan Syndrome

The German dance duo plays with Play-doh and makes incredibly cool videos.

Most electro DJ dudes take themselves way seriously, but not Super Flu. This German dance duo has a wild imagination and a sense of humor to match—they most recently rode a replica Falcor, the Luck Dragon from the Neverending Story, naked. Known for their Play-doh animated music videos and toy instruments from their childhood, it’s like Fraggle Rock meets Kraftwerk in a kindergarten class. And of course this keeps everyone dancing ad infinitum.

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Super Flu released their latest album Halle Saale (named after their German hometown) late last year and continue with their unconventional approach to electronic music. In both their tunes and their image, they reinvent themselves each time around to keep things fresh. In channeling their inner child, nostalgia plays strong a role of expression in their work. It bleeds into everything, one way or another.

Feliks Thielemann and Mathias Schwarz are the guys behind this top beat making sensation. They took some time while on tour to chat about their style, why grown-ups have forgotten how to play and what it’s like to never grow up.

The music video for "Euterpeh" by Super Flu is all about the Play-doh.

Noisey: How did the Neverending Story shoot come about? And where in the world did you find Falcor?
Super Flu: Feliks received for his birthday a handmade, energy-charged amulet. We thought that if we rubbed it properly and wished for a Falcor, we would get one. It did not really work out this way. That is why we had to drive to the Bavaria Film Studios in Munich, where they have one on display. It was not really easy to fly him naked, and this was not planned initially, to be honest. But if you come along a bored and ignorant guide, then you can pretty much do as you wish. So as we stood in front of the Falcor, some funny ideas came into play, which are the result of the photo session.

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In both your image and music, everything feels fun, like a celebration of life. What do you do to keep your creativity alive?
We believe in the secret powers of beer.

The cover of your latest album, Halle Salle, looks like a cut-and-paste imagination land. Is it all digital? What was it like putting that shoot together?
We are in general quite creative when it comes to our covers and videos, and we wanted to go a step further this time. That is why we asked our friend Johannes Westermann, who is a proper artist, to help us out. We actually put this life-size coulisse in a hall. The idea was that through the combination of different planes and different sizes of the props, we could create an optic illusion. Everything was shot with an analog middle format camera, and all pictures were scanned afterwards. Just the coloring is actually digital.

Your music videos are traditionally off the wall; the "Euterpeh" music video is a Play-doh animation. What can we expect to see next?
We developed an idea we have had for a long time with our upcoming video. We shot the song in 35 locations in our city. Each shot is exactly four seconds, and then it is added to the previous one. It was important to convey the atmosphere of the each location so that you can get its feeling. But as soon as you feel the place, you are torn away from it, and the next scene begins. In the end it is more a video with music rather than a music video. Is this bad? Not at all, as we are really against traditional plots in videos.

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The music video for "Oktavlachs" by Super Flu has their faces pulled in every direction with string.

You are known to use toy instruments and retro gear like the OM36 in your songs. How important is it to keep an element of play?
Games and playing are of great importance to us. Especially when we are speaking of the creation of something new – be it a track, photo or a video. We believe that many adults have forgotten how to play, which is very unfortunate. We also ourselves have to learn how to play certain games or instruments over and over again, because only this way it is possible for us to come up with new ideas. The children music instruments and the old synths are actually our toys. When you are working on a tablet or a computer, you very often have a limited flow of ideas… You are simply restrained by the technology. In addition, there is one more factor which is important for us when creating something new – coincidence.

Do you believe in growing up or does growing up have to do with being boring?
No, we do not think that being an adult equals with boredom. Actually quite the opposite. You are old enough, so you can reach the stuff that is on the upper shelves. You have simply so many opportunities on how to discover or combine new things. It is up to you what you make out of them in the end. When we always just go the predefined ways, then it can be fun, but also it can get boring in the long run.

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Nadja Sayej lives in Berlin and loves to play with Play-doh. She's on Twitter - @nadjasayej

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