Towards the end of last year, Massproductions sent a prototype of their new sofa to Axel’s studio. His assignment was to freely interpret the sofa into an audio production.
— All of a sudden there stood a cool, bright green BAM! sofa in the studio, which was anything but conservative and I let that inspire my process. Now we do something fun and new, I thought! I wanted to challenge myself, take a few extra steps in a new direction and I knew I had the confidence to do this, says Boman.
He describes the song BAM! (Massproductions Dub), released today, as a balance between rhythmic and abstract elements.
— The music plays with your expectations and is both beautiful and chaotic. A techno producer trying to make jazz? Live drums meet sequencers and synths with lots of dub effects, a tribute to all the music I love! I have listened a lot to krautrock, reggae, and jazz as well as electronic music all my life, and I think it can be heard in the music? Boman concludes.
In connection with Stockholm Design Week, kicking off today, Massproductions presents the new sofa BAM!, designed by the company’s co-founder and Designer-in-Chief Chris Martin.
— Are there certain sounds associated with furniture? Our new sofa BAM! has clear pop art references and a kind of instant look with its block-like form, tells Magnus Elebäck, CEO. BAM! is also a loud noise, a sudden effect. In our tradition of inviting exciting Swedish music creators to meet the furniture world during Stockholm Design Week, we have now taken it one step further by asking Axel Boman to create music from an actual piece of furniture. Kind of.
— BAM! is like a blank canvas that welcomes involvement by its user. Axel is a friend and he liked the sofa, it just seemed natural to collaborate and launch it together with a piece of his music. Axel has no trouble producing great music, but he did take the opportunity to bring in a jazz drummer for this piece and I know he is really pleased with the result. We tried to interpret the sofa into a piece of music, which seems like a strange thing to do but since BAM! is a noise and it has a pop-art feel, it does make sense in a way. The result is quite a fast and exciting track that we are pressing in vinyl, I have the honour of providing my spoken voice on the B side, with a calm musing on the nature of design, tells Chris Martin.
The design of the sofa is reduced to its basic geometry with two block-shaped volumes creating a seat and back. Except for the mentioned influences from pop art culture, and as the name suggests, it leaves the spectator with a sudden and distinct first impression.
— BAM! started with the idea to reduce a sofa to two basic forms, a seat and a back, tells Chris Martin. I made them as simple as I could, without any design, only a good layering of frame and materials to make comfortable surfaces which could be covered easily in a variety of fabric options. It made sense visually to keep the legs in the same language. I’ve gone off armrests recently, instead just preferring the freedom of not having them. BAM! is just there to support you and your cushions! The design packs flat with simple assembly by the customer so there are a lot of benefits in that.
Do you have any other launches coming?
— I’ve been trying to perfect a wall hook for about two years now, I think I may have done it. First samples are arriving at the end of March and I’m looking forward to revealing that one this year.
