EMMON and Zweite Jugend interview on ‘Salz’, collaboration and the future of EBM
EMMON and Zweite Jugend - (Photo collage by Karo Kratochwil)
Swedish electronic artist EMMON and Zweite Jugend join forces on “Salz”, a reworked and reimagined version of a Zweite Jugend track released via Icons Creating Evil Art. What began as a remix idea turned into something far less predictable: a club driven, tense and physical piece that brings together Zweite Jugend’s reduced EBM architecture with EMMON’s high impact electronic language.
The result is a collision of methods, instincts and voices. “Salz” moves through repetition, desire, pressure and transcendence, carrying the severity of body music into a more expansive contemporary club space. In this interview, Emma Nylén of EMMON and Eli van Vegas of Zweite Jugend discuss how the track changed shape, why collaboration still matters in electronic music, and what older and newer currents in EBM can still learn from each other.
EMMON and Zweite Jugend discuss ‘Salz'”‘ collaboration
Karo: “Salz” began as a Zweite Jugend track and then became a shared work with EMMON. What was the element in the original version that had to remain intact, and what needed to be opened up, intensified or challenged?
Emma:We immediately fell for the groove and the repetitive vocals in Elis Transendenz’s version, and asked if we could do a remix inspired by that groove – but we failed completely, and it accidentally turned into a techno banger with Chemical Brothers influences instead.
Karo: At what point did this stop feeling like a remix or guest feature and start feeling like a new artistic statement with its own identity?
Emma: There was probably never a clear boundary – it evolved organically into something other than just a remix. Since we were never satisfied with our original remix version, we eventually let go of control completely instead. At first we thought it sounded like garbage, but the track kept growing on us until we started to love it.
Karo: Emma’s voice and production presence bring a very distinct kind of pressure to the track. How did EMMON’s contribution change the emotional temperature and physical direction of “Salz”?
Eli: I think, the lyrics are exactly that kind of universal that these can be used on different genres. Songs that represent this kind of black and white like intimacy and a night out at a club. I originally wrote the lines for Krischan Wesenberg‘s solo project which was progressive house in one way or the other. So yeah, it was meant to be fitting into a techno driven context. As the lyrics are about experiencing sexuality in a transcendental way, having a second person in the story makes perfect sense. It opens up the opposite perspective which is basically the same. Or, it wouldn’t be transcendent otherwise. So it wasn’t just a technical learning how to work together. It just felt natural. And I think that I love how it turned out with Emma‘s and my voice combined. Like as this version was always meant to be.
Karo: Zweite Jugend’s sound often works through reduction, analogue tension and direct physical impact, while EMMON brings a more expansive club instinct. How did you negotiate the space between austerity and excess?
Emma: We did not, we just had a flow creating the track aming it to be a dance floor banger and hoped (knew) that ZJ would like it, haha!
Karo: The lyrics in “Salz” move through repetition almost like a fixation. What does repetition allow you to express here that a more narrative structure would weaken?
Eli: It is a fixation. Yes. And that‘s the whole dried here. If you are at the border to transcendence you would not want to leave that mental and emotional space so you keep on going. It‘s like being at a rave at 5 a.m. and you close your eyes and the very next thing that you realise is that it’s noon. It‘s a state of euphoria.
Karo: The track feels built for the body, but the body it imagines does not feel simple, happy or purely hedonistic. It feels tense, driven and haunted. What kind of physical state did you want “Salz” to create?
Emma: Like that manic, inspiring, intense energy you could feel in your guts at an illegal rave party in the mid-’90s.
Eli: Well, the initial idea behind the lyrics was to keep it at the personal level. Now it has opened up to a two-pieced perspective with not only gives it different ingredients but also takes the song to a whole different level. I think, what only this new version brings into account is the complexity. It introduces it for the very first time. The described mental state can be either plain and simple our reflect on the holistic condition of the content.
Karo: EBM has always carried a certain severity, but “Salz” also has sensuality and atmosphere. How important was it to keep the track dangerous without turning it into pure aggression?
Emma: Not at all, it was just a happy accident that came from combining us together. The mood of the track is more like the forbidden feeling of doing something you desperately long for, but aren’t allowed to do.
Karo: Emma, your work has always carried a rare combination of control, force and elegance. In this collaboration, did you feel you were entering Zweite Jugend’s world, pulling them into yours, or creating a third space between both?
Emma: Since Jimmy and I were completely free creatively to do whatever we wanted, you could maybe say that we totally hijacked the track until it became its own creation.
Karo: Eli described inspiration as something that does not have to move in one direction. How important is reciprocity in a scene that often builds its mythology around strong individual identities?
Eli: I feel that the very ancestors of this genre (if you want to just call it one) were all about collaborations and featurings. People came in and left some elements to bring used and left again, or they stayed and became the myth that you are talking about. But behind that it wasn‘t that narrow minded at all. And I feel it is about time to collaborate more to create even greater arts, now that many of the ancestors are gone or retiring. To keep the spirit of this kind of music alive we need to embrace different approaches and let them clash into one work. Just to be separated in other cases.
Karo: “Salz” connects different generations and approaches within the electronic underground. What can older and newer currents in EBM still teach each other when they meet without nostalgia?
Eli: Nostalgia is a very emotional point of view. It can be useful to reflect on old days or to even learn something. But it doesn’t say anything about this present and the past. It‘s most definitely on us to create that future. EBM is more or less dead and now lives in way more open scenes that build on that. If that’s the question, let‘s just accept the past for what it is and build a future that we want to have. Let the younger generation of creators be expressive and successful.
Karo: Collaboration can reveal blind spots in an artist’s own method. Did working together change the way you hear your own sound, your limits, or your future direction?
Emma: What we especially love is working on all kinds of inspiring collaborations, because it’s such an effective way to gain perspectives and discover things you never would have found otherwise. That’s how Jimmy and I both love to work — together and with other artists.
Eli: I always wanted to work with bands like Emmon. Personally, you can’t tear me down to one genre. Today I would listen to NIN und tomorrow it might be Röyksopp. To be honest, I‘m always very disrespectful with my own work. That‘s the essence of being an artist. You have to be your biggest critic. A collaboration is a good way to break this a bit as you might find someone else in your own soul. And that‘s it exactly, colliding souls that build emergence. This just happened to me with Salz and Emma. We are now connected forever. I have left a print of my soul in hers and so she has in mine.
Karo: This collaboration sounds less like a side note and more like a possible threshold. Did “Salz” open any ideas for future work together, either in the studio or on stage?
Emma: Maybe, we’re totally open for all kinds of expressions that inspire us and try not to work with any limitations at all.
Eli: With Zweite Jugend we can now retire. That at least is our approach after we have now the feeling that our story has been told. Which opened up to take some time and see how we want to sound in the future and how to progress without losing the identity. As soon as I heard what Emmon would bring to the table, I was fascinated and inspired. I mean, the least to take from this is inspiration. You never know, probably we should do more collaborations. And we don’t talk about live featurings, because it‘s obviously a things that we most likely should and must do. As soon as our paths cross anyway or on purpose.
Zweite Jugend & EMMON release “Salz” on May 29, 2026 via Icons Creating Evil Art. The track revisits Zweite Jugend’s original version and pushes it into a shadowy, hypnotic club realm, where analogue EBM tension meets EMMON’s darker electronic drive. “Salz” will be available worldwide on major streaming platforms, with an official visualizer also released on YouTube
Based in Wrocław, I work as a music journalist and photographer covering electro, industrial, EBM, gothic, and darkwave. My work includes features and live coverage, as well as concert, portrait, promo, and theater photography. What interests me most is the connection between artistic intention, what the work communicates, and what unfolds live on stage, all in pursuit of the bigger picture behind the music.
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