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Part 2

Could you take us through a day in your life, from a possible morning routine through to your work? Do you have a fixed schedule? How do music and other aspects of your life feed back into each other - do you separate them or instead try to make them blend seamlessly?

I don’t have a fixed schedule, which is great because I can adjust easily to new strategies in work or progressions for my own needs, but it can also be challenging sometimes.
I have ideas constantly. Because of this, I’m often overloaded, but at the same time I try to keep as many ideas as possible. They manifest themselves in many forms, which I collect in folders, bookmarks, screenshots, notes and lists. I can translate them later into music.

I sometimes feel like a giant mind in need of a faster interface and I easily to disconnect from my body. To keep my mind and body together, I regularly exercise and I like quiet places.
Since I’m always working either actively or passively, it’s important to stick to routines I’ve created for my wellbeing. One of them is to keep my studio apartment in absolute tidiness with a weekly cleaning schedule, where every item has its exact place. This routine helps me clear my mind, processing past happenings and is also helpful for my dust allergy.

Could you describe your creative process on the basis of a piece or album that's particularly dear to you, please? Where did the ideas come from, how were they transformed in your mind, what did you start with and how do you refine these beginnings into the finished work of art?

I’m subconsciously ranking my ideas and the most important ones either burst out of me or I have to invite them. The selection depends on many things, how I currently see the world and value it, what tools are available and sometimes I don’t know anything specifically, but have a dominant emotion.

Dragon Rider is a very early work for example. It tells the story of a girl who overcame her fear and became the Dragon Rider. I didn’t know that at the beginning. I was creating the beats first, I felt they were intense, energetic and moving forward. Then the sound of the flapping wings came and slowly the track and the story was born.
Only later I understood the deeper meaning, for which I was inspired by my own story I’d just experienced from which I was scared the most. I started to make music that became my strong Dragon and dear friend who carries me and I can ride on.
I hope it inspires others to face their Dragons and learn to fly.

There are many descriptions of the ideal state of mind for being creative. What is it like for you? What supports this ideal state of mind and what are distractions? Are there strategies to enter into this state more easily?


I am constantly in a creative state. It is more difficult for me to narrow the creativity down, so that I don’t get lost as a person. For example, in my everyday personal life I see a value in any kind of material, how I could reuse it, what some of us would describe as trash. Handicrafts, cooking, history, nature, films, science, spirituality, books etc. I find it all interesting. But of course, it’s not possible to make thousands of things at the same time.

Sometimes I wish our short lives wouldn’t be so limited but then at the same time I also like the idea of having to make decisions and to commit to a few things in life. This dedication to something or someone gives our lives in a way, a romantic meaning.

How is playing live and writing music in the studio connected? What do you achieve and draw from each experience personally? How do you see the relationship between improvisation and composition in this regard?

Personally, I got into music because of the production side of it. I see myself more as a writer of a book or a director of a movie.
Playing live is performance, which is a totally different role. What I like about playing live is that the audience gives immediate feedback and you can actually feel them, communicate and interact with each other.
That’s why it’s important to have both on stage; the fully prepared concept and artistic vision which grew in the studio and elements where it is possible to improvise spontaneously within the live set. To find that balance is the challenge.

How do you see the relationship between the 'sound' aspects of music and the 'composition' aspects? How do you work with sound and timbre to meet certain production ideas and in which way can certain sounds already take on compositional qualities?

In my opinion, nothing makes sense without a context. This is true for everything, in a financial, a political, artistic or any other way.
We all know, that for example water has a different value in a desert or in the supermarket, or that you can take out any sentence of a speech and it would mean something else in another context. So, we cannot really judge on anything unless we know at least enough. Many films are playing with that effect, how our perception changes the more we know about the characters.

That’s why the concept and story is always very important to me. In my work, the different sounds are the words and the composition is the book. And while sounds are subordinate to the composition, there is no great composition without the right sounds.



Our sense of hearing shares intriguing connections to other senses. From your experience, what are some of the most inspiring overlaps between different senses - and what do they tell us about the way our senses work? What happens to sound at its outermost borders?

When I think about senses, the stories of Laura Bridgman and Helen Keller comes to my mind. Both women were deaf-blind but yet gained significant education, Laura Bridgman in the English language and Helen Keller has a Bachelor of Arts.

I am lucky and thankful that all my senses work. In my case, my different senses are very connected to each other. When I’m hearing sounds, I immediately see an environment and a story happening. I also feel that place exactly and the emotion of the scene, and I melt into that world like in a dream. However, in today’s society we are constantly subjected to the flood of external influences from advertising billboards to the even more dangerous noise pollution, so I try to spare my sensory organs when I can.

Art can be a purpose in its own right, but it can also directly feed back into everyday life, take on a social and political role and lead to more engagement. Can you describe your approach to art and being an artist?

There are thousands of different definitions about what art is. Usually these definitions are quotes in one sentence and I think every one of them is true, based on one specific perspective. I feel like if we could put all of them together, we would get it.

For me, the attitude of not giving up going towards the desire to understand, experience and express an as-yet not manifested thought, in the most perfect way, even if you know it might not be possible to achieve, and translate it into a tangible form is an artistic aspiration.

That thought can be emotional, philosophical, spiritual, political or anything but it must be challenging, original, honest, innovative and up-to-date. I think because of that, artists might carry a higher social responsibility, even though everyone of us does.

It is remarkable, in a way, that we have arrived in the 21st century with the basic concept of music still intact. Do you have a vision of music, an idea of what music could be beyond its current form?

Music is currently serving or merging with different sectors like the entertainment/show industry, the film industry, the fashion industry, the tech and art industries. I hope that music will become more independent again in the future.

I also hope that we will learn to make a difference between art and repetitive, blank sound waves and will treat them for what they are. For the future, I hope that artists aren’t ridiculously glorified or invisible and that music will represent a wider range of ideas by a more diverse group of creators.


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