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Name: Lars Meijer aka Hunter Complex

Nationality: Dutch
Occupation: Composer, producer
Current Release: The new Hunter Complex album Airports And Ports is out via Burning Witches. It features Kat Epple (flute, Emerald Web), Alexander Hawkins (piano, Louis Moholo-Moholo), Justin Sweatt (aka Xander Harris, guitar) and Coen Oscar Polack (field recordings).
Recommendations: Book: Malcom Lowry - Under the Volcano (1947). I read this twice in high school. I didn’t understand half of it back then. The first thing that got to me was the atmosphere. The main character walks around drunk from mescal in the heat in Mexico on the Day of the Dead. Later, when I reread it, I got so much more out of it.
Music: Clannad – Atlantic Realm (1989). This soundtrack to the BBC documentary is a perfect mix of sound art, field recordings, experimental electronic music, but all with a pop aesthetic. I recognize a lot of my own music in there. The brothers Pól and Ciarán Brennan recorded this instrumental album together, without their singing sister and the other band members. I recently rediscovered it and picked it up on vinyl. It’s a very important work.

If you enjoyed this interview with Hunter Complex and would like to stay up to date with his work, visit his official website. He is also on Instagram, Facebook, and twitter.



When did you start writing/producing/playing music and what or who were your early passions and influences? What was it about music and/or sound that drew you to it?

Atlantic Seashores was the first thing I did. It was a tape I recorded back in ‘89. I think I was eleven years old.



It was completely improvised on my Yamaha PSR-16 keyboard. You had this tiny synthesizer module on this keyboard and by adding noise, you could for example make perfect sea sounds. I wanted to play keyboard because of bands like A-ha and the Pet Shop Boys, and later Jean-Michel Jarre and Vangelis. Synthesizers had something magic.

[Read our Jean-Michel Jarre interview]
[Read our Memory Makers feature about the passing of Vangelis and Klaus Schulze]

When I listen to music, I see shapes, objects and colours. What happens in your body when you're listening and how does it influence your approach to creativity?

Colour is very important when I’m composing and listening. Sounds have to blend well, but not get in the way of each other.  

That’s one of the reasons I use hardware synths and an analogue mixing desk. The colours come naturally and you know instantly if sounds fit together.

How would you describe your development as an artist in terms of interests and challenges, searching for a personal voice, as well as breakthroughs?

I’m never in search of a personal voice, it just happens. I automatically stay away from the music from other artists. I would never try to emulate or copy something consciously. It’s always trial and error.

My close friends are my sounding board. They usually know what I’m after, so if something’s not working, they can pinpoint any discrepancy.

Tell me a bit about your sense of identity and how it influences both your preferences as a listener and your creativity as an artist, please.

I’m from The Netherlands. It’s a weird country when it comes to music.

Unlike Germany, France and Italy, we tend to look to the US and the UK for developments in music. Dutch music was, and maybe still is, a bit looked down on. We don’t have a sound, like Britpop or Krautrock. But that’s also the power, because we don’t have tradition, we can do whatever the fuck we want. And because nobody really cares, the music scene where I am from is very DIY. You have to stick up for yourself, because nobody else will.

That certainly has an effect on my music, there’s a lot of freedom in there, but also on the way I listen to music. I appreciate artists that don’t care about certain laws. That’s why I love artists like Prince, Sun Ra, Robert Pollard (of Guided by Voices), Klaus Schulze, Hans-Joachim Roedelius. These people just do music on their own terms.

[Read our Hans-Joachim Roedelius interview]
[Read our Hans Joachim Roedelius interview about Ego as an Energy and doing IT]
[Read our Roedelius & Tim Story interview about Collaboration]

What, would you say, are the key ideas behind your approach to music and art?

First off, I like to reinvent myself musically each time. Of course there’s a narrative when you play all my albums in a row. But I like to change it up a little each album to keep it fresh and exciting for myself and the listener.

When I started working on my last album Airport and Ports, I had about thirty demos / rudimentary ideas ready. With the previous albums, I turned all these ideas into full fledged tracks, but for this one I only chose the ten tracks that exited me the most because they were different from what I have done before.

And there’s always got to be a deep emotion in there, not always immediately identifiable or in the forefront, but somewhere.

How would you describe your views on topics like originality and innovation versus perfection and timelessness in music? Are you interested in a “music of the future” or “continuing a tradition”?

I have a large collection of synthesizers from the 80s and 90s. I’m not a guy that likes to work in the box, turning knobs on a computer screen. I like to work with hardware. I only use the computer for detailed equalizing, to get rid of frequencies that take up too much space. But as for making music, I like to play around with real synths.

I really like to combine synths from different eras. I don’t do that consciously, but it always happens that way. Back in ‘84 they would have a Yamaha DX7 and only use that. When the Korg M1 arrived in ‘88, the focus was on that synth and the DX7 was forgotten about.

I think the possibilities of combining different synths aren't used yet in the fullest. So actually I’m continuing the tradition of creating music of the future.

Over the course of your development, what have been your most important instruments and tools - and what are the most promising strategies for working with them?

It all starts with the synths. I get really inspired when I turn on these machines and explore the different sounds. I really like skipping through presets of digital synths. There are huge databanks of sound patches created by professionals and amateurs around the time these synths came out. It’s like going into a time machine.

The Roland Alpha Juno-2 from 1986 was my first synth. I got that one from my keyboard teacher Ed van der Veen in the 90s. It’s one of the few synths - together with the recently acquired Sequential Circuits Six-Trak - that I really like to program. I know that machine inside out. I can get any sound of that synth.

[Read our feature about the Roland JUNO 106]

So it’s a combination of being amazed by new sounds and the ability to create something from scratch.

Take us through a day in your life, from a possible morning routine through to your work, please.

I work at night. The house needs to be completely cleaned up before I can go to work. No stuff lying around, no unpaid bills, no record on the turntable.

Only then I can put my mind to making music and lose myself in it. And I don’t need to be too stressed about something. I want no distractions, no other sounds but the music.

Could you describe your creative process on the basis of a piece, live performance or album that's particularly dear to you, please?

Most of the tracks on my last three albums originated out of live gigs.

I like to setup tracks real simple, 3 or 4 different sections, samples triggered from the MPC, midi signals sent to 3 synths and 1 synth to play live. And then just start and build, and see where the track takes me. I have live version of the title track of Airports and Ports which is 10 minutes long. The album version is half of it, but the construction of the track is the same.

In a live situation you can really feel what works, what sounds blend together, and what improvisations work. You have to look for the borders of the track to actually know where the heart is.

Listening can be both a solitary and a communal activity. Likewise, creating music can be private or collaborative. Can you talk about your preferences in this regard and how these constellations influence creative results?

After the Covid crisis, I really needed to witness live music again. Sometimes I was going to three, four shows a week. After watching shows on YouTube for two years, I reality needed that live thrill. I went to small jazz shows at the Bimhuis in Amsterdam, but also to big dome size shows by bands like Toto and Simple Minds. I love being around people again, it felt really inspiring. I picked up way less records this past year, compared to the two Covid years, when all I had was my records. The same happened with my own music.

During Covid I didn’t feel the urge to create, everything was at a halt. The thing that got me going again was working with other musicians. Although we didn’t play together in person, when I got to hear what Kat Epple, Aquiles Navarro and Justin Sweatt played to my raw demos of the tracks on Airports and Ports, I was really excited to get going again. And I think you can hear that in the music.

How do your work and your creativity relate to the world and what is the role of music in society?

When I work on my music, I want to get away from the world. I create my own little world in the studio, with no distractions from the world around me. I use my music as escapism. I create at night, when everybody is asleep. It makes me feel relaxed and my mind turns off. That’s when the best melodies appear and creativity flows.

I remember writing the lead melody to the track ‘Bitter Cold’ with one eye already closed. I like to think that when someone listens to my music, they drift off as well. That your mind goes away from the day to day hassle and that music takes you to a positive, inspirational place. That you feel renewed and energised and that you can take on the world. Of course there's worry in my music, about climate change for example, but I don’t want you to feel down about it.

That’s how I listen to music myself. I want to be taken to another world and feel motivated. That’s why I can’t listen to bands like Sleaford Mods. That music is too angry for me; it offers nothing else but rage.



Art can be a way of dealing with the big topics in life: Life, loss, death, love, pain, and many more. In which way and on which occasions has music – both your own or that of others - contributed to your understanding of these questions?


In a huge way.

When I go back to my childhood, I remember playing A-ha’s ‘Scoundrel Days’ and The Cure’s ‘Faith’ as soundtracks to long holiday drives to France. I got homesick pretty bad, and those albums really helped me get through that. And with love.



Prince is the king of heartbreak songs. His guitar solo in ‘Just My Imagination’, recorded live at the Paard van Troje aftershow in The Hague in ‘88, is gut wrenching. I used to play that while crying in my bed after unanswered love.



Prince gave me the feeling that it would be ok in the end.

For my own music, I recorded the track ‘Dirty Snow’ on my album Airports and Ports as a way to deal with the loss of my brother Sven. It was for the first time that I directly recorded such emotions into a piece of music.

How do you see the connection between music and science and what can these two fields reveal about each other?

I’m not a scientist, but I think science - in contradiction to religion - is the only way out for mankind. To deal with pandemics, climate change and fascism, we need science.

I think music - just like reading books and travelling - can make you see connections and open your mind for new ways of thinking. I don't trust people who don’t like art.

Creativity can reach many different corners of our lives. Do you feel as though writing or performing a piece of music is inherently different from something like making a great cup of coffee? What do you express through music that you couldn't or wouldn't in more 'mundane' tasks?

Music has the ability to open up your world. When a cloud is hanging over your head and you feel sombre, music can uplift you, make you go do things and take you out of the daily routine.

Good music makes you adventurous. I hope that’s something my music does.

Music is vibration in the air, captured by our ear drums. From your perspective as a creator and listener, do you have an explanation how it able to transmit such diverse and potentially deep messages?

Music is not concrete, it’s not tangible, the same goes for emotions. Maybe you cannot pinpoint an exact emotion of a piece of music, but you definitely can convey a feeling.

I’m a big fan of ‘Sons and Fascination/ Sister Feelings Call’, the 1981 double album by Simple Minds.



Ever since I heard that for the first time, I see heat mirages on roads that disappear on the horizon. I recently read the excellent book on them by Graeme Tohmson called ‘Themes For Great Cities’ in which singer Jim Kerr says this on recording that particular music: ’By that time our landscapes were changing. It would be Midwest, Canada, those wide open prairies, the ghosts that passed through there. I’m sure all that subliminal creeps into the music.’

And that’s exactly what it is: everything creeps into the music.