Part 1

Name: Kristoffer Lislegaard
Nationality: Norwegian
Occupation: Producer, performer
Current release: Kristoffer Lislegaard's new album Subsupra is out now.
Recommendations: Paul Jebanasam – Continuum; ILKAMA – ILKAMANIA; Bonus: The record label Breton Cassette

If you enjoyed this Kristoffer Lislegaard interview and would like to know more about his projects and music, visit his official homepage. He is also on Instagram, and bandcamp.



When I listen to music, I see shapes, objects and colours. What happens in your body when you’re listening? Do you listen with your eyes open or closed?

I wouldn’t say “yes I have synaesthesia” but there is definitely something like that happening. It feels like some sort of resonance in my brain and body. Like I am massaging my neurons and programming my reality. It sounds a little woo woo, but that is how I would describe it.

I love to listen with my eyes closed! When I close my eyes without music there are some shapes, patterns and noise. When I do this while listening to music it's like I see a whole world in there.

Entering/creating new worlds through music has always exerted a strong pull on me. What do you think you are drawn to most when it comes to listening to and creating music?

(I promise I didn’t read this question before answering the previous one, hehe!)

I resonate a lot with this world building / entering idea. I sometimes think of it as putting my consciousness into the background and “travelling” to my subconscious mind. A sort of communication with myself, or “be my whole self” or something like that. I think a lot of religious experiences might be similar to this (although not religious myself). Quite psychedelic I guess.

So I think I would describe it as looking for something that gives me this feeling of change. Like a flowstate. Often (but not always) the most important part in the music to trigger this is sound design and melody/harmonies or simply atmosphere.

According to scientific studies, we make our deepest and most incisive musical experiences between the ages of 13-16. What did music mean to you at that age and what’s changed since then?

This was the time I started playing music. So I guess my sense of using music as a tool to find my place in the world started here. I picked up the electric guitar, tried to play as fast as possible and ran it through every effect I could find in an endless exploration.

At some point the effects took over and I got bored of “sports guitar”. Now it is almost only effects, hehe!

At some point I made a multi sample based guitar instrument. I now use it in almost every track! Of course with a lot of effects.

Tell me about one or two of your early pieces that you’re still proud of (or satisfied with) – and why you’re content with them.

My EP Pocket. It would take 10 years before I did another solo release. Especially the track “Copy Machine” still holds up well.



I like how it was made in such a naive way. Guitar into laptop into stereo audio recorder. Press rec on the recorder and do your performance. It is simply made by using 2-3 loopers in Ableton Live that I change the tempo of live as part of the performance to get different pitches. A technique I still enjoy.

The intro is done by putting a contact mic on a sheet music stand and dragging my keys on top of it.

On my newest album there is a track called “Prism” that starts pretty much exactly the same way.



Maybe that is why I like it and it still feels current. Because it was sort of the pilot to what would come a decade later.

What is your current studio or workspace like? What instruments, tools, equip-ment, and space do you need to make music?

I have a very nice studio space that I share with Jørgen Skjulstad who runs the label Metronomicon Audio. But really my studio and my instrument is my computer with Ableton Live and Max. That is all I need actually, plus some controllers and some speakers.

I have a few (mostly alternative) synthesizers (like Endorphin.es Shuttle system and Shbobo Shnth), some eurorack modules (like Mutable Instruments Clouds and AJH synth mini mod VCO), effect boxes (like Bugbrand PT delay and CrossOver Filter) and a baritone electric guitar.

I could just as well use Ableton Operator and my sample guitar inside the computer. However, the exploration, change and physicality of some of the instruments and effect boxes is nice so I like to implement some hardware as well.

From the earliest sketches to the finished piece, tell me about the creative process for your current release, please.

On my newest album Subsupra, most of the tracks started with very rough sketches / jams, many of them on the Ableton Push 3 standalone on the couch, bed or (on one track) in the park.

I tried to not think so much, get some layers going and give myself a few surprises. Some of the tactics for this is the aforementioned trick with overdubbing loopers that I change the tempo of while recording so I get interesting octave and timing shifts in the middle of a loop. Add to that effects like freezing delays, long reverbs, granular synthesis (in homemade Max for Live device) and other ways to record without pressing record.

I like to use effects in a way where I feel like me playing the notes is just one part of the music. The second part comes from letting the system I have set up in the machine do its thing and we have a little back and forth with me playing new notes, listening to what comes back and nudge the system in one way or another.

Then I would transfer these jams onto the studio computer and edit, process, sample and overdub. On this album I played around with expectations and norms for how sounds usually are supposed to be presented.

For example there are some parts where the background elements are louder in the mix than the lead melody, and some sounds created by using noise reduction software in reverse to output what is usually removed.

What role and importance do rituals have for you, both as an artist and a listener?

I think the music making (and listening) is sort of the ritual itself for me.

I like how this mindset makes it possible to be low key and not make a big deal out of it, but still at some point the flowstate takes over and the ritual happens without you thinking about it. Sort of like everyday magic.

Are you acting out parts of your personality in your music which you couldn’t or wouldn’t in your daily life? If so, which are these?

Maybe. But at the same time as a professional artist / musician / insert-something-here my music IS my daily life. It is a way to understand the world, a way to think and a way to express myself. So maybe a way to frame the question for me would be what part of my personality I would lose and miss if I stopped with music. Then I think I would be very off-balance.

Outside of music I am able to fulfil the need to joke around and laugh, be kind and warm and to be fascinated and nerd out on things. But I would miss the (in lack of a better word) spiritual part that the music brings to my life. A way to make sense of the big picture, be in tune with nature and do what my soul is telling me to do.

Maybe I would have to train myself to be a nightly (as in every night) lucid dreamer!