Part 2
From very deep/high/loud/quiet sounds to very long/short/simple/ complex compositions - are there extremes in music you feel drawn to and what response do they elicit?
I am for sure a person of extremes. I can listen for hours to drone meditative music - in a meditation context or during other activities I am doing through the day. It calms me down, it opens space in my head, it makes me concentrate. Another extreme is when I need to listen to my favourite heavy metal band System of a Down either cause I really need to move or express my body, or run fast and put some energy out, or because it somehow creates inside me exactly the same stillness that meditative music does. I also enjoy a lot the sound of great Symphonies, like Beethoven’s, because they travel my soul far and wake my spirit up!
From symphonies and traditional verse/chorus-songs to linear techno tracks and free jazz, there are myriad ways to structure a piece of music. Which approaches work best for you – and why?
As I mentioned I haven’t been able to create a single verse-chorus song yet! This is because I almost never work with lyrics that were meant to be a song but rather poems that I write just to express myself. So I usually start with an ambient intro - introducing the sounds and the atmosphere of the music following. Then usually comes the first idea of the song - improvised lyrics - that usually leads to a pick. After the pick often comes a small outro where things calm down. I imagine my pieces like waves in the sea. Maybe because I am used to the ancient Greek tragedy style - the set up, the beginning of the story, the drama pick and the catharsis.
Could you describe your creative process on the basis of one of your pieces, live performances or albums that's particularly dear to you, please?
In my upcoming album Anásana the music is a combination of improvisatory fantasies and free-association compositional techniques, each melody a droplet formed from the deluge of inspiration that comes when one least expects it. Everything usually starts from a single drone voice that I sing for a long of time. In my mind I have a topic that I want to explore - and on this I start improvising tracks over tracks. One more voice track and then a piano track. After this usually I add a baseline with my favourite Moog Synth, more Synths and more voices! At the end usually is built the beat of the piece. This is how the whole album was built. Track after track. So it’s like one long piece - of course re-composed during the editing and mixing process.
Sometimes, science and art converge in unexpected ways. Do you conduct “experiments” or make use of scientific insights when you're making music?
With my producer, we have experimented with weird micing techniques and with unexpected pedal uses but this is all I can say.
How does the way you make music reflect the way you live your life? Can we learn lessons about life by understanding music on a deeper level?
The way I make music I would say reflects a lot how I live my life. It’s spontaneous, unprepared, full of passion and as authentic as possible. My pieces are long as I like to go deep on things and inside the pieces you can find more than one different kind of moods. Some wrong notes here and there are kept on purpose, as I don’t believe in mistakes, but more in the flow and truth of things. I am so far from being perfect. But this is how I keep myself and my music fresh.
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?
In general, I would say that I can enjoy a good piece of music as much as can enjoy a good cup of coffee. And I like doing all things with love and attention to the process as well as the result. But music is a complicated process that can offer a holistic experience that can move your soul and even in some exceptional moments, change your life. Through music I express emotions and states of being that I cannot find words for, that are bigger than me, that I need to somehow contain. Many times I just express my inner vibration in an attempt to make this world more comfortable and friendly for me. Last but not least through all my pieces I’m expressing the Love I feel towards all that is.
Every time I listen to "Albedo 0.39" by Vangelis, I choke up. But the lyrics are made up of nothing but numbers and values. Do you, too, have a song or piece of music that affects you in a way that you can't explain?
Every time I listen to any song of Le Mystere des Voix Bulgares I have goosebumps all over my body and tears in my eyes. I imagine it’s the frequencies of their voices along with all the ancestral wisdom that these songs are carrying that bring me to this state.
If you could make a wish for the future – what are developments in music you would like to see and hear?
As a joke, I wish for a world with no cables! A world where music is transmitted through different machines in a magical wireless way, always!
Furthermore, in an another music area, I wish I never hear again the words:
“I cannot sing”, “I don’t have a good voice” “I have a blockage”.
As a singing circle facilitator, I come across a lot with these limited thoughts and I would love to see people claiming back their voices, feeling empowered to use them and not comparing themselves with people on TV, as I believe it’s everybody’s birth right to sing. This would be a great development.
