Name: Natalie Rose LeBrecht
Nationality: American
Occupation: Composer, producer, singer, songwriter
Current release: Natalie Rose LeBrecht's Holy Prana Open Game is out via American Dreams.
Recommendations: Jung Hee Choi’s Tonecycle for Blues Base 30 Hz, 2:3:7 Ensemble Version with 4:3 and 7:6. More about it here.
Marguerite Day – visual artist

If you enjoyed this Natalie Rose LeBrecht  interview and would like to find out more about her music, visit her official homepage. She is also on Instagram.



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?

When the music hits right, I feel it in my heart and my spirit feels elevated and wonderous.

To truly deep listen, I close my eyes and the partial sensory deprivation helps me experience the music more profoundly. However, it’s also fun to have my eyes open and integrate the music more into the narrative of my life that way.

What were your very first steps in music like - and how do you rate gains made through experience versus the naiveté of those first steps?

My mom tells me I was tongue-trill-humming often as a baby, which of course I don’t remember. But when I was a toddler I do remember that singing always felt so amazing and natural in my body, like it connected me to the real me that is beyond me. The first time I remember someone asking me what I wanted to be when I grew up I immediately thought “a singer”, although I likely did not say that out loud because I was extremely guarded over my inner life.

As a child I explored music in the privacy of my room, quietly, by tape recording myself singing, then playing it back on my stereo and singing on top of that and repeating the process until I had lush, taped choral music. All my childhood attempts to get myself formally trained musically, growing up in rural Iowa, failed: the town piano instructor tried to force me to play “Mary Had A Little Lamb” on repeat when I brought in sheet music that I wanted to work on. My vocal teacher wanted me to always smile and look pretty while I sang, so that wasn’t going to work on my end; and I got kicked out of junior high band for sabotaging a recital, which I did as an act of sweet retaliation for the band instructor’s blatant sexism, as he would not allow me to play drums because of my gender. I do wonder what my music would be like if my father would have been Philip Glass and I would have gone to Julliard.

However, I’ve been able to learn a lot simply from deep listening to music I love. For example, I’ve listened to Alice Coltrane repeatedly, and I’ve played along with her recordings. As a result, I get a lot of feedback from people telling me my music has elements that are reminiscent of her work. So, in this regard, I consider her one of my primary music teachers. In my 20s I was able to study with La Monte Young and Marian Zazeela, which also had a profound impact on my musical development and path.



I would say that naivete is a beautiful place to start and it’s wonderful to keep in touch with that innocence, but that experience – in my case, being influenced by maestros like Coltrane and Young – have been incredibly enriching and I don’t think my music would be worthy of sharing publicly without having learned from others. I think of great artists / musicians as lit candles that light a lot of other candles.

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?

I must be a late bloomer in this regard, as I would say 17-20 was my sweet spot connecting to music in a deeper and more meaningful way.

It wasn’t until about 17 that I began to get exposure to more artistic and less commercial music, and I began to deep listen for everything happening in it. Music was EVERYTHING to me then, and my connection to music has only deepened and matured over time.

This is also the age range when I got my first digital synth and a four-track recorder and began sharing recordings with friends and playing music live locally in bands.

Over the course of your development, what have been your most important instruments and tools and how have they shaped your perspective on music?

I feel most connected to the piano, which is a celestial instrument from heaven.

When I get to play a high-quality or special piano, I feel the vibration of the strings resonate in my body and a feedback loop begins to happen where it seems that the piano begins to, essentially, play itself through me – that I become its instrument, which is such a glorious thing to experience.

This happened a bit when I was recording Mandarava Rose on a 100-year-old Steinway grand. That piano was incredible!

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

I’m driven to create authentic music from my heart and soul and beyond, and hope that it will help further connect listeners to their own inner splendor. It’s actually quite painful to put myself out there and share this music that means so much to me and to speak honestly about it.

However, it would be more painful to not share it because I am truly following my heart here, and my heart yearns to sing its truth, to deeply connect to and nourish others.

Paul Simon said, “the way that I listen to my own records is not for the chords or the lyrics - my first impression is of the overall sound.” What's your own take on that and how would you define your personal sound?

When I listen to my own music, it’s typically in the act of creation as the producer, so I am listening to everything everywhere all at once. I know every miniscule sound on Holy Prana Open Game!

Over the decades, I’ve developed my ears more and more to be able to process a lot of sonic detail at once, while still hearing the entire soundscape as a whole. To create an album like HPOG or Mandarava Rose, I’ve had to hear it and every single part within it repeatedly, to the point that once I release the album, I tend not to listen anymore and am more than ready to move forward and create new work.



My personal sound is the expression of whatever needs to be expressed through me in all its various dimensions at any given time – it’s fluid, but one word that many other people have repeatedly used to describe my music throughout the years is “ethereal”, which makes sense because I’m a very spiritual person (meaning I believe that spirits exist).

Sound, song, and rhythm are all around us, from animal noises to the waves of the ocean. What, if any, are some of the most moving experiences you've had with these non-human-made sounds? In how far would you describe them as “musical”?

I love the sounds of nature so much. I love listening to the wind in the trees, to bird symphonies, to ocean waves crashing, to water running in a stream.

The sounds of nature are amazing and wonderful to tune into. I can listen for very long stretches and feel blissed out. That’s why I often prefer to be in nature alone or with the kind of friend where you don’t feel the need to talk all the time and you can tune into nature’s orchestra together.

The most moving experiences I’ve had with non-human-made sounds would be celestial “auditory hallucinations” (I think of them more as “aural visions” though). I’ve heard sublime, angelic, otherworldly choirs in my mind singing complex counterpoints. These types of aural visions have definitely informed my music, as I strive to emulate elements that I hear / sense, but they are too wonderous, transplendant, and complex for me to replicate at my current skill level.

I just do my best to put some of those vibes in.  

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 like the idea of making complex compositions that sound simple and keep a nice flow to them while still being dynamic. I think music like that can be both relaxing and stimulating simultaneously.

From symphonies and traditional verse/chorus-songs to linear techno tracks and free jazz, there are myriads ways to structure a piece of music. Which approaches work best for you – and why?

I like to work in a very free and organic way – the piece begins to come together and as it does, it sort of dictates how it will be structured and how long it will be.

I typically don’t write pieces with a preconceived formula in mind, I work in a way where I allow things to unfold naturally and uncontrived for the most part.

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 general, I’m just being me, expressing my nervous system, and going beyond my ordinary ego mind. When I’m creating sounds from scratch on a synth, or playing around on the piano, I find what sounds good through play, then I keep going with it and get into a Flow. Eventually, I’ll bring my ordinary mind back in to memorize or write down what I’ve been doing so that I can emulate and build upon it further in another session.

But these days, I do my best to put my ordinary ego mind away while I’m creating and for the past few years, I’ve had the good fortune or luck to be very pleased with the results. I think with the creative process, finding what you love, staying in a flow, and leaving the ordinary ego mind behind is a great way to achieve timeless authenticity with one’s work.

With that said, I do see a huge and meaningful value in regularly building one’s vocabulary through practicing techniques or studying music, etc. so that more can express itself with sophistication, unimpeded, while the artist works in a state of flow. This is why I practice piano scales and other techniques regularly. When composing the lyrics for Holy Prana Open Game, I imagined white light pouring down on me from a benevolent source through the crown of my head, down to my heart, and shooting out of my arms and fingertips as I auto-typed the majority of the lyrics on the computer. I used my conscious mind to refine the lyrics a bit at the end, but for the most part, that is how they came into being.

Sometimes, science and art converge in unexpected ways. Do you conduct “experiments” or make use of scientific insights when you’re making music?

I don’t think of my process as being scientific at all, although I do make discoveries which I learn from and integrate. However, I do have tremendous gratitude to the scientists and engineers who invented all the equipment I use to create my music!

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?

My music-making process does mirror the way I live my life in many regards. In both there is time spent working on discipline, which allows me to flourish in moments of freedom. I’ve also learned not to try too hard (with anything), and to aspire to be in a relaxed state as much as possible.

One difference though is that music-making is where I can let it all go and play naked in the wilderness of inner space, in the dimension of sound. In the way I live my life outwardly, I aspire to be professional, which is a discipline.   

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?

Presence is presence and flow is flow. But music is the activity I naturally put the most love into.

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?

The older I get, the more I’m in tune with what I’m responding to when I respond to music.

So I can’t think of any example where I’m affected by music but am mystified as to why.

If you could make a wish for the future – what are developments in music you would like to see and hear?

I would love if there was ample funding for all school children / teens to receive music education and as part of that, deep listening and meditation were taught as supplementary skills of value. Silence is a very powerful tool in music (and life) that should be given equal attention and value as making sound. I think there’s a general fear of silence and empty space that most folks nervously try to fill when they experience it.

I would love if the “feminine” qualities of receptivity and introspection were recognized, lauded, and taught, as broadening one’s receptivity is a major component of both music creation and appreciation.

There are so many amazing, authentic, dedicated musicians creating astounding, healing work these days and I hope they are all able to thrive!