Name: Thy Veils
Members: Daniel Dorobantu and a rotating cast of ensemble members
Nationality: Romanian
Occupation: Producer, composer, songwriter
Recent release: Thy Veils's latest single "Influx" is out now.
Recommendations: I will recommend two books. First, one by Romanian writer Mihail Sadoveanu entitled The Golden Bough. I hope the following quote will inspire: “Here, we will part. The delusion called the body will also be dissolved. But what is between us now, clarified in the fire, is a golden bough that will shine in itself, outside of time.”
The second is The Order of Time by Italian theoretical physicist Carlo Rovelli. It is a poetic and dizzying work about time, bringing together science, philosophy and art. Reading it, we can abandon everything we thought we knew about time, and even that it exists at all, in any profound sense. It unravels this mystery, inviting us to imagine a world where time is in us and we are not in time.

If you enjoyed this interview with Thy Veils and would like to find out more, visit the band's official homepage. The project 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?

It was in 1993 when I became the only kid around with a sound interface. A neighbour found out about this and asked me to help him sample his extensive cassette collection and produce some techno tracks. This is how I started in music production.

But I continued because I discovered that it was the best way to express my mind and I enjoyed doing this. Before music, I tried my hand at graphic illustration but I was not satisfied.

My early passions were many, but I think they can be labelled as "imaginary worlds". I could live my days immersed in science fiction and mythology. And math.

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?

Listening to music in a focused way is like living a specific reality. It impacts the mind and the body in a variety of ways.

Because of this, I have a sense of responsibility regarding publishing art. I read anything I find in the domain of scientific research on the topic and am interested in creating art that assists anyone, anywhere, in having an optimal  experience of life.

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

It can all be crystallised into a fusion between trusting my intuition and a kind of promise: following this calling will lead to great wonder and the realisation that doing this will require a complete focus and dedication that will affect every aspect of my life.

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.

Identity is strongly associated with self-image, self-concept, individuality and self-esteem. It influences our world view and therefore, it is important. It affects every aspect of our lives, including art.

Many years ago, I explored this topic and how it influenced creativity. Later, after discovering and understanding the flow state (as psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi popularised it), I became very interested in one of its many benefits: the state of consciousness of not having a self.

Listening or creating music makes it very easy for me to enter this flow state and therefore have no self, no identity.

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

Just like science, spirituality or philosophy, art can be a way to explore the nature of reality.

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”?

To a certain degree, I am interested in all these topics. For me, at the center of it all is the artistic vision and being able to perceive it with increasing resolution, to express it to the best of my abilities and in the most authentic way possible.

All the topics mentioned above have a specific resonance in the mind and each of them can be useful regarding the artistic vision.

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?

First, it was the computer. Before becoming interested in music,  math and computers were some of my main interests that became my tools. Later, the mind itself became the main tool.

Regarding strategies for working with any tools, what I always found to be helpful was to make sure that it all starts with a great passion, then learn the complete history of that tool, practice until it becomes a natural extension of yourself and then focus entirely on the work.

For experimental and funny results, one can try randomly doing all of this.

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

Most days, I live a solitary and contemplative life, with all activities reduced to a minimum.

I wake up early, take care of the body and the house, walk around the nearby parks and ensure the mind is fresh, clean, simple, and transparent. Later I start other activities like reading, checking all the systems that are a part of my artistic career (production, promotion, communication), listening to music, watching a movie or documentary and sometimes gaming—then more walking and strategically doing nothing. I usually have another walk in the evenings, receive a guest, or visit a friend or family. I go to sleep before midnight and dream a lot and vividly.

And there are the working days when I work on things continuously. These are the studio days, rehearsals, sequences of production meetings, working on videos or a release schedule, pre- or post-release promotion campaigns, organising events and performing. These days I adapt entirely and focus on the requirements of these activities.

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

I will describe the process of producing “Influx”, our newest single release, a process that is very similar to anything I do. It is rarely a specific moment when it really starts. The creative state and drive are always present. But in practice, it usually begins with a few sounds I find or generate by playing around. These initial sounds trigger a specific creative drive I carry with me for some time. Once this happens, I focus on the resonance between these two.

For “Influx”, the initial sounds were the arpeggiated opening synths and the snare. After having these, everything started to flow for a while. The song got a structure and I tested new effects or techniques to see what else I could obtain from these initial sounds. I write down all ideas and words that cross my mind, and I create this collection of ingredients that seem to belong to the song.

In the following days, I continue trying various things, listening to the results at different moments of the day on multiple headphones and speakers. I send these initial results to my friends and collaborators and ask them to tell me their first raw reactions to the work. I keep doing this as long as it keeps me in a flow state. Then I leave the work to rest for a few days or weeks or months until I start to forget it, moving to something else.

Later, I go back to this specific work and rediscover it, removing anything that does not give me goosebumps and I develop it further. I repeat this cycle a few times until I sense that nothing I do improves the work. And then, I wait for something else to happen in my life so that I get a new perspective on the work and a new flow state appears.

For “Influx”, the waiting period was about two years and it ended when Mircea and Maria joined Thy Veils. After the first year of doing other things, I knew I would continue Influx with them. I presented the work and all the ingredients I collected for it and continued producing the song with them, focused on their creativity. They quickly wrote vocal and bass lines that improved the song immensely. After recording their parts, I created new sounds based on their work and, inspired by everything happening and this lovely group flow state, I wrote some new synth lines.

Then I entered the studio for a few days where, together with Attila Lukinich and his incredible techniques, tools and enthusiasm, we finished mixing and mastering. The song was ready after four years and we released it a few weeks later. This way of working implies waiting for the right conditions. It is one of the reasons I work on many different things, collecting the optimal states and circumstances of each of them.

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?

Most of the time, it starts with a solitary activity. Then it goes through a long period of collaborations, always looking for more diverse artistic visions that point towards the same direction. It is an organic process of infusing more life into a piece of work.

Both the private and the communal aspects are equally important. I love all of it; for me, it is like a group vision quest, like participating in and sharing a wonderful mystery. We come 1.

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

I think that art is one of the ways we use to share and exchange consciousness.

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?

On each of these occasions, in every moment of my life. I grew up in a parochial house. The first sounds of my life were words, church bells and byzantine chants.

For me, listening to music is like accessing most of our species' intelligence and resources. Also, as Romanian philosopher Emil Cioran said, "music is the language of transcendence".

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

The connections are deep and complex and have always been studied.

Music is both an art and a science, and music and science are closely related. Both use mathematical principles and logic, united with inspiration and creative thinking to arrive at enlightening and inspirational conclusions. Both are ways to explore reality.

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?

I think it happens with anything if one focuses enough: one transforms entirely and becomes one with the object of the focus.

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

To answer this, we must first get closer to the mystery of consciousness.