Name: JUC
Nationality: German
Occupation: Singer, songwriter, producer
Current release: JUC's new album Particle Twirl is out via SUREFIRE.
Recommendations on the topic of sound: Mark Fisher’s Ghosts of My Life: Writings on Depression, Hauntology and Lost Futures gave me a whole new perspective on the cultural age we live in.

If you enjoyed this JUC interview and would like to know more about her music and upcoming live dates, visit her official homepage. She is also on Instagram, Facebook, bandcamp, and Soundcloud.



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, too, see (or feel?) colours and textures. Every note and key usually has a distinct colour and the hues vary depending on the composition. It’s not that they’re blocking my view or anything but they definitely exist before my inner eye.

I usually listen to music with my eyes open because I’m either walking, working, cycling or commuting. I more or less constantly have something on while I’m awake. For sleeping, I need absolute silence, though. I never understood how people fall asleep to TV shows or podcasts. I sometimes nap with some Ambient in the background but it needs to be super quiet.

The tracks in Particle Twirl all have different keys for a reason, as opposed to my previous album, the Electronic Symphony, where three of four songs have the same key (as is custom in classical symphonies). I wanted to offer a sonic kaleidoscope with Particle Twirl. It’s all about, well, twirling things around, improvising, layering, dashing sound all around our synapses.

How do listening with headphones and listening through a stereo system change your experience of sound and music?

On headphones, stereo effects and the three dimensionality of some mixes becomes so much clearer.

I love when I can hear intentional emptiness in music — I can feel it mostly on headphones or on really good club sound systems.

Tell me about some of the albums or artists that you love specifically for their sound, please.

For electronic music, I’ve always been massively inspired by the Moderat / Modeselektor / Apparat holy trifecta ;) Their sound design blows my mind with every release anew.

I went to see Modeselektor’s DJ-Kicks release set at Dark Matter last year — one of the best concerts of my life. A true masterclass in how to absolutely rule a crowd. I danced so hard that my surrounding bystanders applauded.



On my first EP Hello, my name is, I covered “Eating Hooks” by Moderat. It was the first song I ever produced for Juc. Their influence is absolutely profound to my work.



[Read our Moderat interview about the Tr-909]

Also, Trentemøller is a huge influence. I love his darkness and attention to detail, while not shying away from epic arrangements. I read the entire Dark Tower series by Stephen King listening to Into The Great Wide Yonder and Arabian Horse by GusGus (what an album!).



I named my web design company Great Yonder, if that paints a clear picture about my admiration

[Read our GusGus interview]

Then there’s my subcultural roots in Metal, specifically the melancholic stuff. I have to mention Sleep Token here. How they blend epic breakdowns, trap beats and some very dark emotions is an absolute feast for my sensation seeking brain. I haven’t been this obsessed with a band since the Deftones and Nine Inch Nails as a teen (and the Backstreet Boys before that).



I still can’t shout but I definitely use a lot of harmonies and melodic transitions from Metal in my composing — and my lyrical material is heavily influenced by it, too. I guess this is more apparent in my Electronic Symphony which has existential dread as philosophical theme. Particle Twirl deals with Amor Fati (love your fate), but much less on a verbal level than the Symphony.

It bothers me that I don’t list any non-male artists here. Of course I also listen to a lot of them (like Zevdaliza, Spiritbox, Kalandra, Emma Ruth Rundle, Rosa Anschütz, Ellen Alien, lots of R’n’B and Jazz artists) but if I have to pick the biggest influences on my own creating, the men seem to stand out.

Maybe a younger generation will have more non-male role models to choose from — I am an aging Millenial, after all. I’m working hard on creating more visibility for non-male artists in Electronic Music.

[Read our Rosa Anschütz interview]

I’d think I’d like to mention Christina Aguilera, whose singing technique was a huge inspiration when I was younger.

Do you experience strong emotional responses towards certain sounds? If so, what kind of sounds are these and do you have an explanation about the reasons for these responses?

A double bass drum is always sending me to epic land. A guttural scream, too. Dub basses relax me. An 808 rimshot pattern feels like a cerebral massage. And classical choirs, especially when I sing in them, bathe me in all kinds of feelings. Hardly a concert where I don’t lose control over my voice because I’m tearing up over a chord.

An explanation? No, apart from probably owning a brain that is especially sensitive to any acoustic signals. I’m also pretty short-sighted (lasiked now), so maybe that amplified this development. If I ever had to choose between going blind and going deaf, I’d opt for going blind every time.

There can be sounds which feel highly irritating to us and then there are others we could gladly listen to for hours. Do you have examples for either one or both of these?

I regularly hyper focus on tracks, albums or genres for days or even weeks. Recently I listened to Jordan Rakei more or less exclusively for a week.



Every time Sleep Token puts out something new, I struggle to listen to anything else for months, I’m not exaggerating.

I think it’s more the mood that I’m after, not sounds. I recently read something about how fixating on music is your brain filling up on neurotransmitters it’s currently lacking. That made a lot of sense to me.

Are there everyday places, spaces, or devices which intrigue you by the way they sound? Which are these?

Yes! Staircases have AMAZING reverb. I sing in almost every staircase I’m in. When it became a trend on Insta, I felt very seen. Also, churches. Hate the institution, love the buildings.

I also have a weird thing for touching fabrics. And the ocean: a wall of white noise - brain off-switch.

Have you ever been in spaces with extreme sonic characteristics, such as anechoic chambers or caves? What was the experience like?

If there’s no reverb, I immediately feel like I’m running out of air (which is not far from reality, I suppose).

Vocal recording booths are weird spaces. Caves are fascinating and terrifying at the same time.

What are among your favourite spaces to record and play your music?

I love being in studios although it’s been a while. I recorded Particle Twirl at home, like I would play the tracks live. I put up my live setup in my room and just did my thing.

For playing live, I love clubs and festivals, preferably either as opener or as a sundowner. Especially with Particle Twirl, which is live-looped vocal downtempo that starts at 80 BPM and goes up to 125 BPM, I feel like I’m the perfect transition into the fast night after a chill day.

As I create most of my sounds live with my voice, playing at night is sometimes really stressful. I have to keep my body and voice alert and prepared until late — it’s just not the same as twiddling knobs and hitting pads.

Do music and sound feel “material” to you? Does working with sound feel like you're sculpting or shaping something?

I think of it more like I’m programming patterns and create logical tension arcs that translate into emotions.

But I’m definitely sculpting stuff, now that I think about it. Yes. Thank you for this nice addition to my vocabulary!

How important is sound for our overall well-being and in how far do you feel the "acoustic health" of a society or environment is reflective of its overall health?

That’s quite the question to answer in times of AI. When I see how many people react with disappointment and even disgust when they find out something’s been created with AI and not by a human, I feel hopeful.

At the same time, 90% of people don’t care about music, so they don’t mind if what they’re hearing is generated by a machine. This perfectly falls in line with observations from all other art forms. In times of immense economic pressure, who has time for acquiring a cultural taste when rent is due tomorrow and your kids need to eat? You consume what is delivered to your phone for free and don’t think about what might be out there if you just went looking.

Despite my admittedly a bit dystopian view, I think sound is quintessential for our health and I’m convinced that we’re not even aware of the extent of it. I’m waiting for scientists to find out how much frequencies influence our bodies and how singing and other forms of making music in groups shape our collective consciousness.

If you ever went to a concert, you know how it feels when a group of people receive the same set of frequencies at the same time. It’s indescribable. This is why you feel as though you can save the world after a big show — because we probably could.

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?

The Portuguese Atlantic Ocean in late November ripped my soul open in a time of deep heartbreak, washing away everything that festered in the still half-open wound.

Many animals communicate through sound. Based either on experience or intuition, do you feel as though interspecies communication is possible and important? Is there a creative element to it, would you say?  

Humans communicate with animals all the time. A dog or a horse reacts to our voices and gestures. Horses are incredible at picking up our emotions. I heard that cats only meow to communicate with humans (mainly to get food but hey!).

There’s interspecies friendships between animals that must rely on some sort of communication, too. Did you hear about this goose who foster raised, like, 40 ducks or something?

Tinnitus and developing hyperacusis are very real risks for anyone working with sound. Do you take precautions in this regard and if you're suffering from these or similar issues – how do you cope with them?

I have a slight hyperacusis, but compared to my middle sister and my dad I seem to be fine. No idea what I did differently. I’m coping by being more mindful around noise and tasks that create sharp sounds (like loading a dishwasher).

I always paid attention to the quality of my headphones, not just when I’m working but also for everyday tasks. I have become very good at wearing ear protection at concerts and in clubs, although that’s a very recent development.

As a teen, I went to a lot of Metal and Hardcore shows that completely destroyed my hearing for days. I also worked in night clubs, that probably didn’t help, either.

We can surround us with sound every second of the day. The great pianist Glenn Gould even considered this the ultimate delight. How do you see that yourself and what importance does silence hold?

I now enjoy silence more than I used to. It is not just a palate cleanser for my ears but also important to form thoughts that are not tinted by the emotions suggested by the music.

I usually disconnect from public spaces by listening to music on noise cancelling headphones, but sometimes I deliberately sit on a train and just listen to what’s going on.

The silence of a starry night sky somewhere in nature holds grounding and sometimes even catharsis for me.

Seth S. Horowitz called hearing the “universal sense” and emphasised that it was more precise and faster than any of our other senses, including vision. How would our world be different if we paid less attention to looks and listened more instead?

It would just shift from visual to acoustic hierarchy. The sound of a human’s voice would be subject to much more discrimination than it currently is.

If you look at a person long enough, all the perceived ugliness your social filters suggest to you goes away. It’s the same with voices. And yet we love to judge and categorize. Pattern recognition is unbeatable.