Name: Pedro Vian
Nationality: Spanish
Occupation: DJ, producer, composer
Recent release: Pedro Vian & Mana's Cascades is out via Modern Obscure.
Recommendations: One of the books that helped me understand many things about sound is Sound by artists by Dan Lander & Micah Lexier.
And about painting I invite you to discover the work of Maria Pratts, an artist from Barcelona with a really particular way to see the world, thing that I admire.

[Read our Mana interview]

If you enjoyed this interview with Pedro Vian and would like to find out more, visit him on Instagram, Facebook, twitter, and Soundcloud.



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?

I started to make music when I was 16 years old. But my first memories take me back to school.

I was a really distracted student. I was focused on the sounds that were surrounding me, not paying attention to the teacher. I remember feeling like it  was always yesterday, my mind constantly trying to escape. I just started using some programs and plugins and spending hours closed in my room, entirely focused on music. Also, my brother was a big influence, he always was listening to bands.

When I was 17, I installed two turntables in the living room and my brother gave me two Kraftwerk albums. Then I started to buy records and discover the nightlife of Barcelona, where I learned a lot about electronic music.

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?

I just try to feel it and not analyze it. But obviously all piece of music influence me. I think my music is a composite of all the music I listen to.

The music you listen to remains somewhere in your brain.

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

My real challenge is to make new things, things that I never heard before, things that resemble no other music I have ever heard. I really enjoy making music, my main interest is discovering new sounds and new ways to create music.

That said, it is really difficult to escape the patterns established by the industry.

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.

As a listener I like to constantly explore new things. Next to producing, I have been DJing for many years and now sport a really well-curated record collection.

When I travel, I'll buy rare records and explore the local music communities and collectives. The idea is to try and discover how they understand music, how they use their instruments and background.

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

I can sum it up in one key idea. Keeping freedom.

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”?

t’s really important to be present, absorb all the knowledge of the past and look at the future like a newborn.

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?

Without any doubt, thanks to the laptop, the possibilities today are infinite. As I once read in a Laurie Spiegel interview: “The laptop is a folk instrument.”

Obviously I use instruments like synthesizers, guitars, piano and different kinds of percusion. But then I process everything with my computer and hundred of plugins. I really like the analog process but I try to extract the best form both, digital and analog.

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

Haa, don’t really like to talk about my personal life - also because this always change a lot. It depends of the project I’m working on and lately I’ve been traveling, so it is difficult to have a strict routine.

Anyway I combine music production with working out and a good diet to have my clear and healthy mind. Our work is extremely mental and emotional and for me the only way to maintain my health is to combine it with an active life style.

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

It’s always different. Sometimes, I find inspiration in a piece of field recording I captured. Or starting from a melody. But I really like to experiment and always try to find different ways to start a new composition.

The same applies when I play live: I like to try new instruments or do the same things with different tools. What matters is to constantly explore new possibilities.

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?

It’s always great to share ideas. When you're working with other musicians, you always arrive at different horizons which you could never reach on your own – and vice versa. Also I really believe in the ritualistic way of listening to music in a community. It is something that connect us in a transcendental way.

By the way I spend to many hours alone listening to and making music. Sometimes this disconnect me from social reality, and sometimes it makes me feel too alone. But on the other hand, it is a kind of spiritual exercise to connect with myself and confront some fears.

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

I don’t try to change anything with my music. Rather, I try to liberate something I have inside of me and share it.

I think is a really natural process. An expression of our human nature.

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?

Music is an expression of human beings. An art, a channel of expression, as I said before, it is a channel of liberation in which different emotional states of human beings are reflected.

On many occasions it has been a mirror that has helped me to understand my state of mind.

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

A hundred-page book could be written on this topic. Music is inherent to the human being already before the moment we are born - listening to our mother's heartbeat - until the day our body disappears as we listen to our last breath.

Music is generated by humanity, but also by nature, as we can observe in animals or in the movement of the spheres of the planets. I think this question deserves to go much further than this answer.
 
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 am one of those who think that creativity is important for each of the acts that we develop in our day to day life. That's why I am so attracted to Eastern Thought. They have a totally different notion than the one established in the West on this issue.
 
Music is vibration in the air, captured by our ear drums. From your perspective as a creator and listener, do you have an explanation how it able to transmit such diverse and potentially deep messages?

It is impossible for me to answer this question. But I believe in the power of music, for its capacity both to heal and destroy.