Stella Sommer has been likened to Lana del Rey and Nico. As her new album as Die Heiterkeit proves, these comparisons are mere pointers for an artist for whom songwriting is beyond control – sometimes a walk in the park, sometimes a battlefield.
The Canadian composer intended approaching her debut album with the most minimal concept imaginable. In the end, the pieces grew increasingly more orchestral, more lush, more sepiatoned – while still incorporating her pull towards the unknown and unconventional.
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“I think we’ve moved beyond the idea of the composer as a solitary genius. Composing today is as much about curating and connecting as it is about generating.”
At first, translating the dark subject matter of a short story by Nicoleta Esinencu into music seemed like a journey into Eastern European history. As G.W. Sok and Pavel Tchikov eventually discovered, it turned out to be a stunningly visionary comment on the current the state of the world.
“I believe that the relationship between the roots of music and what we have now is NOT STRONG ENOUGH.”
“Our dishwasher has some great polyrhythms! It also creates this melody which reminds my partner of the Curtis Mayfield song ‘Move On Up’!”
People, programs, and places are on the Spanish cellist's mind, both when she's composing and performing. But in the end, her music always feeds off the human experience: “When something feels important, your body remembers.”
The left-of-center artist is using every tool at her disposal to keep her approach fresh: Scoring for film, tapping into AI, drawing from Mumbai's art scene and “working with atonal sources of sound, to create textural dance music that feels accessible and fresh.”
Electronic music is the natural home for Pawas Gupta. Still, in his productions, the idea of a band is always on his mind – regardless of the genre he's working on.
“The only thing that truly gives me hope for humanity is sound.”
"Music can quite literally save lives."
South Korea's jazz scene is changing: The fractures of society are pushing artists to speak up, while new technologies are fostering sonic experimentation. Seoul is oscillating between tradition and hyper-modernity – and yonglee is eager to ride the wave.
Releasing two albums at the same time might not seem particularly minimalistic. But for Come Down and Mirror Ring, Canadian songwriter Ensign Broderick restricted himself to little more than his voice and the piano – in this vast emotional space, every single sound matters.
It don't mean a thing unless it ain't got those strings: After 15 years of relentlessly reinvigorating Swing, the Scottish ensemble have enriched their sound with a layer of nostalgic violins – be prepared to cry once, then cry twice.
Pavel Tchikov had to face emotional baggage from childhood for his duo with Dutch vocalist G.W. Sok. It translated to a work of brutal beauty, industrial beats, glistening strings, and naked poetry.
"Once it was just me and my handheld camera, the artists seemed to open up more."
Pasquinelli has been the emotional pulse behind a variety of formidable formations at the borders between jazz and post-punk and -rock. On his solo project, he is now drumming and collaborating with delicately drifting drones – an equally dreamy, intense, and otherworldly experience.
This band contains multitudes: The Young Mothers are playing spiritual jazz filled with beauty, fuelled by diversity and a deep sense of trust.
Too much coffee, a subversive humour and an un-spiritual approach to creativity drove the Irish trio's latest set of songs about feminism and dogs. The band's manic post-rock is as experimental as it is catchy, taking the pressure of their anthemic riffs to the point of explosive combustion.
As a resident of one of the world's most maximalist metropoles, Kalkotta's 303-and-drum-maschine explorer Varun Desai came to appreciate the minimalist mindset late. It's still a radical concept to him – but one which offers the reward of total freedom of expression.
Aubry's list of favourite sounds is long, extending from abandoned railway shacks and a river gorge in the Moroccan Atlas to old movie theatres and the hellbound chaos of metal band Portal. But don't get him started on the sirens of Berlin's fire trucks!
"This is the lesson we learn from music: it allows us to just be here, right now, present."
In this expansive interview on the occasion of her new album Poravna with improvisers Tony Buck, Axel Dörner, Noël Akchoté, and Greg Cohen, the Crotian vocalist and composer dives deep into all aspects of singing – from the sacredness of performing to the limitations of the body.
A shared admiration for Brazilian music from the 60s and 70s was the “North Star” for the duo's heavenly acoustic excursions. Expanding on short, sometimes 4-bar-loop ideas, these compositions are dreamy yet distinct, sweet but passionate, hazy but with intense focus.
Sasson's recent collection of songs deals with longing, hope, and inbetween sensations. These pieces are tender, but Sasson won't let anything stop them – not even having to play in total darkness for many minutes during a recent gig.
Translating their raw, propulsive electronic afrobeat to the stage remains a constant challenge for the trio. The real task, however, is to remain relevant: “Being an original artist today feels like survival.”
“Loss, grief and the process of trying to self-assure” remain the focal points of the Glasgow duo's beautifully poignant songs. This time, however, enriched by Adrian Utley's synths and rich string arrangements, they tap into even deeper and more powerful sensations.
“We can all benefit from listening to music and to our fellow human beings on a deeper level.”
Harrison Lipton's songs are deceptively soft, padded with gorgeous harmonies and dreamy grooves. But his diaristic and private take on lyrics lends them a relatably moving, and occasionally devastatingly heartbreaking quality.
With a unique aesthetic and style, KitschKrieg have made it to the creative top of Germany's hip hop scene. On London's Calling, they focus on collaboration and songwriting, while staying true to their philosophy: Being professional dilettantes with a minimal set-up.
The press release to the duo's latest explorations mentions Deleuze, Nietzsche, and the "planetary movements." The music, meanwhile, performed on small pipe organ and modular, is built on direct interaction, holding a space of gradually interweaving and shifting oscillations.
There has to be more to music than emotions, finds saxophonist Uli Kempendorff. On the new album with his quartet Field, there is. Casting a questioning mood between transcendence and the visceral, these pieces invite the listener to co-shape the experience.
As Black Loops, Riccardo Paffetti pushes his laid-back, futuristic Detroit love letters forward with live drumming and cool electro beats. It's cosmic man-machine music made by humans for humans.
Switching from keyboard to modular finally allowed Danielle Nia to realise what was in her head. Her ultimate goal: To shape her sound to the same degree as a string player or vocalist.
“In a song you can say anything you like. But I think it is important to say something that matters to you.“
Some people can use improvisation to talk to the universe, Rapturous Apollo Helios believes. But for the infectuous 21st century afrobeat of the Ruffcats, the main key is simply for the groove to never stop.
“It's a big thing coming,” Marina Sakimoto sings in the opening to her new album. But the music breathes a sense of intimacy and longing. Right in between nostalgia and euphoria lies the magic of her fuzz-drenched dream pop.
The 18 short pieces on Watras's “Almond Tree Duos” are pure, poignant, powerful in their immediacy. The emotional range is wide and the techniques diverse - but hope is always the overarching sensation.
"A musician can’t truly be an innovator without being well informed about the history and legacy of jazz and jazz musicians."
The Australian sound artist, currently on tour through Europe, has experienced sound in the most diverse spaces – including a huge disused fish silo. Still, nothing beats the calm and beauty of everyday noises.
Joining forces as it's me?, Matthias Tschopp and Jürg Zimmermann aimed at something in between experimental sound art, ambient, techno and jazz. Getting there turned into a journey.
Something's hidden in the basement, something sinister and hypnotic, flooded in strobe light, smeared with pulsating synth streaks. If you want to feel safe here, you've got to make the demons your friend.
The mostly Berlin-based trio are playing an airy, almost weightless version of motoric magic. Somewhere between Can and Khruangbin and forever indebted to the jam.
Merrick Winter's new EP is a collection of true, not necessarily real stories – picked up over dinner while riding the train, overheard on the street, drawn from life lessons imparted to him.
The Belgian producer's studio has recently gone through incisive changes. But it is never the hardware that counts – but rather the will to keep going and radically question himself in difficult times.
With thousands of kilometres between them, coherence was the main concern for Hans Bilger and Eli Greenhoe's songwriting process. As they soon found out, they weren't building bridges – but entire musical worlds.
On the return of his band Los Forajidos, the Venezuelan bassist hits a lighter tone than on the politically driven predecessor. His delirious, trance-inducing grooves between tradition, trap and robotic funk remain true to his core motto, however: Ancient to the Future and Future to the Ancient.
The Roboquarians' second album is progressive-punk-style Black Flag jazz: Free, but with intense intent.
"I’ve looked up and seen smiles. I’ve looked up and seen tears. Sometimes during the same song. Sometimes at the same time."
Joni Mitchell and Erykah Badu showed Adja how to not just believe in herself, but to actually believe herself. In her music, she is not afraid to extend her limits – she's not just an artist, but an athlete, too.
“If I had seen Hendrix live, or Coltrane ... I would probably have become a gardener.”
Picking up a variety of raw materials from Home Depot was the first step of the creative process for Nathan Davis's new piece. Gradually, the music grew into a micro-immersive space of Youtube samples, MaxMSP manipulations and suspensefully discrete, visceral sounds.
Connections and exploring the unknown are at the core of Vilhelm Bromander's approach to music. The new album of his Unfolding Orchestra is an epic spiritual jazz journey embracing the mystery of twilight states.
For his euphoric solo debut, the Struts' frontman studied great poets and lyricists. In the end, however, melody is still key.
“I have gigged when I felt like I have nothing to give. It's in those moments that the audience can carry you.”
Usually, Mobley can hear and project the end result of the creative process right from the start. For his new, speculative fiction concept album, however, he had to wait patiently for the right ideas to come.
Somewhere between The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, Mark Isham's ambient jazz soundtracks and the clear bell tones and choir-like sounds of early Roland synths lies a place the Dutch producer loves to visit.
Konalgad's debut LP sits at the cusp between dream and nightmare, reliving and exorcising a dark phase in his life. And yet, these pieces move towards the light, not away from it – testimony to the ideal of physically playing, singing and moving his body while composing.
The Taiwan-born sound artist's Lost Communication is one of the most wondrous takes on animal sounds: Listening deeply, she is putting birds in the spotlight, propelling their song forward with beats, sweetening their signals with sultry soundscapes.
“The mixing stages can feel very sculptural. Arranging is more like painting.”
Growth is the key theme on the trio's new album. So why are their lovingly crafted, breathtakingly harmonised songs moved by a bittersweet undercurrent?
There is always potential for something new in the swing-oriented jazz of the British saxophonist. And yet, in our digital age, sometimes just hitting the stage with an all-acoustic band can be enough to grab attention.
The cellist and composer finds beauty in how sounds interact with the space they're born into. On his new album, every stroke of the bow and modular synth line is lovingly, laboriously shaped by hand.
Winn's new songs were haunted by a ghostly premonition. The devastating suicide of her father changed her as a person and an artist – but there was never any choice but to deal with it with raw honesty.
As a kid, the Swedish songwriter was addicted to books and played in nine bands at the same time. These addictions never ended, they just got sublimated: Words and music are never separated in her larger-than-life torch songs.
Gleb Kolyadin's Mobula touches on anything from minimal music to instrumental piano prog. That's because he believes that anything can be an inspiration.
Ukrainian producer Anton Somin talks the talk on the future of music - and his meticulously crafted, future-high, sample-shot rhythmical sculptures more than delivers on the promises.
The Israeli pianist and ECM artist had no intention to record a solo album. Listening back to two gigs of “miniatures and tales,” he discovered a spontaneous beauty beyond planning.
Recorded to analog tape and capturing the essence of twelve years as a duo, this third-eye-folk-music builds intimate spaces from guitar, kora and vocals.
Music, for Micah Thomas, fosters radical acceptance. Ahead of a trio performance at Ladbroke Hall, the pianist reflects on his views on collaboration and improvisation and how performing on stage keeps him sane.
"We need noise to keep us creative and push boundaries."
The British singer-songwriter loves the sensation of having her body taken over by music - turning into a medium for pure desperation and anger.
Ned Pegler sees no reason to fear for the future. On his deep new album he is tapping into the unknown and building instantly relatable visions of dance music from improvisations.
4D performances caught in a time loop: Using and breaking the spell of his loops, the British fusion master replaces improvisation and composition with his personal dream-logic.
Composer and improviser Kjetil Husebø had become estranged from the piano. Then, he connected it to samplers and electronics and started building alien worlds somewhere between structure and spontaneity.
The British pianist and composer is about to take his soulful modern jazz to stages across the UK. As always, the album versions will merely be a springboard for inspired in-the-moment actualisation.
In her music, Alonso weaves sonic objects of different spatialities into time-arresting drift-states. It's a place of pure experience - no one's judging.
In his new project, the Gilla Band guitarist explores twisted house, noise and making the foundations of his tracks sound fucked.
We call it interspiritual jazz: The soulful songs and blissful moods of these two multitalented polymaths extends beyond borders and genres.
To Alex Garnett, even after 100 years, jazz is still “finding its way.” Ahead of a quintet performance at Ladbroke Hall, the saxophonist reflects on the unique UK sound, the chops of a new generation and why his discography as a leader has remained fairly small.
El Leon Pardo's journey into music started with a mystical experience. On his psychedelic new album, he is channeling it through cosmic cumbia, spiritual jazz and dubbed-out electronics.
Sri-Lankan born Dilee D has found a new home in Chicago. A firm believer in the benefits of technology, his shimmering melodic house is inspired by the constant need to push the envelope.
At 12, Leonie Jakobi wanted to sound like Bon Jovi. Today, the singer has found her own voice, and her own style - and has come full circle on her new single.
"The world needs an understanding of complexity, of the coexistence of opposing thoughts and emotions. Nothing is ever just one thing."
With a background in jazz and inspired by Frank Zappa and Edgard Varèse early on, Jason Kriveloff's take on house was always going to be different. Recorded while going through serious health issues, his new EP is a triumph of life teaming with individuality.
A series of sonic postcards with an all-embracing reach and a profound emotional impact.
Debussy with contemporary grooves, Satie even dreamier than the original? Chris Gall is improvising the music of the great impressionists - looking for the link between himself, history, and the moment.
The songs of the Australian duo float in soft, psychedelic fluid – as if each note, every word and the next chord were sent to them from an alternate, liminal space.
The electro-acoustic composer talks us through the motivations and inspirations behind her latest collection of works.
Virtual and physical reality merge on this time-travelling fusion of rock, jazz, and electronica – a perfect representation of the present moment.
Equally wondrous, joyful, and sexy, Oliver Lutz's music is a celebration of his deep fascination with sound – be it from Coltrane, Tomita, fusion jazz or the singing of lyrebirds.
Saxophonist Tara Sarter doesn't believe anything is better than anything else. On her latest album, this simple creed translates to one of the most unconventional visions of the jazz trio format.
These electronic pop songs, influenced equally by Sinéad O'Connor, Patti Smith and Björk, are powerful in their courage to portrait powerlessness, universal in their intimacy, consoling by channelling pain.
Aiming for the border between divine ecstasy and extreme horror, the doom metal trio “saturate the acoustic space and overtone series in an attempt to sever the listener’s consciousness from the past and the future.”
The term “synth pop” doesn't do this collection of dark, mysterious, and weirdly glamorous songs justice. Inviting myriads of comparisons, it remains incomparable.
Soulful, sultry, and smooth, Tasha LaRae's Right Now is a feast for lovers of deep vocal house. Every track stays true to her goal: Expressing every emotion she holds inside.
Vega Trails are still playing subtle, spiritual trios between double bass, sax and space. This time, however, they wanted to see make their minimalist music as big as mountains.
Scott Walker’s Tilt “objectively” inspired the majestic trance-states of the New England fivepiece – never fully discharging, perpetually in a state of feverish suspension.
A caleidoscopic continuum from hip to jazz, a transatlantic bridge, a showcase for a highly individual band sound.
Olafur Arnalds is a fan, but Burial is an inspiration: VRAELL re-defines the borders between producer, songwriter, and composer.
Music may not be as important in an ADD world. But to accordion-and-guitar-weilding jazzrock-trio Broodmen, there is still no alternative to living jazz 24/7.
Terrible or incredible? The trio's hypertechnical metal turns towards storytelling.
The upcoming new DARGZ full-length is a family affair filled with warm soul, crisp beats and chopped-up contributions from London's new jazz scene.
Embracing multimediality, and multidisciplinarity, Gryvul navigates between radical sound art, Ukrainian folk-themes and inventive ensemble work.
Combinations over Content: The Swiss saxophonist is giving in to the moment completely on his new, entirely live-recorded album.
“Part of the role of an artist is to determine if an idea is worth exploring.”
The Brussels-based band's passionate post-rock-electronica finds an excitingly unstable equilibrium between sentimental analog nostalgia and loud, uplifting futurism.
With Spiral Deluxe, the Detroit keyboard player is shaping his vision of a bright future – between the acoustic and the electric, tradition and progress, jazz and house.
High Frequency Fetishism: On his fuzz-drunk solo debut, Denis Wanic of SUIR is affectionately piercing your ears.
Based on an old French theatrical production, the Tuxon, AZ band created a trip of latinamerican rhythms and deep songwriting - a challenge they wouldn't care to do again any time soon.
One of the great American gospel voices about the importance of natural harmony – and the cough drops The Blind Boys of Alabama swear by.
Is every sound we hear loaded with associations with our past? On the first album of his new project – a collage of beats, sequences, personal messages and blocks of sound - Matteo Liberatore is determined to find out.
No abstractions: Electro-acoustic improvisation in the age of fun.
The Dutch indie rock trio are finding beauty in a fucked up world - always looking for the suckerpunch in the most mundane things.
Pushing beyond autotune, Darci Phenix discovered the true potential of her voice on Sable – while retaining the dreamy, otherworldly spirit of her folk songs.
Utopian jazz: Music so beautiful that it makes you experience and long for a better world.
Experiencing the duo's debut album MestizX is “like downloading a mountain” - a mind-altering journey through trance-inducing vocals, multilayered drumming, naked emotion and psychotropic electronics.
The “rebel sound” marries true lyricism with a border- and genreless sound that is dark, powerful and uplifting all at once.
The melodies of the Japanese Acid-Fusion-trio keep falling down - but the effect is one of consolation and ecstasy.
“If more people approached communication the way musicians do, so many conflicts could dissolve effortlessly.”
Tradition and the present are caught in a burning, dream-like embrace in Rose Bett's songs. Each flaw and failing, each high point and low point – nothing is ever off the table.
Martial arts and creative remembering are guiding principles for the piano-percussion duo. Their debut album incorporates moments of intimacy, sonic sculpting and suspenseful drum rolls.
The deeper this single-note meditation goes, the more it creates the sensation that “we're all in this together.”
No plans, no concepts. Just honesty and vulnerability: On an impressionist, bittersweet new trio album, Mathias Landæus is once again surrendering to the flow.
WHO SHOT SCOTT's music may not be overtly political. Its dopamine-spike-frenzy gives it a soundtrack-to-the-next-revolution-quality nonetheless.
There is a lot of space in Füting's compositions – filled with echoes of the past, an embrace of magic and the will to break it.
Live, Xani channels the rawness of Hendrix and Paganini. On her upcoming studio album, she expresses feelings of loss and grief through krautrock.
Cuban folk, Nu Soul, dreamy acoustics and uplifting beats - everything flows naturally on the new JOHNNYSWIM album. Aptly, writing songs feels like water to them.
KARMÅ's music is a return to the core of club music: Alchemic, euphoric, and deeply spiritual. It is also simply classic songwriting.
Aggression and vulnerability blend in the trios' fuzzy indie rock. Revealing their darkest thoughts opens up a space of hope.
The Armenian diaspora continues to influence Kouyoumdjian's work. And yet, her ingenious use of field recordings roots her documentarian approach to the present.
From Protection-era Massive Attack via modular-synth-fantasies to stripped-down melancholia, Nite Kite is exploring personality over progress.
Energy is an inspiring potential in the crushingly beautiful feedback anthems of Mohanna. It needs to stay untethered by the egomaniacal creatures of the world.
Even after five decades, Fisher Turner is still just "making it up."
Using 3D ambisonic microphones, Barrett's current acousmatic works listen towards the future: Are we headed for beauty or dystopia?
Damascus and New York are the pillars of Kinan Azmeh's world. His intensely spiritual, ecstatically still music, however, is bound to no genre or place.
Nicole McCabe is learning to relinquish control. Intruigingly, that's precisely how she regains it on the mysterious, surreal-in-a-beguiling-way analog-synth jazz of her latest album.
Mehr's immersive installation SUPRA may sound enchanting. But its themes are serious: Unless we take action, we are headed for epochal changes.
If inspiration hits, the Romanian pianist can spend months diving into a composer's letters, and life story. Music is living and breathing – a dialogue with the past.
The post-punk band's new release captures them at their most raw and intense: Sounds cutting like knives, words turning to swords.
Inspired by mysterious photos by nanny photographer Vivian Maier, Harald Walkate imagines the narrative beyond the frame.
First, Febriani spent time in the Indonesian forest. Then, she translated the inspiratio into stripped-down, bass-heavy percussion-funk.
The London duo's haunting songs carry the DNA of 70s psychedelic folk and dreamy soft rock – with just the right amount of “roughage.”
“With the kind of tone I have, one bottle of Bourbon and two packs of cigarettes a day would probably help. But I am not that disciplined.”
Thorvaldsdottir's new work feels like a journey to the heart of sound: A slow stream of tiny particles, intimate cascades and reverberations tending towards the infinite.
Is the Swiss composer's new album a piece of ghostly resonances? A sculpture? Or is it just a space in which it exists as a sonic sculpture?
Music can just be a tool for having a good time to lisa tba. But she also uses it to support causes such as migrant solidarity and feminist struggles.
Sound is almost all-important for David Grubbs. His new collection of "distorted poems" is intense testimony to that.
The Tradition is to Break the Tradition: Petra Onderuf spices up jazz with Eastern European and Balkan influences.
Gabríel Ólafs imagines what a world of ice would sound like – rejecting the notion that there could ever be too much reverb.
Blending Yoruba culture and spiritual jazz, NIJI's Oríkì is a passionate, pristinely produced piece of deep soul searching.
"I’ve always been drawn to music that has different degrees of weirdness to it."
The French jazz saxophonist sculpts glacially majestic soundscapes – creative antidotes to the vicious cycle of noise he's observing.
The Moroccan-Yemeni singer has a voice and an on-stage presence that takes her audience on a rollercoaster ride. It's a blessing and a responsibility.
Inspired by an indelible Autechre performance and living alone in a mountain cabin, the French producer's music is pure exploration.
In his late 20s and mesmerised by Berlin's 24/7 party life, the German songwriter didn't get anything done. It turned out to be the most creative time of his life.
Recorded in an old underground water tank, Violeta García's new album was stolen, then returned – embarking on a journey of its own.
“The best way is to DJ like a producer and to produce like a DJ.“
Lauren's outsider nature shines through in increasingly minimal, life-affirming jams - but she doesn't call herself a jazz musician anymore.
A tiny tool caught every tremor and every hesitation of Garcia's hand. Her new album is a work of of fragile, heartfelt guitar noise.
For Iona Evans, sheer determination in the face of rejection and belief in the world you are creating are crucial.
Miramar's bittersweet bolero anthems find endless fascination in the "human social experience" and the relationship between joy and pain.
The Swiss-Australian pianist-composer is looking for a healing energy – inspiring both reflection and action.
“I strongly believe that community is key to fighting injustice. Music is one way to build communities.”
"I use music and concerts as a way to forget about current events, worries or concerns."
Jazz-Ambient-Rap-Drone composer Ralph Heidel still “fucks up a lot.” But he's confident “the audience still knows what I’m trying to say.”
For the Ghanaian rapper, hip hop is a case of “either you're living it or you're watching it.”
"Before we think too hard about freedom we should start by focusing on kindness."
In the spiritual jazz-house of the NYC multihyphenate, improvisation is a tool for tapping into the subconscious.
The legendary French composer and arranger (Serge Gainsbourg, Françoise Hardy) still writes music "like they did in the 17th century."
"I wanted every note to feel pure, unfiltered, and deeply authentic—a reflection of the soul and spirit of Qawwali."
Improvisation is everywhere on Ebba Åsman's hip-hop-infused torch songs. But she doesn't need to sound like her jazz heroes to honour them.
The Danish fivepiece's magical, multi-facetted jazz is held together by friendship, laughs – as well as lots of coffee.
"Sound is one of society’s core expressions. It’s one of its identification marks."
A conversation about “sucking music through the pores," becoming a sound field, and extreme sonic experiences.
“The process of DAW to Bandcamp to CDJ is starting to run out of mileage. Exploring new ways to present your work is going to be the fun part.“
"I lost a fair amount of my top end hearing so I gravitate towards bassy sounds. It’s a physiological response at this point."
"All the great improvisors worked hard at a compositional approach to improvising."
"You have to live a very full life to channel something meaningful to the audience."
From Blomqvist Sound to Blomqvist Archives
"I live right by the S-Bahn and listen to that for hours. It’s kind of irritating and comforting at the same time."
"Reacting in the moment is like meeting someone for coffee—you’re not going to recite memorized stories."
"My own voice isn't loud enough to be heard. So I'll let the music speak through big speakers."
"Each album has a different theme. On this album, the word “graveyard” was the theme.”
"Jazz has lost its meaning as a specific style. It’s a way of making music."
"Ego is not about being the best. It just gives me a lot of self-awareness and self-confidence to be able to express myself."
"Some of my music could be played by a child in their first year of piano study. There are so few notes, yet they say so much to me."
"We can’t just hide from it and hope it all works out."
“Maybe I’m just trying to fill a void, an emptiness. It’s addictive magic.“
"In a time when developments tend to draw people apart, creating something as a democratic collective is, in itself, a political act."
“My daily work consists of expanding my toolbox - so I can move from any given idea to any other given idea.“
"I want to make anthems for the place I am from for the people that share my background."
“Reimagining our songs in a nonlinear environment and creating a two-way interaction between ourselves and the audience is very exciting for us.“
"The owner of a jazz club told me that I should be careful that people still understood our music. But isn't the jazz club the right place for unbiased listening?"
"I wanted to record the lids of 20-30 coffins slamming shut. The label and sound engineer refused to help me."
"Writing feels like a bridge between the seen and unseen, between what we feel and what we want to understand."
"I try to sublimate negative feelings via music. When I come to my family, my friends, my tribe, I won’t put these things on them."
“Maybe new developments will happen in the area of how to perform this type of music.“
"Punk and Hip Hop stand for the same thing: breaking the rules and doing things your way."
"A great cup of coffee? Good beans, good grind, a summer day, a window, your new favourite song, and something to read."
“Avoiding trends and focusing on authenticity is key to taking electronic music into the future.“
"I’m still trying to figure out how to play things I learned as a child!"
For Seckou Keita, the Kora is a simple instrument channeling ancestry, secret techniques and storytelling.
“If you only have 3 or 4 elements, but they are used deliberately, you can unravel the flavor layers the longer you play the track.“
“I don’t mind being a fool. Sometimes that's what allows real music to happen.“
“Being an artist means offering a more or less unique experience that truly reflects who you are.“
"Hands rubbing on a balloon is probably my worst sound in the world. Should be illegal."
"There is only one rule: does the music have an effect on me? Anything that doesn't fulfil this rule can go."
“I normally am not loud and extreme. But I sometimes love to be that way whilst playing.“
“All soundlifeforms are welcome! No tonal racism!“
“In Brazil I make my beats way more percussive. In China, the clap is the most important part in the groove rather than the kick.“
“For my live album, I had to listen to 400 improvisations of myself.“
"I'd prefer a vision of diversity rather than merely showcasing the culture of rich civilizations."
"Intercultural collaborations push me to reinvent my role as a musician every single time."
"I can feel thrown off if a random love song appears in the middle of a breakup album."
"Playing improvised music with honesty and integrity is an act of defiance in a society that values shallow things and encourages our worst instincts."
“My love of this music never subsides. I just have to wade through a lot of shit in order to find it.“
"This album is a record of how my identity has been evolving."
“Autobahn is still special to me.“
"Controlling technology just with your mind sounds like the future. I guess we’re not so far away from that."
"The motorik beat is not just a rhythm - it's a way of getting lost in the music."
"The core idea of MM Works is the dynamic we get when playing together. That is hard to get online."
"I have tables full of machines. I had so much stuff Tresor was kind of annoyed."