Part 2

Already as a little kid, I was drawn to all aspects of electronic/electric music but I've never quite been able to put a fnger on why this is. What's your own relationship to electronic sounds, rhythms, productions like – what, if any, are fundamental diferences with “acoustic“ music and tools?

My relationship between electronic and acoustic sound is again very flexible and fluid. In my world of making music, it is kind of both. For example I’ll take the sound of a cello and then put this sample into my DAW and then I’ll stretch it, pitch it, put synthetic reverbs on, play with the echo or even distort it until it is unrecognisable.

An example of this weaving of the acoustic and electronic can be heard on my track “Upon Your Skin” from my album Sowing Worlds.



Here all the sounds are recorded in my old bathroom when I lived in Copenhagen. The sound of a toilet seat slamming, metallic hits and vocals are merged together in a jumble of what are both electronic and acoustic sounds.

Another thing I would often do when creating a piece of music is, I would record a longer feld recording and use it as a mood in the piece. This will be a way for me to have a time frame for the piece, a kind of score, but also to make surroundings part of the piece.

This is something which is very present in my new album Limerence, where I’ll use recordings of people chatting, the bass in the club, rain falling on the window etc.

Late producer SOPHIE said: “You have the possibility with electronic music to generate any texture, and any sound. So why would any musician want to limit themselves?” What's your take on that and the relevance of limitations in your set-up and process?

I like this quote by SOPHIE! I think it is very true and what I also experienced when I moved into my DAW. I was able to collect and carry all these sounds and manipulate them into sounds I would not have been able to find myself outside of the DAW.

With that being said, I like to come up with certain limitations when I work myself. Limitations for me could be for example having a minimal set-up or having a specifc theme I’m working on. Themes I’ve been working on so far are tides, dream diaries, transition and transformation, mental illness, and lately heart-break.

Could you describe your creative process on the basis of one of your sounds, pieces, or live performances that's particularly dear to you, please?

Yes of course, I’ll describe my creative process on the basis of the piece "I’ll Be Fine.” The piece is the closing track of my album Touch which was released in the summer 2023 through Rhizome.



The album came into being as an interest in the relations between art and mental illness. Focusing on texture and tactility, I wanted to put into music how it feels to be a person living with a mental illness namely schizotypal personality disorder. I wanted to give mental illness a place in art focusing on everyday life, on texture and tactility. To touch and be touched. To get in touch, to lose touch and be out of touch. To feel something rough or smooth, soft or hard.

When I made this specific piece I was interested in this theme and how I could emphasise my feeling of alienation in the instrumental side of the piece. I found this string sample and stretched, morphed and merged it, so you can almost hear how it is struggling too, in between the worlds of acoustic and electronic.

In relation to sound, one often reads words like “material”, “sculpting”, and “design”. How does your own way of working with sound look like? Do you find using presets lazy?

I don’t find using presets lazy at all, whatever floats your boat when you’re making a piece of music. I myself love to create a piece from the point of departure of using what is already there. That could be a preset, sample, or an already existing sound or song. I think it is really beautiful when you reuse old material and create your own sound from that perspective.

For example I’ve reused one of my old songs “Your Eyes” and made a new version, “Your Eyes II,” for the album Touch, which I was mentioning earlier. I think it is a way to give life to something which is already there, finding a new meaning from it, listening to it from yet another perspective.



Using what is already there, is also a way to put yourself in relation to other people’s work which I love.

To some, the advent of AI and 'intelligent' composing tools ofers potential for machines to contribute to the creative process. What are your hopes, fears, expectations and possible concrete plans in this regard?

This is a topic I’ve not worked too much with yet. One of the only experiences I have with using actively artificial intelligence in music is when I made the track “Success" together with Skarv.



Here we wrote the text together with GPT-3. I think it was interesting for me to have another kind of limitation namely the AI generated text. Normally I’ll write the texts myself, or find inspiration in literature and so on.

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 refective of its overall health? What importance does silence hold in this regard from your point of view?

Sound is very important for my overall well-being. I’ll put on sounds to calm me down, lighten me up and so on.

As a person struggling with mental illness I have been thinking about this a lot. In periods I’ll get very afected by sounds in public spaces or spaces where loud sounds are very present. That could be people talking in public transport, a door slamming, or a train passing by. At other times I have no problem with these sounds, and can even find them beautiful.

I think it is very important that we create spaces in sonic hectic enviroments where it’s possible to find silence.

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

I’m not a person with tinnitus but I am defnitely taking my precautions in regard to this.

When I started out making music in the DAW I was playing it out really loud. I still love to do that, but I have kind of given it up, because of the potential
consequences.

In general I listen back to music in very diferent volumes all the time, also to be able to have the diferent tactilities in it in relation to the volume.

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

This is an interesting question and something I would love to see unfolded. For me, I have strong emotional responses to sound and tactility, more than vision for example. If I hear a certain sound, I will immediately have goose bumps, or if I feel a certain touch, then I’ll feel it down my spine.

I would love to see how the world would be structured, if there were more spaces focusing on this. Museums for example. I was at this beautiful exhibition by Pussy Riot at the museum Louisiana, Denmark, in October and I loved how the sound was so compelling. There were many video installations playing sound at the same time making it a tangle of sound.

For me this wall of sound which was created made a big impact on me. It underlined the chaotic element of how resistance can look.