Part 2

Could you take us through a day in your life, from a possible morning routine through to your work? Do you have a fixed schedule? How do music and other aspects of your life feed back into each other - do you separate them or instead try to make them blend seamlessly?

I wake up. I drink coffee. Maybe I take a walk. Maybe I write some words. Maybe I have breakfast. Maybe I listen to the news. Maybe I talk to people. Maybe I avoid people. Maybe I sort papers. Maybe I have a bath. Maybe I listen to cicadas. Maybe, I think. Maybe I better stop thinking. Maybe I read a book. And maybe I do not get it. I eat. Maybe I turn on equipment. Maybe I play with it. Maybe I write down something. Maybe I strike it through later. Maybe I will drink red wine. Or tea. Maybe I think about liquids. Maybe I answer questions or ask questions as an answer. I work. Maybe I do not do anything and maybe I feel good and bad about it at the same time. Then I go to bed.
I guess everything blends.

Could you describe your creative process on the basis of a piece or album that's particularly dear to you, please? Where did the ideas come from, how were they transformed in your mind, what did you start with and how do you refine these beginnings into the finished work of art?

I see ideas as something not necessarily being a product of just me and myself. I cannot name or explain all these different intangible moments and appearances.
I guess I prefer grabbing fragments and transpose them in a medium that has the ability to at least catch a bit of what is there. Maybe this is too abstract, but it also is very abstract. Something beyond our understanding. I like that.

There are many descriptions of the ideal state of mind for being creative. What is it like for you? What supports this ideal state of mind and what are distractions? Are there strategies to enter into this state more easily?

My strategy is mainly none. Letting things come and go and appear and disappear. Having space, letting space be. No need for products. No need to force. Void is also part of everything.

How is playing live and writing music in the studio connected? What do you achieve and draw from each experience personally? How do you see the relationship between improvisation and composition in this regard?

Performing live and working in the studio are two different actions to me, but both follow improvisational approaches. When performing live there is already a bit of structure I prepared, but in a way, I also have enough space to expand or react to an environment. Each time I play live a song changes a bit. One has to regard, that playing live is also a form of exposing oneself to a public, or at least it is for me like that, which is super intense. Maybe also, because these songs are created in a more private environment of my studio and when I am on my own. When playing a concert, I want to transfer the mood which a specific song carries for me into the space. With all its dropouts, it is silences, it’s patience. And when working in the studio I do it in a similar way, but vastly different at the same time.

How do you see the relationship between the 'sound' aspects of music and the 'composition' aspects? How do you work with sound and timbre to meet certain production ideas and in which way can certain sounds already take on compositional qualities?

It is all fluid.

Our sense of hearing shares intriguing connections to other senses. From your experience, what are some of the most inspiring overlaps between different senses - and what do they tell us about the way our senses work? What happens to sound at its outermost borders?

Hearing or listening is already a very intense experience. We are so much used to using our ears in a daily routine that we are sometimes not aware that we can try to explore our environment by giving it a bit more attention through our sense of hearing. I want to stop answering that question here and whoever is reading what I write could try to listen to what is surrounding them for at least one minute.

Art can be a purpose in its own right, but it can also directly feed back into everyday life, take on a social and political role and lead to more engagement. Can you describe your approach to art and being an artist?

It took me some time to get an idea of structures or systems of art. But art itself, as a process, was always present, also if I did not know about it back then.

In general, I think a lot about systematic methods, symptoms of a society, political action or non-action, exclusion/inclusion, education, our bodies and our reception of stereotypes, mechanisms, ecological impacts…it all and much more overlaps and influences each other. And us. How we are, behave and interact.

I grew up in a non-academic family. Both of my parents were/are workers. The only thing I could relate to back then was music.

I always had problems with authoritarian forms of teaching and rarely felt comfortable in a school environment. This led me to drop out of school as a teenager. And it was not until a few years ago that I went back into that school space in the form of studying art. Whereby I always ask myself the question whether you can study art at all.

So, all in all in the past I was very confused about the fact that I did not seem to fit in any of these structures. Neither in the often highly stylized world of workers from an academic point of view, nor in the academicized and exclusionary world of artistic institutions. Now I understand things a bit better.

My approach to art…how to name it. Maybe I already said it, but with other words. And I do not have an approach to being labelled as an artist or anything else at all.

It is remarkable, in a way, that we have arrived in the 21st century with the basic concept of music still intact. Do you have a vision of music, an idea of what music could be beyond its current form?

I think that when referring to a basic idea or concept of music, it plays a role what previous experience there is and which musical environments one locates oneself in. We must not forget that there is always something that is not on our radar and that there are different approaches and views which can be exchanged, but which one does not have to share. I think respectful interaction is especially important not only in this regard.

In general, the views and receptions of art history are sometimes still dusty. Consider, for example, the partial perpetuation of Eurocentric perspectives and their effects. At the same time, the question of history arises. What do we learn and how do we deal with it? What questions have we not yet asked ourselves and the people around us? Is the past a purely subjective one? I don’t think so.

My vision, what a question. I will think about it. And maybe I answered it already. Maybe I don’t have an answer at all. Maybe there is nothing. Perhaps one thing that I wouldn't necessarily call a vision, but which is nevertheless a concern for me: To simply let sound be sound. Involvement of images if they play a role, but to be able to just let the sound be there, all by itself. I find that important.