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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’m really separated into composition time and performance time. When I’m composing under a deadline I can go for days and nights at a time in the studio totally immersed and forgetting to have a bite. Performing and touring takes a lot of energy also but is equally enjoyable. However, I would rarely perform after a day’s composition or vice versa.

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?

An album that is particularly dear to me is my latest release. The writing of Aralkum came out of an innate need to tell the story of the tragedy of the Aral Sea, which has been overlooked and ignored. I have always been passionate about the environment, but was specifically motivated to explore the Aral as it’s close to my heart and connected to my family roots. I work a lot with drone and multi-layered strings, so finding the voice of the Aral came quickly to me as my style suited the simplicity of the barren desert as well as the flowing of the water. I went through archive footage and listened to field recordings of the area. Sounds such as wind hitting against the rusted hulls of abandoned ships and local wildlife can be heard on the album.
 
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?

It's so different for everyone and such a human process. There is no ideal state for me. If something just doesn’t work I’m often happy to be flexible and move on. I like setting parameters, goals and timelines, as well as turning something around quite quickly, embracing the creativity in the moment and not continually tinkering. But sometimes I will come up with a nugget of an idea and endlessly tinker, it's a constant balance.
 
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?

Time constraints and pressure are the main differences. If, for example, you’re leading an orchestra in a recording session and you have a solo to play that wasn’t sent in advance, there is the weight of knowing you have to nail it in only a few takes. On the other hand, if you have the freedom, composing in your own space you can go on forever.

In a live element, there is more that could go wrong, an element of risk but you do receive incredible energy from that. Improvisation and composition are very intertwined for me, it’s how I got into composing and really still a major part of both my performance and compositional practice.  

I like recordings that sound like they were made in the moment, for example the sound of breathing or horse hair on the bow accidentally touching the wood of the instrument to me is interesting, someone else might want to edit that out in the mixing stage to make it super polished and slick but for me it creates intrigue and gives a human element.

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?

Sounds are very much part of my composition, going out into nature and making field recordings, giving them order and using it as a foundation or to add on top as an effect is fun. The basis of track 4 on Aralkum for example is the wind rattling through a rusted mast. Track 5 also has recordings of cormorants’ bird call, species that used to settle in the area before the disaster.

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?

Visual elements are a really important medium to me. I like making music videos for my tracks and exploring immersive visuals for live shows. My tracks tend to be cinematic, during my compositional process I have a visual in my head that drives forward the work, it’s not always necessarily a narrative and often can be completely abstract.

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?

I try not to limit myself to one way of thinking. Aralkum is very much an environmental concept album, taking people on a journey but I also enjoy writing for the sake of making something that moves me that’s not connected to any particular story or moment in time.

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’m enjoying the natural blending of genres, I don’t like pigeonholing music and like to see music and people evolve and adapt freely. Live concerts are so important, immersive not all streamed online. Those communal human experiences we have together through music should be cherished. I’m keeping an eye on the development of the use of Artificial Intelligence in music; I’m highly sceptical about it and am interested to see where it leads. I hope we don’t lose track of the key role that being creative plays in our human experience.


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