Name: Theresa Stroetges aka Golden Diskó Ship
Nationality: German
Occupation: Composer, songwriter, vocalist, multi-instrumentalist
Current release: Golden Diskó Ship's Oval Sun Patch is out via Karaoke Kalk.  
Recommendations: I recently read Octavia Butlers Xenogenesis Trilogy (“Lilith’s Brood”) and totally loved it. Also I can’t believe it hasn’t been turned into a movie yet? Can someone please do that.
Florentina Holzinger’s group performances also blow me away every time.

If you enjoyed this Golden Diskó Ship interview and would like to keep up to date with her music, visit her official homepage. 



When I listen to music, I see shapes, objects and colours. What happens in your body when you're listening? Do you listen with your eyes open or closed?

It totally depends on the music and the mood I’m in. More than creating interior visuals in my mind, I often connect strong musical experiences to visual memories of the places and situations that I was in with the music.

The two are glued together in my mind to one inseparable thing.

What were your very first steps in music like and how would you rate the gains made through experience - can one train/learn being an artist?

I have been hooked on music from an early age. I started learning viola as a child and played classical music in orchestras and a string quartet as a teenager. Then I played electric guitar and more instruments in a band and later started multitrack recording and electronic music.

I can’t speak for others of course, but I think it just comes to you - when you get hooked on making music, it just pulls you in. You just want to keep coming back to the music and to spend more time with it. It’s all about the joy you get from it, and about staying curious.

According to scientific studies, we make our deepest and most incisive musical experiences between the ages of 13-16. What did music mean to you at that age and what’s changed since then?

Music meant so much for me at that age, and it was a big part of the process of trying to find out who I am or could be. I connected to myself and to other people through music.

Even though I don’t listen to the same music any more, I still have a special emotional reaction when I hear it somewhere by chance. It seems unfair that that special intensity of a musical experience is particular to the age from 13-16 and gets weaker as we get older.

I also feel like that by now I have heard so much music in my life it is more rare to be as surprised and mind-blown as I was back then, but the magic still happens all the time, and I cherish those special moments just as much as I did as a teenager.

Where does the impulse to create something come from for you? What role do often-quoted sources of inspiration like dreams, other forms of art, personal relationships, politics etc play?

For me, the inspiration to make music does not so much come from something that is external from music, but it’s most of all the simple desire to make music, to be in the process of making music, as a way to spend my time and something to immerse myself in. Then in a second step the things you mentioned, like dreams, feelings and events, might come in and shape what I am doing.

Sometimes I get inspired by a piece of music I hear and think that I want to make something like that myself, but then it always turns out to become something completely different.

The partner of a musician once told me that he often felt jealous of her guitar. How would you describe your own relationship with your instrument, tools or equipment – is it an extension of your self/body, a partner and companion, a creative catalyst, a challenge to be overcome, something else entirely?

I am not super emotionally attached to particular musical instruments or other pieces of equipment, so luckily no humans would have to get jealous in that way. To me, musical instruments are more like tools to help me to go somewhere, like doors and windows or transport vehicles. If one does not work, I can try another.

My viola is most special in that way because I’ve had it since I was a teenager, and it’s not factory made so it could never be replaced if it got lost or broken.

Are you acting out certain roles or parts of your personality in your music which you couldn't or wouldn't in your daily life? If so, which are these? If not, what, would you say, are the key ideas behind your approach to music?

I am definitely acting out different versions of myself in different musical projects. This is one of the most fun things about making music for me.

It’s hard to define what they are though. They just come out before I know it, and then I meet them.

Music is a language, but like any language, it can lead to misunderstandings. In which way has your own work – or the work of artists you like or admire - been misunderstood? How do you deal with this?

True, every communication is so difficult when you think about it, and no music or person can be liked and understood by everybody.

So I just cherish what speaks to me, and I am super happy when I feel understood in my music by some people.

Making music, in the beginning, is often playful and about discovery. How do you retain a sense of playfulness as things become more professionalised and how do you still draw surprises from equipment, instruments, approaches and formats you may be very familiar with?  

Good question. I agree that it is a good goal to try not to become too used to one way of working but to keep looking for new ways that are not safe yet. New gear and instruments are a good way to stay “not too good at something”, but in the end it’s also about a general state of mind while creating.

Playfulness is really important for me. I think what keeps me fascinated by music is to always be looking to find something that surprises me and that I haven’t done or heard in that exact same way before. To keep it alive.

Sound, song, and rhythm are all around us, from animal noises to the waves of the ocean. What, if any, are some of the most moving experiences you've had with these non-human-made sounds? In how far would you describe them as “musical”?

I’d go with the John Cage definition that any sound around you can be perceived as musical. Classics like sounds of new birds when travelling or the sound of the ocean are quite irresistible.

I also enjoy the sound of squeaking wooden floors under my feet, the crazy sounds my fridge makes and the sounds of fire very much. All these sounds are totally musical to me.

There seems to be an increasing trend to capture music in numbers, from waveforms via recommendation algorithms up to deciphering the code of hit songs. What aspects of music do you feel can be captured through numbers, and which can not?

There are many mathematical aspects inherent to music, but in the end they are not the ones that fasciate me most.

Personally, I’m more interested in the sonic effects of the math and what they make me feel.  

How does the way you make music reflect the way you live your life? Can we learn lessons about life by understanding music on a deeper level?

Music just helps in so many situations. If you can find the right music for a situation, you can understand and deal with it much better.

For me, music is definitely therapeutic. I also agree with films or books that present music as one of the most important things to survive catastrophes, equally important as food and drink.

We can surround us with sound every second of the day. The great pianist Glenn Gould even considered this the ultimate delight. How do you see that yourself and what importance does silence hold? What role do headphones play for you in this regard?

I could not listen to music all the time, and I find it tough to be exposed to music against my choice, for example in a supermarket. It just takes up too much of my attention and I find it hard to focus. I really enjoy silence, and I love listening to music without doing anything else at the same time.

Great headphones can provide fantastic solitary sound experiences, and that’s a really special experience. I love moving through the city with headphones, too. But I think my favourite is the feeling of music that takes up space in the air.

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 don’t have an explanation for it, but making and performing music somehow just touches me on a deeper level than most other activities in life, and even though I love coffee, making a great cup of coffee has not given me as much joy as making music. Yet.

Every time I listen to "Albedo 0.39" by Vangelis, I choke up. But the lyrics are made up of nothing but numbers and values which don't appear to have any emotional connotation. Do you, too, have a song or piece of music that affects you in a seemingly counterintuitive way – and what, do you think, is happening here?

To me, this experience you describe of being deeply touched by a piece of music that has no emotional lyrical content is not a contradiction at all. I can totally relate to this kind of primal musical experience that is not connected to a form of “content”.

However, I sometimes feel emotionally touched by music in this way against my will or better judgement.

If you could make a wish for the future – what are developments in music you would like to see and hear?

There are so many fascinating and diverse developments in music right now, more than I can keep up with and more than I could wish for.