Name: Kim Reenskaug aka Wow Sailor
Nationality: Norwegian
Occupation: Producer, composer, drummer
Current release: Wow Sailor's Happy Fear, mastered by Lasse Marhaug and featuring contributions by Synne Sanden, Stig Reenskaug, and Arve Henriksen is out via Dugnad.
Recommendations: I would strongly recommend to check out artworks by my friend Marius Hokstad.
Also my girlfriend Synne Sanden has a fantastic new record out called Unfold. I was fortunate enough to contribute as a co-producer and create beats for it.

[Read our Synne Sanden interview]
[Read our Lasse Marhaug interview]

If you enjoyed this interview with Wow Sailor and would like to stay up to date with his music, visit him on Facebook, and bandcamp.
 


When did you start writing/producing/playing music and what or who were your early passions and influences? What was it about music and/or sound that drew you to it?

I started playing drums when I was 15. My brother had already started playing electric guitar a couple of years earlier, and from this point on we learned to play our instruments together in our parents basement, typical rock n' roll.

I remember very well the first time I tried to play a drum kit and it just instantly gave me this sense of freedom and a very direct emotional outlet. I think this still is what draws me towards the drums as an instrument. I love how it relates to the body and physicality, how it can create this hypnotic feeling.

I think there is a link between my love for the drums and my love for ambient music here. From very different angles they both create hypnotic, trance- like states in both the listener and performer. This unity is very important to me, and achieving this, one of my main goals.

My first musical passion and influence on the other hand was classic rock. Rock from the 60's and 70's like The Beatles, Zeppelin, Hendrix, Zappa, Yes and Genesis.

[Read our ‎Steve Hackett of Genesis interview]

Music production was something I first got into when a band I play in, Oh Yeah Tiger, self-produced our first EP and I started to learn Ableton Live.



When I listen to music, I see shapes, objects and colours. What happens in your body when you're listening and how does it influence your approach to creativity?

How I listen to music varies so much, depending on the situation, event and function. My deepest listening sessions are meditations where I can be very still, or sometimes I can get in touch with my body and feel it more fully. I can also have more visual experiences while listening, but this is pretty rare for me.

I guess that one way my listening affects my creativity is that I often try to capture an atmosphere that can take the listener to a specific physical and mental space. In that way I think about the function of the music quite a lot.

How would you describe your development as an artist in terms of interests and challenges, searching for a personal voice, as well as breakthroughs?

Well. I in the beginning I was into this revival music, being very into the 60s. Then, later on, I needed to go in a new direction, still rock oriented, but in a more contemporary and original way. I was getting into a lot of different types of music from jazz, in all its different forms, many types of electronic music and also hip hop.

These changes of course corresponded to things happening in my life in general – meeting new friends and collaborators, travelling and living in Germany a short while (I especially remember the influence of hearing live hip-hop with a band at the Swag jam at Badehaus in Berlin). I grew into an understanding of my own artistic voice where I needed to have several different outlets for my creativity.

So today I am very happy working with my own compositions in the Wow Sailor project as well as playing drums in several projects (Synne Sanden, Oh Yeah Tiger, Along The Leaf Nerves) and writing and performing music for dance and theatre. For a very long time I knew I wanted to make a solo record and establish Wow Sailor as my solo project. I had a lot of unfinished demoes and sketches that I couldn't finish, and I couldn't find the right direction and voice for the album, or the projects in general.

It was my girlfriend Synne Sanden who helped me find the right approach and the correct motivation for finishing the album and finding the right potential in the music. She helped built my self-esteem and teach me how to manoeuvre the process and be more constructive and organised with it. So she has a lot of credit for this album being made! Also she recorded wonderful vocals for two of the songs.

Tell me a bit about your sense of identity and how it influences both your preferences as a listener and your creativity as an artist, please.

A key point about my identity that influences my listening and creativity I think is my general orientation towards the margins and the anti-establishment.

I studied anthropology for three years and it gave me a way of looking at the world that is open and curious. I always jump between perspectives from the grass root, and specific cases to lager geo-political and philosophical scales. I find that this fuels my creativity a lot.

Also I am very aware of my extremely privileged position being a white cis-male from a very wealthy and secure society with lots of support for artists. And I don't take lightly to the fact that I am able to express my identity and live as freely as I am able to.

What, would you say, are the key ideas behind your approach to music and art?

To try to be a healing force and create a space where people can breathe, reflect, and process their experiences.

How would you describe your views on topics like originality and innovation versus perfection and timelessness in music? Are you interested in a “music of the future” or “continuing a tradition”?

I have been in both these “camps” before, being very oriented towards the continuation of a musical tradition and also being very focused on originality and the music of the future.

Today my view is that through making music I am connecting with a wider discourse of art that reaches both forwards and backwards in time. I can discover music today that sounds very contemporary but is made 100 years ago, and you can hear brand new stuff thats stale and sounds ancient. I do believe in some sort of originality, in that if I present myself honestly I will bring something important to this bigger conversation.

I don't like when people emphasize that “everything has been done and said before”, and nothing is original. I find this to be very conservative and passive.

Over the course of your development, what have been your most important instruments and tools - and what are the most promising strategies for working with them?

An important tool for me is definitely Ableton live. Both as a software in the studio, for composition and live performance it has been vital in me finding my sound and opening up my creativity as a musician.

I don't really have a strategy for working, but it is important that my workflow allows for as much spontaneity as possible, and I make sure to record every little improvisation, loop or sketch or note. This is essential for me, as I rarely work in a linear way where I know that what I'm working on will end up being released as a track.

Lately I've been interested in exploring more electro-acoustic possibilities in my setup, combining Ableton with hardware and acoustic sound sources. I guess you could say that my strategy is to continually search for new ways of combining the tools I have at hand.

Take us through a day in your life, from a possible morning routine through to your work, please.

The ideal day starts with sleeping as long as necessary. Then I drink this ceremonial cocoa together with my girlfriend. I have this friend, Martin who started importing cocoa after sailing around the world, and he makes this fantastic product that tastes great and is very nutritious (check out Myrvann.no).

After that either I go out to my own studio which is located in a separate building just outside my house. There I practice drums, work on a composition, a commission, or a studio recording. Or I firstly work on office stuff, applications and answer emails most of the day and then work on music in the afternoon.

My days are very fluid and I don't really have a routine, but switch it up from day to day depending on my needs and what I have to get done.

Could you describe your creative process on the basis of a piece, live performance or album that's particularly dear to you, please?

When I was co-producing Synne's new album Unfold we had this fantastic part of the process where we went away to a cabin where we sat up a studio and recorded a bunch of stuff for the album including beats that I made. There we had a very nice routine where every day started with running down to the ocean, swimming, then working out, stretching, drinking ceremonial cocoa, meditating and THEN we started working on the album.



The mindset we are in before and while working is for me the most important part of the creative process. To set up and prepare for the best possible physical and mental space to work. Then I find the actual creative decisions come naturally.

Listening can be both a solitary and a communal activity. Likewise, creating music can be private or collaborative. Can you talk about your preferences in this regard and how these constellations influence creative results?

The making of my record Happy Fear definitely taught me a lot about this. The creation started out as a very solitary experience, and ended with collaborations. In a way it feels like I had to involve other people to finish the album.

I had the best experience involving other people in my record. A new acquaintance with the wonderful trumpeter Arve Henriksen, and deeply personal collaborations with my girlfriend Synne on vocals and my brother Stig on guitars. This really enriched the emotional reach of the album in a way I never could have realized on my own.

I find it fruitful to go back and forth between solitary and collaborative work though. Some decisions I feel is very important to take on your own. The difficult thing is to realize when to involve others and to what extent.

How do your work and your creativity relate to the world and what is the role of music in society?

A very difficult question indeed. I try to take in my surroundings and the world around me as fully as possible, and I feel a strong commitment that the art I produce should have value for society in some way or another.

With my album Happy Fear I try to create a musical space for meditation and contemplation. I see this as very important in this society, to try an make a counterpoint to stress and the overwhelming visual input we are forced to take in all the time.

Art can be a way of dealing with the big topics in life: Life, loss, death, love, pain, and many more. In which way and on which occasions has music – both your own or that of others - contributed to your understanding of these questions?

I feel that experiencing art is all the time influencing how I understand life. In meandering and often unconscious ways intangible experiences from all kinds of art seep into my consciousness and influence how I perceive the world.

There have been so many times when a certain song has resonated with my internal life and help to heal and guide me. Hanne Hukkelberg's “Break my body” comes to mind at a moment of heartbreak.

How do you see the connection between music and science and what can these two fields reveal about each other?

I guess there will always be a push-pull relationship between the arts and science in the sense that technology always informs and influences the arts.

Art and music can be involved in communicating ideas from science to society in a different way than when it comes from inside the scientific community. For me I can be influenced by technology through new pieces of equipment that in turn can influence how I approach writing a piece of music.

I'm quite inspired by the social sciences and have a background from studying social anthropology. This more qualitative research of the human condition can play a big part in inspiring specific pieces of music, and also definitely plays a role in how I see the world.

Creativity can reach many different corners of our lives. 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?

Music allows me to be abstract in a way that I find very liberating. There are so many practical and concrete things that we have to do all the time, and it is very rewarding for me to be able to express these very abstract feelings.

I think you can be equally passionate in your pursuit of the best cup of coffee as composing a piece of music but the activities are inherently different to me.

Music is vibration in the air, captured by our ear drums. From your perspective as a creator and listener, do you have an explanation how it able to transmit such diverse and potentially deep messages?

I believe that vibration can possess and store a lot of emotion and love. When we express ourself honestly it speaks to our common human soul.