Name: Karl Choueiri aka Kujo
Nationality: Lebanese
Recommendations: Cobalt Red by Siddarth Kara; Les identités meurtrières by Amin Maalouf

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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 officially started DJing at a young age around 2003. My father was renting out DJ equipment in Lebanon and I was lucky to put my hands on gear I otherwise could never afford.

Music culture was an influence, in relation to belonging to a group, the idea of expressing yourself with sound meant safety. You could offend current structures without being violent. Way later I started officially producing around 2015, my father wasn’t renting studio gear. (laughs)

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?

My body’s reaction to music is probably the same as everyone else's. However I find that my mind uses sound as fuel to amplify emotions and stimulate thought.

I don’t think listening to music has a direct influence on my approach to creativity, I see music as an explorative tool. Perhaps the influence comes from my witnessing of other artists before me and what boundaries they have broken.

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

I think it’s mainly that over time I have lost interest in music scenes, through maturing I have also overcome the typical idea of what your music “should” sound like.

As a sound engineer, I often find people engaging with me about the technicalities of their music which I place at the bottom of the “what makes a good track” list. One breakthrough was realizing that it’s all about how the music makes you feel.

I don’t look for a personal voice, I have been quite content from the start about the way I express myself musically despite coming a long way and changing my sound a lot. This can be attributed to personal growth as a person rather than as an artist after accepting that I should just “do my own thing”.

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.

I find it superficial that nowadays it’s all the rage about identity.

As a listener, I always have gelled well with an emotion (read: music) that spoke my current truth. And when it did not, I attempted to understand why not. I looked to understand objective beauty in music and when I couldn’t, I rolled up my sleeves.

As a creative, through time I have realized that I really do not see any consistency between relating or not relating to people who may or may not have a similar “identity” as I do. In the sense of national / sexual / cultural identity that is, we could share or be polar opposites of these and it provides little meaning with regards to whether my music can / will be appreciated or otherwise. The human condition is more influential for me, I believe.

Pretty sure that doesn’t answer your question just right but that is my answer.

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

You’ve guessed it, the human condition.

The transmission of a feeling that exists out there, be it mine or someone else’s. This is my natural drive, I cannot control it, and like a rabid dog, it is hard to put down.

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 don’t think anybody that ended up with something timeless was trying hard to create something timeless, same goes for anything “cult”. Tradition is tradition, if this is the flame you wish to keep burning then more power to you. Music of the future cannot be stopped.

However, attempting to make music of the future actively will result in you sounding very much present since time is an illusion and your will only be expanding the current fabric of the present.

ANYWAYS … I like it when creators speak their own truths, you’ll often find that it is not hard to find originality when this is done (that includes innovation), and with regards to perfection, there’s a thin line that differentiates it from mechanicalness and I believe perfection is a matter of interpretation in the context of music(or even beyond).

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?

I come from an orthodox family so I will select the holy trinity answer style for this question.

Starting with the DAW (the father), in my case ableton but this applies to any. A consistent element through the years that hasn’t imposed a way of working on me. For a while I used it to produce sounds, later to process sounds and for some years only to record my external instruments.

Find a way to make the DAW do what you want it to do because it is a universal tool where you can mix, edit, sequence, record your music. It really can do anything you need in order to produce a record.

Moving to the (modular?) synthesizer (the daughter). I have been exploring synthesizers for a while and mostly modular systems. It has been quite a journey and just like a good blade, it is a powerful tool but it can cut you. I’ve wasted time with this in terms of making music but I have explored so much through the use of the modular synthesizer. I mostly have leftfield or dysfunctional modules in my rig so it’s not the smartest system and often the sounds aren’t even usable. But the relationship and interaction that I’ve had with it has been an important tool for me.

The third is my bass guitar or oud (the holy spirit), the latest addition in my music journey. I have never played an instrument and still officially don’t, which is a big shortcoming in my life but the addition of a live instrument has been a consistent source of pleasure. As someone who works mostly with electronics, playing an instrument that responds to my hand in a unique way and it being the absolute culmination of nature and technology (ie. the thickness of the string and the way it is strummed is followed by how the microphone pickup transforms this music into a signal I can distort).

And my best advice is to always have everything ready to play. Immediacy is key for me so having any sort of interruption to set up something in order to create is already disruptive to my process. I attempt to create the shortest traveling distance from an idea to a sound being made.

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

I wake up, leave my phone off (check in with yourself before you check in with the world), do about 30 minutes of stretching followed by 10 minutes of breathing exercises. I then brew a healthy cup of coffee, turn on the phone and face the world.

When not out on a project, I head to the studio and tackle mixing and mastering tasks since I run a professional studio and make sure I operate on fresh ears and a fresh mind in order to make the best decisions for the music. I like to tackle any label duties I have, work on any Modular Mind release we have coming up, then, as a creator I could be working on a journalistic-type piece where I consolidate some documentation (images I’ve captured or field recordings I’ve done) I have done for an event and I push to express one perspective or condition of that moment in time that I archive with my music process.

Things don’t always fall into place and sometimes I am making the music just for a momentary feeling, some other time, things do fall into place and we have a record. For me I am either able to conjure the energy or not, it is a hit or miss and I don’t try to polish proverbial turds.

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

The latest live show I have produced for Tehran Contemporary Sounds Festival was quite dear to me.

It happened in a period of great internal turmoil as well as some of the greatest turmoil to have happened in Iran. I was part of organizing and attending a pair of protests and awareness events before the festival. During that time I had captured not only the feeling of the Iranian and Kurdish condition but also recorded chants and sounds of diaspora groups. I used this performance (for lack of a better word), to be able to express what others were experiencing in their respective conditions. I felt like I was loud, noisy and distorted in order to validate the current happenings.

On a personal level and a show that was the dearest to me was the day after my solo show at Tehran Contemporary Sounds when I was asked by Nazanin Noori to join her band together with Shabnam Parvaresh, where we had no rehearsal and little words shared to prepare our mindset before all three of us went on stage and played a show based on a feeling.

During soundcheck we played in unison for no more than 4 consecutive minutes but we saved that energy for the hour itself and we were able to honor that feeling with the chemistry we have. Nazanin Noori leading the charge with her outstanding vocals and modular patch while Shabnam Parvaresh filled the space with her bass clarinet and finally myself with my bass guitar and noise pedals where I combined strumming and bowing the bass. It all fell together beautifully as it was meant to be and the moment is forever engraved in my heart.

So this creative process was a natural flow and channelling, you can’t force this but if you put the right souls together it does not require effort.

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?

I have been working exclusively solo with the exception of the performance I have mentioned and one other previously unannounced concert together with Maltash.

Solo work allows me to channel personal feelings and thoughts whereas collaborative work asks me to look into my commonality with the other person which is a very difficult and rare thing for me to do particularly in an artistic context since it touches on your most intimate parts.

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

I observe, interpret, and report the current state. My work is entirely based on  current events (like previously mentioned) or the human condition. Music can have various roles in society and I wouldn’t make a hard judgement on what it should be. My version of it is just my own.

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?

It is a very elaborate question for me to answer since a lot of my work touches on different questions.

My latest single “6:08” is based on the events and explosion of August 4 2020 in Lebanon. This event combines loss, death, pain, and more but I wouldn’t be able to tell you how this piece of art helped me understand it. It has allowed me to channel a multilayered feeling and narrative (and consequently archive it) that gives a fraction of justice to this event that is being suppressed by the ruling class.

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

I don’t have much interest in this relation, I think there is science in music and music in science.

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?

The things I express through music take on an exclusive form, if I knew how to express what I say with my music in any other form there is a good chance I wouldn’t be making music.

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?

No and maybe that is why it is sacred.