Name: LILAMORS
Members: Ana Čop (voice), Thilo Seevers (piano), Jaka Arh (sound processing)
Nationality: Slovenian (Ana), German (Thilo), Swiss (Jaka)
Current release: The debut album by LILAMORS, When I Am Dead, My Dearest, is out now via Latenite Lounging.
Recommendations: The Dawn of Everything (David Graeber, David Wengrow); Alice Coltrane: Journey in Satchidananda

If you enjoyed this LILAMORS interview and would like to find out more about the band members, visit their personal websites; Ana Čop, Thilo Seevers, Jaka Arh.



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?

We usually listen with our eyes closed. We might feel very different, depending on the music, situation, and surroundings.

What were your very first steps in music like - and how do you rate gains made through experience versus the naiveté of those first steps?

We all have different backgrounds, but we do have in common that we were surrounded by music since our early childhood and have been greatly inspired by the music our parents listened to.

As trained musicians, we place a lot of value on the knowledge and experience we've gained over time. But we also recognize the importance of preserving the sense of wonder and exploration.

In short, we believe that a balance between expertise and the naiveté of our beginnings is key to creating meaningful and innovative music.

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

Music meant a safe space and sometimes an escape for us. It was mainly emotionally appealing and only later did we start to look at it also from a more analytical perspective.

Over the course of your development, what have been your most important instruments and tools and how have they shaped your perspective on music?
 
Besides learning musical instruments, we all feel that listening to and discovering new music is one of the most important tools for shaping our perspective.

On top of that playing and exchanging ideas with colleagues is equally important because we are all the creators of our musical scene.

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

The main keys lie in merging contrasts, overlapping concepts and creating something unique and meaningful. The fluidity of genre and eclecticism is something that is very common and present in our music.

What motivates us greatly is the urge to continue growing and expanding our capabilities.  

Paul Simon said “the way that I listen to my own records is not for the chords or the lyrics - my first impression is of the overall sound.” What's your own take on that and how would you define your personal sound?

Because we were so occupied with the postproduction process, honestly, we still haven’t taken the chance to listen to our album from a purely listener's perspective.

How should we describe our personal sound? Something like meditative experimental electro-acoustic music, mixing traditional poetry with original lyrics and spoken word.

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”?

One of the most interesting experiences is to go to nature and record the soundscapes with 3D microphone and then listen to them back in the human-made multichannel studio environment. Next time you will experience an organic nature ambience, you will listen to it with different ears, this time musical.

It’s all about the context.

From very deep/high/loud/quiet sounds to very long/short/simple/complex compositions - are there extremes in music you feel drawn to and what response do they elicit?

The extremes that attract us mostly are silence and subtle changes in textures.

As we already mentioned, contrasts are a key approaches in our music, meaning that we really enjoy discovering how extremes can become an integral part of the composition.

From symphonies and traditional verse/chorus-songs to linear techno tracks and free jazz, there are myriads ways to structure a piece of music. Which approaches work best for you – and why?

We cannot say for sure which approach is best for us, still haven’t found it. Especially since we are a collective, each has a different creative process and we always try to mix those, depending on the material we are working on.

The approach that has been working for us is the mixture of free improvisation and pre-composed song structures – a lot of times influencing each other.

Could you describe your creative process on the basis of one of your pieces, live performances or albums that's particularly dear to you, please?

The whole debut album was created by first recording the songs and ideas acoustically, while the post-production / live-electronic part came afterwards.

E.g. our piece “Slow Traveller” was born from an idea of finding interesting voicings in one tonality only, with the melody stretching around these specific colours.

This basic idea was recorded by piano and voice, before being manipulated, decomposed and re-contextualised in the post-production process, where the studio was used as a musical instrument.   

Sometimes, science and art converge in unexpected ways. Do you conduct “experiments” or make use of scientific insights when you're making music?

We do conduct musical experiments, inspired by technological advancements, in order to stretch our perception of possibilities.

We’re trying to learn every day, be it aesthetically, technically or emotionally.

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?

Our personalities always reflect in the way we create music, if we are perfectionists in life, this will also be seen in our music, if we don’t like rules in life, we will also tend to omit rules in music.

On the other hand, what we learn through music can also help us change some patterns in our behaviour and can make us reflect on life more. Through working with other musicians and creating music together, we learn about patience, communication and basic social interactions.

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?

If you’re striving for perfection in any profession it takes a lot of sacrifice, time and energy. However, often the results of music-making can be unexpected and surprising, which pushes us to explore on a daily basis. Whereas with making a cup of coffee when you find a great recipe, you stick to it (in our humble laymen's opinion).

Through music we express deeper emotions and parts of our consciousness, that we tend to hide in everyday life – we allow ourselves to take on a role of different characters.

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. Do you, too, have a song or piece of music that affects you in a way that you can't explain?

Yes. Usually, it happens with music that moves us emotionally, without thinking from an analytical perspective.

If we were to analyse it, it could lose its mystique.

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

That genres and cultures would intertwine and enrich each other. That technology would enable artists to express and develop in an ever-new and deeper way.