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Part 2

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

I love telling people about how I and Rå worked when creating the ACT777 The Hills We’ve Chosen record.

I had had some problems with writer's block during the lockdowns, but Rå’s work, being such an amazing poet, made me feel the urge to create. They sent me some poems, some inspired by my previous productions, and I produced the works around them.

As such, the recordings of the poetry actually happened prior to the rest of the production process, a fairly unusual but amazing way to work. It was easy to imagine the sound track to their words, as each sentence spoke so strongly to me. We also spoke a lot about the world, or the universe, in which this music exists, which is actually very well described in ‘Reframe’.

To the collaborating artists, Metaraph, Angel Karel, Hybral, and the cover art creator Farvash, we gave pretty much free hands – this work is a result of the world it was created in, and there is no world for it to exist in without other people.

I am still mesmerized over how well it all came together, with so many creatives involved. So far, this is the work of art that I am most proud of throughout my career.

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 cherish them both deeply.

Sometimes, the solitude behind the closed door of my studio is exactly what I need to hear my own feelings and thoughts. Sometimes, the collective experience is what enables me to fully transcend musically. Much like Paulo Freire suggests, the individual and the world coexist, just as a performer’s becoming happens in the meeting with spectators.

That is not the same to me as saying that one is not complete as a musician if their music doesn’t leave the studio. I am aware there is so much unheard and amazing music out there. For me, it is just a matter of two different processes, that are completed in my practice through inviting each other to unite.

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

My work and creativity is a result as well as a reaction to the world around me. I believe strongly that music’s most important role in society is to make things felt by speaking beyond words. There is so much to discover beyond rationality. Music can give those impossible questions answers.

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?

Art and musical expression is an invitation to an artist’s inner realm. I feel like it is easier for me to develop understanding and empathy when a message is delivered through artistic expression. It (the message) is being made felt through the creation.

Particular moments I remember and cherish are those that have taken place in my classrooms, when students have shared their pieces, as well as the context in which they were made. It is something very special hearing others explore healing processes, processes of liberation and empowerment, and to be part of that journey from start to finish.

Seeing my students grow as both artists and individuals is the most rewarding, and has contributed a lot to my understanding of the world and other people.

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

As a graduate student engaged in practice based research, I strongly believe in music and art’s importance in science.

Currently I am working on a research project called Music as Gender-affirming Practice, investigating how gender euphoria and identity can be explored through music. Having almost finished my degree on this subject, I can’t see how rigid empirical science could have produced the results and insights that have come from my artistic research.

It would be very unproductive to take a musician out of their practice, if it is the practice itself that is up for investigation. I believe there are plenty of questions that cannot be answered by polarities, right and wrong, yes or no. And if we are talking about matters related to emotional and inner lives, consciousness, and identity, it is already proven that the Western order of academia and science have failed so far to explain most of these phenomena.

That is not to say that art and science are two opposing practices, but that they’d both benefit from being united in the search for answers to certain inquiries.

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?

I think certain activities help us to be present, like meditation in a way. In some, it is easier than in others, because they also demand that presence from us.

With that said, I believe anything could transcend the feeling of being mundane, if we just engaged in those activities in a different way. In periods of time I have made an effort to do meditation exercises while walking down the street, taking the metro, washing my hands. Sometimes I hear music in jet engines, in the shower drain. Sometimes I feel music in my heart by looking at another person. Sometimes my heart sings when I imagine that everything I see and touch is part of myself, and that I am a part of it.

But that presence is also draining. Sensory overload is real. That’s why I think we all have our personal preferences in activities that bring us into such a state. As many of us live in hectic environments like cities, it would be too much to feel it all. As such, music has become my go to, even if I try to spend more time in that type of energy in my everyday activities as well.

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?

This question has already answered itself in a sense. Because of the physicality of sound, it cannot leave us untouched.

When touched by sound, every corner and fold of our body resonates with it. By doing so, sound overrides hypocognition, and short-circuits internal and external censorship. It demands our presence, demands of us to feel, materializing that which is impossible, that which is beyond words.

Sometimes the most powerful emotions can’t be explained. They can simply just be felt.


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