Name: Martijn 'Tienus' Konijnenburg aka Goldkimono
Nationality: Dutch
Occupation: Singer, songwriter
Recent release: Goldkimono's new album This One's On The House, is out now via Camp Kimono.

If you enjoyed this Goldkimono interview and would like to stay up to date with his music, visit his official website. He is also on Instagram, Facebook, and Soundcloud.



When it comes to experiencing strong emotions as a listener, which albums, performances, and artists come to mind?

Queen, Bach, Nirvana, Tupac.

There can be many different kinds of emotions in art – soft, harsh, healing, aggressive, uplifting and many more. Which do you tend to feel drawn to most?

Uplifting, healing, but also punchy and raw.

I have had a hard time explaining that listening to death metal calms me down. When you listen to a song or composition, does it tend to fill you with the same emotions – or are there “paradoxical” effects?

I get that, chaos or loudness can be just as much a blanket as silence.

I’ve experienced both I think. But most music I listen to engages with me in a non paradoxical way.

In as far as it plays a role for the music you like listening to or making, what role do words and the voice of a vocalist play for the transmission of emotions?

The instruments carry the message and delivery, the vocal is the spoon and the words are what’s for dinner.

If you like, the soup can be dependent on both.

When it comes to experiencing emotions as a creator, how would you describe the physical sensation of experiencing them? [Where do you feel them, do you have a visual sensation/representation, is there a sense of release or a build-up of tension etc …]

It can be both, sometimes that one take gets you there. Other times it takes time to learn the emotion and interpret it if you will.

Then when you're understanding of it grows, so does the emotion.

How much of the emotions of your own music, would you say, are already part of the composition, how much is the result of the recording process?

For me it’s in the composing. When I record, the emotional frame is already built.

For your current release, what kind of emotions were you looking to get across?

I wasn’t looking for any. I was after whatever came up and resonated.

In terms of emotions, what changes when you're performing live on stage, with an audience present, compared to the recording stage?

An audience gives you energy back to bounce a performance off of. Lots of times during recording, I use the track to guide me. But in love performing I let the audience play a roll in that as well.

So it can take a performance to a new level.

What kind of feedback have you received from listeners or concert audiences in terms of the experience that your music and/or performances have had on them?

It seems to uplift them. Take them out of the worry state. Back into a less stressful design.

Would you say that you prefer to stay in control to be able to shape the emotions or do you surrender to them and allow the music to take over? Who, ultimately has control during a live performance?

The energy has all the control. Wherever it goes, I follow.

The emotions that music is able to generate can be extremely powerful. How, do you think, can artists make use of this power to bring about change in the world?

Change is inevitable when you reach a certain frequency. Being aware of it is the only way to use this power.

Knowing how it works and interacts is probably the way to using it consciously and harmoniously.