Name: Hora Lunga
Nationality: Swiss
Occupation: Composer, sound artist, producer
Current release: Hora Lunga teams up with Violeta Garcia for their new album 4ever, out via -OUS. 

If you enjoyed this Hora Lunga interview and would like to know more about his music and projects, visit his official homepage. He is also on Instagram, and bandcamp. 



Where does the impulse to create something come from for you? What role do often-quoted sources of inspiration like dreams, other forms of art, personal relationships, politics etc play?

I think a lot of the impulse simply comes from habit. There is definitely some kind of urge behind it. Also if I can't go to the studio for a longer time, I start getting restless.

At the same time, listening to music, going to concerts, watching films for sure feeds into it. And whenever I consume something, I start pretty quickly thinking about doing something out of it, something similar, in contrast to it, whatever.

With 4ever, the newest record by Violeta and me, we were basically just in this travelling vibe in Rio and started improvising and recording. Then later, in Switzerland, we listened to it and started shaping it into music we liked. That part was maybe more technical, but yeah, the first step of creation was already there.

For you to get started, do there need to be concrete ideas – or what some have called a 'visualisation' of the finished work? What does the balance between planning and chance look like for you?

I actually think pretty quickly about an end product, an album, a certain sound or some kind of larger shape. I think I even need that sometimes, just to be able to understand smaller decisions as part of something bigger.

It doesn't mean that I know exactly how it should sound in the end, but I usually have some kind of frame quite early on. A lot can still happen by chance, or completely change while working, but having this bigger picture helps me make decisions.

Is there a preparation phase for your process? Do you require your tools to be laid out in a particular way, for example, do you need to do 'research' or create 'early versions'?

Early versions happen anyway, I think. It's pretty rare that the first version is also the final one.

Research can be part of it sometimes. I make playlists or mixes for a project and listen to them a lot for a while, just to get into a certain sound or world. But often I also just start and figure things out while working. 

I don't really need a big preparation phase before something can happen.

Do you have certain rituals to get you into the right mindset for creating? What role do certain foods or stimulants like coffee, lighting, scents, exercise or reading poetry play?

I think it has a lot to do with the studio for me. 

I feel really comfortable and at home there, and most things are usually already connected and ready to go. I also have this kind of altar-like thing there, my notes, my stuff, my instruments, all these little things that make it feel like my own space. I often put my phone on do not disturb and try to keep that space a bit separate from everything else. 

Apart from things like that, I don't really have many rituals.

For 4ever, what did you start with? If there were conceptual considerations, what were they?

With 4ever we didn't really start with a concept. The first recordings happened while we were travelling in Brazil and Argentina, and only later we started understanding what kind of world was forming around them.

We also didn't start with the idea that it had to become a new album. At first it could have just been something to extend the live set, or maybe a single. But pretty quickly it started to sound like a new sound to us, and like a logical continuation of our first album. 

Once we realised that, we pushed it more and more in that direction and finished it as a record.

Tell me a bit about the way the new material developed and gradually took its final form, please.

A lot of it developed through listening and reworking. We had these recordings and improvisations, and then kept going back to them, cutting things, adding things, changing the structure, sometimes rebuilding quite a lot around one small part that we liked.

I think the material became more focused the more we understood what kind of record it wanted to be. Some things got darker, more reduced or more direct, and at some point the tracks started feeling like they belonged together. 

From there it was less about inventing completely new material and more about shaping what was already there until the whole thing made sense.

There are many descriptions of the creative state. How would you describe it for you personally? Is there an element of spirituality to what you do?

For me it's mostly about focus. 

I can get completely lost in details, sometimes very technical details, and at some point everything around it starts to blur a bit. Time, the room, whatever else is happening. I think this kind of concentration is a very important part of the creative state for me.

And yeah, there is definitely something spiritual in that. Not necessarily in a very obvious way, but in this feeling of disappearing into something for a while, being extremely focused and at the same time somehow less conscious of yourself.

Once a piece is finished, how important is it for you to let it lie and evaluate it later on? How much improvement and refinement do you personally allow until you're satisfied with a piece? What does this process look like in practise?

This is actually something I really had to learn over time, because it doesn't come very naturally to me. I usually like to finish things quite fast and move on.

But I realised how important it is to let something sit for a while and come back to it with some distance. I didn't really understand that for a long time. 

Now I try to get things ready early enough that there is still time to leave them alone for a bit before I actually call them finished. That distance often makes it much easier to hear what still needs work, and also what doesn't.

What's your take on the role and importance of production, including mixing and mastering for you personally? In terms of what they contribute to a song, what is the balance between the composition and the arrangement (performance)?

I do believe in strong compositions, especially melodies, harmonies, things like that. I put a lot of value on that, and I also think a good song can work in many different versions. You can play it on piano, on guitar, or have it only shimmer through a wall of distortion, and the song is still the song.

At the same time, production is extremely important for how that song actually comes across. So in my own work I can't really separate the two. 

I usually already think about production while I'm composing, because the sound, the space, the texture or the way something is recorded are already part of how I imagine the piece.

Music and the accompanying artwork are often closely related. Can you talk about this a little bit for your current project and the relationship that images and sounds have for you in general?

In general, I like to think the visual layer together with the music from the beginning, especially with my solo work. It doesn't mean that everything is fixed early on, but I usually already have some sense of a visual world while making the music.

With Violeta it's actually been very relaxed in that regard. For both records, we simply chose artists whose work was already dealing with similar themes, and who have an aesthetic in their own field that feels close to ours, but still very much their own. Then they made something out of it without us interfering too much. 

That worked really well both times. I like that the visual side becomes its own work and not just an illustration of the music.

After finishing a piece or album and releasing something into the world, there can be a sense of emptiness. Can you relate to this – and how do you return to the state of creativity after experiencing it?

I don't really have that so much. Most of my projects overlap anyway, so usually while one thing is ending, something else is already happening. And if I actually have some time off, I can enjoy that too. It just doesn't happen very often.

After really intense tours or projects like WIRREN, where we develop and perform something over several weeks, I can feel a bit empty afterwards. But at the same time I also feel very fulfilled, so it never feels like a big problem. Usually I'm pretty fine with just letting that state be there for a bit.

Creativity can reach many different corners of our lives. Do you personally feel as though writing 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'm attracted to pretty much all forms of art, and I generally like shaping things, everywhere. Maybe not necessarily a cup of coffee, but a meal, an evening, a space, something like that. I also work as a curator, so creating situations or putting things together is kind of a basic part of my life.

Still, music feels different to me. There is something more detached from the world in it, something I don't fully understand and that somehow goes beyond my own creativity. That's probably why it's still my favourite art form.