Name: Sibel Jacqueline Koçer aka JakoJako
Nationality: Turkish/German
Occupation: Sound artist, composer, producer
Current release: JakoJako's new album Tết 41 is out via Mute.  
Shoutouts: Promoters and curators like Kavan Spruyt, Mamorsets, Billogudei, and Quisaam play a vital role in expanding the diversity of the scene, and we need more people like them. If you're a European booker looking to bring more diverse sounds to your events, consider booking Asian artists. From my experience touring, the music they play offers a distinct vibe compared to what you might hear in cities like Berlin or Amsterdam. I’d be happy to help connect you if needed.
While Techno and House music have roots in Black culture, it's also important to recognize that the drum machines that shaped the genre's sound were developed in Asia.

If these thoughts by JakoJako  piqued your interest, visit her on Instagram, bandcamp, and Soundcloud.

For a deeper dive, read our earlier JakoJako interview and our interview review of Tết 41.



Most genres of music make use of electronic production means. What does the term “electronic music” mean today, would you say?

Electronic music, for me, is its own spectrum. It’s music where I clearly hear the craft. It’s a level of techniques EDM, for example, doesn’t have.

I tend to associate electronica ambient music more with electronic music. Even all electronic experimental music. Everything with clear synths.

Electro acoustics count into that but loopy sample based music somewhat not ... haahh … but granular sampled sound on the other hand does count into it.

I grew up mainly listening to electronic music but have of lately, along with others I've spoken to, been somewhat disappointed by most new releases. I'd be curious about your own view on this, the “creative health” of the scene and potential reasons for the disappointment.

There’s definitely a lot of music and artist I  highly admire. I was at beatforrest festival in Thailand in January and listened to some crazy good Asian artists.

There was Xin lie for example. His liveset was delicious! The Gamelan style act KADAPAT was also impressive with their polyrhythms.



[Read our Xin Lie interview]

There are so many bands I still want to see live in the future. But I don’t have much time to consume all the music I want to. Hence my ears are maybe not as trashed as yours haaha.

What were some of the recent releases, or performances of electronic music that left a deep impact on you?

I'm always impressed by the Asian scene, especially by those artists who built their career from nothing. Or even their gear!

For example Quan from Hanoi. He now runs his own small  modular company called QUANalog. He's selftought 100%. Show me one rich kid here who's able to do that.

The last DJ set I properly danced to was in Berghain, Temudo was playing and I was just not able to leave the dancefloor. There are so many great producers though.

Wait until the compilation is out I curated for Air Texture. ;)
 


Apart from electronic dance music I'm hyped by German rap.

There are artists who are extremely talented at doing lyrics so nested and complex, that you can hear it over and over again and every time you understand a bit more of the meaning of this track. I'm fascinated by that talent of creative writing.

As an example I want to mention the concept album called Mann beißt Hund by OG Keemo! Masterpiece.



What kind of musical/sonic materials, and ideas are particularly stimulating for your work right now?

I’m in the neverending process of changing up my live set. Especially the modular gives me headaches. I want so put too much in it. I’m not able to travel with as much sound / modules as I would like to. It inspires but also limits me being a live musician and hardware producer.

I did this live performance at the Planetarium Berlin for Katja Ruge’s electric lights series. Without knowing the visuals I took inspiration from my imagination. I had to imagine far out space shit since I never went to the planetarium. That was great. It gave me freedom to let weird sounds float around freely. I came to cool new ideas. Alien sounding.

I want to continue those patches and get some more ideas recorded :)

Where do most of your inspirations to create come from – rather from internal  impulses or external ones? Which current social / political / ecological or other developments make you feel like you need to respond as an artist?

Emotions, emotions are internal but get triggered externally. Often I hear something in my mind and want to bring into the real world to my ears.

There are politically opinions that I want to express. I'm not as powerful in expressing myself with words. But that's OK. I can use my language of electronic music.

I try to support what I believe in and for example contribute to compilations for good causes. Please go and check/support the track I did with my friend Rima Baransi:



Maybe precisely because I'm not as talented with my words, I'm so fascinated by talented rappers.

Music has become a lot more global, and incorporating elements from other parts of the world or the musical spectrum is commonplace. Do you still think there are city scenes with a distinct, unique sound? How does your local scene influence your work?

Amapiano and music from South Africa is taking over everything. Also Latin grooves are sampled a lot in techno tracks. Fresh sound design dubstep is coming a lot from the UK. Which I love.

Maybe to come back to your previous question, I think I do get a lot of inspiration through noise sets. Recently I shared this set at soundcloud. I just love the aesthetics.

It needs a fine ear to make noise so classy in my opinion. There are quite some strong artists in Italy and Japan.

What were some of the recent tools you bought, used, or saw/read about which changed your perspective about production, performing, and making music?

I was using a sampler for Loops Last year in order to strip down my live set. I realised it’s not my way of playing live. It’s much harder to do transitions and fix things on the fly.

For years, I was using the Octatrack but now I swapped it to the OXI sequencer. It’s different but it’s smaller and loads of sequencing options. My Eurorack changed to more of a sound design device rather than a melody source.

It’s all still in process though. It's always moving, never resting ... keeping my brain active.

Do you think that there is a limit to what can be done in sound design – and what defines these limits?

The only boundary in sound design is the imagination and creativity of the human mind.

How, would you say are your live performances and your recording projects connected at the moment? How do they mutually influence and feed off each other?

They 100% depend on each other.

My live sets are often bringing me new ideas and inspirations for my recording work. I'm slowly building up a new Eurorack system for the studio. I hope that this way I don't need to stop my recording work when performing live.

The 'problem' right now is that I can't leave a patch connected.

Even if AI will not entirely replace human composition, it looks set to have a significant impact on it. What does the terms composing/producing mean in the era of AI, do you feel?

It means copying humans in the worst way possible ... from what I heard so far.

We as humans don’t make music only to make money from it, which I would accuse AI company’s do. We do it for the feeling, the connection with others. We want to process and share through music. AI does not have feelings hence can’t copy them authentically.

I don’t use any of that and can't imagine doing so in the future.