Part 1

Name: Lisa Harres
Nationality: German
Occupation: Singer, songwriter
Recent release: Lisa Harres's new album Time As A Frame, featuring Ralph Heidel, is out via Friends with Oranges.
Recommendation for Berlin, Germany: In Berlin I sometimes very much enjoy spending the day at the Staatsbibliothek Potsdamer Platz. The interior hasn’t changed since the late ’70s which I love because it makes me imagine all the decades of people who have been in this building before me, turning on the same little lamps and sitting at the same desks. You can spend the day alone in this beautiful, spacious building, surrounded by many other people also spending their days alone. I then wonder what everyone is working on or thinking about and I feel such tenderness toward everyone who is sitting there procrastinating. It’s lovely company. And it’s so many people being quiet together which is a peculiar thing in itself.
Things I am passionate about but rarely get to talk about: I’m very passionate about the seasons. Spring, summer, autumn, winter I mean. I’m so glad that there’s seasons where I live. It has a profound effect on my life, the constant feeling of something passing and returning, being old and new at the same time.
It’s ridiculous how much joy I feel whenever I notice the first signs of the next season. It’s like whenever a season has passed, I can not remember or even imagine anymore how it felt and was like — and only when it starts to return, with it’s very specific signs and smells and sounds, it all suddenly appears again, all the memories and feelings. I guess because as long as I’m in the middle of something, I don’t think about it, I’m just in it. But in a state of transition I am made aware of what is, what was and what will be. And this happens again and again each year and I don’t seem to become less surprised by it, or less amazed.

[Read our Ralph Heidel interview]

If you enjoyed this Lisa Harres interview and would like to stay up to date with their music and future live activities, visit them on Instagram, Soundcloud, and bandcamp.



Many musicians I am talking to at the moment feel somewhat disillusioned about the impact, meaning, and value of their work. Feel free to vent some of your own frustrations and/or disappointments – as well, if possible, something that you recently experienced (or a thought that you had) that might give hope to other creatives.

Maybe it’s not such a bad thing to feel disillusioned about it once in a while. Then I might ask myself: Impact, meaning and value aside, what is left? How do I measure these things? Do I even agree with these measurements? What does my work mean to me? It doesn’t need to be put into words, but maybe it can be felt.

I try to find comfort within myself, but it’s not so easy sometimes. It’s much easier to get out of the doubt with a friend. They can say, “Hey, stop it, you’re just fine! I see what you can’t see right now! You go!“

There will always be waves of doubt and reassurance, it will never be constant. I only know that in the moment of creating itself, when there is no thinking, just feeling and doing, there is no doubt.

If, for a moment, we forget about streaming numbers, target audiences, social media followers, and sales - why are you drawn to sound and music as a creator and listener? What is it that you give and receive through it?

For me making music really is a wonderful thing. It calms me down a lot. When I sit down at the piano or with my guitar and play and sing for a while, I can feel my nervousness dissolving. Every inch of my body becomes more relaxed.

I find the process of writing a song most fulfilling. To me, it’s a way to translate very specific feelings, memories, thoughts and observations into something that carries the emotional weight of all of these personal experiences — but in the process of translation becomes a thing of its own.

I will always know what it once was, what it means to me, but it can become something new to anyone who might listen to it.

In that way, when I sing a song, I’m singing it just as much to myself as I am to the audience. In “The Shape,” I sing: "Sometimes this tired face of mine / longs for a hand to find / the shape of my cheek / to soothe me to sleep.“ In that moment, I sing it as everyone who has ever longed to be held — and as me, Lisa, longing to be held.



And then somehow, in voicing that wish to be cared for by someone, I become that someone for myself as well. My music allows me to be in charge and not in charge at the same time, to hold and to be held, to speak as me and to me simultaneously.

In how far can music be considered "essential" for humans?

I don’t think music is essential for every human.

I know some people who don’t really listen to music, it’s just not something they care about, not part of their personal habits. I wonder if they also have experienced moments in their lives where music moved them deeply, or brought them joy, catharsis, solace or annoyance. I don’t know many other mediums in life that can have such an immense, immediate effect on my emotions and my state of being as music.

Looking at my life and the sum of hours that are shaped by music, I could say it’s quite essential to me. Music has a big importance in my life — listening to it, but most of all making it, by myself and with others. To me it feels like the most direct and effective way to translate feelings, in both the process of creation and in the sharing with others.

And it provides me with great pleasure and excitement.

Take us through a day in your life, from a possible morning routine to your work, please, and how music and sound accompany you through it.

I like questions like these and I feel the urge to answer in great detail, because I’m very much interested in details. I could hear about what my friends made for dinner every day again and again and it would interest me a lot.

As for me, I don’t have strict routines, but I open the window over my bed when I wake up for a while and then I hear the street and I get a feeling for the day, the temperature, the sounds. If I need to go somewhere I will jump on my bike and ride quite fast through the city. Cycling is by far my favorite way to get around in the city. I can set my own pace, be independent of departure times and stop wherever I want.

In Berlin I enjoy the distances a lot, because these journeys often become a time for me to daydream and observe. I pass through all different kinds of sounds and I see many little glimpses of life.

Yesterday I saw two young schoolkids standing together on the street. One was watching as the other carefully gathered their scattered belongings and placed them back into their school bag. Cars swerved to avoid them. I wondered what had happened — had they been running and one had tripped? Had there been a playful shove that turned into regret? Maybe the backpack had simply slipped off a careless shoulder, unnoticed. Or perhaps a third child had thrown it down as a prank, and the two were now standing together in quiet solidarity.

I sometimes make up songs or poems in my head, I repeat the lines until I get to the next red traffic light where I quickly record them on my phone. I remember making up the song “The Bluebird, The Rabbit And The Deer” on my way home one August night in 2023. I imagined my friends and myself as forest animals, with an unspoken bond and a shared sadness, joy and acceptance.

At night parts of the city become surprisingly quiet. I ride along the empty streets and I often see foxes.

What artists, albums, performances, or even aesthetics and philosophies are inspiring to your life in and beyond music right now and in which way? Have there been songs, albums, performances, and artists that changed / influenced your life?

I remember three CDs that very much moved me as a kid. ’Hilary Hahn Plays Bach’ by Hilary Hahn, ’Dil To Pagal Hai‘ by Uttam Singh and ’Crazy Freilach’ by Kolsimcha.

I think with these albums I noticed for the first time some sort of ecstatic, cathartic feelings within myself when it came to certain melodies. Very pleasurable feelings. Listening to them now still brings me those same emotions, and I would think that my childhood pleasures have also influenced the music I make today.

Sometimes I encounter something so great that it freezes me. Its greatness paralyses me in a way where I feel like I won’t ever be able to make something like this. But then there are works of art or people or phenomena that are so grand, they do the opposite — they inspire me to create. Their greatness doesn’t overwhelm me, it exists alongside me and shows me a path. When that happens, that feels amazing. Then I physically feel a burst of energy, a lust for life, a lust to create.

Some films have had that effect on me. In recent years Lazzaro Felice, The Beaches of Agnes, Volver, Spirited Away, Shortbus and Teorema have inspired me. I’ve watched a lot of interviews with Alice Rohrwacher and Agnès Varda and I am deeply impressed and inspired by them. They are people who have completely internalized their knowledge can draw from it effortlessly. Their thoughts and ideas fill me with great delight.

I’m not reading so much these days, but right now I’m reading All Fours by Miranda July, and I think it’s fantastic. It’s very funny and clever and moving. Her thoughts also fill me with great delight. I was laughing out loud while reading on the S-Bahn, which rarely happens to me. It’s so shameless and to the point and so joyfully written — in a way that I am delighted by some of the sentences just for their combination of words. It gave me a new burst of writing joy.

I’m also continually impressed and inspired by people that are more straightforward than I am — people who speak their minds more clearly and who I see as more honest than myself. It’s something that I constantly try, to be honest, and I often find it quite hard because to do that I have to first understand what I’m feeling, then put it into words (most of the time), and finally let go of the urge to please.

When someone is honest with me — without shame, justification or apology — I can easily handle it without taking it personally. I come to simple conclusions like: Honest, openly expressed rejection can carry more closeness than half-hearted affection — because then even in rejection, there is a genuine opening up of oneself.

I’m very inspired by the many little scenes I witness each day. I’m inspired by what my friends do and create. I’m inspired by the friendships themselves. I’m inspired by the children in my life. And by the seasons and photographs.