Name: Luciano Lamtzev aka LUMTZ
Nationality: Argentine
Occupation: Composer, producer, sound artist
Current release: LUMTZ's new album Tesoros is out July 17th 2026 via We All Speak In Poems.
Recommendations on the topic of sound: I'd recommend reading, listening to, or watching interviews with Murray Schafer, Pauline Oliveros, Brian Eno, Atahualpa Yupanqui, Lucrecia Martel, Rosario Bléfari, Julián Galay, among many others.

[Read our Pauline Oliveros interview]
[Read our Brian Eno interview]

If you enjoyed this LUMTZ interview and would like to stay up to date with his music, visit him on Instagram, and tumblr. 



When I listen to music, I see shapes, objects and colours. What happens in your body when you´re listening? Do you listen with your eyes open or closed?

I also see figures moving through the sensory field. I like imagining those spaces I hear between the distances of what I'm hearing: some layers feel farther away, others closer, some larger and softer, others smaller and more solid, all moving.

I don't technically know which colours go with which colours, or what the correct way to EQ a sound is, or how to design a shape. I only know when something moves me and when it doesn't.

There's a moment, when I'm working and listening, when something happens. It's that moment in the middle of editing when, all of a sudden, the music appears. That unexpected moment when something passes through me and gives me a kind of tingling in the back of my head, which connects directly to a feeling in my chest and my hands.

And when I'm listening, that feeling doesn't necessarily come from the vibration of a pad or any obvious ambient music technique. Sometimes I feel it because of a song's lyrics, an arrangement, an image, or when the drums come in. It's such a personal and beautiful feeling. It's what keeps me constantly searching, with my antenna up, staying receptive.

Most of the time I listen with my eyes open, and when that moment of enjoyment happens, I usually look out the window and fix my gaze on a single point. I listen with my eyes closed when I'm "finishing" my own music, so I can pay closer attention to the different layers and distances in the mix, or when I'm trying to figure out something I really love in someone else's music.

When I'm out in the street, I like listening to whatever is happening around me, wherever I am, even if there's noise. Headphones immerse me in a kind of solitude and introspection that I don't enjoy for very long. I prefer the air and the real sound around me. It connects me to the present too.

How do listening with headphones and listening through a stereo system change your experience of sound and music?

As I mentioned before, I prefer hearing the air between my ears and the source of the sound, in this case, a pair of speakers. I place a lot of importance on the way the space influences the effect that sound has on me.

After spending some time mixing on headphones, I usually leave the music playing through the speakers and go cook, water the plants, or sweep the floor. While I'm doing those things, I pay attention to what happens in the house with that sound, and after a few hours I begin to understand what I'm feeling.

That feeling is what helps me finish a mix.

Tell me about some of the albums or artists that you love specifically for their sound, please.

One of the albums I've loved the most lately is sentiment by Claire Rousay. It has a mix of everything I love: emotion, ambience, storytelling, and the combination of acoustic and digital elements. It feels like a perfect balance and a really solid depth.



It reminds me a lot of the writer Clarice Lispector because of that fragility-strength duality.

In general, I like albums that feel true. I also love when you can hear the place where they were recorded, the chair the musician is sitting on, their breathing, things like that. I also suspect this is probably just my intuition, but I like imagining those kinds of things.

[Read our Claire Rousay interview]

There can be sounds which feel highly irritating to us and then there are others we could gladly listen to for hours. Do you have examples for either one or both of these?

A pleasant sound: the ones we hear when "everything is silent." The breathing of someone you love, a branch moving in the wind, something far away, the air moving through my hair, my footsteps on a dirt road on a freezing night.

An irritating sound: tourism.

Have you ever been in spaces with extreme sonic characteristics, such as anechoic chambers or caves? What was the experience like?

I've never been in an anechoic chamber. It must be such a strange experience! I have been in a cave, though, and I was overwhelmed by the reverberation of everything. I liked the challenge of moving as quietly as possible, so neither my boots, nor my jacket, nor my breathing would resonate too much.

A place whose sound has a huge effect on me is the creek. I live about 200 metres away from one, and I visit it every day. Sometimes I've spent hours working at home, listening to music or editing, and before continuing with something important, I take a break and walk to the creek to expose myself to its powerful sound.

I love that stereo speed. It feels like it cleans me, like a reset. Then I come back home with renewed listening, ready to focus again. :)

What are among your favourite spaces to record and play your music?

Wherever there's lots of wood, air, and natural light.

I prefer a studio with lots of windows, even if that's not ideal acoustically. It'll just mean playing more quietly and EQing whatever is necessary.

Do music and sound feel “material” to you? Does working with sound feel like you´re sculpting or shaping something?

Music could be the result of that whole collection of materials that make sound. Sounds are colours, and letting them move and cross paths with each other creates shapes and distance.

What I enjoy the most is that moment without any expectations, when I simply start placing the colours. The musicality begins to appear on its own.

How important is sound for our overall well-being and in how far do you feel the “acoustic health” of a society or environment is reflective of its overall health?

Murray Schafer used to say, "Learning to listen is learning to be in the world." I think sound is incredibly important to our lives, just like what we see, colours, shapes, and words.

I don't think the acoustic health of a place reflects its social health. On the contrary, I think the overload of information reflects a lack of care from large corporations through advertising, consumerism, and power. Literally, the war of sound comes from the top. We're just ordinary consumers, surviving as best we can in the middle of that whirlwind. I think that's where it really comes from.

That's why I believe that working to soften harshness in sound is a way of caring for the listener. It's part of a search to change the world.

Many animals communicate through sound. Based either on experience or intuition, do you feel as though interspecies communication is possible and important? Is there a creative element to it, would you say?

It's beautiful to hear, all at the same time, the different birds and dogs in my neighbourhood. I like to think they all understand each other and somehow agree on how to live and survive together. I think you can hear that sense of community in the way they sound together.

I think they like living here, just 100 metres from a creek. Do the fish swimming underwater hear those birds?

Tinnitus and developing hyperacusis are very real risks for anyone working with sound. Do you take precautions in this regard and if you're suffering from these or similar issues – how do you cope with them?

To be honest, I'm not very careful. Besides the softness, freshness, and homely warmth that I love about ambient music, I'm also a huge fan of hardcore and post-rock ... and I play the drums! Very loudly! Haha.

So yes, I should probably take better care of my hearing. I live in a mountainous area, and on some roads you can feel the pressure in your ears. It's a good reminder that I should look after them a bit more.

So, thank you for the reminder!

We can surround us with sound every second of the day. The great pianist Glenn Gould even considered this the ultimate delight. How do you see that yourself and what importance does silence hold?

I actually spend a lot of time in silence, and I really enjoy it.

I get tired of listening quite easily, and I don't like having "background music." If something is playing, I'll listen to it.

Seth S. Horowitz called hearing the “universal sense” and emphasised that it was more precise and faster than any of our other senses, including vision. How would our world be different if we paid less attention to looks and listened more instead?

I think we'd be much more aware and respectful.

I have this habit of recording myself speaking and then listening back to it, trying little by little to soften both the speed and the pressure with which I say certain words. I like people who speak slowly and don't make too much noise. It's something you can train, and I think it goes hand in hand with this idea of "changing the world" we were talking about before.

Once, I was improvising and recording with a band when the percussionist walked in while we were playing something very ambient. He started looking through his bag, moving tambourines and shakers around, dropping drumsticks on the floor while searching for an instrument to play. We stopped and said to him, "Friend, everything you're making sound right now is raw music."

But there were also other friends who would come into rehearsals very quietly, take off their shoes, and understand that even their breathing could become part of the recording. I thought that was beautiful.