"I try to be organised. Honestly, I do. But it just repeatedly turns to shit."
"This is my kind of “spirituality”: How we are all connected through communication."
“Sometimes it feels to me like a melody is simply begging for a certain lyric.”
“I practice non-attachment when making art. Ego death is possible.”
"Often the magic happens at night. So it helps that I live in a country with only 4 hours of sunlight in Winter!"
“If the beat is a bit weird from the start, you’re in a good place.”
"There are plenty of people who treat improv as a competition. I try to keep away from them!”
"I passed a roadworker with a pneumatic drill, and I felt tears well in my eyes. This wall of noise filled me with such a sense of melancholy."
“With this project, it was easy to get lost in the idea of infinite layers.”
"At some point, machines take control – and drive me to paradise!"
“That sensation after finishing a record? It's a bit like post-natal depression.”
"I don’t have any expectations that any of my instruments will become a mass-marketable product."
"Music is not about creating an illusion. It is about investigating what is."
"I’ll have an idea and I’ll see it through."
“As long as people are on the same page and honest, people write how they want to write ...“
“My will to create was always so much stronger than my doubts.”
“The more I try to stick to a plan the worse the song turns out.”
Oliver Darling about an instrument that adds a unique blend of rhyhm and texture.
"Words sometimes only distract. Focusing on sound trains the imagination of the listener."
"I’m selfish. I just want to find the best and easiest ways to make original music."
“A lot of my best lyrics have come from the seed of something dumb.”
“We're not trying to mimic somebody else’s interpretation. We're trying to learn what could be possible in any interpretation.“
"Lyrics are the toughest part. What do I really have to say that millions of people need to hear?"
"I haven’t found God yet. But you might say that I have found the place where God should be."
"If I act belligerently at a dinner party, I shouldn’t be surprised if I don’t get invited back! Music-making is similar."
"Sound manipulation brings me joy. It’s like being a part of evolution."
"Touring performers are subjected to similar conditions as athletes."
“The more an artist concerns herself with being “original”, the more likely she is to sound like someone else.”
"Improvisation reminds us of our ability to make the world that we want to live in."
“I often need someone else to tell me that it's done. Not that I ever listen.“
“Electronic music is coming from our heritage of classical music. It is not originally a pop format.“
"I use a lot of what people might view as just noise or error sounds."
“Songwriting has a magic to it that is unexplainable. It is sort of like god with a small g.”
"I was genuinely concerned that I had somehow lost my creativity."
“Explore every avenue. You need to find out where they lead.”
Mads Kinnerup about a module that bridged the gap between analog and digital.
“If you are truly in the zone you do not start an insta-story. Maybe that's why so much music sucks nowadays.“
"Would everyone find their place in the new Editors? That was definitely a question."
“I feel so much more relaxed when I’m collaborating with others.“
“Playing with greats like Miles Davis and Jan Garbarek felt like coming home.“
"There are only two rules in improvisation: Be free and be honest."
If a tree fell and no-one is around to hear it - does it make 90s jungle?
"You need to know when to act, when to react - and when to stay out of it."
“I am sometimes baffled by the rigidness in people protecting a genre from any outside influence or innovation.”
"I like to think of field recordings as completely “made-up”. Like music."
“Some of the best songs we’ve written have been smashed out in a day in the studio.“
“After the completion of each of our last 5 albums, I’ve said: I’m not sure if I’ll ever write another song, the well is empty.“
“If I plan too much I loose myself. The studio is the only place where every hour isn't scheduled.“
“On my new album there's what I call a word vomit song. The chords, words, and melody all came out in ten minutes.“
“Music was never something I thought I was particularly good at. It always feels like a constant struggle.“
“Some of our tracks take ten years before they are released.”
"There is music hidden in the sound of boiling water and burning firewood."
"The songs that cause the most torture are usually my favourite tracks."
"Who knows, maybe 3 and a half strawberries might help to enter a transient state."
"It’s a building block thing. Almost like Lego."
"Sometimes I have the strange experience of watching my fingers play, and asking myself: Who is doing this?"
"If we like something, we'll record it. Next time time we play it, nobody quite remembers how it was."
"It’s hard to explain what I’m doing in questionnaires such as these."
“My eternal holy grail? Trying to find the future of disco.“
Can’t Fake the Funk
"As long as it’s serving a movie's story, I don’t think the music can be wrong."
Creative Flexibility, Flexible Creativity
"The conception of something is where the fire is at. Something can only be born once."
"We've got a tendency to go into 48 tracks and wonder: Oh, what's that triangle doing?“
“A Juno-60 does not have many faces. But the few things a Juno can do are close to perfection.”
"I would have no idea how to write a song if someone asked me to."
"Your tools are not important. Originality should first and foremost be the result of an internal journey."
Theresa Wong about an instrument that feels like a soundbox with infinite possibilities.
"So many things go nowhere and I love it."
"Improvisation turns the brain into an alternative tool of perception."
"You just made a post? Well, you don't get a fucking medal."
"Imitation still remains a crucial ingredient for me."
"It is great to have quite a bit of equipment. But there is a point when it gets too complicated."
"Bringing something fresh to a song is welcome. But you can‘t create a revolutionary national song if your brief is to write a romantic one."
"When I start composing, I almost never know where I’m going."
"What’s nice about music is the effort to uncover something so intangible. You’ll never be able to touch or see it."
"Every synth guitar, or midi guitar I’ve played, except for mine, completely sucks."
"We all hear voices in our head. They are private moments, some darker than others."
Mathew Jonson about an analog synthesizer that captures performances in ways that other keyboards can’t.
"The idea of musicians as vessels for superhuman ideas is over rated."
"Music requires less personal interpretation. It doesn't require your intellect."
“In the world of modular synthesis I’m in discovery mode.”
"It's important to remove the pressure that something should be perfect. It never is."
BRUX about an analogue percussion synth that is keeping her on her toes.
"Working without a DAW totally changed the way I write music."
"I forget how I worked creative time into my schedule before the pandemic."
"Little things eat away at you. Then they begin to take form."
"I adore lyrics that are simple and childlike. If a kid could have written it, I will probably love it."
Ancestral Connection
"I was staring at a tree and cried. The bark and the leaves and the birds and the pollen drifting like little snowflakes, were just so beautiful and so perfect."
"Architecture is a constant movement between the space, its surroundings and consumers. There are endless individual stories."
"The research for this record has been a lifelong project."
"It’s ideas, not technology, that instigate everything."
"I resisted this project for a long time. But you have to follow where creativity leads."
"Going to nightclubs and festivals is our new way of going to church."
"I put the music out there before I get the chance to regret it. Even if it might seem primitive."
"To make the music we want it to make, I have to resist certain temptations."
"Once I was finished with therapy, I could no longer be angry for listeners like I used to be. But I can still channel energy."
"Stars emerge, stars die. Just like working with analogue equipment."
Glenn Gould, Max Richter and the Four Seasons – how much Respect do Composers Deserve?
"I am often very drawn to sounds that remind me of voices - without actually being from a human."
"At some point, I’d like to try to just let the emptiness happen."
Tobias Fischer about an album that introduced a new approach to improvisation.
"At the completion of a piece, I often feel: I can never do that again."
"Some of us have been playing together for more than 20 years. And we still don’t have a clear answer to how we do it."
"Creating instruments and producing music are part of the same project: To make new music that hasn’t been made before."
"Death taught me that you shouldn’t wait.“
"Don’t get me wrong, I do like technology. I just have a very particular focus."
"Sounds are a utopia that can be heard. They're possibly the nearest thing to a God I can imagine.”
"If you don't fucking know what you're talking about, it's okay to say nothing."
"I find singing in the Irish language so freeing."
"Sometimes I am so nerdy and tyrannical about the smallest detail. My producer sometimes thinks it's madness."
"I think the element of surprise is fundamental. Isn't that why we make music?"
"There is a mystery about the inner part of a black hole. I wonder what it would be like to travel there."
"I had tears running down my face. How can it be that music is powerless to express anything?"
"My jaw was wired shut for a month, and all I saw was darkness."
"Llistening to the environment is a different experience from listening to a pop song. It takes patience and practice."
"For us it’s really important to imagine the music before putting our hands on the instruments."
"At first, when I set out to tackle the new album, it was a bit intimidating."
"We've reached a point in Western experimental music where artists are incredibly self-conscious and verbose about where their work fits in."
"Music might be the most physical and direct earthly religious experience you can have."
"100% loving a track is the worst precondition for a great remix."
"Many people have told me that my beats sound quite melancholic. I guess they're not wrong."
"We are very far from Prince’s vault."
A musician told me: "I can hear the mountains of your village in your music."
"In a film, I want the music to be the unspoken voice."
"Many electronic musicians think that sound can replace melody or harmony. No, it can't."
"Sometimes technology stifles creativity. Especially when you're more into technology than music."
“I rarely think of starting a song at the beginning.”
"Life on earth never dies. It goes through stages of life and dormancy, remaining in a state of constant transformation."
"Ultimately, I wanted to create something that broke away from the old order."
"Once free jazz exploded in my brain, it changed my perception of what music could be. It changed my life."
"I like it when it’s hard to tell if a piece of music is composed or improvised."
"In Africa, musical engagements are often not divided between stage and audience - everyone is a contributor to the sound.”
"Already Johann Sebastian Bach was improvising over contrapunctual concepts."
"It's like there's an ancient civilisation hiding behind the DX7 algorithm."
"That’s beautiful - you are the adoptive mother of lost and found sounds!"
"Film music is like a magic trick - you know you’re being manipulated and the crazier it feels, the more wonderful it is."
"Dancing translates another view of our experience in the world. It’s another kind of listening."
"No amount of cycling, running, meditating, coffee or incense will help if you’re not happy inside."
"If a singer sings, “I love you,” and believes it, it can be the best line ever written."
"Every time I start with an idea, it ends up becoming something completely different."
"I can reach part of myself in music that I can’t in other spheres of life."
"Sound travels from one body to another. And on its path it makes connections."
"If I can't achieve sufficient volume and sound pressure, the nature of the Merzbow experience changes."
"You can transform a whole tone scale, a brown shoe, the blue sky or a rollercoaster.“
"It is fun to get lost for a while."
"The experiment is greater than the plan. It always wins in the end."
Music helps a party. Music helps a funeral.