- Describe your sound in 3 words.
Textured, warm, melodic.
- Your music is club friendly but it can also be enjoyed at home. In which state of mind do you imagine people might listen to your music?
I think it is pretty good “car music” to be honest. You probably want to play some of these tracks on an empty highway road in the middle of the night. On the other hand, I do spend a lot of time fine tuning little details and textures in my tracks that are best listened to at home, or on a run with some headphones on.
- Your sound is very rich. What advice would you give to an amateur electronic producer that is trying to achieve this warm sound?
In general I would focus on quantity over quality at first. While I do have some musical background playing the piano as a teenager, most of the music production stuff I learned was with trial and error. Every finished song adds some new technique to your music production arsenal.
Second, I think it’s super important to listen closely to tracks that inspire you. I have certainly spent many hours just listening to my favourite artists while noting down what kind of elements they use, how they alter the sound and their approach to song structure. You will realize that often the best sounding synth is created by simply having an amazing base layer underneath it.
Lastly, play around with the synths you are using. Small noise layers, distortion and reverb can go a long way. Since I program lots of my melodies on the computer (rather than playing it) it is also super important to add some sort of randomness and variation to your tracks. In most of my harmonic elements I include slight changes in velocity and many automation layers for all kinds of parameters. This will add a human and organic touch. And yeah – do play around with cutoff & resonance a lot.
- What does the future hold for deep house? Will it be forgotten or will it continue to thrive?
I think it is such an established genre with so many variations within it that it will never truly go away. It might take some turns here and there, but there is just something about 120 BPM…
- If you had to choose one Synthesizer (analog or digital) which one would it be?
Really tough one… currently most of my setup is in the box using digital synthesizer, but I certainly want to experiment more with analog ones in the future. In my newest track “Wide Awake”, most of the synth layers were actually done with the stock Ableton “Wavetable” and I am still amazed by the warm sound of it.
I do like “Diva” for it’s analog base sounds and “Serum” for the great user interface that lets you automate all kinds of parameters very easily, but currently I would pick “Wavetable”.
- When it comes to live perfomance, is realistically Electronika a genre that can be performed live? What would be your dream performance venue?
The genre offers enough flexibility that these songs can be adjusted to fit any type of venue. I feel it is the best type of music for an outdoor venue though, where people can decide to dance or just sit on the grass while listening to it.
- What is your favorite album of the past year?
Not quite past year, but Tourist’s “Everyday” is still on my regular rotation. I am completely amazed by the sound design, the textures and melodies.
- You mostly focus on instrumental music. Is the absence of vocals an extra challenge when it comes to promotion?
I don’t worry too much about that. I really enjoy the creation process of making music, especially the success moments when multiple elements start working really well together. Of course I do appreciate when people like it and am excited for every new release, but promotional success is not the main motivation.
It is certainly a challenge to create interesting enough music without using vocals, but most of the music I get inspired by falls into that category. I am definitely more intrigued by complex sound design rather than a great vocal hook. Having said that, I will try to incorporate more vocals in the future as they certainly can add another level of depths to any musical piece.
- If you could change anything about the music industry, what would it be?
I think music discovery is still a big problem in 2020. I wish there were more opportunities to showcase new artists. I do appreciate the Spotify approach to allow music to organically get featured into more and more playlists, but label connections seem to play a bigger role in that.
- One last thing we should know about you?
If I am not making music you can find me running through Hampstead Heath in North London or kite-surfing in Sicily.
- Thank you!
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