How Experiences Shape The Music We Are Listening To: In Conversation with Nunguja

For me there wasn’t one specific moment that I can pinpoint to in my life where I can say this is where everything started. I think that music is one of the most democratic mediums of art because it’s so accessible and universal. I think everyone has a relationship with music from a young age, it’s hard to not in a way. Even if it’s something sitting in your parents car and they’re playing the radio for example. This is also one of the reasons why I love music so much because it’s not so intimidating or classist as other mediums of art. And it’s this thing where everyone can participate and it doesn’t really matter where you’re from, or how old you are or what your dreams are. There’s no entry point. For me it’s also the same thing that it’s been around me forever and all of my experiences have led to this point.

I know it may sound super simple but I think that curiosity is one of the most important things when creating something. Our generation grew up on the internet and if you have early internet access, you will kind of look at random things. I had like, a family computer growing up and the internet back then was maybe a little bit more limited than it is now. And as we get older, you kind of become an expert at using the internet, right? And I think we all probably found a lot of inspiration in this way just by growing up having access

 I started using SoundCloud when I was really young. I think when I was like 14, 15, something like this, and it was also obviously huge back then. SoundCloud I think kind of has died down in the mainstream, but back then SoundCloud was the platform to find new music. I would hear music that I had never heard before and it was crazy to me. And I think that’s one really specific thing that probably still inspires me to this day, you know?

People do get confused by this sometimes. I know when I DJ, I kind of tend to play really hard or harder things, and I’m also really interested in just distortion. I also love intimate sound, maybe because when I listen to music myself, I don’t listen to just one genre. I listen to music in all the different moments in your life. And so it feels almost impossible to me to just only have one sound. Because it doesn’t really relate to my internal world.

Yeah, well, I’ve just released a limited edition of CDs with this Liverpool based label, they’re called Sink. And for this, I wrote four organ compositions. I slowed them down using this program called Paulstretch, which is this program where you can put an audio file in and basically slow it down. There’s this Justin Bieber song U SMILE that someone uploaded on youtube maybe 15 years ago and it’s like 800% slowed down. It’s a beautiful, unintentional ambient song and it was one of my inspirations. I also did a live set, where I was doing a two hour long improvisation in König Gallery. I was inspired by this composer Pauline Oliveros, who also inspired the slowed down version of the songs I made for the Cd because she coined the quantum listening theory. It’s all about the practice of focused listening, expanding your mind and your perception through this practice of deep listening and meditating. The music is very droney and so it lets you really relax and that’s also what I did for the live sets. The curator put mattresses in the gallery so people were basically laying on the mattresses for two hours.

I don’t think I have one favorite set that I can name because I think every time you play somewhere, it’s going to be different. Even if you play the exact same thing at the exact same venue, it will never be the same. Because there’s just so many factors that influence how a set is going to go. And those things can be internal factors, but also external factors. Sometimes it can feel really punishing, but sometimes it also can be really rewarding. And those two things are also related to each other. Maybe the punishing things can be the ones where you take the most from.

I think there’s always going to be external factors influencing you subconsciously. No matter how aware you are of those outside circumstances, you’re going to be inspired or influenced by those things. Usually the people that I’m closest to inspire me the most. I’m in constant exchange with them all the time and I love working with my friends. There’s already this baseline of trust which usually will make things easier also.

There’s always positive and negative things to say about the music industry. It’s not simple, but I am a hopeful person. So I do believe that there will always be people who will try to move things into a positive direction. There will always be pioneers, let’s say, even if now the future seems really bleak. This is also one of the reasons why I started this platform with my friends called DEMO. I started this collective with Suutoo, Tati au Miel and Mischa Notcutt, they’re friends and close collaborators. We tarted this as a space for artists to experiment and try uncompromising things without any type of inhibitions. Because I realized that a lot of experimental artists, at some point have this pressure be more commercially viable in order to survive. It is really hard these days and we are trying to make room for artists to just experiment. We are releasing some other artists’ music by the end of the year, and the next year. Our interest extends beyond music to all forms of creative expression.

When I make a song, I always start with a feeling. I can’t really approach it in any other way besides that, music is very emotional for me. I kind of know what sound I like and I know what I’m attracted to. For a set, I also start with feeling, but then I will just kind of try to find things that work with this. Like, as you mentioned before, for a lot of my mixes, it will be maybe a totally different sound and emotion when I do a radio mix versus playing 6 a.m. at a club.

This does actually happen a lot for me during a DJ set, but then I just change the sound. You kind of can do whatever you want, really. laughs You just need to have the USB stick, and obviously your tracks. A lot of it is also about playing around and layering songs and creating something new through that. That’s why my sets can also feel chaotic to some, but to me it just feels right. Sometimes you also want a moment to breathe. Also I generally can’t play the same sets twice, i get bored.

Find a mentor, honestly. That person can push you a lot more than you would expect. People always say surround yourself with like minded people. But I think this is almost redundant, people do that anyway. Besides this thing of a mentor —this could sound really corny — but don’t be scared of the world basically. I think young people are really scared these days.

I think I want to keep it a secret until now, but one obvious process of it is releasing music.