Sound Art Producer

Q: Tell us about a project you worked on you are especially proud of and why. What was your role?

A: I produced, scored and recorded the music for a short animation that's about to come out this year. It was the first of its kind within my portfolio and the beauty of it was its multifaceted nature as a hybrid publication that included curating a digital space and blending its artistic component with archival practices rooted in research and history.

Q: What advice do you have for a customer looking to hire a provider like you?

A: If I send you score sketches for a project I need to write for, do not be disappointed by their apparent simplicity. I focus most of all on evoking the mood of a piece through the textures I pick and the layering that might emerge *during* the recording process.

Q: What are you working on at the moment?

A: Delivering a weekly set of music for my one-hour stream on WORM Radio every Friday night.

Q: If you were on a desert island and could take just 5 pieces of gear, what would they be?

A: My macbook, the interface, my op-z and the 2 speakers.

Q: Is there anyone on SoundBetter you know and would recommend to your clients?

A: Mark van Bruggen.

Q: Analog or digital and why?

A: Coming from a fundamentally analog world, I inevitably gravitate towards it, for the unaltered richness available at one's fingertips and ears. The body of sound tends to also be a lot more authentic than in the case of digital/sampled instruments. And this applies to both electronic or acoustic instruments. My current personal interest lies in exploring fully modular synthesizers, which is my next frontier right now and I must say I'm a "hands-on" learner when it comes to patching and such.

Q: What do you like most about your job?

A: Having the satisfaction of foreseeing in my ears a recording which is about to become a work of art on its own, thanks to its production elements and conceptual identity.

Q: What questions do you ask prospective clients?

A: I'm mostly curious about the psychology of a piece, the characters within and the desired effect.

Q: How would you describe your style?

A: Eclectic, yet very much informed by contemporary classical music and electronic music.

Q: Which artist would you like to work with and why?

A: David Byrne, for his fluid and constantly evolving songwriting and producing styles.

Q: What was your career path? How long have you been doing this?

A: I've been following the path of the performing artist for 2/3 of my life, while pursuing similarly creative paths as a composer, arranger, conductor, poet and visual artist. I've been a sound engineer/recording artist for a couple of years now, my improvement proving to be exponential in the last 6 months, having released 4 records of my own while concomitantly delivering on other people's projects, either live or in the studio.

Q: What questions do customers most commonly ask you? What's your answer?

A: How I ended up in the Netherlands, to which I explain why I wanted to complete my education here. This way I can introduce them to the fields I managed to specialize in.

Q: What's your 'promise' to your clients?

A: That I'm dedicated to cooperating closely with them by asking questions and adjusting the ongoing outcome according to their taste/necessities/requirements/feedback.

Q: What's the biggest misconception about what you do?

A: That I'm all over the place, stylistically, which is erroneous, since what I'm doing simply doesn't have accurate descriptive labels yet.

Q: What other musicians or music production professionals inspire you?

A: John Zorn, Danny Elfman, Carla Bley, Björk, Solange, Radiohead, Crumb, Meredith Monk.

Q: Can you share one music production tip?

A: Always mind the macro aspect of your production, the incipient elements that may spread easily into the layout of your project; it helps the workflow.

Q: What's your strongest skill?

A: My ability to make trans-disciplinary & inter-conceptual associations, as well as my dense harmonic vocabulary.

Q: What do you bring to a song?

A: Melodies that won't conform to the mainstream trend, harmonic suspense that triggers the appropriate tension within an audience and an overall sonic arch/structure that proves to be a journey on its own. In titling content or lyrics writing, I also tend to impress with my use of metaphors and the curatorial nuances I bring to a whole album, from song to song.

Q: Tell us about your studio setup.

A: I work in a treated environment, with one of the industry's best sound interfaces, accompanied by a pair of fine and vintage Genelec speakers. My professional network allows me to borrow instruments from my peers and experiment widely with them, as can be observed on my Instagram.

Q: What type of music do you usually work on?

A: Improvised, experimental, contemporary.

Q: What's your typical work process?

A: I listen first to the client's content and, depending on the situation, I either record multiple improvised takes that end up being the raw material for a song or I design textures in my libraries that match the intended outcome or mood of a product or piece.

Q: Describe the most common type of work you do for your clients.

A: Commissioned work as an electronic composer or songwriting for other artists/bands.