Between Studio Work and the Outside World

how nature shapes my music

Much of my musical work takes place indoors. In front of screens. In a controlled environment of room lighting, cables, interfaces, and decisions that often differ only in nuances. It is a form of concentration that easily tips into tunnel vision. For hours, sometimes days on end. My head full, my body still.

In contrast, there is being outside. A walk. Clouds that slowly shift as you walk. Sunlight that is not designed, but simply there. Wind that doesn’t ask if it’s convenient. A fresh breeze that broadens your view without demanding anything. For me, this contrast is not just a balance - it is necessary.

I think outside, too. Ideas don’t disappear immediately just because you change rooms. But something changes gradually. At some point, after a certain amount of time, there comes a point where thoughts become quieter. Or at least more permeable. You begin to notice other things: birds chirping, the rustling of leaves, your own breathing. It’s like a threshold of perception - a gate that cannot be forced, but opens if you stay long enough.

From this moment on, certain things lose their importance. Problems shrink, rearrange themselves, or fade into the background. Space expands. Not only external space, but internal space as well. The path stretches out before you, step by step, and with it a form of vastness that cannot be planned.

The seasons play a major role in this. Light, temperature, smells, moods - all of these are constantly changing and continue to have a subliminal effect. These impressions are later carried over into the music. Not as a direct translation, but as an emotional echo. The process of being outside interacts with what is later created in the studio. It colors decisions, influences tensions, pauses, density.

For me, atmospheric music needs nature. Not in a romantic sense, but as a sensory experience. Without these experiences, I feel like something essential is missing: a keen sense of transitions, of openness, of the unspoken. Nature recalibrates my perception. It reminds me that not everything has to be in focus to be meaningful.

Perhaps it is precisely this alternation - between control and openness, between room light and sunlight, between tunnel vision and wind - that drives my work. Not as a contrast, but as a cycle.