Lost And Sound
Lost and Sound is a podcast exploring the most exciting and innovative voices in underground, electronic, and leftfield music worldwide. Hosted by Berlin-based writer Paul Hanford, each episode features in-depth, free-flowing conversations with artists, producers, and pioneers who push music forward in their own unique way.
From legendary innovators to emerging mavericks, Paul dives into the intersection of music, creativity, and life, uncovering deep insights into the artistic process. His relaxed, open-ended approach allows guests to express themselves fully, offering an intimate perspective on the minds shaping contemporary sound.
Originally launched with support from Arts Council England, Lost and Sound has featured groundbreaking artists including Suzanne Ciani, Peaches, Laurent Garnier, Chilly Gonzales, Sleaford Mods, Nightmares On Wax, Graham Coxon, Saint Etienne, Ellen Allien, A Guy Called Gerald, Jean Michel Jarre, Liars, Blixa Bargeld, Hania Rani, Roman Flügel, Róisín Murphy, Jim O’Rourke, Yann Tiersen, Thurston Moore, Lias Saoudi (Fat White Family), Caterina Barbieri, Rudy Tambala (A.R. Kane), more eaze, Tesfa Williams, Slikback, NikNak, and Alva Noto.
Paul Hanford is a writer, broadcaster, and storyteller whose work bridges music, culture, and human connection. His debut book, Coming to Berlin, is available in all good bookshops.
Lost and Sound is for listeners passionate about electronic music, experimental sound, and the people redefining what music can be.
Lost And Sound
Bjarki
A few Sundays ago I spoke with Icelandic producer and DJ Bjarki, whose seems to be at an interesting point in his artistic evolution, capable of creating club bangers yet seemingly more curious to explore dark yet heartfelt spaces between satire and science.
From his explosive blunt weapon of a debut track "I Want to Go Bang,” almost ten years ago now, to his innovative new album "A Guide to Hellthier Lifestyle." Bjarki shares how he weaves themes like environmental awareness and the wellness industry into his music, shaping each track into a piece of conceptual art.
Bjarki has built up a reputation for releasing under different pseudonyms and is able to create music that doesn’t sit under one label, he’s pretty hilariously dissmissive about how easy it is to make a club banger in our chat, for one. We discuss the creative journey of producing an album that examines wellness and influencer culture while embracing new technologies like spatial sound design to enhance the listener's experience. We also get to weave one of my favourite semi-regular sidenotes into the conversation — the connections between music and food!
If you like what I’m doing with Lost and Sound, please like, rate, review or subscribe to the show on your podcast app of choice – it really does help.
“A Guide To Hellthire Lifestyle” by Bjarki is released on February 7th, pre-order on Bandcamp.
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Lost and Sound is sponsored by Audio-Technica
Paul’s BBC World Service radio documentary “The man who smuggled punk rock across the Berlin Wall” is available now on BBC Sounds. Click here to listen.
Paul’s debut book, Coming To Berlin: Global Journeys Into An Electronic Music And Club Culturet Capital is out now on Velocity Press. Click here to find out more.
Lost and Sound title music by Thomas Giddins
can electronic music be satirical? Can electronic music be funny and heartfelt at the same time? Well, that's just something that's going to be pondering today with my guest, the Icelandic producer and DJ Bjarki, on this week's Lost in Sound. But first, lost in Sound is sponsored by Audio-Technica, a global but family-run company that make headphones, turntables, cartridges, microphones, studio-quality yet affordable products, because they believe that high-quality audio should be accessible to all. So, wherever you are in the world, head on over to Audio-Technicacom to check out all of their range of stuff. Thank you, hello, and welcome to episode 151 of Lost in Sound. How are you doing?
Speaker 1:I'm Paul Hanford, I'm your host, I'm an author, a broadcaster and a lecturer, and Lost in Sound is the weekly podcast where I chat with an artist who works outside the box, from global icons to trailblazing outsiders and emerging innovators. We talk music, creativity and perhaps that most daunting part of being an artist the balance of life. Previous guests on the show have included Peaches, suzanne Shiani, jim O'Rourke, cozy, fanny Tootie, jean-michel Jarre, mickey Blanco and first and more. And today you're about to hear a conversation I had a few weeks back with the icelandic producer, dj and provocateur, biarki. You can listen to my bbc radio documentary, the man who smuggled punk rock across the berlin wall by heading over to the bbc sounds app or on the bbc world service home page. And my book coming to berlin is still available in all good bookshops or via the publisher's website, velocity press.
Speaker 1:Okay, so I hope you're having a great day today. I'm speaking to you on the corner of a street in neukölln in berlin and it's yeah, it's pretty cold out there. Um, apologize, if you can hear some drilling and stuff you can't really sort of, I think, like most cities, you can't really be anywhere on, you know, walking around without hearing some drilling, without some fucking renovations going on. So it's just, it's, it's a city sound, isn't it? Um, yeah, so a couple of weeks ago on a sunday, I had a really, I really really enjoyed having this chat with Biarki. Some interviews are like super professional not with me, but there's like an approach, and some interviews, some conversations, rather just kind of go their own way, and I always love it when conversations just go their own way, just kind of go their own way. And I always love it when conversations just go their own way, and this is one of those ones where it just kind of does its own thing.
Speaker 1:I think Bjarki's at a really, really interesting point in his career right now. He's always navigated his own space between making club music and taking a much more conceptual, sometimes thought-provoking, approach to working, which I think really, really crystallizes on his new album which is out in February, which I'll talk about more of in a second um, it's interesting to think about his his career. It's almost been 10 years since he released his first track, I want to go bang, which was released on nina kravitz's trip label, and there's something about the simplicity of that track that really worked and blew up dance floors. It reminds me of like ramones, actually like a kind of techno ramones, in the way that the ramones really simplified and brought humor into rock and roll and just strip it down to its most basic core fun elements. I want to go bang did that with a 4-4 and he could have really carried along that route of churning out bangers to an increasingly larger edm crowd. But instead he he's both released and DJed a really impossible-to-pin-down range of stuff from ambient to IDM, released music under different aliases and under different labels and fed in topics like the environment into his work, like, for example, on Happy Earth Day, his debut lp for the k7 label, which I think was in 2019, um, so we had this chat because he's made this new album called a guide to healthier lifestyle is healthier is spelt like hell, fear like hell, and which I think sees him moving, for now at least, further into the space of making an artistic statement.
Speaker 1:This is not a club record and it's not straightforwardly like an a bedroom listening idm ambient kind of record either. It's something else, has aspects of that, but it's something else. I feel like it's saying something that I feel is art in that it does, it has something that it's saying about and it does it with some soul. Um, it also does it with some really, really, really sort of very impressive innovative techniques, going with hyper stereo ai voices. Um, it reminds me in parts of like coil or frobbing gristle, um, but it's incredibly modern, is a really interesting record, and so we spoke on a sunday.
Speaker 1:Biarki, as you'll find out, was incredibly jet lagged after doing an immense amount of flying and I guess, because it was Sunday, I was just feeling very, very, very Sunday myself and a little bit lazy, and you know, maybe it wasn't the best time to do an interview, but out of doing that something I think really really nice happened and I really really enjoyed chatting with Bjarke and we got into our own flow. We got into subjects like about getting around the creative headspace that you need to get into to make work. We delved into the satirical aspects of what he's doing and also, if you're a regular listener, you'll know that I love a good music slash food analogy, and last week with Laurent Garnier. Obviously he has a background as a chef, so it was quite easy for me to kind of delve into this a little bit, but I can't remember if Biaki started this or if I started this, but we get onto a bit of a music slash food analogy trip on this episode.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, it's a good chat and it's coming up in a second and if you haven't already, please give the show a subscribe, give the show a rating and a review, if you like as well. It's really really really mega appreciated. It does, in its own weird way, really really help Lost and Sound and help what I'm doing. Ok, so this is what happened when I met biarky how are you doing?
Speaker 2:I am a little bit jet lagged, but uh, I just came back from los angeles so I had a little um jet lag and uh, from yesterday's trip it was quite long I was I was flying from los angeles and then to turkey and then I was transit in turkey and then back to and then to iceland, so it's like well, thank you so much for making time for me on a on a sunday, when you're still jet lagged and don't worry, don't worry, if you just go with the jet lag, it's all good as well.
Speaker 2:So yeah, I mean, I think I think doing these type of things you either have to be a little bit hung over and a little bit um jet lagged, you know.
Speaker 1:Then you get the real, the real deal yeah, I think that's the same with a lot of creativity in a way, isn't that?
Speaker 2:there's points of creativity where you it's really important to just not be super alert to second guess yourself no 100, and also like preparation, like I I understand, like you know, like, like I think my, my wife was more, um, you know, concerned if I did any preparation for this interview and I'm like, yeah, no, you know, it comes naturally. It might take a little bit more time, but it's kind of more nice to wrap your head around the things as you go right wrap your head around the things as you go.
Speaker 1:Right, yeah, I, I definitely. It's something I don't always 100 managed to do, I feel. But I guess it's like with music as well, that the preparation comes in the years that you spend learning stuff and updating things. So the music should, I think, not for every artist, but for a lot of artists it just comes because of the back preparation you've done yeah, everything is sort of preparation, you know, it's like in some sense, you know constantly, um, you're constantly bathing in some kind of you know the world.
Speaker 2:There's a lot of things going on, you know, and a lot of things that just, and I think it's kind of nice with music when you can just kind of open up um behind closed doors and express it in your own ways. That's what I think a music when? Yeah, what music is about?
Speaker 1:yeah, I mean, which I guess talking about the outside world is a good way to to actually just talk about the new album then a guide to healthier lifestyle. Um, I mean, I think it's brilliant and I think it's a really interesting thing to take on a subject. I don't know how directly the intentions were when you began, or even, as for me as a listener, to pick up on this, but to look at things like about lifestyle and wellness obsessions, I was wondering how that topic came about for you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, I'm still trying to figure it out really, because it started with this one track that I did and that was was what?
Speaker 2:two years ago or something, and and that was, yeah, it was about this weird idea about like, um, a child being born in a womb on of another, like a wrong mother, like the wrong oomph, and I was in a very weird place, to be honest, like not like you know, I was kind of tired of things around me, like gigging, and you know I didn't have much time to be with myself, and in music I was always kind of in between studios or in between meetings, you know, or like in between gigs and in between meetings, you know, or like in between gigs and in between countries, you know, living in Germany, and and I finally had this moment to like spend a lot of time just with myself. And through that one track, with this weird idea, I was just starting to look at things like opening up Instagram and all these apps that I have, and I was seeing all this weird behavior of wellness and and it's absolutely like it's so, it's really crazy. It's like I don't even know how, where to start. You know it's really crazy. It's like I don't even know how, where to start. You know it's such a well, you know what it, how it is.
Speaker 2:You know, you, you have experienced probably something like this, like people want to make you feel, um, better and and trying to sell you. Uh, you know, like a juice cleanse or a 500 meditation course to cleanse your third eye and it's ridiculous. It's just it kind of feeds into this deeper thing, like why are we all so desperate to fix ourselves? You know what I mean. It's uh, yeah, and I just started to see it all like, and you know, like it, it just with time I was, I I found like uh, you know, this just idea came to me like wow, I have to like have a little fun with this and use it.
Speaker 2:And uh, and like everything unfolds on it. You know, somehow, just with time, things just, you know, somehow just with time, um, things just you know, like everything is meant to be for a certain uh, outburst. I guess you know, like you, you, you let people treat you the way you know you don't want to be treated because you haven't set a boundary. So, of course, at some point you're gonna freak out and you're gonna lose it. You know, and I think with same thing, with creativity, or like like how I have sitting on ideas and it just takes time for it to kind of burst out, you know you know, if that makes sense.
Speaker 1:I definitely relate to that. I feel like I've been going for a period of, I guess creative inertia for a little while. You know. I've been productive but like not actually challenging myself and I've only realized that in the last few days feeling like I'm coming out of it being able to sort of start to think, you know, and it does sort of it's, it's like I don't know, it's I don't know. It's like clarity, I guess. Yeah, for sure it is, it is and, and um, well, it's like clarity, I guess.
Speaker 2:Yeah, for sure it is. It is and well it's like. Making an album is definitely not something that I look for doing, you know, because I don't really enjoy the whole process?
Speaker 2:I don't really. I don't always feel my, I mean, I feel like myself, but I am very invested in it. It takes a lot of energy for me. It's like I'm constantly, you know, bathing myself in it and it's nice, but it's a lot of people like maybe that around me, they, they can feel it. You know there's, there's J Colin, or hide there, yeah. So of course, I don't think I'm going to make another album until maybe, you know, let's see, I have another kind of idea going on. Make another album until maybe, you know, let's see, I have another kind of idea going on, but I'm not really going to rush into it Because with an album, it's not only 13 tracks that are made.
Speaker 2:I think I made around 50 tracks and possibly like 10 hours of just recordings, all kinds of ideas and sketches, of just recordings, all kinds of ideas and sketches and and cause with, with, uh, with the album I went also into kind of new technologies or ways to kind of um, the spatial uh, sound and uh, this kind of um you know, both within storytelling and um and these kind of.
Speaker 2:You know both within storytelling and um and these kind of. You know more details than than than I have released in in my previous works, I believe you know. Also I've been enjoying listening to music and listening to other people that I really like, uh, from the 60s who are been kind of pioneering this, both like Spike Jones or Spike Jones and Bruce Hack. You know these are all like people that I really admire with connection with, with a listener and and this. You and I made so much work in the last two, three years that I've really been focusing a little bit on that, like trying to speak to the listener more direct. You know like you feel it like. You know it's just communication between me and you and through all kinds of experiments. You know like then a guide to healthier lifestyle came along and then I wanted to do that and and and with you know, talk about these wellness industry, because obviously it's so ripe for satire, it's absurd and uh, and the more I got into it, it's into it. It was just like endless of opportunities to kind of play with Because it's all on some kind of philosophical level. It's manipulation. It's our body, it's, uh, you know, a certain stress that you know like to feel better. You know like you have to eat this or do that to do these exercises to live longer. You know it.
Speaker 2:It checks into all these boxes of um what I really enjoy about you know, um, what I really enjoy about you know, music, films, stories, everything you know it's, it's so interesting concept and and through you know, listening to music that I really enjoy, and after some time then it kind of all falls together like you are ready to uh, step into, um, the one and a half year of creating an album and and, like I said, it's not always something that I would, you know, I don't jump from excitement to, you know, to go into that, but of course I really liked the outcome of this album.
Speaker 2:I think it's the best, my best work, for sure, and I'm very excited to take on for the technology or the techniques that I was acquiring for this certain album. Was this more spatial sound design, to have the sound travel more around the speakers in a circular movement, or I've been trying to have the sound source fall kind of in this kind of horizontal movement that I've still haven't really figured out yet. But when I figure out then I think you know music, or for me making album, will be a lot more fun, for sure.
Speaker 1:So it was a big process as well of changing how you work and becoming more spatially aware and feeding that into the work.
Speaker 2:For sure, yeah, for sure. I mean, I've always been very into this kind of stereo spread, always been very, uh, into this kind of stereo spread, and but this one was particular. Yeah, more you know careful, um, you know was not. It was not kind of it's not like this kind of show off, like I have I have music that I have.
Speaker 2:Just I'm just showing off like, yeah, you know, like techno, okay, I, I have much bigger kick drum than yours and you know, this guy, how techno works and uh, oh, I'm gonna put things in. You know much wider than your. You know this kind of competition, which I also like in techno, but I think for this type of stuff is more personal and more you know.
Speaker 1:You just want to do something very nice and beautiful yeah, and I really love the combination of all of these things because I mean, we take, for example, the track real insight um, the lyrics on it. To me it's really funny, but it's also really sad as well, and this is like it captures something. But I think, you know, I think in some ways it could be seen that, you know, maybe you're poking fun at something, but I think, at the same time I think these are the, the words that the voice articulates are things that probably all of us experience because of our connection with, like, how we sold things on social media, and so it's sort of yeah, it's like I found myself laughing at what I imagined like a kind of a wellness person buying into this and I thought, fuck, that's me as well, a kind of a wellness person buying into this.
Speaker 2:and I thought, fuck, that's me as well. Yeah, that's the. I think that's also something that I'm, you know, like, like I mentioned before, like I haven't really been. I had so much time to really, you know, spend time in the with myself and in the studio and just do nothing. Now I'm like really excited to just try to do nothing. And even the more I try to do nothing, I cannot do nothing.
Speaker 2:And because I need to be able to not do nothing, I need to be able to just be at home and think and just look out the window, you know, and just sit in my studio and vacuum it a little bit and uh, be excited to, uh to take on topics like that, because that is like it takes a lot of time. You need to, you need a little bit, um, you need some space to think before you enter the studio, you know, because you don't. That's how, that's how I usually look at it, and and and then it's usually so quick, you know, you just have to bathe yourself in these kind of topics and then it comes. It's not it's, and that one is, that's the real insight is, um, that was, that was basically, you know, it was my ex-girlfriend kind of you know, you know so, so so yeah, yeah I don't want to go too deep into that no, no worries, no, I totally understand.
Speaker 1:It's a, I mean.
Speaker 1:But one, one thing I did draw a parallel with was, um, that I was wondering.
Speaker 1:What you thought about is that I did see.
Speaker 1:Listening to it, I felt like there's, there is a connection between what perhaps you're describing in the wellness industry, or the issues with the kind of capitalism of the wellness industry in terms of, like, the imageness of everything and, like, I guess, like electronic music um, particularly in the last five years or so since the pandemic and I remember reading an interview that you did with Mixmag, with with a friend of mine, john Thorpe, actually who, um, when you're talking about how, like in electronic music, people can get really stuck on image control, and I think since the last five years, we've seen how, uh, djs have got big purely from social media platforms and I was wondering what, how, how you related to that, if that was something that you you know, you that is for someone that's been djing, for you know I'm producing for quite some time now how you relate to this wave that has been developing I don't know, it's a good question, but it's very like I hear a lot of people talk about it and and a lot of people get very like uh pessimistic about, like, the future of techno or the dj I mean.
Speaker 2:So how easy to kind of go in that. I'm kind of very optimistic about it and I think it is somehow a natural progression. For sure, after what happened in pandemic, it's definitely a new era for sure. I feel like with not only music, also just with galleries and openings and stuff like that, people are struggling much more with that and now it's just fame that is involved. That's, you know, social media. People want to be more famous, you know.
Speaker 2:And like, I kind of distance myself a little bit from it. And the more I distance myself from little bit from it and the more distance myself from it, then more happier that I am actually, because I don't know, I think in the end of the end of it all, like I was, I was okay, so I was just in LA and a lot of people that are very stuck up with this image and thing and I and it was one thing that like because I was in Bombay Beach, that is like in the desert and I was doing like a rave for like 20 people or something. You know, it was like super fun, you know, just friends doing weird things. And there were some people invited and there was this one person who was asking me like, yeah, but don't you want to be like a bigger? Don't you want to be like like a bigger? Or don't you want to be like playing there? You have to meet my friend, like giving this kind of talk, um, and you're just like, nah, um, no, I don't want that. You know, I, I'm not interested in that. It's like, yeah, but what is your goal then?
Speaker 2:It's like, yeah, I think the goal is just, you know, probably just ending someone's record shelf, you know, and hopefully like the, the good shelf. You know, I think that's the whole reason of making music. It just, you know. You know I don't want to be morbid or anything but but I think I think that is like. You know, that's my kind of view on, on, on it all. You know, like I'm, I see more artists that have a great image, but it's like there's no music there, you know, there's no. No, it's more about the photo shoots than the, the actual craft of, of connecting people with music.
Speaker 1:You know if you agree with that I do, and I also feel like what you're saying about that encounter that you had at the rave, where, um, where people seem to think that you've got to have like an angle on what you're doing, that's that you've got to be viewing doing something creative purely through a capitalist lens, exactly which, yeah, I mean I want to eat, I want to be able to go on holiday and I want to be able to take, take my partner to really nice restaurants and not on holiday. But I don't really see it as about just like this kind of idea of just eating and eating and eating like eating as much capital as possible and occupying as big a space in the market and all of this. It just it's, you know the ultimately like I'm happiest when I get an idea yeah, I mean, was that like a metaphorically speaking with the restaurant?
Speaker 1:um, it started off as a metaphor, and then it yeah, I think it's. It's very sunday, isn't it?
Speaker 2:it's yeah, yeah, yeah I was gonna say, like you wouldn't, you would rather want to go to, like, find the restaurant you know that you really want to go to, you know, and eat there, you know, not just go and eat as much as you can. I think taste is very important. Yes, to have a certain taste. I believe, like I have a really very important yes, to have a certain taste and I believe, like I have a really good taste in music. Like I actually value my knowledge of what I have learned in the last years and I have to admit, like also with DJing, like I started DJing more after the COVID. I was usually playing live and I think I, you know, spent, you know, I was very quickly to kind of master the craft of DJing. Of course, I've spent so many years with music and techno when you, I've spent so many years with music and techno and but I was learning actually how to be a dj. Like being a dj is not just to play, um, you know, or being a techno techno dj just to play techno. Of course, when I play live, I play only my stuff or edits or something to keep it interesting, but when I was starting to dj after covid, I play everything that I, like you know, like that I want to keep the floor moving, to have, you know, like to keep people entertained and take them on a journey, and of course, that means that I'm gonna play music that maybe you know it's not. You know, some, some, some men are going to be feeling like a little bit with straight men, are going to be feeling a little bit intimidated by music, you know. But that is, for me, it's like the whole experiencing of of you know, to, to, to have a dance, to, to have a dj and have the music you know you want to be fat music that you don't know. Yeah, that's how.
Speaker 2:You want to go to a restaurant. You know you want to eat something. You want to spend money on it. You know you're, you're spending some time, you want to eat and you want to have a good. Have you ever had a good restaurant? Like I went out for a good good. You go to a restaurant. You're like, wow, this is, this is so good. Like this is the best food I've had in a long time. Yeah, I don't think so.
Speaker 1:Well.
Speaker 2:I have yeah.
Speaker 1:I mean, yeah, I have definitely had that, or maybe it's been like an individual course or a taste, and maybe also maybe at those times it's been connected with other things as well, like good emotions around the experience outside of that. But I like where you're going with that, so please carry on. I think it's interesting what you're building to.
Speaker 2:Yeah, maybe it's all going to collapse.
Speaker 1:Collapsing new buildings, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:So I mean the taste. You want to have all ear open taste buds. Show me something. Show me something, mr chef, mr dj. You know you have spent all your time in the kitchen for the last so many you know years, or you know, show me your craft and show me what you learned.
Speaker 2:Well, I've been, you know um, working in an office nine to five. You know, um, this is usually how I kind of want to see it, because there there is, like there's a lot like sometimes I even have like why am I been wasting my time? Uh, like in techno music, you know, like the absolute crap is this, the whole scene, everything, the whole? Uh like because you wake up after 10 years and you're just like holy, I don't connect with anybody here. Like not on musical level, not on tech, like you know, not on like music history, or like interest in music or technology or anything you go into. I don't know many studios. Nobody can do anything in the studio. Everyone is in the box. They have maybe a few machines that they barely use. You know, like they nobody knows how to like um play two player, you know? Or like in music, like I, I come from a background that I, I always kind of like to play with other people in the studio and and it's a two, you know two, two kind of separate thing to be doing it alone and then with others, and those are two different crafts that you need to master, you know, to be able to communicate.
Speaker 2:Something you know as a dj or because you know, like the whole idea of making music is connecting. It's a language, you know, it's like, it's like learning, you know, you just don't go and you learn portuguese, you know, and just um, and who are you going to talk to? Are you going to live in brazil, or or you know, I don't know, like who do you want to talk to? You know, who do you want to communicate with? And it's just funny, like how sometimes people don't think about that or like, or interested in that, and then they just go to the, you know, open up their own restaurant and I'm just like, hey, here's my food, it's the best food in the world, and then they just focus more on how the restaurant looks like and the interior, you know, and the food is like mediocre, or the marketing, you know, like that is an image. I'm trying to come back.
Speaker 1:No, we made it. Yes, I feel like there's also a thing of expectations with, but if we're keeping on like with a restaurant food analogy, there's expectations of what something should taste like. But I feel is similar with the dance floor as well, and I don't necessarily think it's the. I think it's the chef or the DJ's responsibility to communicate with people with the most interesting, most beautifully expressive ways they can, the most interesting, most beautifully expressive ways they can. But often things are funneled into an expectation that, hey, this is a restaurant, you should be able to do this, you should where's, you should be able to prepare something this way, because I'm coming as a customer and I demand to have, uh, something exactly like this. Yeah, I don't want to go to those restaurants. No, they can off.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think. Um, everything that someone makes with their hands, especially also chef, it's really an interesting example, because you are working with your hands doing it. You are working with your hands doing it, you're putting like certain energy into something and of course, it's weird to be locked up in the kitchen and you know, like I think that's why they have open kitchens now you know, so they can see a little bit who they are putting. You know, and this one gets special. No, it's interesting because that's how I actually feel.
Speaker 2:So I want to be able to also kind of create something and make someone feel good, you know and make someone feel good, you know, and the same way I'm, you know, it's kind of, because I think it's always when you start to release something, then there's another angle to the work. Why do you want to release, why do you want to release music? Why don't I just keep it to myself? I always have this kind of you know, and then you come back to the image thing, you know, of course, like, uh, if I have a different, you know, because I I feel sometimes pressure also from people that I have to do this, I have to do that, and and I don't like it, to be honest, I really don't like it. I want to be able to decide if I want to release something or not.
Speaker 2:And then what is the purpose? What does it give me? Because obviously, the music that I'm creating is not a big seller. It's not giving me any money at all. You know, this type of stuff is not really financially. You know, it's not Spotify friendly, you know. No, it's not music with melodies and moods that you can just put on while doing the dishes. I mean, you can, I can, you know, but yeah, it's not stuff that is trying to please anyone. It's not neatly packaged idea of what sells well on the market, so to speak. You know um it. It is personal, it's personal work, and I think what I've been trying to get here is like, yeah, it is nicer, you know, instead of going to you know, you know.
Speaker 1:Okay, I'm going to stop at the restaurants I was going to go back. No, no, it's good. I think we, we, yeah, we, we've had a few courses in the restaurant now, but it is a really good analogy, isn't it? I think quite often, in different conversations I have the, the food comes up in different ways and I think, maybe because people feel a real sense of connection with we have to eat, we don't have to listen to music, but we do, uh, find that there's something that that transports us, when, when things go well with both of these things and we can kind of tell the touch of another human without actually physically touching another human through them yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2:I mean I think, for example, with with this album, I spent more time, uh, getting the track selection together than actually creating it, like writing the music. It took me about half a year, seven months maybe, trying different track orders and listening back to it over and over again, both outside in nature and inside different rooms. Friends, but not in headphones. This album was not meant for headphones.
Speaker 1:Really. Okay, definitely not headphone album, no Okay okay, I'll have to re-listen because I have you listen.
Speaker 2:No, no, no, yeah, okay, I will the wellness retreats don't happen in your airports, my friend that is, I see what you mean.
Speaker 1:So you you are that there's an element of it where you are aping the feeling of being in like a kind of a twisted wellness retreat like for barley like, yeah, your experience is like, you know, like a chef cooking a meal for an airplane airplanes.
Speaker 2:I think the I would say this album is quite spiritual and, yeah, it's more about leaning back and staring to the air a little bit and let the sound kind of flow around the space that you're in and wonder about the world. World, you know, like that's how I envisioned the whole thing and how that's how I built it up, like in the track order as well right, I will re-listen, knowing that.
Speaker 1:And it's interesting you mentioned the word spiritual because on one hand you're making an album that's very heavily satirical about the wellness industry, but listening to it I don't get the feeling you're necessarily being cynical about the human need to to find things in their lives. Maybe maybe it's more about the way it's marketed. I don't know, I don't want to presume, I I know that. But the fact that you mentioned the word spiritual it's just interesting that I don't get the feeling that it's a cynical work that you've made at all and, you know, I feel like there's a lot of heart in it. And maybe, you know, are you a person that sort of? What is your balance with these things, with the, the cynicism and the more spiritual aspects of life?
Speaker 2:I guess I think there is a good balance. I mean, like I said, like the, the satire stuff was that I didn't continue with that, like I, there is a little bit of it, but, um, it is a serious work for sure. And and it's kind of nice also to like you say like, uh, it's a marketing um thing, like it's uh, it's um, it is a little like the title says it all. You know, it's a little bit uh, how do you call it, I don't know. Like I really enjoy satire and sarcastic humor, but maybe less sarcastic, but satire for sure. And I'm known to be a little bit funny guy, but I think with every, everything that is funny is also dead serious.
Speaker 2:Um, yes and satire is there's, there's layers, you know, like something that is. You know, even if I'm like who's the most genius of satire? You know that's Chris Morris.
Speaker 2:I was just about to suggest Chris Morris yeah, Like he has really inspired a lot of my ideas and like unlocked this chamber of ideas that I can just spew endless of thoughts and CNN things into my work and and like we've been talking about like this wellness thing. But with that being said, Chris Morris, you can see, with Jam everything is there's so many layers behind every sketch. In a way there's those and everything that is funny is serious. I find something funny and somebody's gonna be like are you crazy? That's not funny. And then you'll be like no, it's just, I wasn't thinking like that, you know. I think just like the whole situation is funny I'm not making fun of you know, like there's so many layers of funny that it's it kind of very serious.
Speaker 1:I've yeah I mean it's kind of very serious. Yeah, I mean it's amazing that you mentioned Chris Morris there and Jam. I felt that was such a unique piece of artwork. What he did with that Like it was horrific and funny. And, being an English person myself, I feel one of the only things I'm actually relate to, you know, feel proud of about Englishness because there's so much I don't is is being able to use humor in situations where a lot of people, like particularly living in Germany wouldn't use humor and it doesn't. It's not always understood, but we might use it to just highlight the absurdity of something very serious.
Speaker 2:You know what I started to do also, like not so long ago, because I'm also writing sometimes sketches, okay, or I've been doing that since I was, yeah, young, 15, maybe Just sequence like scenes, basically okay. And now recently I've been putting some of these stuff and also new stuff into chat gbt and then I write, uh, make it more chris morris, and that's so hilarious, that that's really fun, wow.
Speaker 1:What does it do? What kind of results have you had?
Speaker 2:Well, I can maybe just pull it up.
Speaker 1:Let me see, like do do, do, do, Let me see.
Speaker 2:Okay, I'm going to do a little interview with the DJ. Okay, so, bjarki, I'm me. So tell me, as a DJ, what exactly is your role in music? Are you the artist or just someone who presses play on a sequence of other people's talent? The DJ Well, I see myself as a curator of soundscapes of other people's talent. The DJ Well, I see myself as a curator of soundscapes. I mix tracks, create vibes and enhance the club experience. Enhance the experience by playing music loudly and hoping nobody notices.
Speaker 2:It's just one song chasing another. Isn't that just an iPod with a human face? No, no, no. It's much more than that. It's about reading the crowd, knowing what will get them going, creating a journey with the music, a journey you say so adventurous. Do you also provide life jackets in case someone drowns in the sound? Well, it's a metaphorical, but yeah, you could say that music can be deep and immersive Immersive. So, in your opinion, is there a deep philosophical difference between dropping a beat and dropping a sandwich? Both hit the floor eventually, but only one gets a cheer. Dropping a beat can energize a whole room. It's about timing and creating peaks in the night. Fascinating, and when the night? Fascinating. And when the night peaks too soon, do you switch to playing audiobooks to calm the crowd down, or is that when the real DJing begins? No, the real skill is keeping the energy right all night, knowing when to lift it and when to let it coast. Indeed the delicate art of musical elevation. Tell me, have you ever considered elevating something else in your life?
Speaker 1:It is. That's the Chris Morris newscaster, isn't it?
Speaker 2:I would think so yeah, that is Brass, I mean.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the news, the news. I met him once at a festival, chris morris oh, wow really, it was really surprising.
Speaker 1:It was um, an english festival called latitude, if you do. You know, yeah, and um, um, he was camped in the performers area, like with his actual family, and I was also working for a company there that was camped there. We were neighbours and we would get. He would be in the coffee queue every morning and we would talk about what we had seen the night before and what we were going to see. And I don't really have anything hilarious to say about him apart from just how nice he was and I was imagining him to be be this terrifying, that newscaster, basically just this really terrifying news presence, and he's just this. It was just this nice guy in a flowery shirt yeah, yeah, he looks like he looks very sweet yeah I mean you're so do you feel?
Speaker 1:I mean, do you ever rest Because you seem to have so many aliases, multiple different labels? You've just read me out some comedy, that you've been doing some sketches. I mean you've made an album about wellness and lifestyle, satirising, the commerce of it. How do you know you've made an album about wellness and lifestyle, satirizing but the commerce of it. How do you find relaxation yourself?
Speaker 2:uh, I guess it. It is some kind of a relaxation for me, just as long as I don't have to be anywhere on time. Um, somewhere or in a plane going somewhere, or you know, I, I really don't believe that somewhere. Or you know, I, I really don't believe that people should work. You know, like I, I really, like, genuinely think that. You know, I want to have people around me who don't work a nine to five you know, who have some kind of a.
Speaker 2:You know we should work less, for sure, there should be less and more income, of course. But in a dream, you know we should work less, for sure, there should be less and more income, of course. But in a dream, you know, I feel like people can, you know, rest with their own mind and own thoughts, and I really like to spend time also writing stuff and make music. I mean, that's, that's kind of how I, how I look at resting, or also just don't try to do nothing, but it always ends up I have some ideas that I want to. You know, somebody says something and I'm like writing it down yes, you know like you know, there's always a scene.
Speaker 2:There's just always some kind of scenario going on and I guess I find my rest when I write it down. And I'm working on now writing a short film and I really enjoy it and I like to write it also with pen Because I'm losing my handwriting. Yeah, I am too. Yeah, I barely know how to write it also with pen. And because I'm losing my handwriting, yeah, I am too. Yeah, like I barely know how to write anymore.
Speaker 1:And I can't read it back. When I look at mine, I can't understand what I've just written Exactly.
Speaker 2:Exactly, but there is some kind of a calm in that.
Speaker 1:I mean I guess it's almost like 10 years since I want to go back, yeah, next year. I think I mean cause I guess it's almost like 10 years since I want to go bang yeah Next year, I think.
Speaker 1:I mean, I mean I get, yeah, I mean, do you? Do you? Do you relate to old work of yours? Do you fight? Do you? What's your relationship with, say, like a track like that which you know did have, quite like you know it did have some impact that I don't know if anyone was expecting at the time. You know, do you is that? Do you have a relationship with your old work still?
Speaker 2:no, I don't, I think not like on, on, on, like any, I mean it. It it did pay my bills for some time and I got gigs and something like that and I had an opportunity. So I'm very thankful for for that. But I never actually wanted to re, uh, release it and I think I had to have more work done to kind of go the opposite way of you know the track. I was boxed very quickly releasing that kind of track and the amount of attention it got, you know yeah, so it was kind of annoying for me for like a long time. I didn't want to be doing that kind of stuff. I didn't really. You know, I'm not really into hi-hats and claps. I like kick drums, but hi-hats and claps, I like kick drums but but hi-hats and claps, yeah, it was kind of a joke. You know it was a humor track. It was really I just wanted to make like a track. You know that was just banging on the floor, you know no, but yeah, I don't think so.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, it's funny. I think sometimes the tracks that we don't consider I mean speaking with different artists, and I've had a little bit of experience with this myself is that the stuff we find the most throwaway sometimes is the stuff that has the largest audience.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's the stuff that has the largest audience. Yeah, it's. Yeah, yeah, it's uh, I don't have to be careful, um, but yeah, I mean, there are people out there that have uh that. Then they have taste, and then, you know, people's tastes are very different and and of course, everyone has a different experiencing with what they want, or, like you know, I am also a guy that just like pizza, you know, and and I love pizza, I have pizza in the oven, you know, like, so it's good to listen to some techno here and there, for sure, but I can't seem I don't really enjoy that anymore, to be honest, like, I feel like I'm getting old, but I'm not that old.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, I like what you're saying about pizza. I definitely feel that, um, back when people used to have dvds, I always felt a really good dvd collection to me personally, subjectively to me is one where that has, you know, some films that have like that. I've always really wanted to see some like amazing world cinemas and stuff that's won like a palm door, but with with with some adam sandler in there as well 100, 100 absolutely it's the humanity. It's the balance, isn't it absolutely?
Speaker 2:and like, yeah, it's, um, it's uh, quite the world, isn't it yeah?
Speaker 1:It's a funny little world we live in. Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2:No, but like, yeah, I think this, like you said, like the human aspect of things that's, of course, why we're all doing this there's some kind of a connection, some kind of a window that we get into something and and and either into, like, this kind of philosophical edge and and we can tap into some kind of a question that we are questioning or struggling personally with. Um, you know, ourself, or resonate, you know, and, and I think my kind of future of music making maybe filmmaking, I don't know will always be in some kind of a, you know, trying to express these unsettling, familiar conflicts, the uncomfortable that we are facing in ourselves. You know, and coming back to the album, I'm still processing it, you know, and I'm still, you know, like it starts as a satire and then it's just like the jokes on me, you know, like I am going through you know something, you know you always kind of reflect back on it afterwards, you know, wow, this is actually it's been my retreat.
Speaker 1:It's been my retreat, you mean like the yeah right, the production of it, the making.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, they do say that the stuff you joke about it. I don't know who they are, but the there is that idea that you know when, when we're we're bit, we're joking about something with, we're sort of telling people something about ourselves as well yeah, exactly, I mean, you're just, maybe I'm just hiding everything.
Speaker 2:You know it's a joke and deep inside I'm this little you know boy that is just very scared and just like, yeah, yeah, well, I think that's.
Speaker 1:That's probably all men are, you know, is just how much of a sort of of disguise you want to put around it.
Speaker 2:Exactly, and I think that is interesting. You know when you can kind of start to see that and you know it creates this sense of discomfort or vulnerability.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely. And I said men then because I wouldn't want to presume any other gender apart from my own lived and experiences one. So sorry to put the woke preface in there, but I do feel like as a man I can relate to how other men, as I see it, we do put on this sort of big barrier between the world and us and use toughness and various kind of codes to sort of hide the fact that we're all just little boys.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the deeper human longing for someone to get us, you know, to like we want to be understood, you know, to really see and accept who we are beneath the roles we play, you know.
Speaker 1:We're just little boys. Yeah, love me, definitely, definitely. Yeah, bjarki, I think that was the interview, thank you, thank you, okay. So that was me, paul Hamford, talking with Bjarki for the Lost in Sound podcast, and we had that chat on the 17th of november 2024. Thank you so so much, biarki, for for sharing that little bit of a window between the pizza being ready on a jet lagged sunday with me to to share your thoughts there.
Speaker 1:A guide to healthier lifestyle is out on february, the 7th, which is a little way off. The reason like I'm putting this out now is I've the date got put back. It was meant to be coming out next week. The the whatever, whatever date next week is in in mid-december, but, um, it's. There is an, a standalone single 10 000 steps, but still biting my nails, which you can check out now. Um, the album guide to healthier lifestyle is well worth the rate, the weight, and it's coming out on his new label difference, which he's co-founded with the artist thomas harrington rule. Okay. So thank you, barkey, thank you, um, for you people. Thank you for you people listening. Thank you so much for listening to the show today If you want to check out more stuff that I do if you've not checked out already.
Speaker 1:You can listen to my radio documentary the man who Smuggled Punk Rock Across the Berlin Wall by heading on over to the BBC Sounds app on the BBC World Service homepage, and my book Coming to Berlin is available in all good bookshops or via the publisher's website. Velocity press audio technica are the sponsors of lost and sound audio technica, the global but still family-run company that make headphones, turntables, cartridges, microphones. They make studio quality yet affordable products. They make the headphones that I'm wearing right now as I'm talking to you on a street on a very, very cold day in neukölln, um, so go to their website, check out all of their range of stuff wwwaudiotechnicacom. The music that you hear at the beginning, at the end of every episode of lost and sound, is by my good friend, thomas giddens, hyperlink, as always in the podcast description. And so yeah, that's it. I hope, whatever you're doing today, you're having a really fucking amazing day and I'll chat to you soon, thank you.