Private Culture
This is Private Culture — private conversations about all things culture.
Hosted by Ingrid Paskell.
Made by North Node.
Private Culture
E5; Private conversation with Kleo - Angel voice and cosmic synchronicities with a touch of "David-Lynch-LA-kinda-Magic".
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This is Private Culture - Private conversations about all things Culture.
In this episode of Private Culture, host Ingrid Paskell is in her Studio Space in Copenhagen. She sits down with Danish singer and song-writer, the artist Kleo.
Recording from Ingrid’s iconic green Togo, they explore and discuss the music-industry, how songs come to life, David Lynch, Vedic astrology and they go in-depth with Kleo’s debut album; Event Horizon, listening to specific tracks to illustrate the different feminine energies that play out in Kleo’s musical universe on this journey.
This conversation offers a behind-the-scenes peek into the world of being a recording artist.
There is a lot of deep and vulnerable moments, personal stories from past fears and future dreams and some practical advice offered as Kleo generously shares from her unique perspective - combining many worlds and even dimensions - Kleo is so much more than just her angelic voice and captivating lyrics.
The conversation dances between topics such as; living an artistic life, cosmic synchronicities balancing the spiritual with a hyper-romantic sensitivity.
Kleo is born just outside of Copenhagen, but has spent a lot of time in both London and LA.
She will be going on tour end April and beginning of May in Denmark.
Her album Event Horizon is out and can be streamed on all streaming platforms.
Link to Spotify below:
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Follow Kleo :
Instagram : https://www.instagram.com/kleoleia/
Event Horizon : https://open.spotify.com/album/75Q8AkjJ7dy56z2xtT4yTY
Follow Ingrid Paskell:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ingrid.paskell/
Follow Private Culture :
Instagramm: https://www.instagram.com/private__culture/
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Credits
Host: Ingrid Paskell
Guest: Kleo
Creative Director: Simon Søby
Sound Design & Edit: Carsten Sherpa, Simon Søby
Music: Giordano Léon Makholm
Art Work: Peter Westh
Producer: Ingrid Paskell, Simon Søby
Presented by: North Node
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Hello, this is Private Culture Podcast by North Node, private conversations about all things culture. We explore creativity, culture, and connection through authentic dialogue with all kinds of cultural architects and disruptors, bridging the personal and the professional, giving you a glimpse into creative worlds that you might not have access to or even thought about otherwise. So here's the episode. Let's go. This week I am back in Copenhagen in my lovely, lovely studio. And it's really nice to be home, actually. I'm sitting down with a dear friend of mine. Her name is Cleo. She's an incredible singer and artist. And her new album, Event Horizon, has just been released. I was actually in London as well to see her release concert. And yeah, it was um, I brought Cash and Georgia um along as well, and we had a really fun night. So um yeah, I recommend giving it a listen and checking it out. Um, I'm really into it. So yeah, this episode is covering all kinds of ground and is definitely a longer one because we also are friends, so in that way we can really just talk and talk and talk, and we also know more about each other so we can get kind of a bit more personal, and I really enjoyed that. It was just a lot of fun. It was also fun to record an episode at home. Um, I hope to be doing a little bit more of that as well. I love traveling, but there's also something nice about inviting people into my space that feels really, really wholesome and full circle. Welcome. Thank you for Private Culture Studios. Oh, thank you. My humble abode. Well, yeah, thank you. Pleasure's all mine. Um, okay, so um I am very excited about you having said yes to this because there's a lot of really exciting, cool stuff that is happening in your life. Um there is music that has been released, there is more music to come. For sure. And you're on a very exciting trajectory with multiple things in your life. Um, but before we get into all of that, I I wanted to ask you how did you start singing and why? And when I say singing, I also mean songwriting. So how did you get into music?
SPEAKER_04Well, my grandfather on my mother's side was a pianist, and when I was little he was very determined to teach me piano, like classical piano. So he was into Chopin and Debutis and all these great composers. Um but he uh he also taught me like the chords that I to this day use when I write by the piano.
SPEAKER_00Um what are your favorite chords to use? Do you have any favorite chords that you like to use in songs?
SPEAKER_04It's like almost always like a minor nine or like a yeah, minor seventh, of course, but with the nine also. Okay, nice. And sometimes the progression from um so like what can I how can I say this? Like uh augmented fourth can be really beautiful, like in the major chord.
SPEAKER_00Um that's very like particular, but yeah, but yeah, he was uh he was such an inspiration, like it really uh but that's also do you feel like so the fact that you had so much classical music as an influence, do you feel like that has shaped your ear in terms of because you are you you're you write pop and you're with you'd make amazing pop. For some reason that that feels like a dirty word, what is like pop music is like I feel like then it's like you don't want to be associated with that, but but it is yeah, yeah. But do you feel like coming from classical that that is like shaped your um your inf your ear to maybe seek out more dissonance and seek out these soundscapes that might be more ethereal and a bit more um dramatic?
SPEAKER_04Yeah, yeah, for sure. For sure. It's very um I've always been v really drawn to like these always almost movie score, like grandiose um pieces of music. Also recently I discovered a lot of Mahler's music, so it's very it's very dramatic and very melancholic, and and there are there are so many chords that are used in classical music um that we usually don't use in that way in pop music. So for me the what the classical world and and the movie score world has to offer is the progression of the music. You you're taking you're taken on this journey from A to B, and it's things can evolve over time. So just to mention like ev I assume that pe maybe people know Claire Delune, for example, how that piece just evolves over time, and that allows the listener to go deeper within themselves. What I'm struggling with at the moment is the format of the pop song. It's usually quite short, and I feel like there are a lot of artists right now that are challenging that, of course. But for me it's it's still that like three minutes 30 seconds kind of how can I how can I take a feeling a or a scene and condense that so much that it's so that it's um it's it's it's captured within within those few minutes.
SPEAKER_00And it still feels whole. Yeah. It doesn't feel like you've sacrificed anything or compromised.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, and at at the moment it really does feel that way though. And and how yeah. So I think the songwriters and the musicians that I adore the most are the people who the artists or and composers that are that has this overview that can like that that birds that birds' eye from above they can like see, okay, so we're gonna it's like a the this huge maze, okay, so we're gonna go out to that corner and and then back again and so on. And sometimes I feel like my perception is I'm I'm constantly broadening like my my um yeah, my overview of of a song, if it makes sense.
SPEAKER_00Is your singing technique do you is that also founded in classical? Like did you start singing classical as well, as playing piano classically?
SPEAKER_04No. Funnily enough, I was extremely inspired by only male singers, and then the opera thing, I'm very I'm very into uh opera and um as a as a uh I think my singing teacher would call it when you have a when you have the potential of a huge voice, it's actually called dramatic soprano. There's also the lyric soprano and so on, but that came way later because I was never a student who wanted to practice anything really. I was very intrigued by uh very rusty but unique and um male singers such as like Jack White, but also Jeff Buckley and yeah, of course Tom York and all those the indie guys. But I think that but I th I think that there was this melancholic outreach that just it reflected something within me in the teen in my teenage years.
SPEAKER_00So this yeah, so this was like teenage, so piano came first? Piano definitely came first. And then you discovered the indie guys.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, I did. I was I I was uh I watched um live in New York uh unplugged uh the Nirvana VH1 concert, and I was so intrigued and mesmerized by Kirk Cobain's voice and his the look on his face, that last song, Where Did You Sleep last night, and he just opens his eyes and his c ice blue, clear skies within them, and he's I read the biography uh by Cross later uh about uh his life and he was in so much pain during that concert. Um but that was kind of the moment where when I realized is that is that something you can is that something you can become? Can you become someone who kind of um evokes that within other people and and channels whatever that was because it was otherworldly You saw it as well?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah Wow But um Okay and then you move but when did you start writing?
SPEAKER_04I was quite late. My sister she's almost 20 years older than me and she told me uh Wow, 20 years, that's that's a lot. Yeah, and she's a top liner, she's had number one hits in Japan and toured her own stuff and released albums and so on, so she was this beacon of light um like uh on the horizon, and and I said to her when I was 17, I know I'm a songwriter. I just know deep down that I am, and I'd been singing for a few years, and I sat down uh by the piano and learned the chords to the Coplay songs that I loved.
SPEAKER_00And which ones?
SPEAKER_04The scientist, of course, but I had to learn clocks because everybody loved that song. But that entire album, A Rush of Blood to the Head, was such a yeah, that was that was really um it was idolized to me anyway. But you learned all the the chords and then you sat down and I I did. It was also uh on the way I recall calling my my grandfather saying, There's this sort of triangle above the G. What does that mean? Oh, I have to spread my fingers really wide to be able to reach like that um major seventh chord. So yeah, that that was a process. But I started writing when I was 21 on a course because I needed someone to kick my butt. I knew that I was a songwriter, but and I've been trying to write for years, but I was so critical of my own stuff. I I hated everything I came up with. It was so dark and introverted and I didn't see the use of it in the world. So that's interesting.
SPEAKER_00So you actually sought out help from a community. Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_04I did.
SPEAKER_00In order to kind of get over yourself. Yes. Or get or to kind of deal with your own self-sabotage.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, you hit the head on the nail. Yeah, yeah. Exactly. Wow. And I still do believe a lot uh uh in in communities and what like community energy and can can can how it can elevate.
SPEAKER_00But that's also but but I I j I just think it's really profound to kind of have that self-reflection and that insight that you know you know that it's like, ugh, I have a desire to be this and become this and express this, but for the stage that I'm at now, it's like I need help to get to the next level. Yeah. Because I think a lot of people they just think that it's like, oh, if it's not innately within me, or if it's like, how can something so that I want to do this so bad, but it's so painful and I'm so lost, like, oh, that's a sign that I then shouldn't pursue it. Because it didn't come naturally, it didn't come, you know, this romanticized novel way that I feel like again the industry also is just like, oh, how did you write this album? Oh, I was just walking on a beach, and then a bird flew by and I was like, oh yeah. The wings of love. I don't know. Yeah, yeah. But it's like it's glamorized. Yeah, it's very so so I just think it's it's it's yeah, it's really cool and honest that you know that you were like, okay, it was so early on and you had no experience, and still you were struggling that much, and then just to still be like, no, no, no, I know I can do this. I just like maybe it's again, I need help from other people. So you went on a course?
SPEAKER_04It might sound um like uh bragging, but I had this inner feeling that I'm just meant to do this. It's not a question of if I just need to pursue this in in some way. And it's like when you fall in love and when you meet someone, all of a sudden you see yourself through different eyes and and you kind of borrow their eyes for that's why I love spending time with you because the way the way you the way you filter the world and the way you you appreciate art and and look at things, it's just so it evokes things within me. So it kind of I think a a community and and just two people. It also says in the Bible actually that something like Jesus is speaking to someone saying, Wherever uh you are two or more, I will show myself to you. Yeah. And that's simply uh that's the truth. So sometimes we need help to access things within us that are that are there, but it's my my mentor uh also describes this uh this in in the Veda as as a seed that's within us, and when the time is right, it'll kind of sprout and yeah. So that's what that felt like because one of the mentors on that course was um that there were several teachers um acknowledged uh Danish songwriters and artists. Um and and they um they were just very fascinated by the fact that I hadn't written a song before and one of them wanted to produce my debut album and I was twenty-one and I I was just um it was a new world, but it didn't feel foreign. It felt like it was something that I was meant to do. Because I'd been writing stories since I was I don't know, six years old. What type of stories? Like like fantasy stories or just kind of No, like everyday life everyday suburban life kind of uh a lost soul, a lost individual searching for meaning in in like and searching for magic to occur in in the everyday life kind of situations. But that uh the thought you were mentioning before about um the brooding and introverted s uh talented artists, that meant to be thing that was very much in my family. Either you had talent or you didn't.
SPEAKER_00Okay.
SPEAKER_04And if it didn't come naturally to you, then I guess it's not supposed to be. You're not one of the chosen ones then. And there were a lot of failed artists uh in my family. Julia Julia Cameron, the famous author of creativity, or yeah, she's um uh the creative way. I don't recall what the book is named, but she's she calls it uh being a shadow artist when you have unlived potential and you watch others live out their potential. And but fortunately my family was very we had a lot of resources and and they were very like appreciative of what I was doing and encouraging and so on. That was a very long answer to your quest.
SPEAKER_00We we like long answers here. It's um and sometimes you you start answering one way and then that inspires you to answer it another way and then you just give multiple answers or perspectives to the same question. But um, so um no, I like it. I like it. But I think I think it's like it's interesting with the whole trajectory and especially the fact that you then as a singer like go back to classical, or like not go back to classical, but but then start incorporating classical singing into your technique and all this, and um, and I think that it's the whole journey with like songwriting and starting to sing and feeling like it's this inner calling um it can also be it can also be kind of daunting to take on. Like I'm thinking like, you know, how how do you feel like your life as a singer and songwriter in Copenhagen? How do you f like how is that? Would you like what's hard about it, what's easy about it, what's you know, could you imagine it being any other way?
SPEAKER_04Like, I definitely could. I feel like life in Copenhagen as a creative person is really there are a lot of opportunities and the creative community here is really flourishing. There are a lot of people expressing themselves in different ways and through different medias of art, and it I think that's very intriguing. But I have also lived in Copenhagen for a long time now, and I went to Los Angeles in in April and and w saw myself wanting to go back, so now I am next week and Oh, next week already? Yeah Already and it's just sometimes we uh we're plants that need different soil and different new energy and new minerals and so on. But the the thing about Copenhagen is that it's really it's really open to I feel like it's a it's a f first move mover city in many ways. It's really appreciative of many uh many niche genres and ways of expressing yourself. We have that whole um Erica Dicascia, um Fine Elias Renfeld and so on from from the conservatory where I also went that I also went to and and they're it's they have like international scope and and it's very inspiring to watch others like cross borders and and when when you sing in English it's it's uh for me it it's always been natural to dream of bigger stages.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Because it was never a question for you to sing in Danish.
SPEAKER_04It never really wasn't, no.
SPEAKER_00But was that because your big sister was a top liner in English? Do you think it had what had something to do with that? Or was it all these indie male artists that you were listening to? Like where where did that poll come from?
SPEAKER_04Because of those singers, it didn't feel natural to me to sing in Danish. Okay. There was something that felt more authentic in English, and I don't I don't know because I I grew up with a lot of like American culture on TV, of course. When you came home from school, you would watch the I don't know, Beverly Hills and Friends and all that, but like reruns, forever reruns. And I th I think it it felt more I f I felt like I was able to express in a clearer way how I was feeling because it was a English was this dream language in a sense it belonged in the art world, it didn't belong in everyday life, so it was a way of escaping who I wasn't creating something new.
SPEAKER_00And do you feel like because it was also in this kind of dream like, you know, and dreaming of bigger stages and dreaming of, you know, a creative life, an artistic life, do you feel like it was also like, oh, you know, singing in English and connecting to that art, you know, through the English? Language that then it became it felt more real or it felt more accessible. It did for sure. Whereas like when you sing in Danish, it kind of like then you're suddenly back in your own reality, and it's not it doesn't feel as um alive in a way.
SPEAKER_04It's kind of funny that you would say that because there was something about growing up where I did that. Do you want to say where where that is just for reference? Yeah, it's close to Copenhagen. It's like 15 minutes away, close to Hauskon. Um so I could always take my bike around the woods and would get lost in them as well.
SPEAKER_00So lots of nature.
SPEAKER_04Lots of nature and uh these the suburban life, big houses, and a lot of uh freedom, but also loneliness, and but also the the space to kind of search for yourself. Um and um you said something else as well. Yeah, there was just something within growing up I had the sense of escapism. I wanted to elevate, I wanted to be more. I asked myself why I was a lot of people do, I assume, but I was asking myself, why do I belong to these parents? And how did I end up here? And how come I can dream about these big stages and big worlds and and imagine otherworldly things to happen and look for ghosts and I don't know I'm am I meant to be here? I'm am I in the right place? And the funny thing was that when I landed in LA, immediately I had the same feeling as when I was watching movies, like this is where I belong. Something just clicked like I'm with my own species now. I don't know. And maybe it's for the time being, I'm just so fascinated and in love with many aspects of of that culture, but maybe in the future I would yeah, go back and forth.
SPEAKER_00I could definitely see you being in LA 100%, 100% with your matcha and with your Oh yeah, oh yeah, your meditation and your little That was also a thing that clicked.
SPEAKER_04Um I made friends with one of the supervisors, one of the leaders of one of the TM centers, and was invited to a lot of David Lynch events while I was there, and it was just so it was synchronicity happening in real time. Yeah. So odd.
SPEAKER_00Because you ha that that's one thing that I also think it's it's really cool, is that you have you're a singer, you're a songwriter, and you know, you release some really cool music that we'll get into in a second. Um, but you also have these other two very dominant interests, I would say, in your life. And one of them is kind of also like a career or a job. Um and um and it is the TM meditation. Um what what is it TM short for again?
SPEAKER_04A transcendental meditation.
SPEAKER_00Yes, and that's what David Lynch has also been a big uh pioneer in kind of um educating the the masses about, right? Yeah that was a huge part of his process. Yeah, yeah. Um and then the other one is astrology.
SPEAKER_01Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. And not just any astrology, it's it's the Indian astrology, so it's Vedic astrology that comes from uh the Indian scriptures, the Vedas. So the Vedas are kind of if you imagine uh an umbrella, a lot of a lot of uh people can stand under an umbrella and all these different areas of life, so you have yoga, you know that, and yeah, there's transcendental meditation, you have Ayurveda, which is the oldest medicine system. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Um and also just Ayurveda means the knowledge about life. So um yeah, so Vedic astrology is one of those pillars kind of. And I never really took an interest in regular astrology uh until I met Uli, who is who became my mentor. But Uli uh I became familiar with because I s watched this. I was so after watching Twin Peaks, I was kind of looking into everything David Lynch at the time, also watching this interview, and there was this strange man on on this on on his side, and he was meditating during the interview, and it was so strange. So I decided to learn T Yem because I just wanted to expand my horizon. And by that time, I was 25, I think, and there wasn't really a flow happening within my the creative field of mind. Like I couldn't I couldn't write a song and then sit down and write another one. I was kind of becoming dependent on this creative community to happen and relying on writing with others, and I was it was really frustrating to have to know I want to write and I feel like it's part of my dharma, like what I'm meant to do in my my life course to do this, but I'm not able to. So when David describes this as our um consciousness as being the size size of a golf ball, and then all of a sudden when you start uh transcending using this mantra, you kind of expand your your you can you you can take in a lot more of what's happening around you and you also dive into this place within yourself where you can kind of download things. And that's what started happening to me. So and then I got enrolled in in the um in the conservatory and I got a manager and uh got signed and played Ruscula Festival and it everything came right after I learned TM. It was so strange, it was like the course of my life had changed within a few months after that. So it felt like Mother La Nature was kind of nodding back at me like, way to go hunt. And yeah.
SPEAKER_00And so um so you so through this TM meditation community, transcendent meditation, TM, yeah, um, you then start getting into um V is it Ayurvedic or Vedic astrology? It's just Vedic, yeah. Vedic astrology. Um and um how do you and you you have you have clients, you you do a few, you do sessions, yeah. Um where you read people's charts. Yeah. And uh yeah.
SPEAKER_04It started at school. I started doing every everyone's um well, all of my friends, and then people around me started asking, hey, I heard that you do something with the stars. I don't know. Can you tell me what's going on? I just broke up with and then they would like roll out their entire life story and I would have to like analyze what was going on.
SPEAKER_00But how do you feel like you spoke a little bit about like TM helping you um, you know, kind of unblock these things within you to like be able to write alone and expand your creativity? But how do you feel like both astrology and TM um because those two for you are very linked? So, like how do you feel like you use that or that informs your artistic practice? So And this I mean both in like a very practical sense, like do you meditate before every song, before writing a song? Like every time, do you have like some sort of ritual or is it is it like in the do you use um what's happening astrologically to kind of uh to as inspiration to write when you write about stuff? I mean, do you draw inspiration?
SPEAKER_04Both, both actually. Um I released a song called Lucid, uh and a lot of the verse ideas came from a meditation. I was uh luckily I was in the studio at the time when I was meditating, and at the at some point I just had to get up in order to recall uh recall and remember what I'd just come up with, and then I sat by the piano, and when you transcend, it's kind of reaching a state of consciousness where you're not a you're not you're fully alert, but you're not present out here. You've kind of turned your attention inward. So it's not a dream state, but it's not quite being out here as well. So you're super far away. And then I had to like stand up in my kind of drowsiness in that hypnotic state, and then walk over to the grand piano and sit like, huh? And sometimes you do something that makes sense and you record like a memo and then you get back into meditation, and sometimes things just sound very you can't use it for the life of you. But but that's so sometimes kind of I'm not going in to dig for gold. I'm just sometimes it just comes up during meditation. A lot of people don't experience that. Some people get it after meditation or like in between. And uh the experiences with TM is very different. My experience could be very different from yours. And I think that for me, TM has given me like the the kind of the feeling of being so centered and in in contact with something that made me feel like in broader perspective, like Earth was my home. That ex escapism I was telling you about earlier, the longing and the I was so intrigued by nineties culture because a lot of it as is like this melancholia and Chris Isaac, Messi Starr, this looking stargazing, looking out the window, wishing you were somewhere else, someone else, and longing for someone and that whole like nineties culture. Um also David's films with mystique and everything that was so appealing to me because I felt lost. Or just like I could feel a sense of purpose and a sense of calling, but never really feeling so alienated in in my in my own life, like I didn't quite belong. And TM was a reversing process. Wow. That was so strange. All of a sudden, I recall very vividly my third meditation. It was like a deep feeling of consolation, like gold, uh some kind of gold golden fluid, uh like drenching me in this golden light, and I just immediately started crying because it felt like the hug I had or the I don't know, the the kind of blessing or the kiss that I'd always longed for, like someone or something was telling me that everything was gonna be alright, everything was gonna work out in the way it's supposed to. So I had a deep sense of right place, right time feeling. You know that feeling? Where you're like, okay, things couldn't be any differently. I am exactly who I'm meant to be, where I'm meant to be at this point in time. That was and it kind of felt like that experience was reaching back and correcting things in my life and emotions I'd had, but also reaching out in the future. And it's this echo. If you f if you have that feeling just once of acknowledging existence the way it is, and yourself, well are we really getting in deep? But that that's that's that's a high high highlight experience for me anyway. So yeah. Um so I use that a lot in my writing. Also astrology. Yeah. For sure.
SPEAKER_00But do you feel like it kind of informs because the upcoming album has kind of like you said, you've like the song Lucid that you had, but also do you feel like, you know, I feel like there's a bit of like an ethereal, kind of otherworldly, like, theme to a lot of your also your aesthetics, like with the angel wings, and you know, like that you've had in the past, and kind of, um, so I'm just thinking like kind of how do you feel like are there any direct ties that people can like maybe look for or listen for that you feel like is referencing these other interests in your upcoming projects for sure.
SPEAKER_04Um there's a lot of astrology in there because it informs um the way I write lyrics. Um I'm very I'm very fascinated with uh the question of is there a destiny? Am I where I'm meant to be and and and all these things. I'm not sure if that's what you meant.
SPEAKER_00But it's exactly I mean I'm I'm just however you want to interpret it.
SPEAKER_04Also with the classical music, I was very intrigued by the these grandiose 90s movies like Romeo and Juliet that's with the angel wings as well, and Titanic, like big emotions, because it's another it gives the audience and the listener a different world to enter where where they can kind of leave themselves at the door and recreate.
SPEAKER_00But also a little bit what I'm thinking that which is what like those big emotions, but the big dramas and like the classical music, like you know, it also is like when something is so grand and dramatic and kind of like unapologetically, you know, uh romantic or unapologetically, you know, uh crying or angry, or like, you know, whereas like yeah, there's just there's just like subtlety is just like a city in Russia, you know? Yeah. It's all out there, you know. I feel like it also it gives permission for the the audience to like really lean full in of them, like really lean into that, you know, romance and get all like like giddy as if you're like, yo, you're suddenly 14 as well with Romy and Juliet, because they're actually meant to be 14, which is not a lot of people know that. But anyway, Shakespeare voted, they were so young. Whoa. Anyway, but um, but but yeah, no, so so it's like so so you kind of you know, though that volatility that comes from those like really big waves, I feel like that also gives permission for a self-indulgence from the audience's side to like be um yeah, just just like lean into those states. Do you see what I mean? Where I feel like sometimes when when you're watching, I also love a lot of really subtle stuff, but but with that, I feel like you have a statue over there. I mean, yeah, no, there's nothing subtle about my home. Like I just I'm sitting in like a gringy, like I love it.
unknownTop.
SPEAKER_00Top is like bright green. It's like, yeah, I'm not subtle at all. But um, but no, but but I can appreciate that because because there I feel like so much of the so much of like the the art comes from how the audience is like left with only half the puzzle piece. So they have to kind of like read between the lines and discover the other half for themselves, or like so much of the pain or the emotion comes from the restraint. Whereas like with those really big symphonies and really big movies and really dramatic, like you know, it it's the opposite. It's like, okay, you can kind of just lean fully into the joy or the injustice or the romance because it's like you're you don't need to spend that extra energy guessing or kind of you see what I mean, or yes, or or feeling the pain of the restraint from from the characters or yeah. For sure. So so I I just I just think sorry, that was just like a bit of a digression, but I just wanted to like um No, but I I see what you mean.
SPEAKER_04It's also we've we've been telling stories also in small villages and so on. That's that was what life was like since the beginning kind of and with these myths, because it basically is in opera and and also it's the hero's journey and how we can recognize ourselves in the stories. That's that's why we go to the shows we go to and and and listen to to the artists that that we do. And I feel like a lot of there's a there's this stream of artists that are kind of we're we're in this very interpersonal space. We want to get to know our artists up close now and but at the same time be wowed. And yeah, and but there this this hyper intimacy with Billy Eilish that came a few years back, like 2019 or 2020. It's just um I'm very fascinated with at the moment how how um just blunt people can be in their lyrics and out there. And sometimes I will write something that feels way too private and not personal to share. Um one of one of my songs, we talked about it before we started. One of my songs is has had uh quite a journey already, and and I didn't want to release that song. I didn't even want to show it to the record label when m me and my producer were finished working on it.
SPEAKER_00And what song is that?
SPEAKER_04That's Miss You. Miss You.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. And um and this song went viral on uh Snapchat. Yeah. Yeah. It had how many how many creation how many I think it's more than one million.
SPEAKER_04Wow. Um and that's yeah, that was just such a blessing. And yeah, people could really uh see themselves in that song. And then Netflix picked up on it? Yeah, they did. Uh it was uh we uh it was synced to this um Netflix movie called A Tourist's Guide to Love. That was so like surreal watching my own song. Even they they they dragged it out so it was longer than it because it was almost the entire ending scene. Yeah, that was that was canvassed with my music. It was that was really something. Wow. And I recalled this moment in the studio studio when I was telling San, my uh my then producer, that I thought it was so vulnerable, it was almost pathetic. That's a contrast that I now can see that when when you're an artist, it's you I always want to stand behind what I'm making, but sometimes it'll be so um it'll be so um it'll feel too private or too there are sides of myself that I don't want to expose and that's a constant like journey of trying to trying to get over that yeah kind of because that's what that's what people are are relating to.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Yeah. And do you with Miss You so what is the story behind it? Why was it so vulnerable?
SPEAKER_04Why did it feel like it was pathetic and too much and that that year when it was made, I uh I lost my dad, and two days later I was I was enrolled in this transcendental meditation course. I was upgrading my um my technique, so uh I meditate for uh uh two hours a day now, and I was on the SEDA course, and my dad was in the hospital, and that course was sort of bookending um my dad's death at the hospital. Okay, so I was on that course, and then I I was on the then I was on the train back to the hospital and said goodbye to him and then was going back on the course and I recall sitting on the train watching this. Um I don't know, it's just these these uh there are some Danish fields, some some planes that are really uh really beautiful and I could just imagine him walking around just like when I was little in his green jacket and so on. And then I had that lyric in my head, uh I s I see you, I call out your name. And it's such a you don't get a lot of background from just those two lines, but my producer Cern was able to create this really warm uh do you know uh synth canvas like musically and that was exactly the feeling that I had. So you don't have to be transported back to that moment in order to get that feeling. But when the song was released, we we it was it was the first single I ever put out, so I was very I I didn't wanna influence the listener too much. Okay. I didn't didn't want to give them the entire story. No So the the promotion was all about I I feel like we we presented it as this love song.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Because I was gonna say there's there's not like when you listen to the to the song, it's not it's not at all obvious that it's about death.
SPEAKER_01No.
SPEAKER_00And and I I think there's something very beautiful about that. And and um and yeah, and it's it's um it's interesting that that you didn't um you didn't want it to frame it like that. But how do you feel now? Do you feel like it's like that because time has passed, because you've you know you've released other music, you're releasing more music, and like, you know, you're um you're more removed from that space, both as a person, but also creatively. Do you feel like now you want to kind of give it that framing, or do you feel like you as an artist, like, no, I don't like to talk about like give your songs the reference for why they were made?
SPEAKER_04Yeah, I still feel I feel removed enough now to tell the story that it was about my dad's passing, but I feel like people should have their own impression and and and be able to write themselves into that story, however that may be. So yeah, I don't I don't feel too keen on framing my music in that sense. Um I'm just such an admirer of Bob Dylan, and he was so like he was so sarcastic when when journalists would ask him about his music, and he would just be like, go f fish yourself. Like I try not to swear. It's like swearing is uh and cursing, it's it's like putting a spell on the world is yeah, in my head. You might have to put a spell on something later on then.
SPEAKER_00But uh without revealing anything. But um but oh yeah, that's true. Uh what was I gonna say? Um uh no, I just I on that note. Um do you want to play something from the upcoming album? I'd love to the song that's already out. Yeah. I'd love to. I'd love to. And um we just need the where's the little orange speaker? Oh, thank you. Thank you. Okay. Um, so since I'm not gonna force you to talk about this song in a way that where you feel like it takes away from the listening experience. But if you were to kind of give this song some context, um what do you want to say?
SPEAKER_04The juxtapositions of love are um are very vivid sometimes, and that's what the song is about. How our emotional life is so um complex and that pleasure and can and pain can can blend together. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Okay, I like it. I like it. Okay.
SPEAKER_02With you, I don't mind the end. Love is my true chance, soft or a little dream, long lights of brilliant. I don't mind necessarily, but with you I don't mind what it does to me. When I say my name, it makes me want again and again. I think that's chocolate.
SPEAKER_00So I feel like that fits in so well with like yeah, there's like references to astrology and yeah, these like Yeah, it's on point. Yeah, and also and I feel I remember like so I've I've heard it before. But because it is out, but um, but uh it's so interesting that you referenced the Romeo and Juliet because I got that feeling. Wow when I listened to it. Okay, yeah, because it there's something about like the mixture of like the guitar and like the like and especially when you have the um um uh like in the melody and the chorus, like when it goes um, like it's just like this there's both like this kind of almost like Yeah, I I don't know, I just I just feel like it's such a mixture of like references sonically that that just has that it has that nostalgic feeling and it has that like is like referencing something old but you can't really quite place it and where it's from and then at the same time also feeling fresh and new, yeah. I think I really like the song, I think it's very magical, and I like your voice on it as well. Oh, thank you so much, and um and yeah, and I think it's also yeah, it's it's it's very true, this whole thing with like love and like how it's just such a mystery, and like sometimes you'll just I don't know, sometimes you'll like feel attracted to something and then you'll just be like so like I just had an experience where I felt so like I don't like to use the word toxic because I don't I don't I think that's very harsh, but where I just felt so drawn to a person and I was so shocked. I was like, like where what? Like kind of this is both because I knew that it's like this is not good for me, you know, like oh yeah, I should not give this attention at all. But still, I was like, but I'm so it's like a it's like it's like an addiction or as like it's something it's like an obsession and it's like yeah, it's so strange. And I I just think that it's like it it is very much like also with the conversations that's going on online about these things. I just think that it's yeah, it's it's it's just so it's so fascinating because I feel like as human beings, all we want to do is connect. And we're so desperate to connect, and everything we do is essentially you can boil it down to some sort of survival that is grounded in connection. And and so I just find it fascinating how it's like, okay, it's such it's it's the deepest longing and the deepest need, and yet we self-sabotage it, we're so scared of it, you know, we we spend hours in therapy trying to heal it and understand it and like manage it, and it's like it's just so simple. And and and I just think it's fascinating that whole thing of like why are you attracted to something and not to this other thing, or why do you want to connect like this and not like that? Why why do you feel pulled in by this? Or why does other people you know feel compelled, you know, to to reach out to you in this way or treat you like this, or you know, and it's so I think um yeah, I think like writing about those complexities is very brave and vulnerable and also incredibly exciting as a listener to kind of experience wow. So yeah. I felt like that that should have been the intro.
SPEAKER_03We will make it. So good.
SPEAKER_04So good. I mean, I mean, uh I wish I could paint a picture of this scene uh as this very uh beautiful love scene. It really, really wasn't. I was going to the studio that day and I had had a deep sense of this abyss-like uh loneliness going on. Uh I'd been seeing this guy for um for some months, and we were in a relationship together, but it was uh getting close to the end, and I just wanted to jump out the window, to be honest. And I've listened to Bossa Nova music for I I feel like if you were to ask me which album have I listened to the most, it would probably be kind of blue or um uh I think it's just called Bossa Nova. Uh with uh not uh both with Antonio Carlos uh Subim but also uh Stan Getz. Okay. What am I uh like that triple collection, so it's like a three-part thing. I think I've listened to that more than two and three. Yeah, more than a thousand times, maybe three thousand times, I don't know. Wow. Um it was on my uh yeah, it was on the system every day for I don't know, almost ten years. Um at the end I I called it emotion pacifier because it was just like a tape going on in the background because it's so it's so enchanting, it's so um melancholic. You inspire me a lot. I go into a lot of detours. Um but what I was gonna say is that uh the my guitarist uh and producer at the time, Juho, he was um he's from Finland. He was uh playing this kind of Bossa Nova-ish groove um this ostenato with um yeah, with that kind of uh tristessaria kind of like and I was like, that's what I'm feeling right now. I just wanna I don't care about anything. And the words just flew out of my mouth. Uh I like boys who can bring out the worst, boys who can bring out the best in me. It was like this innate kind of archetype kind of Marilyn Monroe uh f feeling like this. I'm a destroyer, but I allow other people to destroy me as well. It was such such a scary kind of character to play around with because it it felt like her and also on stage the kind the song the kind of song that plays itself and gets through to the listener every time. Doesn't matter who I play it with or where I'm playing or how I'm feeling, how I'm doing on the day, it's just it's just um conveyed in in in in the best way every time. Um and that has nothing to do with me. That's how I see it. Yeah, it's just something I'm channeling, I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. But um but it's uh it's a forceful character, it's it's a forceful energy, and uh I've discovered that you can find a um some kind of trace of energy and follow that, and that'll create the those kinds of songs, that kind of music. So with Event Horizon um my up my upcoming album, I was very fascinated with that character, but for a long time I didn't want to release boys either because I was afraid that if if you take part in that energy, you kind of allow it to you you um you indulge in that energy and that it's kind of manifesting and and speaking of law of attraction and we ha often have, I didn't want to attract more of that kind of uh romantic chaos into my life. I know that chaos, but I didn't want to evoke those um tectonic movements, if it makes sense.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, no no no. I I completely get that. You know that feeling? Oh yeah, completely. But I also think that sometimes with that feeling of like um channeling those energies or creating like like again you spoke earlier about like archetypes and you know how they show up in these very um uh like classic big movies and and and grandiose feelings and works of art. And I I just I think that that's also an archetype, you know, and she's she's present everywhere. Like it's Carly in in the in Hinduism, and you know, it's like it's you you have like what people even with northern mythology like Scandinavian, like the old Norse gods, is like people forget that Freya, the goddess of love and fertility, was also the goddess of war.
SPEAKER_04Wow.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, she was both.
SPEAKER_04I didn't know.
SPEAKER_00She was both. If you look it up, it's like she's actually both. She was also a warrior, and it's like so. I think that that that kind of dark, feminine, you know, like like, you know, female archetype, I think it's within all of us, and I think that I think that it's more dangerous to not own it and to not be in contact with her than it is to to have her come out. Because at least like if you channel her, you know, then you okay, what do you have to say? She well, she had to say this, she made voice, and like, you know, and then you give her some airtime and you kind of get to know her and get she gets to kind of come out. Whereas like I think I think some of the most dangerous women are the women who don't acknowledge just how manipulative they actually are being or can be, or how toxic they actually are. Does that make sense? Because I think we could we can all be manipulative, we can all be toxic, we can all have that like you know desire to just you know go like straight into the fires of hell. Or the arms of a man that we know it's like I'm taking advantage of you, or like, you know, this is this is not this is gonna end badly, and I'm like now aiding and abetting like you know, something that that is gonna just really scar you or really scar me. But at the same time, it's like yeah, I just think that that energy is in all of us, and I think that denying that it's there is more dangerous than than actually facing it. Like it's the same thing with like you know, kind of yeah, it's like okay, but we all have shadow. We all have a shadow and we all have shadows, and we all have demons, so it's like okay, but how do you cope with them while you shine a light, you know?
SPEAKER_04Yeah. Exactly. And if you if you keep them in the dark, they'll kind of they'll just grunt you and they'll yeah.
SPEAKER_00And I think it will become way more unconscious, and that's why I think the people who don't like I'm scared the most of people who don't like know that they have a dark side. Does that make sense? Or doesn't own that they have a dark side, then it's like, okay, you might be super chaotic, but at least I can see. Yeah. Your dark dark side is out in the open. It might be too chaotic and to the point where I'm like, I should not go near that. That is unhealthy, but at least it's like I know it's there, you know? For sure. But I think it's interesting what you're saying. Is there um do you want to play another song?
SPEAKER_04Yeah, I'd love to.
SPEAKER_00Um and this is the part that we're just cut out if it doesn't fit.
SPEAKER_04Cool. Um I'd love to play this one song called Love Me Like That. And I think that by the time this comes out, it's been released. It's the third single from Event Horizon and yeah, another another song about like uh being vulnerable in relationships and also um at this when I wrote this song it was about surrendering to to uh being um completely without just loving without uh aband uh with no abandon and with all abandon. No abandon and yeah.
SPEAKER_00Um but that's really interesting because that's like almost I would say the opposite archetype to that like Carly destructive goddess, you know, like you know, yeah, it really was dangerous woman, you know, like it's it's and kind of this is the opposite. This is like the ultimate kind of calm Venus, like you know, kind of I'm just gonna receive, I'm just I'm all yours, like I'm not gonna fight, I'm just here, and yeah, and I trust you like because I feel like with the other one, there's no trust, you know. That's just like that's part of the reason why it's like I have to go to war with you, is because I don't trust you at all, you know? Yeah, yeah. But but here it's like it's the opposite energy. So that's really interesting.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, I feel like those two are are definitely uh uh in combat when I'm in a relationship. Okay. Um and without getting too much into it, I also had my doubts about releasing this one. Can you see a pattern here? Wow. Um because I feel like in within relationships, it's sometimes hard for me to declare what my My needs are. Surprise. And and then I tend to then that darker side of me tends to come out and be when I'm when I'm feeling um when I have that feeling that I cannot share who what I really need, then I kind of disrupt and go into like full destruction mode. Um sometimes within the relationship and and sometimes uh seeking out of the relationship. But this was kind of a surrender song in many ways. Can you can you love me even though I'm in pieces? And can you see this chaos happening? I'm I'm sort of opening myself up to the idea. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Okay, you ready?
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_00I am and this one I haven't heard. Yeah, this is the first time you're hearing it. I haven't heard it at all. I'm very I'm very excited. Here we go.
SPEAKER_02I trembled as I in love swim. But you still many two hours together sweet Miniful from the skies we still be. We love you so we still can't say that.
SPEAKER_00Wow. How did it feel to share?
SPEAKER_04Very vulnerable all of a sudden, because we had that talk before. Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00But I think it's bet I think it's like I think it's interesting because you can just f I feel like even the way you sing it, like it's so different because with the with the boys one, it's like you can feel like boys, uh it's like I don't know. It's like very it's like it's like you're seducing, you know? Yes. Whereas like with this, it just feels like that like pleading prayer almost. Yeah. Like you're really kind of just like, uh, like, you know, this is the last, like my last resort. I don't have any other cards left to play. I just have to declare. Yeah. Like defeat. Almost almost a little bit like this is the last thing that I can do to kind of try and solve this or make it work, or or like this is the last thing that I can ask of you, you know?
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And that's such an the only thing that I'm gonna ask of you at the end, because that's the only real question, but Exactly. But it's it fee it feels pleading, you know, it feels like it's like it's such a good word for it.
SPEAKER_04It really is. Yeah. And it's also the the last declaration before leaving, because sometimes you in relationships we feel t like taking our power back by being the one who leaves, or by being the one who doesn't say out loud, This is what I need. So I'm just gonna leave. I'm gonna find someone who's but that's turning on yourself as well.
SPEAKER_00It is, and I also find I and I try to the best of my ability to actually practice like because I also think that sometimes it's like it feels like if you're the first to admit that you love someone or that you like them, that that then it feels like you're giving your power away. Fudge. And I'm really, I'm really trying to flip that on its head. And again, I had a situation recently where I was confronted with like a guy just you know, kind of who suddenly was telling me that's like, yeah, so I have a girlfriend. I was like, well, amazing, good for you. And he's like, Yeah, but you know, like I know that you like wanted, you know, us to like become something and like all this. I was like, in my head, I was like, Yeah, but so like it was it was just one of those things I was like, I felt so proud of myself for like owning the truth that I had said, hey, I like you. I am curious to explore this connection, you know. If you if you feel the same way, like how about we like get together and work this out? And then obviously that didn't happen, but I was just so proud of myself, like because he almost said that a little bit as like kind of like, oh, you know, I was so scared to tell you, you know, that this is actually the situation and blah blah blah, and like and in my head I was like yeah, but it's like I can be I can want I I can declare that there is something that I want or something that I'm curious about, and at the end of the day, it's just it's just a bid for connection. It's just like I'm just kind of putting something out there, an intention, and it's like sometimes it works out, sometimes it doesn't, it doesn't, but it's not gonna I'm not losing any power, you know what I mean? And the fact and I could see this is okay, low key. He got so triggered by it because I because I was just owning it. I was like, yeah, I would have loved to, but it's not gonna happen now, and that's fine. Like, like, you're in love. Let's you should celebrate that. Like, that's awesome, you know. How did he react?
SPEAKER_04I'm curious now.
SPEAKER_00I want to hear the end of the story. How he reacted? He dropped his jaw on the floor, and then he started to like try and backtrack with being like, Well, I don't know, like, we'll see how it goes. And I was like, Well, that's on you, mate. You know, kind of like but I was just I was just so proud of myself for like not getting into that, like trying to be like, no, that's not what I wanted at all, and like no, no, you misunderstood. I never liked you, I never wanted, but I was like, Yeah, I was curious, of course. I think you're great. Doesn't have to be anything more than that. You made your choice, amazing.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, but that's not soothing his ego either. No, if you're saying of course I was curious, but I'm also fine without you, you know?
SPEAKER_00And that's like that's like the thing, is like, so that's my new practice. My new practice is that it's like I'm practicing not being scared to put into the universe what it is that I want and who I want and you know what my intentions are. And then I just know that it's like but that is not that it's not actually vulnerable. Like it feels vulnerable, but it's not. It's like I'm that's actually powerful, you know? Because it's powerful, just like what you were saying, like even going back to like when you were in the suburbs and you're dreaming of this artistic life. It's like it's it's also vulnerable to put yourself out there and be like, but I want this career and I want bigger stages, and I wanna, you know, I wanna soar and I want to reach for the stars, and I want to like, you know, go to LA and I want to live in LA and I want to do these things. It's like that's also really vulnerable, you know, because you're it really is it's like, oh, it might not happen, and then you might fail, and then you're confronted with all this shame and this guilt. And it's like, but it but really it's like do you have to opt into those emotions and that outcome? No. You can also just choose to be like, okay, it didn't happen. So or it happened happened in a different way. It happened exactly, it happened in a different way, and or like, you know, like yeah.
SPEAKER_04And so there's this saying, but that shooting for the moon, you're gonna land among the stars. Yeah, yeah. And if it doesn't we become who we're sort of meant to be on that journey anyway, so there's really nothing to lose.
SPEAKER_00No, there isn't. And that's why I feel like putting being honest with like your dreams and your intentions and all this is like obviously with the right people and in the right context, but I just think that it's something that that that I think people shy away from because it's uncomfortable and and they don't want to be held accountable for their inner desires and their feelings and these things. And so I'm like I'm trying to- Why do you think that is because I think it's uncomfortable, and I think it's like culturally as well, like associated with the sense of failure and shame and you know, rejection, and that means that you're unwanted and that you're not good enough, and and so I think you have to be a very strong individual who is really grounded in yourself and who's really able to like practice a level of self-love to like soothe yourself through that rejection and not actually take it as a rejection, but just take it as like, oh, wonderful, you're meant to be with this other person, or oh, wonderful, I'm not meant to be signed to that label because I'm meant to be signed to another label, or like it's got I'm not meant to exactly yeah, and but that takes a lot of trust both to life itself and to the universe and like what you were saying with that golden light feeling, like it's about having that inner sense that it's like it's gonna be okay. You know, so it's like so it doesn't matter that that there was like oh that that there was a bit of stormy weather, it's like it's gonna be okay, the storm is gonna pass, and I'll be fine. Yeah, and it's or it doesn't matter that you know that this person shook my world a bit and and like I'll I'll be fine.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, and it's not a zero-sum game just because some people have what we dream of, it doesn't mean that there's less for anybody else or f or for me, it's it's definitely guidance. And in dating, I mean some people will maybe say that's that aren't you afraid to exclude some people if you're really blunt about who you are and so on, but you you weren't meant to have those people in your life anyway.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. But um okay, so just before we move into the last um section. Because I feel like we've been talking for a long time. I don't mind it because I love talking to you, but and I think everything you were saying is really interesting. But um I just want to go back back and touch a little bit upon this whole thing around culture within the music industry because I feel like there are some loose ends from our conversation that I would love to like tie up in a really nice bow before we go to the the last section. And it's about this what you were saying with like the music industry in terms of do you feel like so I have a couple of questions, but do you feel like there's a divide in the Danish scene between artists who write in English and artists who write in Danish?
SPEAKER_04In many ways, yes, but there's also a divide between people who are are you writing more um are you aiming at a broad audience, like commercially, are you aiming for radio because and or um uh Eurovision or what what is your what is your stage? There are many kinds of stages and um yeah, many sort of many tribes of musicians, I feel like. And I've both been in the conservatory and out of the conservatory and and worked with some people in the more commercial department of the music industry and to me it's all about chemistry. So I could I connect with a lot of people on on different levels, but I feel like there's a divide because the mission is that's how I view it. It's uh it's all on me to say this, but I feel like the the the motive and the intention is different. Um but the way but the main the main thing is that everybody loves music. I don't believe that even though you make commercial music, that means that you're you're I don't know, uh wanting to m make more money. I don't think it's that has anything to that's that's a very shallow, very that's that would be um incorrect.
SPEAKER_00Um but in what way uh is it because you feel like the people who uh who go more for the commercial is it because they write in Danish and then it's like if you write in English it's more niche?
SPEAKER_04Uh I think so. And also the s there's been kind of an erosion happening on the uh on on the scene when it comes to like English uh uh English music or not English music, but you know, when when the lyrics are in English. Um most of the songs we listen to on the radio today is is Danish pop music with Danish lyrics and also we talked a little bit about this earlier, but there's a certain aesthetic happening right now that's really in. And when I make the kind of grandiose, I don't know, melancholic indie instrumental music that I do, it's like Lana Del Rey says, it's not for everybody. And I've felt like the odd one out several times, but time and time again I feel like in Copenhagen you can really be recognized for doing your thing if you stay true and authentic to to what you feel like doing.
SPEAKER_00So um Do you feel like that's because it's a smaller place? Um because you you stand more out because you're going against the grain as opposed to an LA where maybe more people share that sonic landscape.
SPEAKER_04There are also many streams in LA, I find. So I think it's anywhere when an artist is really trying to it sounds like I'm really placing myself on like a very high horse. But I feel like when when people are following their own guidance and and really doing what they find is right without compromising too much on the creative side, I feel like a lot of attention is is going there. Um in every society the the um the collective consciousness is is mirroring what's happening at the moment. Yeah. And I'm living a very spiritual and very different life from your average I don't know, person on earth, I guess. I meditate for twice a day, I uh eat a lot of vegetable soup. And I don't know, there are there are many things and I You look at the stars and I look at the stars, I I plan around uh the aspects in my calendar and did you plan your album release around Yes. Oh my god! I did. I actually also advised other musicians before there was Danish songwriter, and he was asking me, so I have this album coming out and I need a date for the first single, and I was like looking up, okay, so we have a Venus transit in your third house, and it's really good for blah blah blah. Oh that's so cool! Okay, yeah. And he as a I mean it's like a weather report. I I usually say so when is the timing good? Yeah. It'll never be perfect. Sometimes it feels that that way, but wow.
SPEAKER_00And you even also named your album Event Horizon.
SPEAKER_04Yes, which is it's the outskirts or the outer limits of a black hole. So when you in space, when you're standing on the verge of a black hole, that's the point where gravity is pulling you in so deep that there's no escaping it. It's like you're standing on the verge of an endless abyss where time is distorted. And you can stand on that edge and look back at Earth and watch it uh come together and and and being created and then absolve again. And why did you say that? Time time kind of coexists in that moment. All potential everything is possible, all potentials exist, and that's how we feel when we're in love. Yeah, true. Like all all yeah, all limits, all bets are off, kind of. Okay, I could I could I could maybe be more rock and roll and move to Cuba and eat like I don't know, crab cakes every day, but yeah, I could do that. I could I could see myself with a family like like that one and it's it's um so we kind of lose ourselves in that moment, but that's also the beauty of it. Like getting lost and losing balance. Yeah. So that that was the main theme of all the songs. Uh kind of collecting it under that title seemed appropriate.
SPEAKER_00Beautiful. And I wanted to touch upon another thing that you were mentioning about when you were referencing this hyper intimacy that has been kind of trending in terms of artist uh being required to um like the push and pull between like what do you share and what's required for um for making a living as an artist today, like to share of your life on social media or to share, you know, yourself and your songs and and these things, and then also like you were saying, that is like but the whole point as well of um of the mystery of art is also that there is this wow effect and that you have there has to be to some degree like also a bit of a gap because then you can insert the audience can insert themselves and their their own personal experience into that gap. So um how do you feel like the the kind of not so much the music culture as in the music, but like more the the kind of the the the culture around promoting yourself and having an aspect of yourself that you have to sell and that you have to kind of brand or you have to um narrate um in order to survive as an artist in this landscape and also give con give the appropriate context for your work. Does that make sense? Yes. So, you know, so just like you were saying with the referencing with these angel wings that is like you're referencing, you know, Romeo and Juliet and 90s culture, because some of those choices that you make when you're promoting yourself and you're branding yourself, a lot of them are all founded in, you know, like this is the aesthetic we're going for, this fits into the vision for this album where you know I'm writing about these themes and I'm pulling from these. References and inspirations, and there's a clear kind of universe that's building. But then some of that also has to be more um analyzed or like more kind of um I feel like some of some of it can then also quickly become pushed into this thing about like, okay, but now you're a commodity, or now you're, you know, we have to kind of, oh, now it's like you have to share these things because that's what the audience expects. So it's like, what's your morning routine? Or like, you know, watch, watch me make a vegetable soup, or like meditate with me, or like, you know, like how do you how where do you fit? What do you think about that culture and where it's moving, but also where do you see yourself in that?
SPEAKER_04Right now I'm an I'm I'm smack dab in the middle of that process. I feel like that translation is the um most challenging part about being an artist these days and balance balancing those two out, kind of. And we're I mean, I'm still I'm still working on how to how to convey myself like personally uh across media. So it's so it's authentic, but to me it's still very foreign to film my meditation routine, for example. But maybe you don't have to. Yeah, because there's still to me it loses an element of of mystique, and there's something about that in between the lines kind of um um non-presence that's that's intriguing to me, so I wouldn't want to watch I wouldn't want to watch David's David Lynch's um meditation um routine either. Um I feel like it's in within the music industry and in the culture, it's not placing music at the center um to kind of to draw attention to these other um to me it's both fascinating but it's also become too much of a block in many ways and and and too personal. I'm I'm interested in the art and the fashion and and the and sometimes the opinions and the biography, but not in like a uh such an intense way that I would want to go under the covers with Billie Eilish or I'm I'm I'm interested in their ways of conveying their view on life in within music and in their art and the rest is showbiz or gossip, I don't know. But maybe I'm too old-fashioned and it's in many ways very, very tough for me as a very private introverted person to balance those two things out. And I know I have a manager who would love for me to put more of my personal life out there. So it'll make sense.
SPEAKER_00Okay, and so thanks for sharing that. And now I'm gonna move to the last section, which is a questionnaire. Ooh-huh, no, don't worry, it's not it's not dangerous. I'm just gonna quickly look at my phone because I am still trying very I still need to kind of practice them. Okay, so um This is now when you need to maybe bring out your inner witch and destroyer to put some spells out there because the first question of the questionnaire is What is your favorite curse word?
SPEAKER_04I just watched uh the movie Stanley Kubrick's uh Eyes Wide Shut on Friday, and the last line, I recall that from the first time I watched it when I was 14. It's Nicole Kitman. I think she's uh in the beginning of her 30s, she's looking amazing, wearing this okay, uh custom Dior dress. Um, and she's looking deeply into Tom Cruise's eyes, and she says that they need to find a place to as soon as possible fuck. So that's my favorite word, but I really don't use it that often. No. Only in boys. That was actually this uh very faithful Christian guy who who um who texted me who comment made a comment on YouTube and on Facebook saying that I'm a foul-mouthed singer for using the F-word. Oh wow, and I didn't have the nerve to like um to to tell him that I actually sing in church every Sunday like ruin his his view on me. But yeah. But the fact that he knew that I was using the word fuck in the second verse means that he had heard something that he liked. He'd listened all the way to the the end of the second verse. So it's like it's on you, mister. Yes, yes.
SPEAKER_00I love the way that it's like even your body language as you say the word fuck is so like uncomfortable. You're like, you have to kind of step out of yourself to be like and then come back. And then come back. Okay, well, we're gonna we're gonna move on. So don't worry, that no more need for cursing. But um, what is your favorite sound or noise?
SPEAKER_04My cat spurring.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. What sound or noise do you hate?
SPEAKER_04The sound of horror movies or gates closing, like that metally sound. Yeah, like really tough metal.
SPEAKER_00Oh wow. Okay. Um if you are if okay. Your home is burning down and you can only save one physical object. What do you save?
SPEAKER_04I was just about to say my my my granddad's uh grand piano.
SPEAKER_00But um no no, you you can take that. Is there they're like you uh you have Superman strength in this very dramatic moment, but so whatever object you want out, we we'll we'll get it out. I you can only pick one.
SPEAKER_04Either that or my uh Australian uh seashell. This huge uh conculi, it's called in Danish. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Nice. Okay, grand piano or seashell. Um and then what turns you on? In what way? However you want to interpret the question. Up to you.
SPEAKER_04When someone is singing something that's really allowing me to forget myself and I listened to them and I was totally unprepared for it. I don't know if you know it, but sometimes when you're in a theater or at the opera seeing something, and then you're taken by storm by this someone who's singing something, and you're kind of No way.
SPEAKER_00Oh my god, I know I know exactly. I know exactly. You know? Yeah, I know exactly what because I um one of my favorite theater performances of all time is Andrew Scott's Uncle Vanya. Is a he did it as a one-man show. I've not seen it live, I've just seen, you know, the the film version of it. Um, and um here in the theaters in Copenhagen from the National Theater in London where they did the production. But in there, he just super unexpectedly, completely a cappella starts singing ne Mikitepa, but like the English version. And it's just like it was just so unexpected because it's a play, you know. So it's like so and and there's no music in it. It's not like there's, you know, it's a one-man show, it's a one-man play of Uncle Vanya. So it's like so so there's so much happening on stage, but but music is not a big part of it. Sound is not a big part of it in that way, and like kind of the like orchestra type, like, you know. So so I just remember like that moment just yeah, that is a huge turn on. That's a good one. It really is. Because there's something, yeah, and yeah. And I feel like you can't have it the same, it's it's something specific specific about like that unexpectedness that comes from Yeah, from singing like that.
SPEAKER_04It's that being swept away. It can also be translated to other situations. Some someone you have a conversation with someone and and they just when you can lose yourself in something, that's just it feels like life itself.
SPEAKER_00But that's also very in line with you know that whole thing of like losing yourself in these grand emotions and these dreams and the nostalgia and like what we were talking about earlier with that sense of longing and kind of Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_04But it has to be placed if I feel like in an interaction or within the arts because I've done the whole uh Molly or like drug thing, and it's not the same at all. No, it's not. So either that or a meditation. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Okay, well then what turns you off?
SPEAKER_04I try to stay a really positive person, and sometimes I want to kind of censor myself because there are so many things that I could think of. And I have to choose one. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00What's the first one that comes to mind? We don't judge.
SPEAKER_04I was just about to say smoking.
SPEAKER_00Okay. Okay. What's your favorite compliment to receive?
SPEAKER_04Something that that sweeps me away, something that baffles me, I feel like.
SPEAKER_00No, to receive. Is that just like any compliment that's unexpected?
SPEAKER_04Not just unexpected, but something that's when you when when we listened to um Love Me Like That and you said you had goosebumps, and you looked at me, I could swear I saw a tear tear in your eye. Maybe I was just projecting. That's such a huge compliment. Like that being able to to move other people with a part of you that that you don't feel like sharing, but then they see you and they kind of uh reciprocate in that sense. Wow, that's the best feeling.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I get that. Okay, and then um what is your most irrational fear that you've have or has ever had?
SPEAKER_04Being visible, being seen like to to like um to unveil myself to the world and to to stand out and say things, say my opinion. And people are often like, aren't you a singer? Aren't you an artist? You stand on stages and I'm I'm constantly afraid of how pu other people view me.
SPEAKER_00Wow.
SPEAKER_04All the time.
SPEAKER_00Trying to own it. It's a process. Yeah, no, I get it, but I think you're doing a great, great job. And I also think it's more common than what people think for artist, I think, to have that fear, but not everybody's flagging it as proudly as you are right now.
SPEAKER_04No, I mean um it's it's such an inspiration that Frank Ocean never goes on tour.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Enya has never been on tour ever. Really? And no. She's practically invented her own genre with like the type of music that she has. She's like super rich, like insanely rich. But she's never ever toured. I think she's maybe performed live like a couple of times. Wow. She just lives in a castle in Ireland with a bunch of cats and makes music there. Maybe her goals. But um but yeah, no, no, she that she just doesn't do that. Um, so yeah, there's a lot, and even Barbara Streisand didn't perform live for like 29 years. Whoa. Yeah. I mean, I think she did like private stuff, but she didn't she didn't have like a public big concert or tour. Wow. So yeah, it's more more common than we think, but it's just not that focused on or talked about, you know, because it's it's all the big tours and the big and obviously they were they're all releasing music, so there's lots of stuff coming from them as artists, but that is just not part of it. No. But um what profession out of the other than your own would you most like to attempt?
SPEAKER_04Acting, I think. I wanted to become an actor f actress first. Oh, interesting. Um yeah, being so intrigued with the movies in the 90s. There's so much there's this 90s aesthetic, and I'm not just talking about there's also this genre of like family movies and and the kind of the light. There's I don't know, this Nicole Kidman, Leonardo DiCaprio, goodwill hunting kind of nineties vibe. There was so many things going on. Yeah. I was yeah.
SPEAKER_00So you got seduced by that into wanting to act. Yeah. And still, is it something you still want to do? Like if you were offered, would you for sure. Okay, cool. Cool. Call me.
SPEAKER_04No, it's uh we talked about your mother for it was I mean, being uh dubbing a Disney movie is a goal of mine, is a dream of mine to sing one of those tunes. Uh The Little Mermaid in Danish was like that's my mom.
SPEAKER_00A beacon of yeah. She's also in the she's also the Norwegian and the Swedish, actually. Yeah. I can s I can hear why. She was actually supposed to do Anastasia as well. But then What? She's like that was my second choice. But I ruined that for her because she was pregnant with me, and they're like Disney is super strict with like their, you know, their because it's such on such a tight schedule that has nothing to do with you know Denmark as a country or normally it's like it's you know global, you know, when they release something and when it's gonna come out where and it's a whole machinery. So they were like, Oh, we're gonna record these weeks, and she's like, Yeah, I'm giving birth. So no. Wow. Yeah, and she did, yeah, yeah. So that's but that's kind of that's kind of fun.
SPEAKER_04But um Wow, because I had like two like main princesses that I really loved. And Anastasia was the second one. Actually, I could see myself more in her because she's this feisty kind of she also had that movie, also has that the to the narrative, that kind of Lion King, uh finding your own identity, remembering who you are, kind of oh my god.
SPEAKER_00But okay, and then um what is the biggest misconception that you feel people have about you?
SPEAKER_04Maybe that I'm super calm or balanced, which is not the case.
SPEAKER_00Oh my god, I totally had that. Really? Yeah. Until when? Until now. No, not that not that it's like I know you feel very deeply and you feel things very intensely, and you have these like you know, big emotions and you're very creative in these things, but but I I just always like I just completely also saw you as this like very kind of fairy, angel, like serene, ethereal creature that is just like I'm just gonna go meditate for two hours, ha ha, you know. Like, like not in a bad way, but I think but but I think that's that's like I think it's very true what you're saying.
SPEAKER_04I feel like there are two parts of me. Oh, of course that's one, but be being afraid of being visible, I'm really, really good at giving other people the impression that I am that I am that calm and so on, because it's my kind of safe space. Yeah. But when I really s start just letting go, and that can take some time, and it doesn't mean that I'm not into being with people, it just means that it's it's unsafe.
SPEAKER_00No, I think I think I think that's yeah. I think that that's that's very that's a really good one.
SPEAKER_04That's a very honest one. I am an open book. I will answer everything. I don't need any uh you you don't have to drug me. I'll just I'll just uh yeah.
SPEAKER_00That's a really, really, really good one. And I don't think, yeah, like honestly, we've had like conversations where we've both been like really vulnerable, but but still I just feel like maybe it's because you're also so you're so eloquent in the way that you speak. You know, you're you're a very good communicator and you're very, you know, like um soft spoken and like you know, so I think that those things can also be deceiving or very disarming. Do you see what I mean? Like, like because sometimes I think that people don't understand how chaotic and how painful an experience can be when you're very good at putting words to it, then it can often feel like, oh, you're very at peace with this because you're so good at talking about it. And it's like it might be because you've written about it a ton, so you you your your processing is like has this other layer to it as well. But I think it's just yeah, I think that one is a very interesting one because yeah, I I I totally think that yeah, you're one of those people that could definitely have people fooled with thinking that you're way more balanced and calm and poised, maybe.
SPEAKER_04That's of course that's a that's a goal of mine, but it has and to be very honest, it's been um it's been a challenge in dating because people tend to see to judge a book by its cover and see the exterior and assume that demure. Very demure. And just assume that that there's there's not a lot going on or that there's there's there's suddenly um like taken off guard that that there's uh I always demand high intensity and not attention but like focus and I want to be with someone both like in my friendships and I want to look up to people. I love being like the what's that called when when you're the when the you're the pupil, you're like like the um student? Yeah, both. I was gonna say fangirl, but like but maybe that's the wrong I'm gonna I'm gonna have to look that up because it's a particular word I'm looking for. It's um but I feel like I s there's a lot of um there's a tug of war going on within me because I always want to give a certain give off a certain vibe and and I am those things as well, but um but the contrast is the Yeah, it's I'm I'm Very uh I'm very demanding of like that's a good sign. That's a good sign. I'm and kind of I'm kind of elaborating and dwelling on like tasting the words almost we've also been talking for a while.
SPEAKER_00We have so um let me wrap up with the last question of the questionnaire. If heaven exists, what does God or whoever you think is gonna receive you say when you come to enter the pearly gates?
SPEAKER_04You knew.
SPEAKER_00Come on in, come on in That was what I just I don't know You knew come on in That's wonderful I that was an awesome answer Okay now I recall now I recalled the word I like being the novice Oh I like being the one who's yeah like you good good good and it all came God came with two words novice and you knew so um what is um what is next for you in the near future I'm gonna win a Grammy and I'm I wanna live yes I wanna live in Beechwood uh in the Hollywood Hills and hmm I'm calling in love and I have a an album coming out soon Quite soon yes and I'm working on the next album and yeah it's just nonstop yeah it's uh it's my life force yeah yeah I feel very blessed to be able to to convey whatever is going on at all times I think it's very exciting thank you so much for thank you for letting me come on your podcast oh no thank you I think this was this was awesome this is good yes okay I'm gonna go uh thank you so much for listening and thank you so much Cleo for wanting to be a part of my podcast and supporting me and again congratulations on the beautiful body of work that you've created with your album and um yeah can't wait to see all the cool upcoming concerts and other projects that you're gonna be a part of thank you so much it's done now thanks for listening thanks to Gio for playing my piano so beautifully while I made his dinner he's awesome go check out his jazz band Office Park and the Duo Cosmo Club artwork used for the logo is by artist Peter West the painting is called Lemon and currently hangs in my living room this would not have been possible without Simon for his emotional support his world class opinions and overall art direction slash vibes. My name is Ingrid Pascal this is the Private Culture Podcast produced by NorthNode and um until next time bye