Lost Lover has recently released a song on Wet Dreams Recordings new compilation, ‘Work Not Hype’. The exclusive mix that Lost Lover made for us will take listeners on a sonic journey through dark electronic beats. For a little more insight I interviewed Lost Lover about the inspiration for the mix.
Can you please tell us more about yourself?
Lost Lover was conceived in Johannesburg about 3 years ago and born in December 2016, inspired by the city’s infamous advertisements to retrieve lost Lovers.
Everybody remembers a Lost Lover and with remembering also creates one every day. Memory is not stagnant. It changes with every present moment and inevitably adapts for the sake of necessary projections of the future. Your Lost Lover(s) shapes future Lovers and the lives with and without them.
Lost Lover will tell stories, wear faces, speak tongues and dance in languages of many within a world inhabited by Animals, plants and Spirits. We will exoticise each other in ways and stare only through kaleidoscopic lenses of all colours, except White and Black.
Lost Lover is a projection space, a piece of Art created by many. Lost Lover is generally not one person and if so then tomorrow it would be someone else.
What are your influences regarding your music and how would you describe your music?
The music is influenced by a need to shed over-self awareness, or imagined and assumed outside views of self. A search to find a calm relationship based on embrace and capitulation and trust. To have the freedom to speak powerfully through beauty and fight with affirmation.
This hopefully leads to a sound that is forward and playful, patient, angry, committed. Embracing and dramatic at times.
Your sound has a pretty distinct, refined darkness about it; to what extent do you think these hypnotic dark elements and atonality are part of the whole aesthetic of your music?
Darkness is not intentionally there but maybe it is a strong part of the aesthetic. Time will tell.
There always has been an affinity for dissonance on many levels and Atonality is a result of focus being set on rhythm and sound more than harmony based on a musical school or tempering.
Tell us your inspiration behind this Bubblegum Club mix.
The main idea was to make a long set. In the past years people have been uploading sets of 30 minutes, sometimes even less and rarely playing sets longer than one hour. This approach ignores the potential and force a set can have with enough time and only with enough time. Some of the strongest tracks in the set are over 10 minutes long and they need space around them.
It is a challenge to listeners to trust and give themselves into something deeply for their own sake and to encourage a listening culture which promotes patience and concentration and which embraces depth.
When you produce and mix, do you go with the flow of what you are feeling or are the tracks conceptualized before they are produced or included in a mix?
A mix like this is very conceptual and carefully selected. There is a reason for each track to be in the set. Flow comes into play in the transitioning between the tracks.
In Production it is slightly different. It is not a concept but a state and a sound. A state of being is the equivalent of a concept in a sense that it connects everything together but it is different because it is not an intellectual but a spiritual and emotional child.
How were you first introduced to electronic music and have you had a formal music education at all?
Lost Lover has only existed digitally so far and is only a few months old. Education is still to come and nobody knows if it will be formal. What has been created so far are results of what was brought along from previous lives, genetic programming and ancestral conditioning. No questions have been formulated yet.
Where do you draw the most inspiration when producing music and what are your primary tools for building your sound?
As mentioned earlier, Inspiration is really a state and very rarely a reference. A inspirational state is reached through being alone and finding a pure state not digested through any human beings reflection.
The tools for the sound are mainly very processed field recordings, especially most of the complex textural sounds. Different kinds of syntheses also but more important is sequencing and through that how sound moves in relation to time.
Can you tell us about some of your future projects being released soon and your work on ‘Wet Dreams Recordings’ new upcoming ‘Work Not Hype’ compilation?
The Only released so far has been one track on ‘Wet Dreams Recordings’ titled ‘Your Lost Lover’ Which was the first Lost Lover track finished, It is intense, someone on soundcloud commented with ‘Yoh this is cold’.
The ‘Work not Hype’ compilation is very different to other South African Releases. The courage in the curation should inspire many.
There is an EP and an Album Ready to find a home. Future projects will be in many different forms and energy through sound will always be a companion to it if not always in form of Music.
What was your creative approach on these up and coming releases and what was the process of creating these songs?
The Album was inspired by 24 hours in a far eastern city and the approach to composition was almost rigidly conceptual. The main ideas were laid down on a song per day basis whilst inspiration was fresh, then refined later.
The EP is more recent and probably more mature sounding, The track ‘Your Lost Lover’ is part of it.
What are your current thoughts on the growing South African scene? Who are some of your biggest inspirations at the moment and why?
South Africa is a country which keeps on giving birth to new and pure cultural movements and Artists. It is a privilege to witness and share a time with them. There are lots from different directions but my favourites at the moment are:
Jazzuelle, Vukazithathe, Hlasko/Kaang, Nonku Phiri, Jakinda, BCUC, Urban Village, TheGooddokta, Big Space, Sibusile Xaba, Stiff Pap, Jumping Back Slash.
All mentioned are pioneers. Some in music and some also in a life besides music. They all are working with the world in their very own unique and powerful way. They symbolize a strong curiosity and courage to explore and experience.