BACKGROUND
Ambient Music Between Past and Present
INSPIRATION
In 2021, I discovered Fennesz’s album Venice and was amazed by how much emotion its abstract soundscapes could evoke. I listened to it over and over, captivated by how minimal sounds could have such a strong impact. This experience opened the door to ambient and experimental music by artists like Ulla Straus, Vanessa Amara, Tim Hecker, and Alva Noto. At the time, I was running a music production podcast, which gave me the chance to speak with some of my favorite artists. I even managed to chat with Christian Fennesz about his approach to music. After that, I knew that my next album would aim to be abstract, ambient, free of percussion, and experimental.
PROCESS
Around the same time, I came across a technique called granular synthesis. This method creates new sounds by breaking recordings into tiny pieces, or “grains,” and rearranging them into entirely different textures. I decided to use this technique for my ambient album. For the source material, I chose an album of Protestant church music, Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott: Luther and the Music of Reformation. Its choir and organ passages had a warm, ethereal, and melancholic quality—exactly the atmosphere I wanted to capture. Conceptually, I liked the idea of taking something traditional, like church music, and reimagining it with modern technology. This approach reflects my relationship with Christianity: while I don’t believe in it, I still find beauty in its cultural heritage and appreciate its influence on me. To add background texture I used field recordings from the BBC sound library. There are over 33,000 clips from across the world from the past 100 years.
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
My master’s thesis focused on the impact of machine learning in music production. In 2023, I happened to meet Andrea Agostinelli, a leading researcher in AI music. We quickly became friends over our shared enthusiasm for music technology, and I was already familiar with the work of many of his colleagues from my research. When I told him about my ambient project, we decided to experiment with incorporating AI-generated music. Below is a video of a live performance we did for friends to test the concept: Andrea and I merged my album with real-time AI-generated variations created by his model. This collaboration explores the interplay between human creativity and machine-driven reinterpretation, raising questions about authorship and the creative potential of technology.