AKI TRAAR sits in front of a melange in the caféIt is Nameless and thinks – üAbout what he just said and what he’s regarding to say. „Well, let me say thatüaccept, I hör not just my own music.” His gaze drifts away. A few days ago the producer and sound designer „Helix Bruise“ veröpublic. An EP that sounds like häThe ELAK vintage missed out on the FM4 charts. No wonder: AKI TRAAR knows both worlds, the conceptual and consumer-oriented. At the Burgtheater he last fproduct „The closed society” composed. In Ingolstadt häis he thenächst für ein Shakespeare-Stück to the mixer. Why he, as a studied electroacoustic engineer, is also working on a new pop approach, oreäkeeps AKI in the conversationäch with Christoph Benkeser.
club or theatre?
Aki Traar: May I counter-question? Do you go to the theater a lot?
Not as often as in the club.
Aki Traar: I ask because I was amazed at how receptive theater is to this kind of music. Sure, it depends on the directors, but still… At first I thought: theater music, someone will play Mozart on the violin. In fact, people in the theater are open to new music.
For you, new music means: experimental, electronic.
Aki Traar: It’s good that young musicians can bring their interests to the theater. I started as an unpaid intern at the Burgtheater and thought I would have to change my ways. I was asked to do exactly what I had already done. I stuck with it and asserted myself…
Your father is with Martin Kušej, the director of the castle.
Aki Traar: The Burgtheater is not a place where you can get ahead without hard work.
are you a hard worker
Aki Traar: Already. I enjoy working constantly on projects.
How did you get into music?
Aki Traar: At 10 got me Tokio Hotel good, the visual, the lifestyle. From 13 to 18 I was in a boarding school in Italy. There was internet there, but a fat firewall. The internet was so slow that we mightn’t stream music. So sometimes we downloaded the songs in bars. This unavailability made music a greater good. That led to the fact that at some point I wanted to produce it myself. First I built Beats on the iPad. When I came back to Vienna for community service, I was already in it. Later I saw that MDW offers the course for electroacoustic music. I came in – it was serious.
You hättest also land at Preset-Pop köbut you came to experimental music. Why?
Aki Traar: My passion is the sound. I find emotion in that. In addition, the electro-acoustic access to the PREVENT made a lot. Through the conceptual filter of the sheltered workshop, one does not stay with pop, but questions it.
So more of a concept than an emotion?
Aki Traar: Not at all.
You are theorist.
Aki Traar: No, I hope you don’t think that regarding me!
cerebral?
Aki Traar: I don’t think so, no. When I listen to the music I produce for the theater, I tend to think to myself: This is like one of my tracks.
How does your work for the theater differ from your solo project?
Aki Traar: In the theater I accompany an action and at the same time reflect it musically – for example the original idea of a leitmotif of a person. On the EP “Helix Bruise” …
Isn’t the music aimless?
Aki Traar: I notice how the music wants more from release to release – from the instrumental to collabs with singers and rappers. That gives people something.
What’s yours?
Aki Traar: Well, I’m a listener too. Still, I don’t listen to ambient music all the time! In addition, for the first time I not only exchanged sounds, but entire project files. With this I give away all my production secrets, but I also get some back from people I didn’t know before. That’s risk. But I’m not afraid of losing something.
Do you always have someone in mind when you start a project?
Aki Traar: Full! I always want to work with the worst. Most of them don’t even come from Vienna.
Because you’re not in that little Viennese bubble are you?
Aki Traar: I’m not in it, but it has to do with my life. If I have to go to Graz spontaneously for five weeks, it’s difficult to be a fixed part of a scene in another city. But I don’t suffer from it, on the contrary: My creativity benefits when I’m on the road.
You need the Verächange.
Aki Traar: Don’t need it, but it helps.
With the statement you can in the ZIB2 tear somethingin.
Aki Traar: Well, look. I’m looking forward to being noticed. But I’ve been hiding for the last few years.
And?
Aki Traar: Not aware I think. But I didn’t work publicly.
Weil?
Aki Traar: When you cook a lot, sometimes it’s nice to have something to yourself. Also, I don’t go out that often. Techno in the club? Oh well …
yeah eh
Aki Traar: Do you know what I really don’t like? When I go away and don’t have a release. do you know what i mean?
Not yet.
Aki Traar: When I’m in the club and I hear something cool, I think to myself: I also need something that can be played here. That’s why I always have to work. Does it make sense?
You’re afraid you don’t have anything to show, you mean?
Aki Traar: As an artist, I am bound to what I have created. Creating is more important to me than…
The consuming?
Aki Traar: Absolutely! I listen to my own music more than anything else.
Totally self-referential.
Aki Traar: Already, wait, I have to take that back. I’m more concerned with the process of making music than listening to my own music.
Can you focus for a long time?
Aki Traar: Not at all! That’s why my live sets are so sporadic. It has to do with my lifestyle… When you open TikTok When you’re on the go, everything is fragmented.
What has TikTok done to your life?
Aki Traar: It is addictive, but at the same time an enrichment because it inspires me.
How to use TikTok subversively?
Aki Traar: CoreCore!
Core was?
Aki Traar: On TikTok everything became a micro trend in 2022. CoreCore is an attempt to reflect these trends. That’s cool – CoreCore!
Äuh, sorry. But what?
Aki Traar: It’s a meta-reflection of trends and the world in the digital space. Think regarding it: you scroll down forever. Some people then post like, “Take a minute to rest.” Suddenly, you break out of the loophole.
It is a counter-movement to consumption. That reminds me of hyperpop.
Aki Traar: I love the labels PC Music and the music of SOPHIE. The only thing that bothers me is the term hyperpop. Why is it called that? Because we’re all so desensitized that you have to be hyper for people to notice. Maybe that’s why I find people who make post-genre music interesting because they use existing genres but think in a revolutionary way.
“A POPBEAT IS NOT EXCITING ENOUGH IN THE ELAK.”
Post-genre is also becoming a genre, isn’t it? It’s like normcore becoming the norm.
Aki Traar: Yes, eh. People think in the box, not outside. That’s why you have to do what moves you. That can also be pop music on an electro-acoustic class evening.
Stodo you start with it?
Aki Traar: Of course, but not because everyone thinks pop music sucks. The headwind comes from the approach of dealing with inner-musical phenomena while studying. A pop beat is in the PREVENT not exciting enough. Nevertheless, one can intervene.
But the intervention doesn’t come from people who open their laptops and let the master track run for 40 minutes.
Aki Traar: You have to love the laptop on stage. For me he meets one soft spot in my heart because I studied computer music. From a performance point of view, however, it is uninteresting. Unless you do it like Vegynone of the producers of Frank Ocean. He played a show in Paris, opened his laptop and lay down on the stage next to it. People hated it.
It’s honest!
Aki Traar: Honest and horny! I just remember one i8i-Showcase in Vienna. Fitnesss tied a midi controller to the full body harness, threw himself into the mosh pit and yelled at people: “Press the buttons!” That was great, but you have to have the courage!
Wüwould that suit you?
Aki Traar: I’m rethinking my live concept, I need great visuals – in the style of Daniel Swan’s “Idyll”. I would also like to sing live.
Finally, let me ask: What do you like regarding yourself?
Aki Traar: That’s a Tinder date question, right?
I’m interested in how you actüthink regarding Not what you answer to that.
Aki Traar: Do you know what I don’t pack at all? Social Climbing and switching for opportunities. I’m a loyal guy who can work hard and doesn’t give a shit.
Is that what you like regarding yourself?
Aki Traar: I like the fact that I like to jump in at the deep end! I always try to comfort to avoid.
Then Hölet’s get up here. Thank you!
Christopher Benkeser
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Links:
Aki Traar (Homepage)
Aki Traar (Instagram)
Aki Traar (Soundcloud)
Aki Traar (Bandcamp)
