The identity
Drosophelia* is the moniker under which Igor Zinken (1981, the Netherlands) releases personal musical material inspired by obsolete audio technologies, a love for darker tones, and music consumed over a lifetime.
After contributing to various musical groups, soundtracks and audio software, the ambition arose to focus on a purely individual outlet, where Drosophelia became the identity to provide this channel.
All aspects of the process (writing, performing, recording and production of both sound and visuals) are executed by yours truly, making this an only child's vision.
The aesthetic
Drosophelia songs are not intended to provide instant gratification, instead meant to be consumed as part of a bigger whole. Releases come in trilogies of EP, single and full-length album and are thematically linked, either by narrative or through a common sound design.
This format requires the creation of a system, which becomes the framework for expressing a private voice: "these are my observations, for whoever listens".
The music is made by any means necessary: any sound source is considered valid, and any focused attempt at playing an unfamiliar instrument has its merits.
Multi channel Yamaha FM synthesis paired with MOS 6581 bass and a barely intonated violin? Why not?
Apart from using traditional instruments, Drosophelia's music also revolves around the use of handwritten audio processing software, built for the occassion.
All these sources provide a palette from which an "aural painting" can be created, where all individual layers - regardless of being organic or synthetic in origin - are unified to form a coordinated whole, pairing and layering uncommon sounds in such a way that they seemingly belong together.
*/drəˈsoʊˈfiːliə/ : an amalgamation of a genus of fly and the name of a noble woman. All release titles reflect concepts related to insect life cycles or hierarchies.
You probably use AI?
I think I preferred it when people would ask "Haha, you really must be using some proper drugs to come up with this crazy stuff, right?" instead.
I suppose there is a hidden compliment in either question : even when something deviates from the norm, people recognise when something took effort and meets an arbitrary "level of quality".
To a non-musician it can be hard to understand why someone would have a drive to create and complete a piece (this probably goes for any artistic expression), therefor assuming some sort of assistance was used.
Holding back progress, dinosaur...
Oh please. I'd be the first to admit AI will definitely help humanity reach great results much more efficiently and I am a software engineer by trade, after all.
I just do not use it for composition, mixing or even the creation of the final cover art, basically at any stage that feels part of the creative design of a Drosophelia release. Even this page is hand-written.
Ever since I first held a pencil as a child, I knew it takes work to become skillful at anything. The process can be frustrating and long, and therefore all the more worthwhile in the end.
From the initial spark of wanting to compose music to get to the point where I can finally make what I hear in my head (without the result sounding too naive), I basically needed to learn to work with myself.
The tool is not so much a technology, but the way I've learned to flesh out an idea. There's still a lot of frustration involved to complete something, along with plenty of self doubt along the way.
But I consider this "suffering" as part of the process and my personal approach is the only "assistance" needed to shape the course of my decisions.
Listen
Complete discography is listed on this site, with each individual release documented with full metadata.
You can either stream or purchase Drosophelia's music from the usual services using the following link:
Stay in the loop
To stay in the loop about the latest news, you can follow the Drosophelia Instagram page.