The identity

Drosophelia is the moniker under which I release personal musical material, presented as dark electronic paintings, inspired by low fidelity equipment and pop culture of decades past.

The overall sound aims to blend both an organic controlled feel with electronics on the verge of spiraling into chaos; in an effort to convey universal human emotion such as anger and paranoia, with an end result once classified as "dark ambient acoustic industrial cabaret".

The aesthetic

Drosophelia releases are published in trilogies, each containing EP, full-length album and single, thematically linked, though often by a schizophrenic narrative through the shifting stylistic expressions of the composer.

All parts of the process (writing, performing, recording and production of both sound and visuals) are executed by yours truly, bar the odd contribution here and there.

Assembling the tools...

The ethos of Drosophelia is to make music by any means necessary, which implies that any sound source is considered an instrument.

While Drosophelia's music features both acoustic and electronic instruments, it also revolves around the use of handwritten audio processing software, often built for the occassion.

These sources form a palette from which a single "aural painting" can be created, unifying all the individual layers regardless of whether they are organic or synthetic in origin.

...and making the music

Apart from being neurotic about details such as the placement and tuning of individual percussive sounds, there is a continued study of unorthodox scales and time signatures, all to gather more functional tools.

Each release may feature specific types of equipment more than others, or is written having a specific palette in mind.

As such, these are often built around a specific sound; whether it is an instrument, newly created processor or a tonality, the sum of the parts combining to set the tone of the release.

Do you use AI?

I think I preferred it when people would ask "Gee, you really must be using some good drugs, right!" instead. I suppose there is a hidden compliment in either question : people can recognise that something took effort and recognise the result as meeting a certain quality level, one that makes it appear "serious".

To a non-musician it can be hard to understand either the amount of effort or the necessary needed drive to create and complete a piece, therefor naturally asking whether some sort of assistance was used.

No AI then. You're holding back progress...

Oh please. I'd be the first to admit AI will definitely help humanity reach great results much more efficiently and I definitely use it in other aspects of my life. Just not for composition, mixing or even creation of the final cover art, basically at any stage that feels part of the creative design of a Drosophelia release.

The mastering of the audio is definitely aided by machine learning/AI though (Ozone mastering assistant).

So, why not?

AI can greatly speed up the tedious parts of many undertakings as well as help with getting creative input. I just don't consider it to have a place in my music making. After three decades going 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 (as well as not having a completely naive-sounding end result), I've basically learned to work with myself.

For me, musical creation tools are not so much the instruments or any of the technologies used, but the way I've learned to work and approach an idea.

Don't get me wrong: writers block is very much a thing and it definitely takes dedication and overcoming a lot of frustration to actually complete something, going back-and-forth between moments of pride and paranoia.

I take this "suffering" as part of the process and the only "assistance" I need to shape the natural course of my decisions.

Listen / keep in touch

You can either stream or purchase Drosophelia's music from the usual services using the following link:

Stream Drosophelia