What inspired you to first start making music? And how did you come to be in your current incarnation? Or if you prefer, a brief bio about you.
Both of us have been creating music since an early age. When we started playing music together it began as a way to find a connection to the simple creativity of those early days; improvising, using lots of different instrumental textures and discovering new music technology. Being very close to each other and not having a genre box to fit into made making music together easy and playful. Since we share a lot of perspectives and interests, while coming from different backgrounds, our music tends to flow in the same direction without us having to intellectualize and talk about it.
Provide us with some info about your latest release…
Madurai / Kodaikanal is a two-sided single inspired by our journey through india. The opening song ”Madurai” represents the element air to us, it is a very open-sounding downtempo pop song, with glistening flutes and unrestrained synth textures abound throughout the production. The lyrics, like in many of our songs, continually point the listener to the present moment instead of having a chronology or a story which the song is about. Kodaikanal is a watery song about melting into a perspective of pure love and light. Its slow-moving pace and pulsating flute chords is our attempt of portraying that experience in sound. It’s a spacious, trip-hoppy ballad about love, though not necessarily romantic love.
Which ones would you consider your main influences both music-wise & non-music-wise?
We listen to a very wide array of music, which I guess isn’t that uncommon in the digital age. We love psychedelic and experimental music of all kinds; old school acid rock like early Pink Floyd and 13th Floor Elevators, nordic electro pop trailblazers like Little Dragon and Susanne Sundfor, south american electronic music like Chancha via Circuito and Lulacruza, modern experimental rock like The Mars Volta and Cynic.
Our experiences in nature are probably the thing that inspire us most; we live nearby the forest and the sea and forming a connection with the truth that resides in nature is powerfully creative. Some visual artists that embody this and therefore influence us are Amanda Sage and Hannah Yata.
In what way does your sound differ from the rest genre-related artists/bands and why should we listen to your music? In other words, how would you describe your sound?
It is apparent to us that we don’t work in any straight-forward genre, we make melody driven music using electronic and acoustic instruments and within that our songs will sound different from each other, which will become clear as we release more music. Our music is melodic, mysterious, often slow and complexly textured. We try to make pop music which lead people into their subconscious rather than make music that’s easily consumable. We want to ground the listener with a meditative pace, while opening them up to the whole spectrum of human emotions using a more colorful and layered production.
Please name your 3 desert islands albums, movies & books
Albums: Pink Floyd – Wish You Were Here, Susanne Sundfor – The Brothel, The Mars Volta – Frances the Mute
Movies: 2001: A Space Odyssey, Spirited Away, The Holy Mountain
Books: Momo by Michael Ende, Dune by Frank Herbert, House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski
Do you prefer studio or performing live and why?
Klara: I absolutely prefer preforming live! As much as I love writing songs and recording them, being in the moment and singing to an audience is a different feeling altogether.
David: I prefer being in the studio. I love being in the process of free creation, second guessing and questioning myself and the feeling of finally coming to the right answer of what a song needs in the end.
Is there any funny-unique story you would like to share with us, always in relation to your music ‘career’?
Klara: When we first met, I was working in a show as a dancer (the contract literally said ”Go-go dancer”) and one of my tasks was to be a “fake DJ” after the live performance was over. I was expected to look like I was DJing and basically fake a prerecorded live set. David was at the time working as an actual DJ and laughed really hard when I told him about that part of my job. It was one of the first thing we talked about and bonded over.
Which track of your own would you point out as the most unique and why?
All of our songs sound very different from each other. Serpent is one of our darkest and most haunting songs, Path is very heavy and slow. Both Madurai and Kodaikanal are much brighter, Kodaikanal I think is our most unique one though, the super-slow pacing and ecstatically melting sound is very different in our opinion.
Would you like to share with our readers your future plans?
We’re currently working on our live performance and our full length album. Before we release it however, we will release more singles. Our next single will be out later this fall, it’s called ”Animals”.
Free question!!! (Ask yourself a question) you wish to answer and haven’t been given the opportunity…
”If you could have dinner with anyone, living or dead, who would it be and what would you cook?”
David: I would spend 48 hours preparing a slow-cooked vegan texas chili and humbly offering it to Robert Anton Wilson. He seems to have been one of the most interesting people ever, his ideas regarding mental fluidity and breaking out of your reality tunnel are some of the most useful I’ve encountered.
Klara: I would invite Hildegard von Bingen, the 12th century choir composer and nun, to my grandfather’s cottage and we would make sandwiches and walk in the woods picking mushrooms. Later we would make more sandwiches but with mushrooms and make music and talk about God.
Curated by: Christos Doukakis
Recommended listening:
Connect with Ittna:
Instagram: @ittnagram
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/ittnaband