12 questions for NUNDALE
Nundale is a music project by Swiss born Olivier Egli which spans several decades and styles, ranging from industrial techno to more recent abstract and complex IDM constructions. But there is a red thread that connects every single one of his creations: it’s the obsession with beats that flipflop between lagging and stressful, darker notes, subdued harmonics, chord progressions that love to slide from major to minor, and bass lines that do more than just hint at something deeply heavy and oppressing. Maybe it’s an arcane testimony to extreme opposites in life. Or maybe not at all.
1. What drives you to create music? What do you seek to achieve with it?
Making music taught me early on about the beauty of letting go of an outcome and getting fully immersed in the process itself. In that respect it does not serve my achievements other than to reinforce that principle vigorously. What has driven my musical explorations for the past 30+ years hasn‘t changed: it‘s a vital necessity to unleash brain chatter and emotions with a sonic brush. In that respect it is like a treadmill that takes me nowhere but keeps me sane.
2. How would you describe your music to someone who’s never heard music before?
I just now realize how impossible this question is, because describing music is either tainted by personal definitions or simply impossible. But I will say this: to me my music sounds like an internal projection of the things I fear the most and that fascinate me the most. Things like death, paralysis, love, loss, estrangement, unknown depths and fragility of life and their counter part like safety, sanity, well being, love and so on. I process those extremely symbiotic opposites by turning that feeling into something I can hear and feel.
3. Which album do you wish you had made?
Another impossible one. But if I had been behind releases like ‚Music Has The Right To Children‘ (Boards Of Canada), ‚Music For the Masses‘ (Depeche Mode) or ‚Spokes’ (Plaid) I would be MIGHTY proud of myself..
4. If music is a form of therapy, what is it healing in you?
In my case it is a form of healthy restraint. It keeps me from sliding into the deep end or being consumed by existential thoughts or something. It‘s like this conversation with a part of myself that is free of judgment, like a dark and cozy corner in my mind where I can just be myself and play with my creative demons without repercussions or anxiety for a moment. A breather if you will.
5. If you could use one image to represent the intention of your work and burn it into your audience’s heads, what would this image be?
A stark and empty landscape with a giant powerline running across. Something that contrasts nature and man‘s implication and manipulation. This is why the cover and inlay for ‘Music For The Masses’ resonated so strongly with me when I discovered it at such young age.
6. What do you consider your best piece of work yet? And why?
Probably the one I will always fail to create by an inch or two. There is also some work on long broken hard discs that I feel strongly about, but I just can’t get myself to open that Pandora’s box again.
7. What is your sentiment about the current music scene, and how is it helping with the state of the world?
To me it‘s this two sided thing. It‘s 51% creation and 49% destruction. On one hand I see all this inspiring willingness for exploration and the incredible talent that dares to try and fail and come up with new exciting things. But on the other hand there is this almost sickening obsession with tools and technology that has infiltrated the magical process of art, where the tools seem to become more important than the fun and outcome itself. It‘s become too easy to synthesize any sound, so that we are being flooded with too much noise and too little signal. And AI, improperly used, is pushing this frontier further into bad realms. But as long as there is more creation than destruction we are at least inching our ways towards a brighter tomorrow.
I for my part am just happy that true creativity prevails and I can discover something unique and original every now and then. This balance in favor of the art keeps me hopeful that we exist not for materialistic gain, but to find expression that‘s honest and meaningful. But I might be overly optimistic. Bottom end: music is an internal process. If it becomes too dependent on external things, it’s not gonna help the world in any way. But it could.
8. How would you describe ERRORGRID in your own words? What is it to you?
When I started Errorgrid in April 2020 I was aching for connection and meaningful exchange. I had had a few very poor experiences with labels and felt that they largely failed at taking care of their people, to serve them and to protect and encourage them. In that respect, I don’t believe in the traditional definition of a label anymore. For me it’s all about community, cross-pollination, exchange and active listening. I wanted it to become a platform where there are no walls between artists and the label itself. In that respect I see it much more as a conviction or a movement than a label. It’s a group of people who are connected by their differences and similarities. I don’t want it to assimilate people, I want it to celebrate differences within a common culture. And this is what makes me so proud: Yes, they are all so incredibly talented and dedicated to their art, but they are also really good hearted and kind people who understand that their creativity has the power to trigger change in the world. That’s the most I can ask for.
9. When do you consider a piece of music finished and ready for others to hear?
This is a real problem, as I never consider anything ever finished or polished enough. I can be working on a kick drum for 4 days (and drive the household nuts) and then just bin it because it annoys me. It‘s very easy for me to first obsess over the process and then completely lose interest. Sometimes I don‘t realize until very late that what I am doing is crap, and then I just pull the plug. But on rare occasions things just fall into place and doors open up. That‘s when I have to force myself to export it and walk away, or I will start to disfigure it. I think I hunt for these moments. I don’t look for the perfect tune, I look for that contentment that stays high.
10. How much importance do you put into your tools?
I have a twisted relationship with my tools. I research any acquisition for weeks, never read manuals and sometimes hoard gear that’s really not useful for me. Over time gear has become more invisible to me. The less I think about it, the better for my music. Right now I am in the process of letting go of more and more hardware. This cycle of reduction hits me about every 5-6 years. I then focus more on processes within the computer. Tom (Hall) and I sometimes jokingly call this ‘going daw-ful.’
11. What is the one piece of equipment you will never part with?
I am a total FM uber-fanboy. I believe I have owned every major FM synth over the past 25 years. I am also totally enamored with sine waves and their purity that can be smashed. And harmonic distortion. What I would never let go of is my trusted Digitone and my Modular Channel (Overstayer). I talked about it with Surachai for a while before getting into it, but now nothing leaves my studio without. having been touched or mangled by it at least a little bit.
12. What do you have in the works/ what is next for you?
I wish I could find more time to finish the dozens of tracks I have laying around, but I am fairly slammed with awesome releases on Errorgrid that need to get out. The upcoming compilation ‘Tension//Release’ featuring all my label mates and our friend Blush Response is clearly a highlight. But I definitely hope I will find time to finish the follow up EP to ‚Staircases: A‘ which I have been working on for 7+ months. Also there is some Nundale stuff in the works for a theatrical release.
‘The Dodeka Remixes’ is now out on Bandcamp.