The Mix 027: Toxe

For me the album sounds like a crisp sunny day, and maybe you’re walking along a canal or somewhere outdoors, and you think you might be falling in love, or you might have just been in love. There’s this playfulness to it.

Some songs are literally just like, “I’m in love”, very simple, like joy. And then there’s also songs that are more sad and melancholic, of course. I really like doing something that’s simple, and that’s also why I did it in Swedish, because my vocabulary is way more limited and scaled down. Not that it’s easier to make something simple, but it felt easier for me to just start playing with repetitive sentences and testing it out that way.

Can you explain a bit more about that process?

I really enjoy the process of taking something really complex or deep or painful and just making it very catchy, and simplifying it to more of a universal feeling that everyone could just relate to. I like that process. It’s interesting how to scale down something that’s very personal, making it into a product that people can consume.

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I love what you said about playing around with the words themselves too.

I guess the lyrics are very short and repetitive because it’s more like an instrument for me. I produce everything myself so [my voice] becomes an extra instrument. It’s not like I write down a lyric and then make a song for it. It’s very much made simultaneously, where you chop something up and put it into the grid, that’s just my method of working. I also just love when things are repeated and after a while you just forget what was even being said.

And the isolation you speak of is in terms of studying and producing?

Yeah I didn’t really try to make a social life in Amsterdam because I just didn’t really feel at home there. So I didn’t really have any friends around and I just didn’t go out much beside working or studying, so I’ve just been home and with myself a lot. I guess that kind of creates something that comes out in the record. I guess it makes sense that I’ve been singing more, being comforted at home in my own solitude. I really don’t mind being alone, like, I love being alone. But it’s been the most extreme phase of going without seeing a friend for such a long stretch of time.

Are you still interested in The Club?

Yeah, or sure. I feel like I’ve been DJing for a very long time and I’m very hyped on exploring a live performance, so I’m very focused on that. But I always enjoy DJing, It’s been part of my life for so long, of course I love club music.

Can you tell us about your mix?

It’s an end of summer mix, made in Gothenburg.

‘Toxe2’ is out via YEAR0001 on August 30, pre-order it here

Seb Wheeler is a digital strategist and music writer. Check out his monthly new music newsletter, Waste Mail, here