Perception of Depth 001 - Refracted

The first session of this podcast is brought by Refracted. An artist originally born in Palma de Mallorca,but living now in Berlin. 
With a successful first release on Aconito Records,this artist promises to keep doing what he does best...music,having now a beautiful upcoming release on silent season that probably it's bordering perfection.(
http://www.juno.co.uk/ppps/products/481967-01.htm) 
We honestly think that Refracted it's the perfect artist to keep on your radars. :)
I hope you guys enjoy this first session,as much as we enjoyed.
Check the interview we did with refracted:






POD: Hi Alex. All ok with you?

Refracted: Quite busy lately with work and music but all in all i'm feeling good.

POD: Ok good. To start, who is Refracted? Who is the person behind it?

Refracted: Well, my real name is Alex. I come from Mallorca in Spain but have been living outside of Spain for nearly 10 years now between UK and Germany. I'm currently residing in Berlin since 2.5 years and for the last few years I have been working on music and expressing myself through it.
In general, I'm just a normal guy with a special sensibility to music. I am a deep lover of electronic music and all it surrounds.

POD: Well good to know your personality hehe. That's a lot of time spent outside of Spain. Since 2.5 years that you are living in berlin you went there mainly to work or just for music?

Refracted: The move from London to Berlin was all about music. I had a very well paid job in London which quickly became boring and unfulfilling. I imagined myself doing that for the rest of my life and got quite scared to be honest. At that time I had already started working on some music on my free time but it was never enough time. Juggling an office job with girlfriend, etc and trying to learn how to make music was not easy.
I quickly got frustrated and decided to leave everything and pursue my dream. I thought I could not live with myself if I never tried.
I decided to move to Berlin for several reasons, the most obvious one was because of the possibilities this city offers.
There's music everywhere and the opportunity to meet people that are related to this world. Second; because it is a relatively cheap city which allows me to have more free time to work on music. At the same time, this increase in free time really helped me to be able to think about myself from an artistic point of view and discover new things about me.
It was only when I arrived here that I realized how "trapped" I had lived all my previous years. Berlin allows you to feel free and discover yourself.

POD: Yeah, it's not everyone that does that, I respect a lot who pursues his dreams to fight the existent boredom in this world. Yes, everyone says that berlin is a cheap city and an artistic city, but don't you think it's like a trend now. I don't live there but i guess now everyone wants to go there just because it's "cool".

Refracted: Yes of course, but that is complete the wrong reason to move here.
Sometimes I have the feeling some people just move here to live an easy party life but you have to respect everyone’s decision. Some people might need berlin to escape from the past or even from everyday life. To some extent I can identify myself with that.
I sometimes think of Berlin as some kind of never land, where it's full of adults that don't want to grow up.

POD: Since producing music is so important to you, what you do you enjoy in exploring the beautiful sounds that music can give us? Listening to your most recent ep's on Aconito (https://soundcloud.com/aconito-records/acdseries-00-05-refracted) and Silent Season (https://soundcloud.com/silent-season/refracted-along-a-ghostly-1). I see that you always try to put your feelings in every track you do. Are those your real life feelings? you want the listener to feel what you feel every day?

Refracted: I really enjoy sound experimentation and trying out different processing techniques. It’s a fascinating world with nearly limitless possibilities and that is what hooked me. The urge to create a track that I really like pushes me on a daily basis to keep learning and experimenting. I suppose i’m trying to fill a void somehow.
Ideally I would like to transmit my feelings into my tracks.
I'm not sure this is always possible but at least what I try to do is to make music that causes some kind of reaction from the listener in the hope of transmitting something to him. I don't aspire to create music that is just put as background music to wash the dishes. I hope people someday stop what they are doing and actually LISTEN. The same way I do when I listen to certain artists.
I put a lot of effort into the sound design in the hope of making it sound better than the average quality. “Better” is quite subjective though, it might sound better for me but not for others. I’m not talking about sound quality here. I’m talking about the tonality and colour of the sound. I have a very clear idea in my mind of the kind of sounds I like or dislike and stay as far away as possible from the ones that might make a track sound more “commercial”.

POD: Well, i can honestly say that every time i listen to your tracks, i really feel something, it brings a beautiful brightness to my life. I guess that's one of the biggest problems today, not everyone wants to spend their time writing a track that really has his own sound and that can touch the heart and mind of the listener.
Yes, i guess spending a lot of time in little details is what can make a very good track, because it's the minor changes that count in my opinion, and we are full of average quality artists in the music business and we need some new things and ideas.

 Refracted: Thanks :)
For me it’s really important to try and stay at least one step ahead. I don’t want to be stuck following trends 100%. Of course I might be inspired by things going on nowadays but I try to add something to it instead of just copying a formula while trying to find my own sound. I’m not interested in being just one more producer.

POD: And why did you decide to do this kind of music or better, deep dark techno?

Refracted: I have always been interested in atmospheres and dark music.
I started listening to techno at the very end of the nineties when everything was super fast and aggressive and my favorites where always the lads coming from Birmingham.
It was dark and industrial but it also had a very present atmospheric element. I suppose this always stuck with me and that's why I do what I do.
Although I now feel that sometimes i'm moving in slightly lighter territory.
It feels good. Maybe it means that overall i’m happier than I have ever been. I don’t want to forget my dark side though.
Thinking about my first experiences with techno in the dance floor. I always liked those tracks that made me want to close my eyes and let my mind go. I always enjoyed getting into the music and dissecting it in my head. My main ambition is to convey that same feeling to the people that listen to my music.

POD: Yes, Birmingham techno it's a big influence in the techno scene. I guess there they wanted to do hard things but at the same time they wanted you to feel some emotions that perhaps before you couldn't feel. Yeah i guess that your tracks like yours make people want to close their eyes and just listen to the beautiful piece of music you did. For me that's what it's all about, give to the people what they never experienced before.

Refracted: Exactly. I always fantasize about creating sounds that no one has ever heard before.
I also go deep because I'm tired of super fast speeds and this general conception that you can only dance to fast music. I think that is bullshit. You can dance to anything. It just needs to transmit something to you and make you feel that urge to move. I'm not afraid of slowing things down and i hope people will realize soon that it ain't that bad. Sounds need space to breathe.

POD: Yes, i totally agree with you. I guess a lot of people who say that fast is the best, don’t even try to understand what is the beauty of slowing things down and to understand the little details on this tracks.

Alex: no, they're mostly just worried about how long the queue for the bathroom is so they can take their next line of speed, coke or whatever.

POD: Changing the subject. You have a Tumblr (http://alex-eme.tumblr.com/) just for dark images. A lot of them being the "all seeing eye". What do you find so interesting in this kind of images?

Refracted: I'm really into abstract photography and generally bizarre and weird imagery.
The all seeing eye is an image that represents "god" which has been adopted as a symbol by some masonic type groups. These groups are now in control of our lives unfortunately and I collect images of the symbol as a way to stay aware of what is happening.  I guess it just fascinates me somehow, it's surrounded by mysteries and conspiracies much like space which also fascinates me.

POD: Yes, i know what you are talking about. I find this subject really interesting since i want to know what is really happening on our planet. How we are slaves of these powerful people.

Refracted: It's quite scary really.

POD: Yes, it scares me a lot.

POD: You ever relate images with music production, like you see an image, and the next moment you start a track trying to transmit what you felt looking at the image?

Refracted: Yes, but i rarely succeed. Sometimes an image might act as the inspiration to start a new track though.
There is a very special image that I found. That i think perfectly represents what feeling i try to convey to the listener with my music it was used as the cover for my fiber podcast (http://soundcloud.com/alex-m/refracted-fiber-podcast).

POD: To finish the interview can you tell us what artists you are enjoying to listen at the moment, what is your favorite track ever, and what are your future music plans?

Refracted: I'll have to think about that one for a moment…

POD: haha kind of difficult to choose.

Refracted: I really enjoy listening to Kevin Drumm's drone side. I'm also really into this monoton produkt reissue and Eleh. I try not to listen to too much techno lately as I don't want to be too influenced.
Favorite track ever.... That's a hard one. There are lots. If its downtempo, “Boards of Canada-Everything you do is a Balloon” (http://youtu.be/dQEmaj9C6ko), or “Autechre- Yulquen” (http://youtu.be/FAs2duUJpAk) amongst many others.

POD: Yes, very good artists. I understand your point, somehow you want to continue to do your own sound, and listening to techno can change that, a lot.
Good taste you have :)

Refracted: I have a sweet spot for “Plastikman's-Consumed” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FAs2duUJpAk).
It's hard to decide on my fav techno trackbut consumed is right up there

POD: hehe who don’t, everyone likes consumed :)
Yes it's hard for me too, but sometimes i find people who can pick their favorite tracks and somehow you could have one too hehe.

Refracted: the problem is i have too many, I’m trying to think of the absolute best but it's hard...
Upekah” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8GLsYT7lYv4), that's the one!
That one is above all.

POD: hehe, honestly i don't know this track, will check it out.

Refracted: It’s as close to perfection as you can get in my book.
And for the future...
I have a vinyl EP which is about to come out sometime in april on Silent Season.
(https://soundcloud.com/silent-season/refracted-along-a-ghostly-1).
I am also finalizing another EP for Connwax which should be out sometime in the next months on vinyl.
And then of course I have your EP (EP on Reaktivate Records (www.facebook.com/Reaktivate), I'm looking forward to that and already have some potential sketches done.
Apart from that there will be some further work for Aconito Records so pretty busy but exciting at the same time.

POD: I'm looking forward for your future releases.
It was a very nice interview. I hope all the best for you in the future and I bet that your hard work will compensate. J

Refracted: Yes, I enjoyed it too. And thank you. J