I’ve been curious to learn more about producer Kayip since finding all of those titles in Swedish on his first EP, but was too shy to ask even though I really enjoyed the music. Since a few weeks back his new album Theory of Everything is out and figuring it was at least worth a shot I asked for a small interview. Turns out Kayip didn’t mind at all and kindly offered answers to all my questions:
Who is Kayip?
I’m mainly based in South Korea writing electronic music and contemporary classical music. My first album kayip and second album slow moves have been released through English indie labels while I was studying there. Since I came back to Korea, I’ve been involved in a few music projects such as Mo:tet (with Yoonsang and Superdrive), and producing albums for Lee Sang Eun and Yi Sung Yol. On the contemporary classical music side, I’ve wrote a new orchestral piece called Marea for BBC in 2008. Recently, I’ve made a live arrangement for Brian Eno‘s Apollo album after he chose me to do so.
How do you usually describe your sound?
The inspiration of my sound mainly comes from places I’ve been to. I love to travel, and my music is kind of music record of what I experienced during the trip. I try to depict landscapes and atmospheres by layering sounds in the very same way as a painting. It is a kind of distorted reality with my interpretation. I’m always interested in evoking the impressions of the place you may have been to, but which never exists in a real sense.
You’ve been involved in several interesting music projects over the years. From those, what are the biggest differences compared to working on your own music?
Actually, there is no big difference. It is all about making the right chemistry with the people who you work with. However, when you work with recording artists, you tend to have more people. Having more people means that you’ve got more options, which is not necessarily useful. Therefore, it becomes very crucial to establish an efficient decision making process to prevent you from being in a situation where you can’t judge what is right or wrong. When it comes to working on my stuff, you’ve got all the control on your material, which might make things very predictable and boring. So, you are forced to introduce some random aspects to lose control and surrender. In my case, working with performers in recent years have been be a good solution since I’m the kind of musician that heavily relies on technologies.
What is the Theory of Everything?
Theory of everything (TOE) is a putative theory of physics that fully explains and links together all known physical phenomena. I used it as a metaphor meaning that you need to embrace painful situations in your life to get forward.
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Nothing from Theory of Everything available just yet, but do check out Kayip’s MySpace to sample some really nice IDM of his as well as the above mentioned Marea. He’s got some quite impressive merits and personally I will most definitely continue to keep an eye on his activities to see what comes next.
As for the Swedish connection; turns out Kayip had shared apartment with a Swede while studying in England and that he’s also visited Sweden a number of times.