Aukai was born of composer/instrumentalist Markus Sieber’s desire to create music that could work in tandem with film, video, theatre and the visual arts. 2018 sees the release of his latest album ‘Branches Of Sun’. The compositions on the album also grew out of Sieber’s love affair with the ‘Ronroco’, a plucked string instrument from Argentina.
3 FACTS
1: Inhale
2: Exhale
3: Curious what will happen next
11 QUESTIONS
1. What is the biggest inspiration for your music?
Memories and how they appear and relate in the present.
2. How and when did you get into making music?
When I was 14 years old, inspired by the Avantgarde Rock in East Germany.
3. What are 5 of your favorite albums of all time?
1. Nick Drake – Pink Moon
2. Arvo Pärt – Tabula Rasa, ECM
3. Brian Eno & Harold Budd – The Pearl
4. Nils Frahm – Felt
5.The Album Leaf – Into the Blue
4. What do you associate with Berlin?
My years in acting school there and first theatre and film engagements back in the days….
5. What’s your favorite place in your town?
I don’t live in a town anymore, I am outside in the mountains.
6. If there was no music in the world, what would you do instead?
Maybe I would be guiding nature and adventure trips . :)
7. What was the last record/music you bought?
Bibio – Sleep On The Wing
8. Who would you most like to collaborate with?
I just collaborated with Parra For Cuva which was a pretty cool experience.
9. What was your best gig (as performer or spectator)?
Performing for 5000 people at the river banks of Rio de La Plata en Buenos Aires, a magical evening indeed.
10. How important is technology to your creative process?
Not much important in the initial phase of creating, it rather becomes important to ground and frame things at a later stage of the process.
11. Do you have siblings, and how do they feel about your career/art?
I think they really like what I am doing and have been always of great support.
Aukai was born of composer/instrumentalist Markus Sieber’s desire to create music that could work in tandem with film, video, theatre and the visual arts. 2018 sees the release of his latest album ‘Branches Of Sun’. The compositions on the album also grew out of Sieber’s love affair with the ‘Ronroco’, a plucked string instrument from Argentina.
Like every musician, Markus Sieber is used to going the extra mile to make the music he hears in his head and feels in his heart. There aren’t many, however, who would – or indeed, could – get to work in the mornings by strolling across a frozen lake before settling in a small cabin high up in the mountains located close to the Old Spanish Trail in Colorado where he had set up a home studio. For most of an entire month, though, he’d begin his day by pressing “Record’, and end it by pressing ‘Stop’. The world outside barely existed.
Sieber’s no stranger to solitude and frugal living. Born near Lepzig, East Germany, 15 years before the Wall fell, his parents moved to a remote village outside Dresden when he was six, spenting his free time in the summer fishing or swimming in the nearby Zschopau and Mulde rivers and, in the winter, ice skating, sledging and skiing. It’s no surprise, then, that with a background like this, and in locations such as those in which he now works and lives, Aukai’s work is imbued with a sense of peace. Even if the album took another half-year to complete, this was done in an unhurried fashion: after a month, he returned to the cabin to “shape, carve and edit” the material, inviting others to contribute along the way. Finally, he returned to Germany to mix the album with Martyn Heyne.
Aukai is set to play alongside Berlin-based cellist and composer Anne Müller at a special open air concert at Gärten der Welt next month.
