Artist Interviews 🎶 Studio Tours 🎛

Hello music people 👋

Today in the spotlight, Ikigai Cosmonaut

Currently in Portugal, she started exploring the world of effects and synthesizers since very young. A love for rhythm is the glue that brings everything together in the universes she creates 🎶

Interview & Studio Tour

Who are you and what is your relationship with music?

Based on Portugal, I go by the artist name Ikigai Cosmonaut.

It combines a Japanese concept based on a reason to wake up every morning, "a reason to be", and my love and curiosity for outer space and science knowledge in general.

When I choose my name, it made sense for me to put the music as the center of what I am (Ikigai) and also where my mind goes most of the time (all over the "spaces.") I try to overflow both of them to my music.

Music grew in me very early in my life. Since at the age of 5 I've started to build my own instruments with random combinations of objects, so to have a variation of source of sounds that I could play with. I wanted to be a drummer, so I was always following rhythms with some wood sticks.

Since it was difficult to have a drum kit in our apartment, at the age of 11, my parents gave me an acoustic guitar. I got an electric one at the age of 13. Then I started to collect effect pedals and stuck as a guitar player until my 20s or so when a friend gave me a Casio keyboard. I loved to connect it to the pedals and create instrumental and experimental sounds.

At my early age, Metal was the main music style I consumed, until I realized that I needed to open my window to new genres to grow as a musician. At the age of 15 I started to become obsessed with watching jazz instrumentalists and concerts. Later on, I become very passionate about electronic music. And this is when I started to get interested in music production. As a guitar player, I was waiting to meet someone to play with, and I realized that with electronic music I could do it by myself. So I did that.

Music was with me all my life, but I've become more serious about it when I decided to start my ikigai Cosmonaut project in 2019.

All this years I've been self-taught, independent, and it's not my day job.

I αlways knew that I wanted to make instrumental music (which is the 95% of the music I consume) and create my own universe.

Music is my Ikigai.

Which piece of equipment in your studio is essential to your production process?

At this stage, my centerpiece for music production, is still the Maschine Mk3 from Native Instruments.

When I started to become interested in music production I took a few classes of DJing and Ableton Live, which I don't use today. Αt that music school I had the chance to try the Maschine and I got myself the Micro 1 at the same month.

I was amazed by the device and I had it for many years. I used it alone for that long, until I upgraded for the MK3, a few years back, and started to combine it with other synths.

It's a fully self-contained and capable machine, and it's all I need to make music to be honest, if I didn't have anything else I could do it anyway, and I love devices that provide you options and a big range of sound and possibilities. The workflow is fine too, and since this is the groove box I've started with, it still has a nostalgic meaning for me.

The other device that grows in me is the Elektron Syntakt. Although I haven't use it yet on my released music, it’s my favorite box I've ever owned I love the sounds that I can reach with it, I love the Elektron sequencer and workflow, is very portable and totally capable to making music using it as a stand alone, which is a thing I love the most about music gear. I see gear as a kind of micro universe, so the thing I value the most is versatility and something I can explore by its own, and this one totally has that.

People ask if you had to take one piece of gear to a desert island, what would it be?

I don't think twice, I choose Syntakt.

What is the least expensive piece of gear that gave you the most results?

Aside from some pretty cheap pedals effects that I own that can do wonders for any combination of synths or drum machine I combine them with, I've must say the Korg Monologue.

The reason I choose the Monologue is the same reason I think that the Monologue is a very underrated synth in the musician community, the price value.

In my opinion, it is the best Mono synth that little money can buy. It's very capable, very wide in range of sounds pretty easy to learn and understand. In my personal case was the synth that I've learned the most about synthesis language when I started to explore dawless gear, and it's true that adds a bunch of sentimental value to it, but asides from that it's an amazing synth.

I forget about it from time to time, since I own other synths right now, but every time I turn it on I remember why I love it so much, it does what you need it to do and many, many more, so I stand by it.

Walk us through your process for creating and producing music.

I don't think I have a method, or I do things always the same way. I respect whatever I'm felling that day and go with it. That applies to music style and to the instruments I choose to begin with.

I don't believe in boxes, for the way I think and live my life, so my personal truth is just to be respectful for what I feel on that moment. Likewise, I also never think about the outcome or what I want to my music sound like. What I usually do is to choose a piece of gear and just explore it.

As I'm always saying I talk to the instruments and I think they tell me back what they need or where they want to be taken, and I just go with it and start to build layers over it. Every time I think about me, as a musician, it's like I'm jamming with a bunch of versions of myself that keep on coming to my home studio.

Freedom is the thing I value the most, learning and curiosity has been my fuel to keep me growning on -making music sonically wise.

At the same time, I consider myself a storyteller and most of my produced music have concepts or ideas behind the tracks, EPs or Albums. This doesn't apply directly to my first approach to music in terms of music aesthetically. I don't previously imagine the outcome of it, I always start by exploring sounds with no previous decisions, but it's easier to me to have motifs or themes to back up my will to release music. Usually they come from passion to learn stuff, and my will to think about stuff in general and expand my mind in a way. So I guess I expand my musicality at the same time my mind grows too, and I always respect what I feel at that moment without forcing anything.

What is a production technique that you always come back to?

As I mentioned before, I attach my music with freedom, so I guess I do the same for the technical stuff. My thing is felling over technique, so I don't think I have plenty of tricks.

What I do a lot is to try combinations of sounds that usually don't go along with, and in a way forced them to work together. And I'm a lover of ear candy and a lot of textures, so I end up using a lot of layers in my music.

I do it since the day one I produce music, maybe because helps to humanize music in general, but also I think they work great as alternatives for hi-hats or details and adds some groove and felling to the beats. So I guess this is the one I use the most, not sure if it's a technique, but is a particular thing I always go back to.

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How would you describe your style?

My style aside from free, I guess it fits somewhere between fragile and aggressive.

I love composing melodic sad tones but also very aggressive sounds, textures and percussion, or the other way around it depends on what I'm felling at that moment.

What I end up doing is combining several styles that I listen and combined them in to one.

I have a very cinematic head, so I always listen my music more like a soundtrack for a concept or an idea than a musical genre, or conventional structured music.

Mostly I think I make a mix of organic and electronic experimental music, and obviously being an addict to space and science fiction stuff, I also bring that to my general atmosphere vibe.

So in the resume, I describe my style as a micro universe of instrumentals that can evolve and change in styles over the same track or an album or EP. I love progressive and fusion music, and I get bored very quickly, and I think that reflects in my work.

What is a big challenge you have as an artist?

For sure, keeping music simple.

I admire a lot of simplicity in music and I consider it one of the great achievements and I admire a lot of people who can do it good, because it's easy to hide behind a bunch of layers, but making music with few elements and keep things interesting, growing and grooving is a hard thing to do.

In my music, since I'm always hungry for more, I struggle a lot to use less layers and containing myself to keep on making music evolving to something else, both in structure and elements.

Over time, I'm learning to do that and also to let some things go, but I feel that journey is a bit far from over for me.

Also, the mastering part, as an independent artist I do all of my work alone, and I love composing and playing music, but technical stuff bores me a bit.

I get too much involved when I produce music, for me every track is like a full relationship and I just do one track at a time, so I live it all through the process and I became a bit obsessed about the creative part. So when the mastering stage arrives, most of the time, I'm already a bit tired of the tracks.

I create the structure of my work considerably fast, and usually details is where I spend most of my time, even before mastering itself, so when I arrive at that stage I see myself go back and back to details and struggle a bit on letting stuff go that I'm not totally happy about it.

Has building a hardware setup changed your perspective on music or life in general?

Totally. I think building a hardware setup was the thing where I've leaned more about making music and kept me motivated.

Firstly, having a new piece of gear, for me, more than collecting things, is very exciting on the "learning something new" part. Every device is different from another, each of one has its character and functionalities, so every device I've ever owned had in important role in my learning and evolution as a musician.

I believe that is the artist that shows throughout gear and not the other way around, but it's also true that some devices connect more with us artists and help us to get different results, expected or not.

For example, I've learned a lot about myself and the way I think about making music with Elektron devices, and without having the chance to try them out I would never adapt my mind and technique to make music in the way I do today, using Elektron gear or not.

The knowledge I've acquired on having hardware crossed from device to device and also to music making in a DAW, so this was a big thing for me for sure.

In my life, this had an impact also, having more hardware keeps me motivated to make more music in general, and I end up exposing myself more with content aside from my released music.

Also, that motivation brought me more confidence to share what I do, whatever someone's is watching or not, and besides I do music for myself, nowadays is amazing to know that this alone gave me the chance to know so many people over the world that share the same passion that I do, and also get inspired by them every day too.

So besides the Knowledge, hardware also brought me a small community closer to what I do, and I'm very thankful for everyone who spends their time to enter mine.

One tip on how to spark creativity?

I believe that discipline is more important than motivation.

And that impacts in a hard way creativity in my opinion.

I like to surround myself with things I love asides from music, things like plants, rocks and crystals, the sea, the woods, nature in general, my dog "Trevas", watching documentaries, movies, painting, dig some art in general or just a great conversation. This will probably will sound a bit of a cliché, but I get a lot of motivation by creative people in general. I do believe that energy flows to energy, and having motivated people around me inspires me a lot.

Usually my creativity sparks more from external things than music itself, to be honest, so I think the key is to let the door open to whatever makes you feel good and that alone is very inspirational.

Also and most important, fall in love with the process and not the outcome. I believe that as long as you have fun while doing it and feel pleasure about it, creativity will hit you.

A book, movie, article, or album that has inspired you?

The thing that inspires me the most is knowledge in general. I'm a bit of a nerd, so I'm always searching for learning new things, inside or outside music.

I must say that most of my released music ideas or concepts came through documentaries I've watched. I'm totally obsessed about it and is one of the thing I do the most when I'm not making music.

My inspirations come from anything, but to get to the question point I can choose one of my favorite movies of all times, "Big Trouble in Little China" from John Carpenter. It has influenced my passion for oriental stuff. One thing that end up on my artist name and also throughout some of my music.

Besides this, I love legends and also the idea that it is possible to create an imaginary scenario that don't exist in the first place and build so many things around it and expand it. I love the characters, the anti-hero exploration, the scenarios and all the surrounding artwork, also I'm a big fan of old "low budget movies" (I'm not sure if this is the case) but I think lack of resources build up creativity. With this, I can't leave behind the original soundtrack, also from John Carpenter, being the "Abduction at Airport", my favorite track from the movie and every time I listen to it gives me the chills, I love it.

Anything else you'd like to say?

In the first place, thanks for having me, this was pretty fun and the support means a lot. And I will take this advantage to promote some new music that is coming in the near future.

I will release a new Album called "Singularities", until the end of this year, and the New Single from it, called "Exoplanet" will be available on October 29.

So if you want to know me a bit more, I think by listening will be the way to go.

Thanks again.

Where can people find more of your music and connect with you online?

linktree | instagram | spotify

Gear List

• Native Instruments - Maschine Mk3

• Elektron - Digitakt | Syntakt | Digitone

• Dreadbox - Typhon

• Korg - Wavestate | Minilogue | Monologue | NTS1

• Roland - Boutique SH-01A

• Arturia - Microfreak | Keystep 37

• Nord - Drum P3

• Bass Guitar

• Pedal Effects

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