From a young age, you’ve been drawn to the intersection of contrasting influences, crafting entirely new sonic landscapes. How was this vision born and what does this relentless pursuit of convergence reveal about the vision of innovation? How does it challenge conventional approaches to sound and identity?

I’ve always been drawn to a wide spectrum of musical histories and narratives. For me, sound is
less about genres or categories and more about fluidity: It’s constantly evolving, morphing, and
finding new forms. I often think of sound in terms of colors, textures, and patterns, and how you can find these elements across different, seemingly unrelated worlds that actually share common threads. This pursuit of convergence is rooted in my fascination with collaboration. Music, at its core, is communal and dialogical, and through collaboration, I gain insights into others’ worlds and perspectives. This interaction shapes my musical language and influences the way I think about sound.

I’m also deeply interested in the semiotics of sound—how we perceive and assign meaning to it, often based on our upbringing and cultural context. For example, bird songs or the sound of a river evoke particular ideas of nature, cleanliness, or tranquility. These associations are built over time and vary across cultures, yet they form a shared language of meaning.

When it comes to innovation, I believe it isn’t solely about pushing technology or creating something entirely new. The Western concept of innovation often emphasizes the future and the new, but for me, innovation can also involve reframing the past: Recontextualizing, reshaping, and reinterpreting it from a fresh perspective. While technological advancements, such as in synthesis or AI, certainly play a role in shaping the future, I think today’s innovation often lies in revisiting and reworking ideas from the past, seeing them in a new light, and creating something relevant for the present and the future.

Your work transcends traditional boundaries, blurring the lines between genres, cultures, formats, and the human and artificial. A whole new sonic experience it is. What are the key sources of inspiration behind this?

My inspiration draws from a confluence of diverse musical worlds. It really started when I was around 14 or 15, being completely captivated by the French touch movement, particularly Ed Banger, along with the vibrant UK electronic music scene. These early influences sparked my fascination with blending contrasting sounds and creating something fresh. Later, my studies in electroacoustic composition and sound design deepened my understanding of sound’s fluidity and manipulation. Key figures like Maryanne Amacher and Natasha Barrett, who works so beautifully with spatial sound and architectural acoustics, have been incredibly influential. I’m also deeply inspired by Dennis Smalley’s ideas of sound morphology and space form, exploring how sound moves and evolves within a space. I’m fascinated by how sounds can trigger different interpretations based on listeners’ experiences and cultural backgrounds. This semiotic layer of sound is central to my work.

In my creative process, I try to maintain a sense of childlike intuition, focusing on instinctive experimentation. When I encounter challenges, I rely on my technical studies. I tend to compose quickly, then organize the sounds into distinct ‘folders,’ like lego pieces, which allows me to later shape them into a cohesive narrative.

Your artistry spans composition, production, performance, and spatial audio, with each element shaping one another. How do you ensure that these diverse mediums are not merely layered but woven together into a cohesive, immersive experience?

For me, it’s about choosing the right format for the right idea. Not every piece of work needs to be
fully spatialized, and not every sound requires visuals to make an impact. Some ideas are stronger when expressed through sound alone, while others need a visual component to fully communicate their depth. The key is to avoid using a medium just because it’s available. It should serve the idea, not just be an effect. When it comes to spatialized sound, it’s about finding the right moment to use movement or specialization, rather than using it just because you can.

Creative exploration extends beyond the realm of music. You venture into new territories such as video works and print, expanding the boundaries of creative expression. How does this vision of innovation translate beyond the realm?

I don’t see music as a standalone entity—it’s part of a larger, immersive world. Video, for instance, is a particularly visceral format because it combines performance, writing, sound, image, and composition. It creates profound, often indescribable emotional moments through the combination of sound and moving image. In this context, music isn’t the final product, but one element within a larger creative experience.

There’s a haunting quality to your compositions, with traces of something just beneath the surface, never fully revealed. Is the process behind this mysterious pull a deliberate act of restraint, or does it emerge organically from the tension between the known and the unknown? What do you hope to evoke in the listener by leaving these fragments just out of reach?

My process is quite intuitive, as I mentioned earlier. However, the underlying idea is centered around the semiotics of sound, the delicate balance between the abstract and the concrete. You can approach this from both sides: by taking a very concrete sound and abstracting it, or by processing an abstract sound to give it form, movement, and meaning.

I prefer to evoke an image that remains open ended, allowing each listener to form their own interpretation. This approach contrasts with film scores, which often dictate the emotions you should feel at a particular moment. I find that limiting. Instead, I lean towards minimalistic sound scores that leave more room for individual perception and emotional response. By doing so, I aim to create a more personal, unique experience for each listener, where the meaning emerges from their own memories and understanding, rather than being prescribed by the music.

XRR Global masterfully blends experimental electronic elements with contemporary rap, creating a sound that feels both groundbreaking and familiar. What was your creative process in merging these seemingly disparate genres, and how do you approach the challenge of making such collaborations feel cohesive?

Rap music, especially today, has this deep focus on sub-bass and distortion, where pushing sounds to the edge and creating that clipped, gritty texture becomes a stylistic choice. This approach is something I also find in experimental electronic and industrial techno music, where distortion and clipping are used to blend sounds like sub-bass, cymbals, and white noise into one cohesive form. I’ve always been fascinated by how these elements can merge and create a unique sonic color and texture, which is where I see the connection between the two genres.

Working with Brodinski has been a key part of this exploration. He shares a similar perspective on merging these worlds with electronic and transitions into rap. Together, we’ve worked on numerous tailor-made projects for vocalists and rappers. The process can vary: sometimes we send out batches of beats, while other times, we’re in the studio together for a week, creating a specific musical world for an artist. There are also moments where we receive acapella and then reimagine the musical world around them.

With Lil Xelly, his bold, experimental approach really pushed the boundaries, and I’m grateful for the trust he placed in us. The creative process begins intuitively, but once we have four or five tracks, we step back and assess what’s missing, what could complete the emotional and sonic landscape we’re building. It’s about finding the right final pieces to round out the textures, colors, and emotions that define the world we’re creating.

The treatment of vocals in the work feels like a narrative device and a fragmented texture — disembodied yet intimate. What fascinates you about dismantling sounds and the human voice to reconfigure meanings?

The voice is a fascinating element because it exists in a liminal space between abstraction and concreteness. Our hearing is finely attuned to voices, the frequency spectrum we perceive is optimized for them. Even without fully understanding words, subtle intonations can evoke emotions, yet this very sensitivity can lead to misinterpretation. A tone might feel urgent,
melancholic, or even aggressive, depending on the listener’s perception. Meaning, then, emerges from this delicate interplay of sound and context. What draws me to the voice is its ability to serve as both an anchor and a bridge. Within experimental soundscapes, the voice offers familiarity; something tangible for the listener to grasp, making abstract sonic textures more accessible. It carries emotional weight even when fragmented, distorted, or stripped of linguistic clarity. By manipulating the voice through reverb, pitch-shifting, or other techniques, it can become something spectral, a memory rather than a presence, while still retaining an undeniable human essence.

What fascinates me most is how meaning shifts through abstraction and disembodiment. A voice, stretched and fragmented, can evoke entirely new associations, altering its perceived intent and emotional resonance. There’s also a dynamic tension between what remains intelligible and what dissolves into texture between voices that feel present and those that feel distant or spectral. This contrast, the play between clarity and obscurity, is central to my exploration of the voice as both a narrative device and a textural element.

Songweaver premiered at Gessnerallee in Switzerland, and the spatial dynamics of a performance space can deeply influence both process and experience. How did the unique architecture of the venue shape your approach to sound, movement, and dramaturgy?

Definitely. The space at Gessnerallee had a significant impact on the performance. It wasn’t a conventional square room but rather a long, elongated space with wooden pillars, which influenced both the visual and sonic design. These pillars became part of the scenography, almost resembling tree trunks, blending into a more organic, naturalistic aesthetic. Instead of a fixed frontal perspective, the layout encouraged a more circular and immersive approach, challenging traditional hierarchies of stage and audience positioning.

Sonically, we embraced this elongated space by arranging two circles of five speakers, forming a shape reminiscent of an “8.” The two central speakers acted as the core, with sound shifting fluidly around them. This setup allowed for an evolving perception of space, sometimes expansive and undefined, sometimes centered and focused.

The dramaturgy was structured into four segments, with two blocks emphasizing spatial audio and darkness, where the bodily presence of the performer was almost erased. The absence of a clear visual focal point left room for the audience’s imagination to construct their own sense of space. Then, in contrast, we introduced performative moments. These shifts between absence an presence, between sonic immersion and physical performance, shaped the dynamic interplay of the room, constantly redefining its perception and energy.

This dialogue between spatial sound, light, and bodily presence became central to the experience, allowing the audience to navigate between abstract sonic environments and moments of human connection.

The Songweaver is a fluid, ever-evolving project that adapts through different formats, from recordings to live performances. How do you preserve the core essence of the work while allowing it to continuously evolve, and what does this process of constant transformation signify in your approach to sound and storytelling?

I think it always comes back to the question of essence: What is it that makes a piece emotionally resonant for me in the moment? It could be a chord progression, a voice sample, or the movement of the drums. Identifying that core element is the starting point, and from there, I allow the work to
evolve through experimentation.

A big part of my process is maintaining a sense of naivety and flow, letting ideas unfold naturally
without overanalyzing in the early stages. I rarely experience writer’s block because I focus on
keeping that state of fluidity alive. Later, I take a step back and assess: What is the purpose of this
piece? Does it function as intended? Does it convey what I imagined? If not, I revisit and reshape it, but without letting the initial vision become a constraint.

This constant transformation reflects my approach to music as something beyond a fixed, final product. Instead, I see it as part of a larger, immersive world—one that can be reinterpreted and reshaped across different formats, whether in recordings, live performances, or other mediums. This adaptability keeps the work alive, allowing it to shift and take on new meanings over time.

It transcends the traditional concept of a digital album. It’s a dynamic exploration of music as a continuously evolving language where the voice takes on a central, transformative role. Rather than simply conveying lyrics or melody, the voice acts as a portal—fragmented, manipulated, and spectral. This interplay of presence and absence creates a profound tension. What does this duality uncover about the human experience of transformation, and how does it invite listeners to delve into the intricate layers of memory and loss?

I started feeling fatigued by the idea of a digital album as the definitive form of a musical work, especially in a time of content oversaturation. With platforms like Spotify, music has increasingly become a commodity, something consumed rather than deeply engaged with as an art form. That’s why I wanted to approach The Songweaver not as a fixed product, but as a fluid, evolving musical world—one that can take on different forms depending on how it is experienced. The digital album is just one manifestation of this, shaped by the way people engage with music in that format, but never the final or only form.

At its core, music is a vessel for emotion. I’m always asking myself: What makes this piece so emotionally resonant? What is the essential element that moves me? Once I find that core, I experiment with recontextualizing it. Stretching, distorting, or reshaping it to see how its meaning shifts. This is something deeply embedded in my process. For example, I love recording with vocalists and then stripping away the original instrumental, placing their voice in an entirely new sonic landscape. Suddenly a song transforms, its lyrics take on new meaning, its emotional weight shifts.

This process mirrors human transformation itself, the way memories evolve over time, how the past lingers but is never static. By manipulating the voice, disrupting its clarity, playing with its spectral presence and absence, it becomes untethered from a singular identity, allowing the listener to project their own emotions and narratives onto it. The voice, in this sense, becomes an echo, a fragment—both familiar and elusive, much like memory and loss.

Consequently, the voices in The Songweaver pulls the listener into its world, suggesting untold stories and emotions that linger in the ether. Here, the voice is not confined to a singular identity. Through techniques like pitch shifting, time-stretching, and ghostly reverberation, it dissolves into something both abstract and universal, becoming a vessel for memory, loss, and transformation. How do you navigate the process of translating such abstract themes—like culture and transformation—into sound, and what role do you envision the listener playing in uncovering the deeper emotional and cultural narratives woven into these vocal fragments?

For me, the voice is one of the most powerful tools in music because it carries an inherent human quality, deeply intimate yet endlessly malleable. In The Songweaver, I wanted to push the voice beyond its conventional role as a mere carrier of lyrics or melody. By manipulating it, shifting pitch, stretching time, layering multiple takes it becomes fluid, untethered from a singular identity. It exists in this in-between space, sometimes recognizable, sometimes dissolving into texture.

This mirrors how I approach storytelling through sound. I’m interested in creating sonic worlds where meaning is not fixed but constantly evolving. The way a voice is processed can completely shift the emotional weight of a piece—when a phrase is slowed down and stretched, it might evoke nostalgia or longing; when fragmented and layered, it might suggest multiplicity, memory, or even dissonance.

Ultimately, this fluidity reflects how we experience emotions, identity, and transformation in life. We are never just one thing—we exist in layers, in echoes, in the spaces between what is spoken and what is left unsaid. The Songweaver is an exploration of that ambiguity, inviting listeners to engage not just with the music but with their own interpretations and emotional landscapes.

Trust & Breakout draws from classical, jazz, and electroacoustic traditions, balancing live instrumentation with meticulous sound design. Strings and saxophones add warmth, while voice fragments and intricate arrangements blur the lines between composed and improvised. How do you navigate this tension between the composed and improvised?

For me, composition and improvisation are deeply interconnected. My process often begins with spontaneous recordings—whether it’s playing the piano in a studio, capturing sound design experiments, or layering textures without a clear endpoint in mind. These initial improvisations create a reservoir of raw material that I later revisit, edit, and sculpt into a more defined structure.

A good example is the track Trust, which started in 2022 as a simple piano improvisation. I found a chord progression I connected with, recorded it, and then gradually built around it adding saxophone layers, stripping elements away, and reshaping the arrangement. In the end, the track became a fusion of four different pieces, blending elements from past sessions into something entirely new. This process of self-citation—reusing, resampling, and recontextualizing my own material—is a recurring theme in my work.

Improvisation allows me to generate ideas freely, while composition is where I refine and distill them. I see it as a cyclical process: creating material without constraint, then selecting and reshaping the most resonant elements. The tension between the two keeps the music fluid, constantly evolving rather than feeling fixed or predetermined.

Collaboration plays a central role in your practice, yet your sonic identity always remains distinct. How do you navigate the tension between dissolving into a shared language and maintaining a sense of authorship? How did these collaborations shape the vision of innovation and expand the sonic landscapes?

I don’t think much about authorship in a rigid sense. For me, collaboration is about dialogue,
creating a shared space where different voices and ideas can interact freely. The process is fluid: sometimes I’ll start with an idea that gets transformed by a collaborator, or other times, I’ll take elements from a session and completely rework them afterward. What I find most exciting is how collaboration brings unexpected textures and perspectives into my work. For example, recording with a saxophonist or a vocalist might begin as a straightforward session, but later, I’ll strip away the original instrumental context and rebuild the track around their performance. This approach allows me to integrate external influences while still shaping the final outcome in a way that feels true to my sonic language.

Ultimately, collaboration expands the boundaries of my sound rather than diluting it. It introduces new possibilities—different playing styles, tonalities, and energies. The way I process and recontextualize these elements ensures that the core of my artistic identity remains intact. It’s less about control and more about curation, knowing when to let go and when to bring everything into focus.

What are the imperceptible details in your music that hold the weight— something buried within the texture that only you know is there?

A lot of these hidden details come from self citation—subtle references to past recordings or personal moments that might go unnoticed by the listener but carry significance for me. It could be a voice sample lifted from an old Instagram video, a sound repurposed from an earlier track, or a texture that holds meaning only because I know its origin. These create a multi-layered world within the music, adding depth even if the listener isn’t consciously aware of them. It’s a way of embedding memory and narrative into the sonic landscape, making each piece feel connected to a larger, evolving story.

The EDM and synth worlds have evolved dramatically in recent years, with new technologies and languages emerging. How do you see your own sound evolving within this shifting landscape, and how do you stay true to your artistic vision while embracing these changes?

With AI and generative tools becoming more prevalent, we’re at a point where entire genres can be replicated algorithmically. Motown, UK garage, or even complex electronic textures can now be synthesized convincingly. But the nature of AI is that it operates on datasets, creating something that reflects the “median” or most conventional idea of a sound. In this sense, it flattens the nuances that make something truly original. Because of this, I think artistry is shifting more toward curation—the ability to make intentional choices, to juxtapose elements in ways that technology alone wouldn’t. The human signature lies in how we contextualize sound, selecting and arranging components to build something deeply personal and culturally resonant. For me, staying true to my vision means embracing new tools while ensuring that the emotional and conceptual depth of the work isn’t lost in automation.

Looking towards the future, what are some new territories or innovative approaches you’re excited to explore in your work? How do you envision pushing the boundaries of sound, and what role do you see innovation playing in the way music connects with culture and storytelling?

One of the directions I’m exploring is expanding music beyond just sound—creating a more immersive, multi-dimensional experience. Next year, I’m working on a publication that will accompany my music, adding a textual and conceptual framework to the sonic world. I’m interested in how print, text, and visual elements can extend the storytelling process, making the work feel more like a living, evolving ecosystem rather than a static album. More broadly, I see innovation not just as technological advancement but as a way of deepening the cultural and emotional impact of music. Whether it’s integrating new media, rethinking how music is experienced, or developing unconventional performance formats, I want to continue pushing towards a more holistic, interconnected artistic expression.

Listen to NR Sound Mix 054 Merlin Modulaw