I recently came across Hekt (Jesper Nørbæk)‘s track ‘Front’ while listening to a dj mix from Unearth and Guide on Reprezent Radio on soundcloud, and I was just so intruigued by the sound design initially, I used shazam and luckily it worked so i could see who made it. What drew me in was first off an insanely cohesive yet unusual sound pallette, and as the track progressed a dizzying hypnotic sensation that was conveyed, honestly it reminded me of how music sounds on ketamine a bit, there was definitely a positive emotive quality to the chords particularly at the end of the track, and the sparkly high pitched sound throughout as well, but there’s a prominent sense of slight unease throughout too. I was really curious about that sense of dissociative hypnotic euphoria conveyed, so I listened to the rest of his discography (sadly only ten tracks as of now), and checked out his website. I saw he had an interview with Ninaprotocol, so I gave it a read and found it super inspiring.
One thing that I found really cool that he talks about is his process prioritising fun over perfection, he says ‘I just make the music the way that I want it, and focus on having fun in the process. I try to make it so it is immediately entertaining but also interesting enough to last more than a moment.’
Another thing he talks about that I found cool is how he’s inspired by Mark Fell’s concept rejecting the “divine idea” of creativity that he talks about in ‘Structure and Synthesis’, one of the few academic style books I’ve read bits of that I actually found very interesting. I plan on borrowing it from the library again and writing some bits down so I can cite it in my essay.
He says ‘ I agree with Mark Fell’s critique (in Structure and Synthesis) of this romantic concept that the artist has a divine idea only to be translated into the material world be means of the tools, as that mode of operation makes the tools become almost insignificant and makes you ignore all the interesting discoveries that could arise in the process of using a tool. Another way to put it is that to be lucky might just be to pay attention to the stuff that wasn’t supposed to happen along the way.’ This quote inspires me to just open my software and mess about with it and try things I haven’t done before, and if I happen to get any cool sounds i like along the way then I’ll save it and revisit.
Another thing he talks about in the interview is his focus on iteration and open endedness, I myself through my production journey have sometimes found myself overly attached to my own work, and afraid to make changes, but he actively opposes this,
I like what he says about synthesis, and I can relate to his preferences for artists who use timbre as composition, and what he says about self imposed limitations is also very interesting to me.
‘A lot of the music that I like is focused on timbre as composition, so looking back on it, I think I was just inching closer to that approach. I ended up having sound design playing a more crucial role in the composition. It made my process slower in the beginning, but I realized that I was having much more fun listening to my own take on a high hat than listening to a sample. I just wanted to focus on doing whatever made me feel excited and most of the time that is mostly about exploring synthesis. To me, limitations always make the process more interesting, and with my limitation of only using synthesized sounds, I ended up finding a process that requires equal parts research and composition. It made me think a lot about how texture and structure relate and at what point one becomes the other. Like if I talk about not using samples to create sounds, am I then allowed to use wavetable or granular synthesis? Deciding whether something is a sample or not is basically a matter of time scale. I just want the music to be interesting both on the time scale of texture and the time scale of structure.
Setting up the limitations, I also immediately started breaking them, but I think I still work well from that starting point. Because that is just what it is, a starting point. I never set out with a fully formed idea that I then create via my tools.’
It’s sick that he acknowledges the dissociative hypnotic sensation conveyed in his music and talks about it in the interview, I’ll paste the bit I where he talks about it here: ‘I really like when things turn in on themselves in an aesthetic sense and it becomes this really layered thing, where I start to get confused. I find confusion and ambiguity to be very interesting places to work from. Basically I start getting interested whenever I don’t understand what vibe a track has. To me ambiguity shows up in my music where pure emotion—e.g. happiness—starts to tip over and feel a bit unhinged. Like when there’s some sort of underpinning that makes you not really sure if you’re having fun for the right reasons or if you’re really in on the situation.’
I really enjoyed reading this interview, and I’ve become a massive fan of Hekt’s work. That idea he talks about of not being sure if you’re enjoying a track “for the right reasons” really resonates with personal experiences I’ve had at raves, it feels like such a precise way to describe that weird in between zone between pleasure and unease, especially in club or experimental settings where your body might be dancing but your brain is glitching a bit trying to process what’s happening. It made me think about how emotion in sound can be really hard to pin down, and how powerful that can be.
When Hekt talks about “just making the music the way I want it” and letting fun take priority, it really made me reflect on my own practice, how I often start things and leave them unfinished because I don’t like the idea enough to stick with it, but I’m too scared to rework it so I abandon it. What he said helped me to realise that not everything I make has to be technically perfect or finished with a specific outcome in mind, Sometimes I can permit myself to just have fun in messing around, and that’s enough.
His thoughts on limitations and synthesis also are definitely food for thought, especially the idea that limitations aren’t there to restrict you but to push creativity further. It’s cool how he even breaks his own rules once they’ve served their purpose, like the limitations are a kind of launchpad more than a cage.
Overall, exploring Hekt’s music and reading his interview really made me reflect on my own habits as a producer. I sometimes get fixated on things sounding a certain way or struggle to let go of an old idea, but this made me want to be more open to discovery again, to let things evolve, and to stay playful.
Leave a Reply