Sounds of Subconscious - Martin Kohlstedt

Martin Kolstad is a German pianist who attended a concert in London held in St. Pancras Old Church, a historic churchyard. The concert was memorable because of the combination of Martin's music and the church's poetic past. During an interview, Martin talked about his hometown, his connection with trees, and his recent album "Flur" which was influenced by the lockdown. He described his music as a reflection of his thoughts and a way to communicate with himself and the environment. Martin's musical journey started at a young age and has evolved over the years, with each album representing a different phase in his life. In October 2018, I attended a concert by a German pianist, Martin Kolstad, that was held here in London. It was one of the most atmospheric concerts that I can remember in my life. It was held in St. Pancras Old Church. This is one of the most notorious churches in England, not only because it's considered to be one of the oldest places of Christian worship in the country, but also because in its churchyards, the author of Frankenstein, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, met her husband, a poet, Percy Bysshe Shelley. It is a place where a friend of Lord Byron, John Polidori, who was also a poet, is buried. I hope this is enough to convey the atmosphere that surrounded this place. I think one of the reasons why this concert got so imprinted into my memory was this combination of Martin Kolstad's beautiful, sublime music and the church's poetic past. In this interview, Martin told me about his hometown, about the role that subconscious plays in creation of his music, and about his connection with trees, and why he calls himself a child of the forest. I'm Vashek Armenikas, and I welcome you back to another episode of our Tidok podcast. It's so nice to meet you. Thank you very much for coming. It's been a while since the last live gig. You know, it's a pleasure to meet a musician whose gig I'm really waiting to attend once all this lockdown is over. Good to hear. It's such a foggy weather here in London. It creates a kind of atmosphere to our interview. It's a stereotypical British weather. It's rain, it's fog, but like, it kind of creates a nice atmosphere to our chat. And you're in Weimar. I can see that you're in your home. Yes, I'm in Weimar, in the very middle of Germany. So it's the eastern part, a very cozy, cozy city, I would say, 70,000 people, just the very middle of Berlin and Munich. But here is very, very sunny weather today. Not at this point of time, but there was a lot of sun in the morning. So a little bit of optimism. I cannot not mention the fact that as far as I know, Weimar was home for two great poets and one great composer, if I'm not mistaken. So it's Goethe and Schiller and Franz Liszt. What is it like for you as a musician to be in a city where such great artists once lived? It's a casual boom town. It's not just two composers or poets or whatever. In Weimar, every intellectual, casual person was living for about a few years. Next to me is Vasily Kandinsky's house and everyone was here and all the thoughts are still here. So this is very, very nice. The good history. And there's also the bad history here, like ever. This contrast is very exciting to live in, to feel the history here. There's a lot of inspiration. It's a very inspirational town. After eight o'clock, there's nothing anymore outside the door. You have to visit people. You have to get in contact with the people. Everyone knows each other. It's kind of a small village. But Weimar can also be a massive town when there's a big event, then millions of people are coming and try to conquer the 70,000 headed city. And I love it to live here because of touring in every big town. When you're playing in London and all the big cities and there's a lot of traffic and noise and stress and getting back to Weimar, it's like the open arms from a mother who was saying that you can sleep very calmly. I love it. And you have space to create. You have time to develop art and not just in a rush. This is why I love this town so much. I can understand because I work in London, but I live a little bit outside London and it's a quiet town. And every evening when I come back from the office, at least before the quarantine, it was so nice to slow down, to focus on your thoughts. It's a completely different feeling. So that really, I assume, impacts your creative process, especially during the quarantine. Did you feel glad that you live in a small town rather than in a big town in terms of creative process during the quarantine? In every point. So you had one keyword in your last sentence and that was focus. And for me, it's also, the last one year was a crazy time of concentration and focusing on your thoughts, on yourself. And this time was very inspirational somehow because I'm living in a one-room flat here in Weimar and I was like in a cave and just with me and my thoughts, very introverted. And I expected that it gets very stressy and very hard for me to create something. But there was a very pervert inspiration out of this Corona process. People were dying outside and there was a very big task for the humanity somehow. And then you, that you don't have solutions for it and just waiting for the government and the new laws or whatever about, that you have just to concentrate on yourself, that you have something to eat and that you have something in mind to create. And this is why I created a new album, Flur. It was like I was playing when I was a 12-year-old boy. I was just playing the piano without focusing a product or without a format. It was like a psychedelic playing of the piano and in the end, I was trying to find the essence out of it. It was not like the typical producing pressure, not like the scheduling, the next thought or the composing process. It was more like the subconscious that was working in this time and that was very exciting for me. I really love this kind of work. I felt like a 50-year-old guy on a Spanish small house at the beach, just living with a day and with a time and very concentrated on myself. I totally, it was a pleasure to make this album just with myself, without room and time somehow. It must be very different from your previous album, Strome, if I hope I pronounced it correctly, because it was with like 6 Q1 house choir and with 50 or 60 people in the choir. It must be really different from Flir, which, as you said, is kind of an effort and sitting down just with your own thoughts. There are two reasons why I do this very stressy thing with a 70-headed choir. For me, it's about transformation somehow all the time or contrast. I have very introverted pieces which I want to communicate with somebody, with my audience or with myself first. What I do is I take these pieces and try to convert them into something new. When you have the possibility to work with a 70-headed choir, then your introverted pieces get very extroverted and they can be very massive and strong. Your arguments are feeling stronger and you're not alone with your feelings and your thoughts. But when you do such stressy projects with many buses, big live concerts and big halls and a lot of rehearsals and working with each other, then there was a longing inside of me to maybe get back to what it was in the very beginning when I sat at the piano as a 12-year-old guy and there was a little spit coming out of the mouth and I was just playing. It was my only own room. My character was influenced by outside influences. But at the piano, there was nothing, just me in a bubble. And this is what I also felt in the very beginning of this lockdown feel, too. I was with myself and I tried to order, to defragment all these thoughts before. And this is why I need these rollercoaster things, that I need extroverted, massive electronic shows and then I take it back to my room and then try to communicate it in a very introverted way. This is how it is. And this contrast makes the energy for me to go further and to search for myself. And the titles of your album and the last one, Flir, I've read that it means a corridor of trees. I found it kind of, I don't know, I tried to interpret it, but I wanted to hear it from you and your interpretation. The good thing in instrumental music is that there can be a very wide form of interpretation. I like that I don't give too much before. Also with my pieces, they're very cryptical. They mean a lot to me, but everyone has his own story, you know, and everyone has his own movie in his head to react with this music. Flir means, first of all, you're right. It's a very old German word for the never-ending nature and landscape around you. And it also means, at the same time, it's a corridor in a house, this room in between all the other rooms, so with the options. And this very defined word, that you have a decision to go through a door or whatever, and then you have this never-ending nature as a contrast to it. I really like that. It's the same with ströme, because it's also a river, a very natural movement in German. But at the same time, it's like electronic power out of the plug. So I have always these two different meanings of something, and in between there's the truth. As far as I know, also, that Syringia and Weimar, the region where you're from, is famed with forests and trees, and you call yourself a child of forest. I wondered, like, that interrelation between you and the trees. You had also a charity program that planted trees, and can you tell about your relationship with the forest, where you grew up? Yeah, I'm always watching out with the word charity. So for me, it is my garden or the nature around me, and I have the responsibility for it, too. So this is everything about it. I grew up in the Turingian woods. It was a small village, 2,000 people were living there, with some farmers and something. I was every day in the forest, and I hate my father for his everyday monologues about the stuff around and this tree, and you have to, and he tries to teach me every day, but I was like, yeah, I was in my adolescent, and it was not good. But now and later, I never get a forest somehow, so it was maybe a wish of him to get a hunter and a forester or somehow, but I found my own way, my own connection to nature. For me, the forest is something which was far before I exist, and will exist long after when I was dying, so I'm always embedded somehow in something. The forest helps me a lot to be not alone with my human problems, so now it's more like a zooming out process, you're just a little thing inside of a big forest, or it's the same thing with watching the ocean, or looking at the stars, or on a fireplace, and it's a very evolutional thing of being connected to something bigger, I don't want to say God or whatever, this is not the esoteric way, it's more like you are this part of it. And that means a lot to me, I calm down with this feeling that I'm not like, yeah, when there's a problem in the family, so my mother died of cancer seven years ago, for example, and when you just see this one problem, and just my view on it, then it's a big disaster, but when you are just a little part of this very big world, it's much easier to be connected to this feeling, to something we don't know, or whatever, and I dive into that feeling when I go to the piano, it's not for an audience, it's also not for me, I have the feeling that I plug in a cable into the environment and just mirror it somehow, and I like this feeling, I think this is the mystery of the subconscious, and I would love to find out more about that. I found this book by accident in one of the bookshops, it's called The Secret Life of Trees, I actually might have somewhere here around me, do you know about that book? I know that book, yeah. By Peter Walleben, it's great that you know that book, because it fascinated me, it tells about how trees communicate, care about each other, how they are interconnected, how they are warning each other when the threat comes from a distance, and I live near, kind of not a forest, but like a place where there are plenty of trees and you can have a walk, I think it really helped my mental state as well during the quarantine to be secluded from the entire world, not to interact with anybody, but at the same time to feel that you are part of something bigger, and in your case it is fascinating how it converts into music. Your music is so different and has so many different aspects, and one of the things that interests me the most is, what did you listen to when you were growing up? What was in your mp3 player? Whose posters did you have on the wall? So there were no idols somehow, but I was with the typical village-y radio stations with a chart top, I would say I started with this, but my father was a very big fan of Collins Summer, and I grew up with the typical pop songs and the big movie musics of Titanic and Summer, so with the big clichés, I would say, but I also loved them a lot, and the interesting thing is that this music is not connected, not really connected to my music, so this is... I also can do conscious music, so I started in a hotel playing the piano with movie musics and some chart musics too, and I tried to give people what they wanted to have, but it was never influencing my own music, because I started with just small tones, there was no... yeah, not the fact of skill somehow, not like the push of getting a genius or whatever, the typical piano faults in the head of pianists and what people think about pianists, but yeah, I started just with making noises, tones and sound at the piano with a ticking noise at the wall clock, and I played just, yeah, what I think what fits with each other, without a teacher or whatever, and the music around me started maybe when I was 16 or 15, 16, 18, when I heard about the album Leave or Sigur Rós or Cliff Martinez in the soundtrack of Solaris, then I felt the first time that I was... I felt a little kind of angry about hearing something like that, because this is something I really need to... I need these arguments to discuss somehow, and there was something, yeah, what I was connected to, and this is why I was looking for, yeah, kind of instrumental, electronic and piano music somehow. The beginning of Olafur Ahnert was also very interesting, and I got to know Jan Tiersen from Amelie or... and with these, yeah, with these names somehow, and also, yeah, I got into the deep music for the very first time when I was 15 or 16 years old. I had Midnight on the radio, and I was crying. I never heard something like this before. I just knew, like, the big feelings from very big movies, but this was something which were converted feelings, and this is what I wanted to find out more, and this is why I get into, yeah, music studies, went from when I was 15 years old, and then try to order, yeah, my own chapters of making music, and, yeah, this is why the things are all getting together. Then I played in seven or eight band projects, from hip-hop to funk to to very big German pop projects, where I was playing a playback tambourine in the TV stations, but later I, yeah, I recognized that it was maybe the wrong way. It was not the authentic and very serious way with myself to speak about music, yeah, but I had to learn that, and when I was 25, I got back to, yeah, my music. I wanted to make something real, and this is why I make that. I would like to imagine you, you know, Martin Goldstedt in a hip-hop project. I would. So, like, focus on music, you said, like, started when you were 25, or it was earlier. How did you discover the piano itself? Was it, like, much later in life or earlier in your teens? Yeah, it was when I started to think about the world, so when I was 12 or 13, the very beginning of the adolescence, I would say, and I needed this room when I came home from school to have, like, an isolated thing to, yeah, to think about, or, like, an own space, and, yeah, I played some meditative pieces, like two or three tones, and I got four hours. It just calmed me down and brought me back to myself, I would say. So, when I was in love or when I had other problems or, like, the typical problems of, yeah, the push from outside or whatever, it's like the piano was, like, the possibility to mirror, to remove myself and, yeah, to speak to myself. Yeah, so the piano was with me when I was 12 years old, but more in the, yeah, in the background. I played sometimes in hotels or concerts or whatever, and just for me. But when I was 25, I started with bringing it, yeah, outside the door, bringing it in contact to other people so that they can reflect the problem, like, in a more therapeutic way somehow. So, and there were other people who have their own view on the thing. So, I started with a very small circle of friends, and then I grew this thing to the like-minded people. And this is why I needed, yeah, this is why I needed the piano to communicate, and I never expected that people can convert it for themselves or what I do with myself. And, yeah, but... Sorry, I wonder if your parents noticed instantly your passion for music or... They recognize the passion for it very, very often. But when I came home from, like, the piano lessons, yeah, my teacher was never happy about because I did my own stuff and not the homework. And so my parents thought that he's not that good in doing, playing the piano. So, okay, Martin, yeah, cool. But they were wondering about why I was playing two hours a day. And so, I was totally into it and very, very ecstatic. And so they knew that I needed it, and they supported it very, very well. But, yeah, but they were never discussing with me about why I'm doing that. And also in the end, I think they recognized my success the very first time when I played in the Elbphilharmonie. You know, before I was just a poor musician. So, it's the typical, yeah, the typical view of village people on a musician. It's like, oh, sorry, and what are you doing? Oh, this is not safe enough. You have to be concrete with the things, and you have to study, blah, blah, blah. And, yeah, but it was interesting how I, yeah, what is the right word? Emancipation somehow from this. I hope you enjoyed listening to my interview with Martin. And before we continue, I wanted to use this opportunity and invite you to join my monthly newsletter. Every month, I send a letter with book reviews, I share my ideas, and also tell about great artists who inspire me, such as Martin Kolstad. You can join my newsletter by clicking on the sign-up form that I'll leave in the description of this episode. Once you'll sign up, you'll receive a welcome message that will come from my personal email address. And feel free to send me an email and introduce yourself, and you can become a contributor to Great Books Collection, which is a project that I launched with the readers of my newsletter a couple of months ago. We try to create a list of beautifully written books that we believe everyone should read. Feel free to send your book recommendations, and thank you for listening, and let's continue with the rest of the episode. You said about how FLIR brought you back to being alone after collaborative work, and I was wondering, from your very first album, Tag, if I'm not mistaken, how do you yourself feel? How does your music evolve? Do you feel that you've changed in your musical kind of creation process? And I wonder, what are those changes? Yeah, this is a very interesting question, and I always ask myself somehow what it is and and how the music developed. But when I try to remember it in the right way, the pieces of Tag are my pieces from when I was 12 years old up to when I was 20 years old. So I try to capture my thoughts out of the youth. And so there were like the longings and the juvenile restlessness in it. So I was looking for solutions somehow. So these pieces were more like played pieces. I don't know how to make it concrete, but the next album, Nacht, was more like an adult hand, what was laying down the Tag album. So it was not the opposite, it's more like the next step of it, which was very calm and more in love with the music. So the pieces were a little longer and they evolved a little longer. And this was a closed circle for me, the Tag and Nacht thing. Now with FLIR, like eight years later, I feel that I'm a little more better connected to what I wanted to say. So my very first thoughts are now played on the piano without bringing them in a shape. So I can sit here and play the piano for 20 minutes and I now can find very easily the essence of something. So I learned to communicate with myself. I learned that this piece is out of myself, and this piece is influenced by something I like. So I'm a little better in converting thoughts into music. And this is what I wanted to reach somehow. But now I know how to get into the subconscious. So I play very infinite, like infantile pieces, which are very easy to repeat. And then I started in a surrealistic way to draw the circle all the time for hours. And then I get into it, and then it gets something. And yeah, in my early years, I had to wait for the right point of time in the midnight. Or you had so much walls and borders to get into it. Everything has to be perfect. And now I have to be very comfortable with myself. And what I now do is, I take this feeling what I have now, and it could also be stress. Sometimes the best pieces are coming five minutes before soundcheck or whatever, when there's not the push or not the pressure to make something out of it. And this is what I now know about the music. The music is still there all the time, and I have just to connect to it somehow. But in my early years, I thought that I do the music, and that was a fault. So this is why I am always running from left to the right, and it's not like a homogenic way of communicating with myself. So TAC was more like, I go there, and I go there, and I try this and try this, a lot of tries. But it's still the imperfection, but now with a more self-esteem. It's interesting that you mentioned several times the word subconscious. And when you describe and talk about your music, it's a feeling that it's the idea that comes first, and then sound next. This might sound a very broad question. And when I was preparing for the interview, I didn't write this down. I didn't expect that I'll ask this question. But when you say subconscious, how would you describe it? Because I think your description might reveal a lot. What do you mean when you say subconscious? Subconscious for me is like the more honest way somehow to feel and to talk to each other, whatever. Like in this interview, I have to be very conscious, because of talking the English language, I have some barriers, and we get to know each other. So there is something of politeness with each other. I want to know you, I want to know what's in your background, and I make my own picture of you. And the subconscious is more like when two childs are meeting at the sandbox. It's more like when two animals or in a very natural world are meeting each other with uncertainty. And for me, uncertainty is not something bad. For me, the uncertainty is the honest way of looking into what it is for me. It's very hard for me to describe it in another language. But when I play the piano, I get into my subconscious in a very honest way. This is a space where I can cry about things. This is a space where I can think about in a very honest way about what I'm doing wrong or whatever. So the uncertainty is with me. And the conscious is for me like controlling everything. And there is a big part of me who wants to control everything. This is why I have my own label, I organize my crew, I have to make releases and albums, Spotify, this is all the outer world. But to save, I have just this ambivalent person to save this inner child. I would say my subconscious, what I mean with subconscious is the best meat heifer for it is the inner child. What I really want, what I'm not sure about. And yeah, we are always, when we are on Facebook or whatever, we are battled with outer influences, with problems we cannot solve, with everything. So our conscious have to be very hard with it, to order it, to defragment everything. But the subconscious gets into fear somehow. But you never recognize it that fast. You have to feel inside of you what you really think about. And this is what I try to get into the music. There are no clichés anymore. Sometimes there's just positive minor, just positive major music, sounds like a childish piece without skills and perfection. But this is what it is. This is the essence of what my inner child is thinking about. I don't want to be esoteric. It's very hard to not be. But this honest way of getting in touch with yourself, this is for me the important thing to get into the subconscious. And the people in the audience, and I never expected that, are getting also in contact with themselves during the concert. So I don't do an active communication with them. No, I'm sitting with the back to them in the same direction like them. And I'm getting in touch with myself. And this is maybe the trigger to get in touch with yourself as a person in the audience. This contact to the subconscious. Am I doing the right thing? Is it good to study philosophy? And so the very out-zooming questions of everything. This is important for me to bring it into the music and not what comes next. Maybe another good compare is to concentrate in a shower. When you shower in the morning, you concentrate on the drizzling of water instead of your to-do list of the day. So this is the best contrast to talk about that. I try to be in the moment. What is now and what I feel now? What is it and how can I convert it? I play the moment somehow on this. This is all the stuff what I try to describe my subconscious or the subconscious somehow. I've actually attended one of your concerts here in London in St. Pancras Church in September or October 2018. And when I came to the concert, I think I knew what to expect. But when I went out, I realized that all my expectations were wrong. As you mentioned in your many other interviews that you say, the first 30 seconds you play what you've written and then you kind of improvise. It's very important to get an improvisation, but because it doesn't make sense to get in contact with yourself, with already made points of view or whatever. You need a lot of checked points on your to-do list to really get in contact with yourself. You don't have to be like Floskild on the piano. Your conscious tries to overwhelm all the time your subconscious. It's all the time. It's the same thing with loving your brother, but in your entire life you are just battling. But it's always the opposite. Hate is love and love is hate. This is why you are always in a fight with the conscious and the subconscious. I'm always like full of energy when I'm getting into it. So I'm starting with the Floskild to get in touch, to be safe in this place. So when I was in St. Frank's Church, I was a little nervous. So your conscious tries to control everything. This is why I played a piece I knew. And when you get safer and more secure about the things, then you get in contact with what it really is at the moment. So you cannot play a 100% subconscious concert, but over these hours or two, it's a hard work to get into it. I think the second half of every concert is more like the free part. But the first half is more like developing or like getting out of this shape. Sorry that I interrupted you, but this is really important to say about that because improvisation sounds very easily and jazzy, but it's very hard to convert the now into music. In the very beginning, you see maybe 30 seconds or 60 seconds in the future and you know what comes next. But with every new minute and the growing trust with the audience, it gets more and more the moment which is speaking. And also your music is very unclassifiable. I work in the music industry and I like what is labeled as neoclassical music. But whoever I asked from colleagues or people who work or friends who work in the industry, many people cannot define what is neoclassical because all the artists within the neoclassical umbrella are extremely different, in my opinion. I think it is the attempt of streaming services and the companies to kind of put it in the box. What is this? This is pop. This is rock. How much do you think it impacts artists and yourself in the creative process? Maybe we start a little earlier. So the word neoclassical music or this definition, it makes a lot of pressure somehow. For example, for me, I'm a piano player. I like to play the piano. That's it. But when you are a neoclassical pianist, there is too much to judge about. Do you know the word elitist? There is something coming which is not for every person anymore, which is a new intellectual scene, which is kind of a trend trend somehow in a direction I would love. So it's ever the same. You have music and music is never ending. And humanity tries to put this music thing into boxes, but it's not realistic. So the music can also get into electronic music, in my case, for example, or there's a choir with it. Yeah, he's playing a classical instrument, but a guitarist is also doing that. But we would never talk about a neoclassical guitarist because, oh, wow, he's playing an old instrument with a new one. We would never talk about that. But the neoclassical thing is, for me, very dangerous because the classical music is now very stiff. And in the past, it was instrumentalized by very rich people and the upper society, so to say. And what neoclassical music is trying to do with this new masters and new geniuses and next Mozart is pressure a new high society thing about it. But in my case, I really want to have my like-minded people around me. So I have to work very hard against this definition. And this makes a lot of work. Yeah, sometimes you have the luck to get into a row of artists which are playing in Scandinavia, and then you also do this concert. So this is the win-win of the success side of the thing. But to be honest, I'm totally not with this kind of definitions. Sometimes you have to describe that, you have to describe this music, then you maybe use like it's more, it's music out of the intuition or it's music out of the improvisation with instrumental. So this is what you can define, but in a very objective way. But a neoclassical music with its pianist and somehow, and when someone is playing a violin, this must not be a neoclassical thing. It's very hard to work against these borders, I would say. You have to kill them. And this is why I need also the electronic and massive sounds to break all these fixed definitions. I play on festivals, I play on rooftops in Russia, I play in classical halls, yes. But it's totally nice to be everything like that. I play in jazz clubs too, and I enjoy this feeling of being in between. But the definitions are very fast, and the radio stations and the TV stations and the descriptions and the blocks are very hard with defining things and judging about things that the music is like in a cave somehow. And the music has to recreate itself new every day. It's interesting to get from your definition as well, because as I said, the big companies, streaming services, they try to somehow, to put music like yours on the playlist, they have to define. And as Oscar Wilde said, to define is to limit. And while your perspective is also very interesting, because there is this new elitist kind of movement, that people try to associate themselves with their own definition, like companies on one side and people on the other side. Yeah, but it's the same ambivalence with the subconscious and the conscious. When you are in Russia and you are a new classical artist, they are very into it, so you can reach a lot of people there with a definition like that. So there are a lot of good things with it. But in the end, it's about moda. I don't want it to be a trend somehow. I don't want to be living in a time where new classical music was 10 years in a row in history. It's ever developing. I do improvisation, for example, and it's not typical for classical or new classical music. I want to open everything in the end. We want to connect everything somehow, like in the nature, where the trees are connected with each other. And it's a much better way to live than when you have the A and the B and they have to... I grew up in Russia. So I assume when somebody says classical music and neoclassical music, I think from the perspective of Russian society, it's something like an antidote to the mainstream culture. That means it's something that goes a bit deeper than the mainstream music. At least one of the journalists in Russia, I think, defined it like that. Once again, I wanted to ask you a question that is maybe a bit off, but you said about how forest inspires you. You talked about your music influences. I always wonder, something out of music and musicians that inspired you, what other type of art inspires you to create? Is it painting? Is it books and novels? Is it architecture? Can you name some other form of art that you think has effect on your subconscious? I would say it's not that easy to say that. Mostly it's a conflict, which inspires me a lot. But it can be pushed from every kind of art. It could be a science fiction movie from the 80s, but it also can be a conflict with another person. The source of inspiration somehow is the friction between two feelings for me. When there is a choir behind me with the same meaning than me, I feel strong. Why? Why is that? Because we create something together and I feel very strong and sure about what I'm saying and what I'm doing. But when I'm alone, it could be the opposite, because I get in conflict with myself. But this conflict could also be a friction for a whole concert. This is why a solo piano concert is very important to develop my music. And when I go to make the friction with my reworkers, this is why I rework my music that much, to bring new perspectives in it and conflicts and friction. This is why my pieces are never finished. They are still in progress and they are open-minded, so to say, to what comes next. For me, the main source of inspiration is my team and the crew around me, that people follow me and not in the social media way, more like that they have a good feeling with my real person, with my inner child, with my subconscious child, that they are connected to this, with the uncertainty. I don't have to be the boss of my company. This is a great thing of inspiration. But there's a lot to discuss. And also with my partner Lena, she's with me since a few years now, and I try to defragment all these conflicts. I want to bring them out of myself. And art also can push that. When I see a picture, very abstract, it makes me angry, because it's maybe silly, made of very clear signs. Yeah, there's Trump, and there's a red cross over Trump's head, and it's so placated somehow. But it's also art, because it gets a friction with myself, because I'm getting angry about it. Inspiration is not like a romantic feel. For me, inspiration is all the time around me when something pressures me somehow, and it can be triggered by a lot of things, by time, when I'm sitting at the beach, the nature, a good talk. I think this interview is also a great inspiration. This is why I say yes, I try to say yes as often as I can when I try to describe things in the English language, because I'm not very good in speaking the English language. But it makes friction inside of me, because I try to bring something out of me, but the piano is a much better tool to make that happen. And this is why I want to get in these conflicts. I don't want to get in a real talk with you, and I want to get at this point of the interview where I cannot find an answer for. It's never the same. I don't want to use floss skills about that, and this is why I try to talk as much as I can also in corona times to get in friction with things, and this is where I get my energy from. It's about how all of us try to communicate what's inside us via different art forms or actions in general. For someone it's piano, for someone it's language, for someone it's painting, a film. So it's about converting that into what's inside you. This might be a very mainstream question. When this COVID and this chaos around us will be over, will you be happy that the world has completely opened up, or you're going to miss the solitude that COVID has provided us? This is a very interesting question, and now I think about that every day, because the strange gift with this time was focusing. It was focusing that extremely on thoughts and on myself, and I'm very thankful for that. But yeah, I'm happy when people are getting in touch again with each other, when people are communicating with each other, because these times make all the universes of every head a little smaller, and this is not a good thing. So we just have this window into the internet, and we are not strong enough anymore, because we are alone with ourselves. This is what I talked about when I'm alone on stage or with a 70-headed choir. When I'm alone on stage, there's a lot more fear, and this is why when I look into Facebook messages, then I get into fear about the humanity and all the things, and Trump and Putin and Kim Jong-un, and I'm getting one year older when I'm reading this. But when we go outside and meet our like-minded people, and are talking about that, and feel insecure and safe, but with each other, and this is something I miss very, very much. So in my normal life, I get to know about 40 up to 80 people, new people in a week, because I'm traveling from town to town to my new homes, to my families, and to the people who are coming to my concerts. And so for me, it's not a fan or an audience. For me, these are people which I could invite to a dinner at home, because they convert the signs I made, because they see what I am, and I can also see what they are. And I miss that feeling about being together in a like-minded crew, in a team, in a family, in all these different crew, in a collective, in a label. I miss the hard talks in a tour bus about everything with different meanings, and we try to find a conclusion out of it. And this is something we need back, because we are getting in more and more fear with every month. And when we get outside after three years of lockdown, we will not be able to talk to other people anymore. Yeah, no, it's reversed. At the beginning, it's kind of like we were very broad, very connected to the world, and quarantine has shrunk our space, kind of made us into our bubble. I think it created a tighter connection with the communities around us. We realize that we often care what happens thousands of miles away from us, while we don't care what happens just within a mile of distance of us. But at the same time, right now, it has taken a lot of time. I think we need to feel the sense that we are connected to the broader world as well. I wanted to ask, perhaps on behalf of my readers and listeners, where they will be able to meet you and hear your concerts once this COVID is over. Is there a plan? Yeah, we are trying to be a little optimistic with starting some German concerts in May, to bring the live music back on the earth. But I would say in the beginning of 2022, we are able to make a European tour again. Now, I think maybe today, I was playing in London when there was no COVID-19 and in the Bush Hall. I would say in the beginning of 2022, I will play again there with some other concerts around the European country. Yeah, let's hope and see if it's possible. But I also play in Paris and in other countries, so you can visit any concert. You can see them on my website. They are written there and we hope that that can happen somehow. Sorry, I remembered one question I wanted to ask. Your videos are all in the locations next to the sea, in the forest, in the field. Is it difficult to carry the piano into the location such as that? How many crew members do you need? Yeah, for me, it was important to have a real and authentic video. So, this is why we did one take with an iPhone. And my girlfriend, Lena, is filming all these videos. So, I have a very safe space to create. So, this is why I have to carry all my stuff alone to these places where to play. It's very hard, but I'm a strong guy. I had a lot of time to train a little bit at home during the time from Corona. But sometimes it's very hard. So, it's a 70 kilogram Fender Rhodes piano and a three kilometer long beat. But when you really want something and you have the necessity to make something, then you have no borders anymore. It was one of the questions that comes to mind after watching several videos. At one point, you're asking, like, how did you manage to carry such a big piano? Thank you, Martin. Since I've been at your concert two years ago, I really would like to attend to see you live once again. I'm really hoping that we'll kind of get back to normal self with learning lessons that COVID and seclusion has given us. So, I wish you all the luck with the coming German tour and then a European tour. Yeah. Thanks a lot for your talk. It means a lot to me when people are getting into this story. And I feel very happy with it when it talks to you somehow. Thank you. I hope you enjoyed listening to my conversation with Martin. You can find all the links to Martin's new album and to his performances on my website, which is artidote.uk. I'll leave the link in the description. Feel free to sign up to my monthly newsletter, and I hope to see you in the next one. Bye.