Zeynep Toraman
The Same Moonlight

First of all, I know virtually nothing about you, so can you outline where you come from, where you're based, and how you came to experimental music?

I’m from Istanbul and I’ve been based in Berlin for 5 years now. I was based in the US for quite some time before that and I eventually did a PhD in music composition at Harvard, where I also developed a parallel interest in film, visual culture, literature.

My route into experimental music was probably less a single moment than a gradual accumulation of interests. I grew up playing electronic guitar in some rock and metal bands, but I was always interested in the space between different kinds of musical practice, particularly between electronic music, composition, sound, and visual media, especially film. Studying computer science also made me very comfortable with thinking about music as something that could involve systems, processes, and technologies, with technology being only a means to an end.

I feel no commitment to any genre particularly. Over the few years, though, my practice has become much more porous. I’ve become increasingly interested in recorded sound, synthesizers, voice, field recordings, and the more experimental and ambient music scenes. I think I’m less interested now in maintaining a distinction between “composition” and other kinds of music-making. A lot of what I’m doing is really about listening and about constructing particular sonic environments, whether that happens through an ensemble, electronics, or a much more intimate recording setup.

The three pieces on the CD are all played by different ensembles. Were they all commissions from the ensembles? Can you tell us a little about the circumstances underlying each piece?