TDC had been fascinated by synthesizers for years without acting on it. "It wasn't until the birth of my son seven years ago that something inside me shifted."
Family turns up in these interviews as a cause rather than an obstacle more often than the touring-musician cliché would predict. It starts projects, ends them, redirects them, and shows up in the songs by name.
TDC Tunes
The shift sent a classically trained pianist and pipe organist toward the modular synthesizer, which he calls the nerdiest possible way to make music. He now streams to Twitch three times a week from North London and improvises the raw material of his records live in front of an audience that helps shape them. His debut album Awakening follows an android's journey - a story his viewers started building with him mid-stream. He describes himself as methodical and organised with a rebellious streak, and the process bears it out: chaotic improvised jams recorded as stems, then a long and orderly production job to turn them into tracks. The follow-up project brings in twenty other creators.
Vinnie-Dangerous
"The album was inspired by becoming a father for the first time two years ago. Watching my son as he grew made me reflect on my own childhood." Vinnie-Dangerous is equally direct about the cost: "Balancing being a dad and a husband to my wife while making music was a big challenge. Before then, I could focus on just making the music, but your time isn't your own." The next release is a video made with animator RNotte for a song dedicated to his son, "I Love You so Much."
David Von Beahm
For David Von Beahm, fatherhood was part of what took him out of music for years - and the home studio he built during that period is what he has recorded seven albums in since. The stepping back and the coming back are the same story, told from either end. His own beginning was a family scene too: hearing Depeche Mode's Music for the Masses in 1987, at eight years old, and feeling music properly for the first time. Half Life, the newest, is about turning 45 and the dreams he did not chase hard enough.
Bobby Wallisch Jr. & Acid.Prof
Bobby Wallisch Jr. describes his upbringing precisely: born in Vienna in 1966 to a long-haired mother who painted every room a different colour and a father who taught him to stick to what is just. He writes with the next generation explicitly in view. "Pánta rheî" - the Greek for everything flows - was written to wrap what he learned from ancient Greek wisdom into one song, as he puts it, as a legacy for his kids. He came to music in 2013 after dramatic events in his personal life, wanting to give back some of what he had enjoyed in the 60s, 70s and 80s, and he means the philosophy seriously: a follower of Greek Presocratic thought and Advaita Vedanta, he says all his songs are about us being this universe.
Double Eyelid
Ian Revell lists among his pivotal moments going to see The Cult for the first time with his father, and hearing the Ukrainian concert pianist Ireneus Zuk - his grandfather - playing the family piano. He has since moved Double Eyelid from Toronto back to his hometown of Belleville, Ontario. The project is, by his own description, an augmented solo one rather than a band - which means nobody has to be consulted about what Double Eyelid is. His latest is a Bowie cover, No Control, chosen from the 90s industrial period rather than the hits.
Arcane Synthetic
Arcane Synthetic is making records in Auckland alongside a five-month-old son and an acting career. He says he never suffers creative block, and that his most recent album - entirely collaborations - changed him mentally, emotionally, physically and spiritually. The timing of a first record and a first child is not incidental to that list.
Time that isn't yours
Vinnie-Dangerous gives the practical version: before, he could focus on just making the music; now his time is not his own. Nobody here disputes that. What they add is the other half of the ledger.
A son's birth sent TDC to the modular rig he had been circling for years. Wallisch wrote his philosophy down because he wanted his children to have it. The constraint and the reason to bother arrived in the same moment.