Introduction and background:

I'm dXI, an electronic music producer based in Sweden (originally from the US). I come from a classical and jazz background, but found my way into electronic music almost a decade ago. While I've been making music in some form since childhood, I started producing electronic music a little over a year ago. I spent a while making tracks just messing around, but the turning point was when I produced the first draft of Pulse (which became track 5 on Submerged). It came together quickly and felt different from my previous work. When I listened to the whole thing, I was struck with the feeling that, for the first time, I made something I would actually go out of my way to listen to. It didn't sound like practice, but a fully realized musical idea. When this happened, I committed myself to produce a full LP, and now we're here.

Musical identity:

My music is electronic, but perhaps with an accent of a classical musician speaking electronic as a second language. I try to follow the sounds I like, always putting emphasis on what I'm hearing over how I think it should sound. While ambient and experimental are accurate genre descriptors, I like to write music that sounds like music in a conventional way. I do like noise and ambient soundscape type stuff, but I'm not as interested in producing music like that.

For Submerged, I started each song with a rhythm, a sound, or by playing around with some chords until I found something I liked. I wanted to be as repetitive as I could while always evolving the sound, so finding a good sound was just as important as finding a good way to evolve that sound. Once I landed on a key idea, the rest of the song expands from there in a way that either builds on or compliments that main idea.

Current work:

My latest release is Submerged, an electronic journey deep into the sea and back. For many years now, I've been thinking about sinking into the ocean as a metaphor for a certain kind of emotional journey, the kind with profound experiences that leave you feeling things you can't explain to other people. You find yourself isolated, not due to a barrier you've put around yourself but a deep ocean others would need to swim through to understand you.

A few years ago, at a small rave one night, a particular track was playing with some industrial sounds. Another attendee was wearing a sailor hat. Together, the atmosphere felt like we were the crew of a sinking boat. Locked into the music, we were trapped, unable to repair the ship. This night tied together my feelings of sinking into the context of electronic music, ultimately inspiring the arc of the album.

Promotion and engagement:

My most effective promotional strategy so far has been reaching out to people I know and sending them some links. I'm happy to answer fan questions, and occasionally get into some pretty good conversations this way. You can contact me on bandcamp (dxidxi.bandcamp.com), reddit (u/dxi-music) and YouTube (@dXI-music).