The Importance of Living in Today
By Katherine Gunya
Gathering clouds
On March 17th, amidst a deluge of COVID-19 cases, French President Emmanuel Macron announced a national lockdown. Melodic techno producer Mark Höffen wandered around his studio packing the bare necessities to make music—a computer, a pair of headphones, a few machines—and prepared to spend confinement with his mother. He couldn’t bear to leave her alone for an as of yet indeterminate amount of time.
Three days later and an ocean away, California’s governor announced its own state-wide lockdown. Cinematic techno artist Rinzen settled into his LA flat by himself, ready to wait out the storm no matter how long it took.
By the end of the month, clubs all over the world had shuttered. Events were either cancelled or postponed, and festival coordinators begged disappointed ticket holders to wait for the rescheduled date instead of requesting a refund.
Shut inside and with income practically gone, everyone in the electronic music industry had to face a reckoning:
Where do we go from here? How do we carry on?
For Rinzen, the answer came in the form it usually does: writing music. “There was so much emotional material to draw from,” he tells me. “We were experiencing something so global and unprecedented that it felt only natural to express it in my art.”
The sheer volume of emotional material, both internal and environmental, meant that he initially saw a period of great productivity, spending long hours in the studio composing. Slowly but surely, however, the inspiration petered out as isolation and the monotony of day-to-day life locked in his flat eventually set in. “It became much harder to write new music as I was no longer living new experiences. No travel, no friends, no time in nature -- my well of creativity began to run low.”
Conversely, Mark Höffen quite enjoyed what he describes as “a return to adolescence” and says it was actually a great font of productivity. Like Rinzen, Höffen poured the first few weeks’ uncertainty into his music, channelling society’s collective anxiety into a nightmarish track entitled ‘Fear,’ which friend and label owner BOg promptly signed to be released a month later on Atlant’sVoyager 01 compilation. Even after he and his mother settled into the routine of a new normal, this creative momentum doesn’t seem to have slowed.
Living with family likely helped stave off the lockdown slump isolated producers encountered—it’s easier to find glimmers of beauty throughout the day when it starts with a qigong routine and a meal prepared by your mum. “I am a sensitive person, so every event in my life inspires me,” he says, adding later that he views every day as a source of inspiration regardless of periodic tedium.
Höffen continued to live with family even after safety measures eased, moving in with his sister in June after being forced to relinquish his apartment. Still studio-less, he took to composing in her kitchen. “I'm pretty much a homebody, I love my balance and more than anything else my studio,” he confesses, so breaking away from his comfort zone and constantly living in the moment has caused something of an artistic superbloom.
Rinzen eventually found his own creative balance, too. IO Music Academy, a Los Angeles-based production school, asked if he would be willing to teach a production masterclass during lockdown. He didn’t think much of it at first, but the class reached capacity within 48 hours, and social media responses showed just how excited people were for the opportunity. “The demand was incredible,” he says. “I realized there was a great hunger for online music education during lockdown.”
The initial masterclass’s popularity prompted Rinzen and IO to run several more over the course of the summer, replacing some of the income lost from touring. As an added benefit, teaching others has offered an avenue to explore the intention behind his own music; composition can be quite instinct-oriented, so teaching forced him to put to words the “why” behind the “how” of his technique.
Outside the studio, Rinzen says he’s “doing a bunch of activities” to keep creativity up. “I’ve been listening to much more relaxing, soothing music.” Particularly, he’s found great inspiration in neoclassical piano from the likes of Nils Frahm and reveals that he, “spent more than a few nights under the stars listening to [Frahm’s] albums and gazing up to the cosmos.”
Over troubled water, a sunrise
With live events all but dead, live streaming exploded. Suddenly, you could listen to live mixes from big names almost 24/7 on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitch. You had a direct line of contact with your favourite DJs via the stream’s chatbox, and you could connect with fellow fans via Zoom raves.
Suddenly, the huge, lonely world got a whole lot smaller and more intimate.
In his never-ending quest to create a sense of wonder amongst audiences, Rinzen has become a regular feature behind the jog wheels of label streams and digital music festivals alike. He’s an inarguably talented musical guide regardless of the medium, using impeccable track selection skills and a heavy dose of buttery EQing to take you on mind-bending journeys through space and time. Over the past six months, he’s pushed himself to stream for longer and encompass ever more electronic subgenres, explaining “I love these marathon performances as they are a way to showcase my full range as a DJ.”
But streaming didn’t come without its own learning curve: It was a strange adjustment, says Rinzen, getting used to performing alone in front of a camera. Unlike with clubs or festivals where there’s a lot going on at once, on stream you’re the audience's sole focus. Therefore, every movement has to have an intention behind it. In other words, “The energy of your body and your movements has a profound impact on the viewer’s experience.”
This increasing focus on intentionality is really evident if you compare his April mau5trap stream, with its slightly awkward camera angle and an in-his-own-zone Rinzen, to September 26th’s Desert Hearts Black extravaganza (complete with a greenscreen), in which he was all smiles and visibly engaged. Plus, people everywhere agree that his dance moves are clinically proven to reduce signs of aging.
While you could find Rinzen vibing out in front of a camera nearly every other weekend, Mark Höffen retained a slightly more enigmatic performative presence. “I'm not a big fan of the virtual world,” he admits, “so making Virtual Sets is not something I'm really interested in.” This isn’t to say that he’s been absent the past few months—he regularly interacts with fans and posts delightful Instagram stories updating his followers on the pigeons he managed to befriend from his sister’s balcony—but his disinterest in streaming means that he’s taken a road less travelled by in the creation of his nine-part SERIES.
Each of the nine installments are essentially improvisational jam sessions that Mark says was never planned more than a week in advance. The expressive improvisations are complemented by gorgeous videography from photographer, friend, and collaborator Patandpatate. In an effort to make the rendering even more authentic, Mark relinquished complete visual control to his friend: “I wanted him to be able to express himself freely too.”
For Höffen, who has always used music as his emotional outlet, SERIES seems simultaneously a source of personal therapeutic release and a way to share little pieces of his soul with his audience, to “transcribe this moment of escape that appears in the process of creation, without thinking about business plans or releases.”
Under the surface of pretty visuals and lush harmonies, SERIES is an exquisitely vulnerable blend of emotion and instinct, of intimacy and resplendence. The project tells the story of two mere humans who, despite the uncertainty of what the future might bring, continue to share their inner light in hope for a better tomorrow.
There’s one particular drone shot towards the beginning of #003 which I think perfectly encapsulates this sentiment, where Mark and the crew appear as mere specks on the edge of an enormous cliff. Though tiny and shadowed in the moment, they stand at the precipice of something magnificent.
Still taken from SERIES #003: Mark and the crew are the white dots in the middle of the frame. Videography by Patandpatate
Just like giving up his apartment, living with his sister, and producing in her kitchen, SERIES yet again forced Höffen out of his comfort zone in the best possible way. “I don’t have the same approach [to production] at all now!” he exclaims when I ask about whether it changed his technique. “I went back to a simpler and more direct way of producing. I plug in my machines, close my eyes for a few moments, and let myself be carried away.”
Glow on the horizon
Despite the economic uncertainty everyone in the electronic music industry faces, life goes on. Following strict lockdowns and cautious phased reopenings, small events have begun to return to Europe—a boon for Mark Höffen, who unleashed himself at several in September and another just last week. He plans to keep taking things day by day, joining soul and sound and sharing it with the world. SERIES’ glowing reception has prompted him to turn the jam sessions into a fully realized album, date of release as of yet unknown.
“Sharing content that conveys a living emotion in a virtual way is a real question…”. Photo by Patandpatate
Rinzen and colleague Marbs make a cautious return to the live stage later this month for The Midway SF’s Outdoor Dining series, which you can still stream via The Midway’s Twitch channel regardless of where you live. Also on the docket for October is a remix to be released with techno label Octopus Recordings, and later in the year a mix or two.
With the long-term goal of building an audio-aesthetic ‘Rinzen universe’ (an RCU, if you will) in which listeners can immerse themselves, he continues to strive for musical excellence. “I’m looking to write the most incredible music I’m capable of. My focus is always on the studio, and pushing myself to write better and more creative music.”
Both artists are riding high off of recent EP releases as well: Rinzen with Resonate, which boasts two deliciously textured tracks, clever snatches of syncopation, and a formidable remix by Clarian, and Höffen with Faith, whose songs feature ethereal melodies and evocative buildups, accompanied by a remix from brutalist madlad Losless that I can only describe as a tightrope walk over a mountain gorge.
And if you’ve listened to Faith and want more, good news: Mark’s next EP, OPH, drops with Sinners tomorrow. OPH and its four a.m. rework, which he describes as still carrying “traces of the confinement,” will bathe you in a melancholic sea of airy vocals and undulating synth, anchored by gentle bass and a delicate breakbeat rhythm. It’s truly a sound to behold—and you can behold it on the Sinners Website.
The great unknown
When asked if he thinks if the events scene will ever return to normal, Rinzen responded with a resounding yes, “Though it will likely take much longer than any of us would prefer.” He emphasises that, given enough time and patience, we can return to dancing and raving the night away like before.
Höffen was more hesitant to cast judgement. Events will return, obviously, as they already have been, but we may have to make certain concessions. We may never return to what we once knew as ‘normal’, and that’s okay. Change happens, and we’ll take it in stride like we always do.
After all, he concludes, “It is not the destination that counts but the path. And I am convinced that people will continue to find solutions to make this path enjoyable.”
«Altrove c'è l’altrove.
Io non mi occupo nell'altrove.
Dunque, que questo romanzo abbia inizio.»
- La Grande Bellezza (2013), dir. Paolo Sorrentino
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