How long was Silence and Remorse in production?

I started first sketching it when I was living in London early last year. I moved back to Berlin in April and that was actually where I wrote and recorded most of it—in my room in Kreuzberg across the spring and summer… then I was in LA for a month, more or less, working details and locking all the tracks.

Did the production process differ much to your EP, Salvation?

I guess it was way deeper and also evolved by a different kind of dedication. I pretty much isolated myself for a bunch of months only to work on it. I would wake up and write, go run, come back, write a bit more, sleep… It felt like a spiral, I was fully committed to it.

When did you first start taking an interest in making music?

Something like nine years ago as far as I remember. My mum had this old laptop and I installed some free software and started recording some drones and weird sounds. It felt like a new space where I could create reflections of my memories and my feelings.

Do you still make art or are you more focussed on music now?

Music has been taking up most of my time for the past two years but I always keep visual arts as my passion and hopefully I’ll always have some time to dedicate to my series. These days perhaps it’s something more peripheral in my life but it’s just something I cannot live without.

Do your art and music come from the same depths emotionally?

In a way, yes—but music relates more to my soul fields. When I’m playing a show sometimes I feel so exposed because it’s way more personal and human to me.

You mentioned you formed your own publishing house, what other kind of creative endeavours have you undertaken?

I’ve always been passionate about arts in general so I would run ephemeral projects and collaborations with galleries many times. As a solid initiative, the publishing house was the only project I sort of materialised, probably and hopefully not the last one.

Why do you make music under a moniker? Do you want to keep it separate from your other artistic ventures?

There’s no real answer for that, I feel purple and weird all the time, that was the main reason why I started using that alias. Still I do want to keep music apart from what I do, things need space to breathe and I feel my songs should just be by themselves in space.

What kind of headspace are you usually in when you’re producing music?

It’s just fully me trying to understand this weird earth.

Your online presence is quite mysterious, with obstructed photos and minimal words – while your stage presence is similarly enigmatic, hidden behind a cap, deep light and smoke. Are you quite a vulnerable person?

In a way, yeah I guess so… vulnerable to feel things, to not be able to stop feelings things or thinking about shit. Never felt like my face or me was part of my music though, as if it was a ghost inside me, talking by himself.

Was expanding vocally on the LP a significant step for you personally, or even as a performer?

Yeah definitely, singing made the whole thing way more deep and intimate. Singing feels visceral to me, it comes from the body, it’s organic and sometimes uncontrollable. As an experience singing is still intriguing to me, who I become while singing, what I feel—like living a memory or illusion in real time, feeling things all over again.

Have you got any more projects on the horizon?

I’m now fully dedicating myself to PURPLE, writing and recording new stuff too. I’ll never be satisfied, I’m always curious and intrigued about trying different stuff and getting involved in new things so I feel like in the future I want to be building new and different stuff from what I’m doing now. Still all seems to come from this same place inside me.

You can catch PURPLE along with Shlohmo, D33J qnd Nick Melons on the remaining WEDIDIT tour dates in Melbourne, Sydney and Perth this week. Check out more tour info here.