What is your first memory with music? The first song you remember, the first instrument you played, the first concert you went to.

As a kid I lived in a small fishing village by the Swedish west coast. Living just by the ocean, we had these beautiful rock formations literally by our doorstep. One of them I claimed as my “singer’s rock”. I don’t remember what I was singing while standing there, probably ABBA, but I remember this rock as my first stage. Music was supposed to be my first name, as I was named after my hi-fi-nerd father’s favorite stereo brand. When I couldn’t sleep, he would rock me to Massive Attack’s Unfinished Sympathy playing from wooden Linn Katan speakers. Once I got older and he realised I was only listening to Smurf Hits, he took me to a record store and let me choose some CDs with “real music” to cultivate my taste. I remember choosing Avril Lavigne, Green Day, and a Cassie single with like ten remixes of Me & U… I also remember my mother dancing and singing in the living room to Destiny’s Child’s Survivor, embodying what I came to associate with a strong woman. She was the one who took me to open day at the local music school, where I held a cello for the first time… Those are some of my first strong memories with music.

What do you enjoy the most, live playing, DJ or recording in the studio?

Before I used to see myself more as a producer than a DJ, but now I feel like they pour into each other in a way that makes them inseparable. To me they’re different sides to the same process – giving and taking inspiration and energy from one another.

Was being a musician, an artist, and a producer something you always wanted to do?

Considering the singer’s-rock-story, I should say yes. However, I was shy and careful as a child, and I also suffered from severe stage fright. In choir and orchestra practice, I had to force myself to perform solos while everyone else seemed to gravitate towards the spotlight. I remember I was ashamed and even scared of my creative energy at times, so I resorted to hiding in the anonymity of the collective. That I’d become an artist one day was hard to predict back then. Eventually I found electronic music, which allowed me to start un-censoring those sides of myself that I was ashamed of. My stage fright is now dissolved because even if I DJ, I feel like I am one with the collective. The experience of a club night is something we all shape together – dancers as DJs. I always was, and always wanted to be, a musician. But being an artist wasn’t an obvious path for me.

I know you graduated last year with a Master of Arts Degree. Why is it so important for you to keep learning and studying?

Learning new things about the world and myself is one of my greatest joys. Although I think our current educational system needs to be reformed, I always enjoyed spending time in learning environments where my world view is challenged. Studying a Master’s or a PhD also offers the opportunity to contribute to the field of research. For me it is motivating to fill gaps of knowledge that might enrichen our society’s understanding of minorities. This was why I chose to research how gender-diverse musicians might explore identity through their musical practice.

I understand your masters was related to researching music as gender-affirming practice. Can you tell us more about how this has influenced your music?

The embodiment aspect of Music as Gender-affirming Practice is inherent to me. The euphoria I experience when musicking is manifesting itself through the relief of my constantly tense body relaxing. Resonating. Being freed for a moment. The music itself doesn’t necessarily have to do much with gender. But the tension does, and the music helps to relieve it.  Then there’s also this aspect of creating a fantasy and materialising it as reality for the world to interact with. Reaching for the impossible within, translating it into a world of sound that touches real bodies including my own on the dance floor. Highly inspired by Salomé Voegelin, I have come to sense sounds as an extended part of my body. If you ever have the chance to read her work please do, it was a game changer for me in the ways I experience music.  I feel all these notions are audible in the 47034 EP which was composed alongside my research. There’s no censorship in this music: just the purest reflection of myself being.

I believe the name for your record label Acts of Rebellion speaks by itself. But when and why was it born? Was there something in particular going on in your life that made you start your own label?

The fuse that lit the fire for Acts of Rebellion was one of many unprofessional experiences I’ve had in the industry. At this point creating a space that was free from discrimination and harassment to release my music in became a necessity.