‘A place to put emotions’
DOMNIQ releases A New Dawn on 4 July, an album of his own compositions that started with a dance project with breakdancer Redo and developed as a response to his own cancer diagnosis and treatment. He explains how recording the album helped him process the experience
What is the album of A New Dawn about?
It’s the idea that every day is a new start and that you can decide for yourself how to fill it. Last year I had melanoma skin cancer. It was a tough period, but composing helped me to give my emotions space and to process everything. The first song of the album is an uplifting song with electronic and pop influences, which I made in my sister’s attic when I was staying there. I was trying to tell everyone, ‘It will be fine.’ The whole album is like that – the theme being that you can control your own mindset, whatever is happening.
What was your experience of having cancer?
It was very scary, because I couldn’t move my arms for a few months after surgery. You can’t do anything – not even lift a teacup, let alone play percussion. In the beginning it was hard not being able to play, but once I got the good news that the cancer hadn’t metastasised, it didn’t matter any more. I was on a cloud – I’m still on a cloud. I thought, ‘Well, if I don’t gain my full physicality back, then I will just play a different instrument or do something else, but at least I’m alive.’ The bar suddenly becomes much lower, and everything is put in perspective. But a few months after surgery, I started to play again, and because I was quite fit, I made a fast recovery, so I could get back to my old level quite easily. You realise how good the body is at remembering the movements you make.
At the beginning, I was not public about it – I just told my friends. Later, I realised it was important that people know. It was actually quite a close call for me, although it was just a mole, a little spot. If everyone checks, they won’t have this risk. It’s strange that there isn’t more awareness for something so simple. When you’ve been through this, you don’t want other people to go through it, so I hope that speaking about it will create more awareness of melanoma.
This is the first time you’ve recorded your own compositions – what has that been like?
Another theme of the album has been overcoming my fear of composing. I’ve always been told, ‘You’re not a composer, so you shouldn’t compose – only people who studied composing should compose,’ so I developed a fear of making my own music and performing it. But I was working with people like Redo and other creatives, who said, ‘Hey, this sounds nice, you should go on with it,’ so I started to become more confident.
My process starts with improvising. When I find nice musical material or texture, I start to repeat it and then write something down. Afterwards, I go with pen and paper into the structure and composition details. In each piece, there’s a certain freedom, but I stick to the structure and the composition. There’s still a lot of improvisation, but the bigger lines stay the same.
Your music crosses various genres. How would you describe it?
When I was uploading the album on CD Baby I could only select two music genres, so I chose contemporary classical – because it’s composed music and still has an acoustic basis – and ambient electronic. They asked for three famous artists I sound like, so I put Max Richter, Hauschka and Floating Points. Some pieces are very ambient, suited for seated concerts or relaxed environments, and some are more up tempo or beat oriented, for festivals.
Categories are useful for listeners who are into a specific style, but more and more artists are blurring genres – that’s been the case for a long time. The algorithms need to know what kind of audience would like your music, but audiences like a lot of different kinds of music, and as an artist, if you’re making something new or experimental, you don’t necessarily know which genre you fit. I’m still searching.
How has composing changed your approach to classical performance?
Composing has made me realise that you can write a musical idea down in ten different ways and you just have to hope that the person reading it understands exactly what you mean. I’m preparing Peter Eötvös’s concerto, ‘Speaking Drums’, at the moment, and sometimes I think, ‘Okay, this is what’s written, but what does it mean and why did he write it that way?’ You start to look much further behind the notes. I’ve always done that anyway, but now I’m even more conscious of it. Sometimes I think, ‘Well, in this hall, what you’ve written doesn’t work,’ and then I change it – as long as the underlying idea stays the same.
A New Dawn started as a dance project with breakdancer Redo. What did you learn from working with him?
I learnt so much from being with Redo on the floor: about breathing and how it connects to the body, and how dancers memorise movements. Being a percussionist is already physical, of course, but there’s a big difference in what comes across to the audience. That’s something I have taken with me when I play my instruments.
At first, I felt totally naked and scared. I moved badly. It took me a lot of hard work to get to an acceptable level. I dedicated a lot of time to it, but I’m not a trained dancer, so we were searching to find how far I could go. For example, rolling across the floor – there are many ways to do it and it can look very amateur, but you can find ways to make it look better. It’s the same with making music: if someone plays a drum, you can see how natural they look and hear from the sound that comes out whether they are trained or doing it for fun. Some dancers told me the results were good, so I’ll take that as a compliment.
How has the whole A New Dawn project helped you?
These compositions became a place for me to put my emotions. The theatre version made an art piece from the experience, which helped me to process the experience. Redo and I both had our personal stories. His was about the physical differences he was born with, but which have enabled him to do other things, like create his own dance style. He’s such a positive guy and turns something that for others might be a problem into something completely positive, which also shapes his life. For me, it was about struggling with this illness and facing the possibility of having a shorter life. In the show, there’s a part where I read from my diary. In the first rehearsals, when I had to read that, I would just cry.
It’s the same for some of the music on the album. Wandering in Moments is based on seeing my dad for the first time and telling him I had cancer (my dad’s name is Wim). When you then play that music, you can process your feelings. That’s the message I want to get across. If you’re struggling with something, you should find the thing that makes you happy and do it.
You’re doing a sponsored bicycle ride up to the Stelvio Pass – where did that idea come from?
When I was ill, I thought, ‘I can’t do anything, because it’s up to the doctors. The only thing I can do is make sure that I’m fit.’ I read a lot about food and healthy eating. It was not a dramatic change, because I already ate quite well, but I did make some changes. I had this goal: when I was a kid, I was always juggling a football to see how many times I could kick it in the air. I used to be very good at it and won prizes at soccer camp. When I was ill, I had a goal to reach my record of 1,000 again. Every day I went to the park outside to do this. It gave my body a lot of energy, and one week before the surgery, I made it to 1,000. That gave me a lot of strength.
The bike ride is a follow up from that. It’s pushing me to watch my health and make sure I’m outside enough. It’s also raising money for Kika, a childhood cancer charity, so it’s very meaningful. The event is one year to the day after I got the good news, which will also be the day that the single will come out.
A New Dawn is released on streaming platforms on 4 July, with its first track, Daydreaming, out now. DOMNIQ performs A New Dawn with Redo at Wonderfeel (5 July), and in a solo set at Down the Rabbit Hole (6 July). His climbs the Stelvio Pass by bicycle on 27 June to raise money for childhood cancer charity Kika.
