An Interview with Music Artist Mati Beckmann
Mati Beckmann is an independent musician from Santiago, Chile who lived his childhood in Greece, recently moved to Vienna and since then has begun to pursue a music career, starting with the release of the singles “Take Off” and “Changes”, and now his new full instrumental album “Total Isolation of the Mind”.
How long have you been making music? And why?
It depends on what do you call creating music. I started playing guitar when I was 12 years old, and I didn’t write any songs until I was 16, none of which were good. But I started producing music with the intent of releasing it only 2 years ago. I make music mostly for myself, I am a big fan of music in general, I like learning about all kinds of artists, Mac Demarco, Cigarettes After Sex, Hans Zimmer, Stevie Wonder, Billie Eilish, Pink Floyd, and really enjoy being able to create something that has the ability to make people feel something and sometimes connect with you, the same way I feel with music from other artists. I think music is just something beautiful to share.
How would you define your style?
To be completely honest, that’s something that I don’t even know yet. I don’t like limiting myself to a music genre or style. I think it’s essential to experiment with different styles and try what suits one better. I’ve always been a fan of rock music, and I think you can tell by listening to “Take Off” and the solo section in “Changes”, and even though I prefer rock music over other genres, I always try to add new things from different ones. I would say “Total Isolation of the Mind” is a project that even though it’s a concept that I love, it’s something I did in order to experiment a bit. I am not completely sure if my next releases would be in the same style. I’m actually looking forward to creating more music in the style of “Changes”, the kind of dreamy indie rock.
What can you tell us about your first and latest album?
Well, it’s an ambient music instrumental album that I came up with while reading a book called “Ballad Stories of the Affections”, it’s a compilation of old nordic poems translated to English. Most of the titles of the songs are titles from poems from this book. The poems I chose were the ones I could relate with, and really associate them to own experiences, and wrote the music based on that. Musically speaking, you could tell that even though it’s minimalistic in sounds, it has an active melody most of the time. I wanted to make a semi-ambient album. Because it’s not the kind of music you would listen to and really focus on it, because you could find it boring, but it’s also not the kind of music you would like to listen to while you study, because it might distract you. It’s more an album that invites you to think. About what? Anything, and that’s why it’s called “Total Isolation of the MInd” it’s really an invitation to dive deep in your own mind, and just spend the time in that, because sometimes it’s necessary, and in our modern lives, we don’t really give ourselves time for that.
Are you planning to play live soon?
I’m what some people would call a studio artist, and I guess that’s something I have to fix. When I write music and produce it, I don’t think about playing it, you can see in the song “Horizon Ships” that layers and layers of different instruments just keep joining the song, and it gets to a point where it’s just impossible to perform that in a small gig. That’s why I don’t plan on playing live “Total Isolation of the Mind”, and because it’s semi-ambient nature. But “Take Off” and “Changes” are part of a bigger project I’m working on right now, which I’m planning on playing live.
What are your plans for the near future?
As said before, the next thing on the list is finishing the project I’m working on and after the release, start playing it live. The project is the album where “Take Off” and “Changes” belong, it’s a conceptual album and I could say the style will be a mix between the old classic rock, and the modern dreamy indie sound.
