How did you start?
The year was 1993 and i was 17 years old. I went to my first ever rave gathering and it was a profound experience. I was a very shy and introverted boy back then. I did not felt that i belonged in school and did not feel my place in the modern society. After dancing for a few hours straight i started feeling joy and my shyness and fears where loosening and there was this deep feeling of finding my self and my home. For the first time i felt that i found a place in this world where i could be myself.
I was blown away by the hypnotic music and it was there that i realized what i wanted to do in life. I wanted to be the one conducting and creating the journey for the dancer. I wanted to be a dj.
But it all started many years before this. I was about 10 years old and my big brother had a Amiga 500 Computer with a tracker program. He also had a Korg synthesizer. I started paying around with them and i got inspired by a vinyl that i had bought. Max Mix 5. It was a mega mix mad by two italians. They used all kinds of music and beatmatching it and adding fx on top. So i made my first ever mix tape with the computer and the Korg synth mixed together with my vinyls i had. Si i guess my dj career started back then 🙂
So when i was dancing at that rave back in 1993 i knew what i wanted to do with my life.
The week after the rave i went and bought my first techno vinyls 🙂
Me and two friends started to do our own rave gatherings. And it was also there i started to dj. I went to many raves and created many raves with my friends the following years in south of Sweden.
I went to the raves when it opened and danced more or less non stop until it closed. Sometimes 12 hours straight. I was not using any substances or alcohol. I was in it purely for the dance and trance. To me it was a mystical ritual that i was taking part in. It was not entertainment or a party. I found myself going into trance and discovered higher states of consciousness. I went to countless raves the following years.
In 1996 me and my friends where doing a two day rave at a sanctuary. It was there that i met Sebastian for the first time. I was dj’ing and we started talking afterwards. He had just started playing around with a friends computer and synthesizers. We decided to create a track that i could play in my dj sets.This was the beginning of Son Kite and Minilogue.
In 1999 we released our first album as Son Kite. And we started touring the world shortly after that.
I worked and toured and created together with Sebastian up until 2014. We split up and went our own paths from there.
Today i play under my real name Marcus Henriksson. I also sometimes release music under my alias Nobody Home.
Where are you based?
I live in a house in the woods of south Sweden. Here i also have my studio.
Please give an example of your music creative process?
It is changing and i try to be creative in the creative process also. Not sticking to a specific way and try not to force it.
But i like to use analogue hardware instruments and work in the world of the four elements and not so much in the computer. Many years ago i decided to stop using plug-ins and use the computer only as a recorder. I tend to get stuck up in the head when using the computer and looking into a screen and I find it more joyful to work outside the box.
What are you working on right now?
I have just moved to a new house and i am building a new studio. So there is a strong urge to express and create now when i have not been in the studio for a while 🙂
What is your gear setup?
After 20+ years of creating electronic dance music i have collected a few instruments. To name a few.. Roland TB303, sequential circuits prophet 5, Toft Audio Mixer, Clavia Nord Lead, Studer Tape machines and lot’s more..
What do you like to do outside of music and does it affect your music?
After all those years of rave dancing and getting into trance i got very interested in the inner worlds and in meditation, shamansim and entheogens. I believe in ancient traditional rites and that we humans have used the dance and the ritual since the beginning of times to connect to nature and the inner worlds. What we call rave and dance music culture is just another label for the dance ritual that we humans have been experiencing since the dawn of time. Dancing to hypnotic drumming for a long time and sometimes using psychoactive substances to enter into a state of trance is built into our DNA.
I worked as a meditation and yoga teacher for a while a few years ago.
I also think that the words psychedelic and trance is something that is pointing to what the dance experience can be. And i am not talking about the style of music. Having and experience of psyche (Psychedelic) and going into trance and journeying within the psyche i find interesting.
I love reading books about these matters and i am a very curious person when it comes to the inner worlds.
How would you describe your music genre?
I am not following styles or trends and try to express myself as i am and what is inside me. Then other people like to put this into categories and styles. I believe in the dance journey and wish to create this journey for the dancer. If it is house or techno or jazz or folk or celtic or african music does not matter 🙂
Musical vibrations painting landscapes, dreams and images for the listener to travel and move within.
Do you know any music theory?
I have many theories about music and how it affects the listener ;-). But i have no modern school system education in music theory. I guess the burning passion for the inner worlds have shown the way to music and vibration.
What are your plans for the future?
Continue to develop myself, the inner, the music and express it to the world in new musical outputs.
I am currently very happy to express myself through my new dj rig. Where i use both vinyl, cd and live all at once.. a kind of hybrid set up. In this way i can express myself as lucid and alive as possible.
How did you get into music?
I think it was my parents who was listening to music when i was young. And my older brother got me inspired with new music.
As a young boy i also fell in love with a beautiful Swedish singer who was competing in the eurovision song contest :). I think those things in the childhood made me get into music also. So who knows.. i might end up in eurovision song contest in a few years 😉
What are you listening to at the moment?
In this very moment i am listening to silence and the sound of the keyboard when i am typing these words.
Before the silence i was listening to a dj mix made by Alexander Wallon.
Who are your top 5 influences and icons?
I have many but to name a few in no particle order:
Carl Gustav Jung
Karl Axel Bissler “KAB”
Stephan Hoeller
Fredrik “Nos” Holm
Soul
When are you playing next?
The european summer festive season is starting now. So next stops will be Tundu Open air in Sardinia, Italy. Then go to MoDem festival in Croatia. Followed by Ozora Festival in Hungary. Then back to Italy for the Sonica Festival and from there to Eclipse festival in USA.
Very much looking forward to this summer. I also very much like to be part of the festivals i go to and stay for a few days and dance and get into it. Meeting people and dancing and experiencing the music. It is important to me to do this. Otherwise i loos the connection to the dance music i am creating.
Please feel free to include any extra info..
I wish to pay homage to Mother Earth, our soul, outer and inner. Our ancient ancestors, wishing for balance and peace. To unite, connect and protect, for humanity and for our brothers and sisters, we are humans co-creating our existence together, we are all in this together. So let’s create an experience of balance, love and kindness for the sake of ourselves and humanity. As human as possible.