Name: Kim Drotz
Diskographie (Auswahl): Artificial Consciousness (2024), Distant Visitors (2024), Cosmic Spectacle (2024)
Webseite: https://secretmoonbase.bandcamp.com/
I am an amateur music producer from Helsinki, Finland. During the year 2023 my music started shifting more and more towards ambient / Berlin school to completely grab my attention by the end of the year. From the beginning of 2024 I have considered myself an ambient producer.
I have loved music as long as I can remember. My interest in music has always included nearly every kind of music from around the world. Electronic, classic, ethnic, microtonal… There was a time in my life when I was young when I used practically all my money on records.
I started writing some simple songs with my guitar while I was still in elementary school. Except for a few guitar-lessons I am self-taught. I play guitar and keyboards and I used to play the flute.
Already in the 80’s I made my first pieces of music with computers. First with a ABC-80 computer at a school computer club. This computer didn’t have a real sound engine, just an error sound. I used a code to start and stop the error sound so quickly that it was reduced to a short click-sound. This code was a subroutine for a code that repeated the click with a frequency determined by a variable for a certain time determined by another variable. It sounded like music played with a broken doorbell and was very tedious and time consuming to make. But it was fun and I think it was this experiment that initiated my fascination for using a computer for electronic music. Later I was able to write more complex and better sounding music when I got my own VIC-20 computer and later the Commodore and a musical keyboard for it.
Computers and electronics have always fascinated me almost as much as music and therefor it seems logical that I always felt drawn to synthesizers and electronic music. Also, the fact of being able to create sounds that wasn’t possible any other way and through that create soundscapes that seemed to belong in a world unknown was for me mind-blowing.
However, life got in the way and my music making consisted of sporadic periods and constant shifting of genres. It was never anything I took very seriously despite my love for music – until recent years when I started making music again after having completely abandoned it for a few years.
The true passion for ambient music evolved when I started listening more and more to modern Berlin School and discovered great artists like Chris Bryant (Starterra, S1gns Of L1fe, Ascendant) and Martin Stürtzer. I learned a lot about ambient music from Chris Bryant’s videos on youtube (S1gns Of Life) and joining his Patreon was a real boost for me. The S1gns Discord group together with the Synphaera group has been a great inspiration and support which helped me to get the confidence to start the project Secret Moonbase in early 2024. After that I have released a single and 2 albums (Artificial Consciousness and Distant Visitors) and my track has been chosen to be included in the 2 latest VA-albums by Assemblage (sub-label of Synphaera); Acolytes Of The Void and Ethereal Ambient, which I think will be released in December 2024.
The positive feedback and the fact that people have actually paid for my music in Bandcamp together with me loving what I do – I feel I have finally found my genre of music and my own style inspired of Berlin School. I am eager and motivated to continue this journey.
Quelle: Künstler-Info/Webseite