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As a genre-fluid post-pop duo, Laikka loves to break with the conventions of contemporary electronic pop music. Their music is wild and full of energy and combines the experimental with pop, big drama, and catchiness. The duo’s live performances are particularly impressive. Their third album, I Close My Eyes, Tomorrow – with a release event at Flex Vienna – brought Laikka recognition in the local and international scene and was nominated for the Amadeus Austrian Music Award. 

What is the genesis of your project, Laikka? Is it in any way inspired by the famous space dog, one of the first animals in space?

We believe that dogs should not be sent to space, and we are not affiliated with animals being used for masculine megalomania. Dogs are better than humans many times; they should be given props for big stretches, regular walks, reasonable amounts of treats, and remain safely on earth!

How do you work in the duo in practice? Who does what? 

Our process is quite fluid and is subject to regular changes. We don’t have fixed roles, and both handle a bit of everything. Even though Mo is generally more focused on the audio side of things, and Alex on the visual side. For creating music, our favourite way is to lock ourselves in somewhere outside of the city. Then we can concentrate solely on creating music for a couple of days. A major part of our last album was created this way, and we are looking forward to another countryside writing period soon. 

Over the last years, we have built a small community of artists who support us with things like outfits, merch, photography, and video. They are integral to what Laikka is, and we are super happy to have such talented and dedicated people around us.

You work within and beyond the boundaries of contemporary pop music, but also stretch it and adapt it to your needs. Can you talk about how your music is born?

Our writing process is always very open-ended. We use the format of pop music in terms of song structure as a starting point for our arrangements, to then either obliterate it or stick with it. Usually, creating music starts with sound design; often, a special sound or texture inspires the rest of the song. Recently, we shifted more and more towards working with guitars and other analog sound sources and sample manipulation rather than synthesis.

How important is the live performance element to your work?

For us, playing live is the most important part of making music. In live shows, all we pour into our music manifests into reality. There is nothing more direct than putting our minds, bodies, and voices into it and feeling the energy from the audience. Also, playing live has shifted our sound a lot. Apart from the energy being important, we also write music with the performance in mind a lot more. One of the results is the use of ridiculous drops in some of the songs. One of those will be released with our upcoming remix of “Aspartame” by EYESHALFSHUT.

On your latest album, I / II Close My Eyes Forever. You invited several artists to rework your tracks. Can you talk about this album?

I / II Close My Eyes Forever is a double release that contains remixes of songs from our latest album, I Close My Eyes, Tomorrow. The album is very dear to us because it marks a point in our process at which we managed to manifest the darker, heavier energy of our live performances on a studio recording. We invited friends who create music in various fields to produce their own tracks based on the album. The artists involved come from sound art (Martyyna, Natasha Moreno), the club scene (KoiFin, Mother Cell), experimental (pop) music (Enesi M., ##, Elfriede Blut), bass music (Eyht), and more. The result is a release that ranges from clubby remixes that stick relatively close to the originals to total deconstruction. It is a super interesting feeling to give out our songs to people to do anything they imagine with it – it’s almost a little bit scary and also extremely inspiring and surprising. At this point, shoutout to our mastering engineer, MJ, who somehow managed to create a consistent sound for this release!

Can you talk about your performance at Musikprotokoll, a collaboration with electronic musician David Obermaier, aka silentbeat?

We met David in 2024 at a project about sub-bass music, called sub_bar. He is a super talented artist, and we had a great time working with him over the summer.

Between the Waves is a performance about different kinds of communication and their relation to music and instruments. For us, creating music that can be perceived by people with hearing deficiencies is a super interesting challenge that deconstructs what music actually is. Of course, sub-bass is an important part of it, but the visual part is also crucial. So we tried to incorporate sign language, synchronized lights, projection, and performance in an interconnected way through technology. Going down that rabbit hole, we discovered EMF microphones that pick up electromagnetic fields. We used those to build our own instrument based on power supplies, and David played a synthesiser where the sound comes from the power supply instead of the audio output.

In the creation process, we learned about the Milan conference, which is a traumatic part of history for the deaf community, as it was decided there to ban sign language from schools by an almost exclusively hearing audience. We used this as an underlying theme for our performance, being aware that even the means of communication from person to person are subject to oppression. 

What themes and topics are important to you in general, and right now, in particular?

As a part of Vienna’s queer and alternative music scene, we stand for diversity. We always try to give a platform to other FLINTA* and queer artists. Especially in a music scene that is very masculine and commercially dominated, we need to empower each other to be seen. 

The topics we deal with directly in our music are often sad and melancholic. We write a lot about depression, feeling lost, empty, but also about self-liberation.

Interview Lucia Udvardyova
Photo Hanna Fasching

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