"I feel like most people get rid of their music-making training wheels in high school, but I never did that,'' Dunedin bedroom producer Jens Moller states plainly.
"It was a long time coming, I guess. I'd always played around with stuff on the computer, but then finally I had a lot of free time, and I finally figured out how to record on one of the programs ... it all started off pretty ambient, as I was much too terrified to be singing on a track or anything like that.''
I'm asking Jens Moller about the music-making origins that have led to Bediquette, a new ambient electronic alias for the musician formerly known as Govrmint, whose track On Screen was one of my favourite singles last year.
"I've finally started to make some stuff that I'm happy with I think. The first monikers were very much practice.''
Musically Bediquette pulls on the same lo-fi electronica threads Govrmint wove: strong swells of pleasing synths, glitchy skittering beats, and hard emotions coming together in a textural and drifting sonic collage that's as stylish as Radiohead and as akin to stepping into another world as the tender work of early Youth Lagoon.
It's alienating and engaging in the same ghostly exhale.
It's also lovely, lonely night-time getaway music, speaking to staying up late and not leaving the house.
"I'm definitely a night owl, much to my mother's lament,'' Moller said.
"I swear most of those songs would have been written between midnight and 6am. It's quite often that if I'm writing a song, I'll stay up all night and just be dead the next day. It's definitely night-time music. That vibe is a big part of it for me.''
The new album is called Run From (Your Friends), a phrase Moller found he could apply to many aspects of his life.
"It's supposed to be about how if you're feeling anxious or something, you don't want to talk about it, you get really closed off, but it would be so much easier if you just did talk about it with people. Even though I know it's a really hard thing to do.
"It's also just a really nice phrase. I do feel that there's not much that happens in my songwriting material, so I have to exaggerate everything so I don't know if it comes across as a bit whiny [laughs]. I've always loved sad songs and sad movies.''
STROMZY WARNING
UK Grime heavyweight sensation Stromzy has announced his debut NZ tour this week, hitting Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch and Dunedin in October.
The English rapper is reportedly working towards his debut album, fully immersing himself in the craft of songwriting and production, and bringing some eye-opening new material on tour.
This will be huge.
See it, hear it
• Bediquette's Run From (Your Friends) is available from bediquette.bandcamp.com
• Follow Bediquette online at facebook.com/govrmintbediquette/
• Stromzy NZ Tour, Wednesday, October 5, at Sammy's, Dunedin.
