Take us through a day in your life, from a possible morning routine through to your work, please.

I like waking up quite early in the morning to appreciate it fully. I cuddle with my dog and we go for a walk along the canal in Berlin. Usually, I just put on a coat and shoes and go in my PJs, very laid back.

After we’re back, I take my time and go gently with my morning - making tea, coffee, breakfast, doing some journaling, reading and brainstorming. I’m the most flexible in the mornings so that’s when I draft new ideas and dreams, without a purpose. Sometimes I’m also surprisingly connecting some dots that I struggled to connect before. The magic of the freedom in the morning! All comfortably sitting on my sofa, gawking outside the window to understand the energy outside.

Later I either go to the studio to work on music or move to my desk to work on my computer; working on emails, planning etc. That’s the more focused part of the day. Mid-day my dog reminds me to take a breather so we go for another walk or a bike ride, sometimes stopping by a local openair market to pick up some groceries.

When we’re back at the house / studio I work a bit more, depending on the flow, energy and deadlines. It really all depends on what phase of my projects I am in and on the energy on the day itself; my day to day can be very different and I like it that way.

In the evenings, I like catching up with my friends, cooking dinner at home or going out to galleries, bars, clubs to explore new art, music and connect with my community. I usually don’t stay up too late cause I like having good energy throughout the week but it might be different over the weekend or in summertime cause I like going with the flow and giving myself this freedom, too.

Could you describe your creative process on the basis of a piece, live performance or album that's particularly dear to you, please?

I would say that my new live set which I played at the release concert for my new album Hold space at Kantine am Berghain, my most recent milestone, is a great example of my creative process.

I gave myself a lot of freedom in my set but it was based on initial prewritten ideas so it had a solid start but the course of each song was not yet written. It flowed with my energy, I focused on the layers of the voice, then I explored the synthesizer Nord Lead and then I let some parts free to just go off the grid and really just dance and focus on the body movement which translated into the further flow too. Circular flow.

That’s the approach that I have been working on throughout my life - follow the energy wherever it goes, switch though different media, different instruments that move me, inspire me, that I give and get the energy from. When the flow stops on one end, I switch and translate it to another one. There’s something eerie about concerts and first takes and I really wanted to capture that on Hold space. So a lot of the recordings come from first takes.

Production-wise all of my tracks start from improvisation. I mess around with sounds and loops and my voice; I work with field recordings; I try to manipulate them and make them into something that is totally different. I start to add layers, as music to me is adding layers and taking them out. The vision of new songs creates itself as there’s no preconceived idea.

When I worked on this new material I didn’t have lyrics beforehand. I was improving a lot, painted with my voice, took longer recordings and put them in a shorter form. Let the process guide itself and give it trust and space.

Listening can be both a solitary and a communal activity. Likewise, creating music can be private or collaborative. Can you talk about your preferences in this regard and how these constellations influence creative results?

That’s something I’ve been thinking of quite a lot recently. I come from a background of playing in bands, so music making used to be a group activity. And when I focused on creating my music solo as Joa Luna I needed a lot of time to adapt to this new way of being creative.

Part of me still wanted to be a part of a group, I was seeking outlets for this energy and way of expression and jam sessions, being part of collectives helped to satisfy that urge, so I could calmly go back to create solo again. It does get lonely sometimes when I’m too focused on my solo project. But it’s also the safest environment which grants me the most honest freedom and I don’t think I am able to get to the same depth of myself with anyone. At last not so far. I appreciate solitude, yet sometimes I also want to escape it. I guess it's just like in personal life: at times we seek solitude, other times we are craving connection.

I find it very inspiring to collaborate with other musicians especially in an improvised setting. Everything then depends on how we listen to each other and what’s our energy on the day. I recently started playing with a friend, Dan, and it opened up a lot of new ways of thinking about music again. I’m happy about that as it rarely happens that I find a likeminded musician. I have a very specific style and not everyone gets it and wants to jump into that wavelength.

How do your work and your creativity relate to the world and what is the role of music in society?

I try to be very mindful and receptive to the energy in my surroundings. As I see it, everything is interconnected. We all influence each other on a smaller and bigger scale. Ripple effect.

I see music as a healing practice and as emotional support. I take a lot of care, give attention and time to emotions and thoughts I process and I am trying to encourage that through my music, too. I really hope to help people reconnect with themselves, and to go deeper.

Sometimes stillness helps ease the mind. Hence, spacey, ambient sounds and other times movement help release blockages stored in the body. Hence, beats that empower and inspire my audience to move.  

Art can be a way of dealing with the big topics in life: Life, loss, death, love, pain, and many more. In which way and on which occasions has music – both your own or that of others – contributed to your understanding of these questions?

Making music is taking me closer to understanding all my emotions that the big topics in life bring. It stands in a conversation with what I’m receiving – listening to, reading. I’m staying open to all creative channels.

Making art means putting down lessons learned to share with the next person that might be going through the same thing and can relate, and to the next generations. I’m really grateful for so many ways that we can learn from and exchange knowledge through. I feel like we are all constantly in a conversation, we just have to be still sometimes to hear the message as the universe is communicating with us showing us different stories, signs, understanding, guiding us.

Music helped me learn so much about myself, about relationships, about mistakes, lost connections, missed chances, about moving past them and staying positive on this windy road called life.

How do you see the connection between music and science and what can these two fields reveal about each other?  

I’m not really a science person but more of an intuitive being. However, I do recognize that these parallel worlds provide different understanding of similar phenomena; one is more enigmatic and the other more descriptive. One can seek understanding in science and the other in music, some seek it in the interlink.

I recognize the power of resonance, the healing powers of music and science; however, I do not want to lose the innocence and be lost in details, that’s the beauty of intuition – that you don’t get lost in overthinking. So I choose to trust the process without overanalyzing it. For now. :)

Creativity can reach many different corners of our lives. Do you feel as though writing or performing a piece of music is inherently different from something like making a great cup of coffee? What do you express through music that you couldn't or wouldn't in more 'mundane' tasks?

I feel like a lot of my understanding of the world comes from very mundane tasks. Cause there’s so much wisdom in simplicity and repetitiveness. Mundane task can carry a lot of meaning, bring back hidden memories and can also be a message in itself. Such things can be very grounding and bring freedom to an, otherwise, very abstract mind.

However, making music enables us to express much more, to contain emotions and experiences on a wider spectrum of meaning. This somewhat magical activity connects us and is in my opinion very spiritual and thus very powerful. And I am seeking for deeper, meaningful activities.

Music is vibration in the air, captured by our ear drums. From your perspective as a creator and listener, do you have an explanation how it able to transmit such diverse and potentially deep messages?

The most meaningful things in life are hard to grasp and explain. Music tackles the emotionality and in that way the depth we are sometimes afraid to get into and musicians have this calling to dig deeper to discover all the answers, to move through the colors of emotions and lessons, to understand them and pass them along in a relatable form.

Sometimes it is hard to talk about our experiences directly and  connecting with other people through sonic storytelling is a beautiful creative cleansing outlet.