Lavender:

1/1, one of one. I always thought it explained itself. There’s simply no comparison. That’s what I believe in and what matters to me: not being like everyone else, but doing your own shit. Doing what you feel from within. That’s what makes you your own version, your own one of one. That applies to everyone. I’m not saying I’m better than anyone else. I just stand by doing what I want to do, because that’s who I am.

L:

Definitely. Right now, so much sounds the same. Someone does something, it becomes successful, and the next week ten other people are doing the same thing and succeeding with it too. Ikkimel is a perfect example – she does her thing really well. But then so many others follow. That’s not necessarily bad, it’s just a shame. You can tell people see something works and think, “Okay, I’ll do that too.” To me, that has nothing to do with art. I want to make art. I come from painting, tattooing, and graffiti. It’s always been important to me not to bite. I don’t know if you know the term – it comes from graffiti culture and means copying without permission. Back then, if you bite someone’s style while painting, you got beaten up. It’s important to do your own thing. That’s how I grew up. That’s why 1/1 felt so obvious to me.

L: That’s actually the funny thing. This tape doesn’t fully reflect its name. It’s only one part of it. The next tape will reveal more of what I mean and show another side of me. I don’t know what I’ll call it yet. Calling it 1/1 again would be a bit stupid, so I still have to think about that.

L: No, definitely not. It’s the beginning of showing that I really do whatever I want. I’ve always made a lot of trap – I come from trap. That’s why I wanted my first EP to be a trap record, because that’s where I started. Since then, I’ve made a lot of other things too. The next project will be different again, to the point where people might think, “Wait, is this still him?”

L: Definitely. I’ve also been listening to Afro music and alternative stuff. There’s already a lot of alternative and pop-influenced music too. I just want to be free. Every project can be different and mix different elements. Just because I made trap and it worked doesn’t mean I’m going to do it forever. I think that’s the message.

L: Exactly. A lot of people do that.

L: By sleeping a lot, good friends, good food, and living alone. Moving into my own place helped me a lot because I’m not constantly dealing with other people’s stress.

L: Definitely. I’m an overthinker. I probably seem calmer than I actually am because people always tell me I’m calm. I think a lot, and sometimes that worries me – especially when I think about the future. But in the end I always manage to ground myself again. I remind myself that you can achieve anything as long as you keep working and don’t give up.

L: Aesthetics come first. It has to look good to me. I’m always involved in directing because I know exactly how I want things to look. I like symbolism, but I’m not trying to force a deeper meaning. I want people to interpret it however they want.

L: It’s just me. It comes naturally. I don’t copy anyone – I don’t bite.

L: A huge one. Ever since elementary school, when I was first allowed to choose my own clothes, I realized how much fun it was. I remember picking these crazy slip-ons with skull graphics instead of the normal shoes. Fashion has always been a way to express myself and show that I’m on my own lane. I’ve also been modeling for a long time.

L: Tattooing. I work as a tattoo artist.

L: A bit less lately because I’ve been focusing on music, but I finished a new flash sheet today. I love tattooing and drawing. It gives me almost as much as making music. I also love the exchange with people. My best friend, Babyrentner, is a tattoo artist too. It’s a great way to express creativity. Someone comes to you and says, “I want your art on my body.”

L: I actually think that’s even cooler than selling art pieces, even though I’d like to do that too.

L: Yeah, I actually started with painting. Tattooing came later because I had to make money, and then I realized how much I enjoyed it.

L: Definitely. You can hear it in the way I speak. Even if I don’t show it as much anymore, the street stays with you. I love being from NRW. I probably never would have left if it hadn’t been for label opportunities and the fact that so much creativity is concentrated in Berlin. Back home I was surrounded by people without much drive, and that wasn’t good for me. Funny enough, a lot of the motivated people I hang out with here are also from NRW. If everyone had stayed there, maybe I wouldn’t have had to move to Berlin.

L: My friends mostly. I can’t really name one specific artist.

L: I wasn’t even a huge Ken Carson fan, but his latest album is incredible. I saw he was playing Splash! and skipped the show. Two days later I heard the album and thought, “I should have gone.” I also listen to Afro artists like BiG Tinny and svn4vr. They’re really raw. Then there’s alternative stuff like Lost Coop, Yellow Days, and of course trap. Also Zackavelli. 

L: It’s not a secret – I just genuinely don’t know. I’m terrible at planning. I make music all the time and end up with too many songs. I’ve already made around a hundred songs this year. Choosing what to release is the hardest part. I usually decide at the last minute based on instinct. I do know that the next project will be less trap-focused and much freer. I want people to think, “Wait, I thought he was just a trap artist, and now he’s singing about love over an Afrobeat?” I’m looking for that “wait, what?” reaction.

L: Yeah, but for now I want to keep performing One of One. People are still in that trap mindset and expect those songs, so I want to give them that first. After that, I’ll start switching things up. I’d also love to do collaborations with people from that world, like Lewin Liam. I opened for him on tour last year, and he’s a really inspiring person.

FRANKA MARLENE FOTH:

I have to dig really deep for that, because I started so early. I’m not loyal to one specific medium and I never had that thought in my head: “I want to become a dancer.” It just happened. It was always a very effortless ambition. I trained incredibly hard from a very young age, simply following my passion, and then quite early on, I got my first jobs as a dancer at 16, alongside school.

FMF: As a background dancer, and I also created shows for live events. That showed me pretty directly that I can do this, I’m already earning money while still in school. It really fueled my desire to pursue it. But it was a gradual process. I just followed what I wanted to do. I was obsessed with training and was sometimes given leave from school to compete. I was completely absorbed in it. When I got my first jobs through my hard work, I realized: Oh, this is actually working. I’ll keep going. And since it was happening alongside school, I lost interest in school entirely. I just wanted to work as a dancer. So I wasn’t following some grand dream; I was following my passion, my desire.

FMF: Exactly. I had no external idea at all. Which many people do have, and with it a false notion of what it means or how you get there. Meanwhile, I was training six hours a day.

FMF: That was during that period, yes. I always dabbled in everything, but I was really deep into those styles then. There have always been phases in my life where I focused on certain styles. I needed variety and got bored quickly. Ideally, I’d master everything perfectly, which obviously isn’tpossible, so I was always jumping around. That actually paid off, because it made me totally versatile. But it was never a deliberate decision; it was more like: this interests me more right now.

FMF: Straight into a dance training program. I always say it was just additional training, since I’dbeen doing it all along anyway. But I wanted a contemporary education, because up until then, I’dmainly focused on urban styles. I thought: Okay, I want to move more into theater, do more contemporary work, immerse myself in that world. So I did the program.

FMF: That one was more conscious. By a certain point, I’d been working as a dancer for a long time, and there was always something that bothered me, something I would have done differently. Then I realized: I can’t keep criticizing others for ideas I don’t think are good. I have to do something different myself. That was the shift. I want to show my own vision, realize my own ideas, and follow my own aesthetic affinities, not execute someone else’s.

FMF: Absolutely. I’d frame it more on a psychological level, the way the dance world operates. Speaking critically from my own experience and that of most dancers: What mattered to me was not wanting to be treated that way anymore, and doing it differently. Many choreographers work together with dancers, but the dancers develop a great deal themselves. I experienced giving everything I had, only for the choreographer to put his name over it at the end. I thought: Wait, that’s not my vibe. What I give, I don’t want to do under someone else’s roof. What really confirmed it was this: I created something, it was immediately taken, and I thought, wait a second, I’m doing this on my own now.

FMF: Totally. It was a process where I realized I want to do this myself, because I’ve already been creating most of the repertoire and my own visual language came through. The artistic ethos and the way of working with other dancers and artists should be different on a human level, precisely because it is a collaboration.

FMF: It’s always different. I have very strong and precise visions and I’m quite specific and perfectionistic about what I want. I know pretty clearly what I want. But the dancers, with what they’re capable of, are of course crucial. Without them, I couldn’t do what I do. It also always depends on who’s involved. If it’s dancers I’ve worked with for a long time, like the people from FMKF, my collective, then by now, it’s a kind of symbiosis, because they know me and I know them. If I say I’d like something a certain way, they’re already moving roughly how I want. And of course it’s a total interplay. I’m very specific in the choreography and instruct my movements concisely; I create the framework and the foundation of the entire piece. But every dancer also brings their own character, and I love that. I don’t want clones. I love synchronicity, but I also love the different characters and the fact that they come onto the stage individually and bring something of their own. It’s a process of give and take.

FMF: Yes, I have a precise idea and I prep. I want everything to be executed with excellence and quality, but I’ve also trained myself not to over-prep. I used to do that, and when something didn’twork out, I’d lose it: bad perfectionism. These days, I try to be more relaxed, because keeping that window open for interpretation and spontaneity is really important. On a day like that, I’m also trying to compress five weeks of work into a single day, which only works with the right dancers. And something else that is really important to me in my work is how people are treated. Especially on set, where it’s always stressful, or in rehearsals, it matters to me that they feel seen, even when I’m telling them very precisely how something should be. I think by now, I manage that quite well, so that they feel valued as artists.

FMF: It was always my trainers who shaped me. There were so many of them, and I switched when something no longer worked for me. But they were truly personal relationships. It wasn’t just someone somewhere in the world I admired from a distance. I also never really thought about dance theoretically or read much about it. It was always physical work. Inspiration came through colleagues, trainers, and dancers I worked with, or through people I met at workshops and training sessions around the world.

FMF: A lot came through conversations among dancers, of course, but I was physically far too busy to be reading much about it. It’s competitive sport; I was focused on becoming a better athlete and just getting better in training.

FMF: It depends. You can apply that to anything. First and foremost, I prioritize substance overhype. I wouldn’t ever say that engaging with dance is a problem; it’s much better than engaging with plenty of other things online. But these trends exist, absolutely, and that’s also down to online culture and social media, which is why I keep trying to do a complete detox. While I appreciate other people’s dance, of course my creative inspiration is shaped far more by influences beyond it.

These trends get boring fast. Something goes viral and everyone rushes toward it. I prefer authenticity over trends. I always think: This didn’t just appear now, I see the reference and there are a thousand other versions of it everywhere. But now, everyone piles onto this one piece, even though there are ten other great ones out there. What bothers me more is that the hype is rarely questioned. The visuals circulating online are barely analyzed or critically examined. Where does this come from, what references were used? I immediately see: Oh, this aesthetic comes from this or that context, and I think, people, do your research. That’s just the curse of social networks. I’m also not even sure if more is actually happening, or if we’re just seeing it more often. Because it’s constantly being shown, you get the impression it’s everywhere.

FMF: These days, I’m guided more by desires than by fixed ideas. These wishes and desires are very intuitive, influenced by life, by personal experiences, immediate observations and events, and sometimes by things that aren’t personal at all. Ideas can be spontaneous, irrational, but still precisely structured. Music and sound are a primary part in my creative practice and stimulate me above everything else. That’s the key mood for everything I do, creatively and especially with dance. I am more engaged with film, surrealism in all its forms, scents, poetry, surrealist poetry, psychology; all of these things influence what I want to create, not visual things I see from others.

The inner processes are shaped by all of that, which leads to new things emerging, or to me feeling stimulated. In dance, I’ve already seen so much. I understand most things immediately. But I’m also making it myself, so it became more an observation of something that exists. I’m always curious, and enjoy being in circles where people are more used to avant-garde ideas, and even though everything has existed in some form before, new impulses still emerge. At some point, inspiration shifts toward other fields. You develop other interests or a different understanding of what you’redoing. I haven’t been doing just “the one thing” for a long time now. I am operating in many fields such as directing, photography and design. I think it’s just a process you go through that can’t really be defined precisely.

FMF: For me, it goes like this: When I’m told to create something, there’s first a storm up here. A thousand ideas in my mind, then I have to limit myself.

Inspiration came initially from the Chanel New York collection. I looked at what the aesthetic was and quickly realized I wanted to create a contrast, because the collection already implies something. You can go along with the aesthetic or set a contrast; I usually find the contrast more interesting than what’s already expected. Through that, I then realized what I actually wanted to create: an emotional atmosphere, something extreme, with a lot of expression, with wind, storm, effort, heaviness. Those were my keywords. You also shared the editorial direction for the issue, and it was quickly clear: women, strong, untamed women. I don’t need to go searching for that; all the dancers I work with already embody it. Then came the question of who to bring on, and from there, the characters I want to create emerge immediately. In parallel, I developed musical ideas, also in contrast to the collection. Everything happens first in my head before I go into the studio. I have an understanding of how things go together that’s purely sensory based, so the music I create in turn influences the visual images I want to realize. And I play with sounds and images until the two ignite each other.

FMF: Naturally, I have musical references that come to mind immediately, and those shape the key mood.

FMF: I actually played the snippets, I think. Those were references for the various emotions I wanted to bring in. I had a fairly broad spectrum of playlists, because each emotion I wanted to convey is carried by different tracks and genres.

Every genre has its own mood, which influences what’s being portrayed. Since I wanted to show a variety of emotions, I played many different pieces, which I then bring together in the final version. I experimented a little along the way: What happens here? Oh no, that doesn’t work anymore, that goes out. Or suddenly, something different is happening than I expected. I deliberately leave that window open for spontaneity and interpretation, and if necessary, I rewrite sections afterward.

FMF: They can be quite varied, to generate different qualities and characters. I write down keywords I give to the dancers. Unapologetic, chaos, dreamlike, self-possession were a few in this case. In group work, which I love to do, I can use that to create compelling images with the bodies. When the dancers bring a variety of emotions into it, I find that especially interesting. So I give everyone different keywords on the day, exactly as I did this time.

FMF: Sometimes I also do it contrarily. If I see that something is happening on the left, I need exactly that from her at the top right. I react spontaneously on set, adjust things quickly, and change instructions at short notice. That’s why I need ultra-professional dancers who can respond immediately. I can say: “Forget what I told you two days ago, I need exactly this now.” Or I switch roles: “You’re playing this role now.” It’s very dynamic.

FMF: I work with poetic narratives rather than with classic stories because for me, it’s primarily about expression. I’m reluctant to prescribe a fixed meaning because that often limits the viewer’simagination. Even I sometimes see something different depending on my mood on a given day. That’s why it’s important to me not to give concrete guidelines, and even when I have them, I’m hesitant to voice them.

FMF: I agree. When it comes to dance though, I’m here for it all. Everything has its place. It’sexpression, and it should also be fun. If you want to let yourself go and throw yourself onto the floor, naked or half-naked, and perform classic forms of sexy-coded movement, go for it. But this alone does not do it for me. It, again, is more about finding interesting contrasts. I, for example, always wanted to move like my male colleagues, also in a sexual way. In the end, it’s all about poise, charisma, and remaining authentic.

FMF: The women I work with are sexy just by being themselves; they don’t even need to express it. When they then consciously do so, it’s often a tick too much, because sexiness for me doesn’tautomatically mean moving in a certain expected way. It’s not about delivering what people already associate with sexiness, but creating a contrast instead. And that’s exactly what I find especially compelling. A rupture. I also like the word “attractiveness” better than “sexy,” and I think it’s much more powerful. Attractiveness is presence: charm, facial expression, body language, walking upright. That alone is enough to seem sexy, and you can go into a lot of detail there. In dance,especially, I pay close attention to moving away from clichés. Even though I find classically clichéd dances totally admirable, in my own work, I always try to set a contrast, to move away from the first association. That’s really my main creative process: thinking about what the obvious association would be, and doing exactly the opposite.

BASHKKA: There’s no mental negotiation. You’re not adjusting or holding back. You just are, and that’s enough.

B: By then it’s more internal than external. You’re not chasing reactions. You’re guiding a shared headspace. That’s where risk feels natural.

B: More than ever. There’s a gap between being welcomed and being centered and you can feel it. It matters when that joy is real, not just aesthetic.

B: A real dancefloor works because people protect it. That’s what makes freedom possible.

B: Spaces are/can be a chapter, but even more so they’re the core. So I stay close by being intentional, who’s in the room, who’s shaping it. Because sometimes the narrative is smoother than the reality.

B: Yes, and I think a lot of us have. There’s been this shift where dancefloors can feel a bit transactional and parties feel performative. INVIGORATE A.M. is my way of reintroducing intimacy into that space slowing things down emotionally, even if the music still moves. It’s about depth, not just intensity.

B: Less Hype. More Hips.

M¥SS KETA:

You’re witnessing it, babe.

MK: I’ve always been obsessed with Miss Bashful, and we finally met at the Prototypes fashion show a couple of years ago. I think we were both hungover, but in Paris, who isn’t?

I think “Hangover Girl” was the perfect match because we both celebrate nightlife without pretending it’s glamorous all the time. The morning after is part of the story, too.

MK: Italy is a country where everyone is watching everyone else. The ‘nonni’ are always watching us, curious or scandalized, often both at the same time.

With Simone Bozzelli, the director of “Hangover Girl”, I share a love for the reactions an outsider can trigger in our conservative society.

MK: “Give me a mask and I’ll tell you the truth,” someone once said. Add to that a few corporate dramas and a little blackmail.

But I soon realized what a blessing it was to remain hidden and unknown in a world where visibility has become an obsession, so I never took it off.

MK: M¥SS KETA was born in Milan and from Milan’s contradictions: luxury and decay, fashion and underground culture, elegance and chaos. I move through all these worlds without belonging to any of them.

Over the years I’ve released five albums (or maybe more, I don’t remember), toured extensively around the world, appeared on television, and collaborated with fashion brands. But I’m far more interested in building a myth than a biography.

MK: I probably would have become a waitress in a bar, with a penchant for debauchery. But it’s still a viable alternative.

MK: Creating a recognizable universe that exists beyond songs. Fashion, performance, language, visuals, irony. I think I created a whole KETA world.

Also, I have a huge collection of Miss Piggy memorabilia, and I’m very proud of it.

MK: A Grammy would be nice. So would a Madonna feature.

MK: Juergen Teller. I was actually supposed to shoot a campaign with him last month, but unfortunately the shooting dates clashed with my Greek holidays.

MK: I’m always cooking up new music, but I’m pretty tired of the album menu. Does a chef always have to serve dinner as “entrée, first course, main course, dessert”? Boring.

So why should an artist always follow the same recipe: “first single–second single–album”?

Let’s see.

Eivind Landsvik:

I think everyone has art in them, but some of us can’t leave it alone. I’ve thought about quitting so many times, but, you know, it hasn’t been an active choice to continue.
It’s just something I do.

EL:

I don’t know. When I started writing this film, I think I was confronting my fear of never being able to make this film. What happens if I have to give up and find a regular job, what would that be? What should I do? That’s what Maja is dealing with in the film. She is put in a situation where she is forced to figure out if there is a life outside of music that is worth living.
In most cases that might seem obvious, but when you’re reaching your thirties, you have sacrificed everything to do this one thing, and… All of a sudden, your identity is more based on what you do or what you’re trying to be and not who you are, and I think that can be very dangerous.

EL:

I try to have low expectations from the get go, but I always have high ambitions for what I’m trying to achieve through my films. I like having those dreams, but then
keeping them grounded. To me, if you don’t have ambitions, this job (as director) will be very difficult. At the same time, I try not to expect anything because I can’t really expect you to like the film. That would be crazy
to me. But, when you do, of course I’m happy. So I’m trying to separate the ambitions and the expectations.

EL:

I don’t think everyone creating art is comfortable with being famous. I’m not famous, but seeing my photo this week in the Norwegian newspapers made me somewhat
uncomfortable. I like the idea of fame. I just don’t want to be faced with it.

Massimiliano Pagliara:

When I first started making music, everything felt like an exciting discovery. I had been in Berlin for about five years, bought my first analogue machines, and spent countless hours learning through trial and error. Back then, I was very focused on the technical side of things, understanding synthesis, sequencing, and how the records I loved were actually made. Today, my relationship with music is much more intuitive. I trust my instincts more and spend less time questioning myself. Experience has taught me that emotion is ultimately more important than perfection. I still enjoy exploring new techniques, but now I’m more interested in creating something honest and meaningful than proving what I can do technically.

MP: Definitely It’s In Your Eyes, the track I made with my dear friend Aérea Negrot. We originally started it back in 2008, and after her passing, finishing it became an emotional journey. It wasn’t difficult from a musical perspective. It was difficult because it carried so many memories. For years, it remained unfinished, almost frozen in time. Bringing it back to life meant revisiting a very special friendship and a creative connection that meant a lot to me. This track is also a tribute to her artistry and a way of preserving a small piece of what we created together.

MP:

There are many different reasons. Some tracks were sketches that I never fully finished because, at the time, I didn’t yet have the skills to realise them the way I imagined. Others simply didn’t fit into the projects I was working on back then. Sometimes music gets left behind because you’re already excited about the next idea. When I started reflecting on twenty years of making music, I went through old hard drives and unfinished sessions. I realised there was an entire hidden story there. These tracks may have remained unreleased, but they were still part of my artistic journey. This anniversary felt like the perfect opportunity to bring all those forgotten moments together and give them a home.

MP: Absolutely. Dance taught me how movement creates emotion and how the body responds to rhythm. Even today, when I’m producing, I often think physically rather than intellectually. I imagine how a groove feels rather than simply how it sounds. As a choreographer, I was also interested in tension, release, contrast, and storytelling. Those same principles apply to music. Whether it’s a subtle build-up, a dramatic breakdown, or a simple bassline, I’m always thinking about movement and how people experience music through their bodies.

MP: A bit of both. Sometimes a track arrives with a very clear atmosphere in my mind. It might be a sunrise after a long night, a quiet walk through the park, or even the feeling you get from a film or a book. Other times, it’s much more abstract. What I enjoy most is leaving enough space for listeners to create their own stories. Once music is released, it no longer belongs only to the artist. It becomes part of other people’s lives, memories, and experiences. I love that transformation.

MP: It gave me the freedom to reinvent myself, both personally and artistically. When I arrived, the city felt full of possibilities. There was a sense that experimentation was encouraged and that people were genuinely interested in new ideas. The city has changed enormously over the years, but I still find inspiration here. It’s not necessarily the same Berlin I arrived in, but it’s still a place where different cultures, perspectives, and creative communities intersect. That exchange continues to feed my imagination.

MP: Collaboration pushes me outside my comfort zone. When you work alone, it’s easy to repeat familiar patterns. Another artist brings a completely different perspective, different references, and different ways of solving creative problems. I love the unpredictability of that process. Some of my favourite moments in the studio have come from ideas I would never have arrived at by myself. Collaboration is a reminder that music can be a conversation rather than a solitary act.

MP: I follow my instincts. I’ve always been a music lover first and a genre specialist second. My record collection has never been organised around strict boundaries, and neither has my creative process. Of course, influences are always present, but I don’t sit down and decide to make a house track or an Italo track. I simply follow whatever feels exciting in that moment. Sometimes the result fits within a genre and sometimes it doesn’t. That’s perfectly fine with me. I try to remain open-minded and I don’t feel the need to define myself through one specific genre.

MP: I think it’s both. Dance music allows us to escape everyday pressures, but at the same time it can bring us closer to who we really are. On a great dancefloor, people often become more open, more present, and more connected to their emotions. For me, the best dance music creates a space where joy, vulnerability, freedom, and connection can coexist. That’s a very powerful experience.

MP: The possibility of surprise. No matter how long you’ve been making music, there are still moments when something unexpected happens. It could be a melody, a sound, or an emotion that wasn’t there five minutes earlier. That feeling never gets old. Every new project is an opportunity to learn something about yourself and discover a place you’ve never visited before. Curiosity is what keeps me going. In fact, just last night I switched on all my machines and started playing a funky bassline on my Jupiter-4. I became completely absorbed in it. Eventually, I recorded it as a MIDI sequence and sent it through the Minimoog and the Mono/Poly as well. Hearing these three beasts playing the same bassline suddenly made everything feel hot, groovy, and full of energy. Moments like that still excite me enormously.

MP: I think joy is essential. Not as a form of denial, but as a form of resistance and healing. We all carry different worries and pressures, and the dancefloor offers a rare opportunity to be fully present with others.For a few hours, people from different backgrounds can share the same space, the same rhythm, and the same sense of possibility. There is something deeply beautiful about that. Joy creates connection, and connection is something we need now more than ever.