It’s difficult to work on music while the sound of nocturnal rain drifts through an open window: to me, the rain at night always sounds better and more interesting than any music ever made.

A guideline for music-making: “Does it sound better than evening rain?”

Against the subdued soundscape of the night, I’m currently finishing my new album (titled ‘Pulses/Radiance’), developing an accompanying piece to Monday Morning in Lagos (the idea of exploring street voices as musical source), and making a recording of Future Forest Space, the generative installation music that I made for Radio Forest in Klankenbos, Neerpelt (the recording will become part of their permanent soundscape collection).

“This universe is truly a magnificent spectacle, and needs to be mirrored.” -Björk

Recently I came across this comment by Björk, in an interview in which she was reflecting her passion for music and future dreams (you can read the interview here), and I felt suddenly greatly elevated – experiencing that feeling of Idiot Glee or “sheer mad joy at the world” as painter Peter Schmidt put it. Now, I think this would make a good guideline for economics and politics too, to mirror the magnificent spectacle of the universe instead of the tiresome waste of intelligence and life’s potential in the form of power struggles, ideologies and profits.

Listening to the nocturnal rain, most of the problems in the world appear so unnecessary, just pure waste of that intelligence and potential. And all of this waste while we’re living inside this wonder that is the universe.

With the rain comes a scent, a fresh smell of trees, plants and concrete. How extraordinary is that, one might wonder, in a universe so infinitely empty and lifeless?