HARPEMONIA

November 2022. The Internet. 1 cold room 2 the other, Acea shares some thoughts and a new track alongside his latest release "Hymn". Although he seemingly disappeared from the internet a few years ago, he's finally back in full force with some new music, stories and plans.

Acea, a prolific musician/producer/songwriter, with achievements such as production work on Yung Lean's studio output of the mid/late 2010's and an EDM mainstage banger under his belt, is ready to tackle a new beginning. But no one really overcomes all the hurdles life sets out for them.

Where do you hail from?
I was born in Stockholm! I have moved around within the city a lot, but the home that has been the most permanent home during my life has been my grandparents house out in the countryside north of Stockholm.. It is a farm where we used to have all kinds of animals, we even had a lamb who lived indoors named Filippa.

We did NOT eat her when she died, I promise!!

Would you ever want to live elsewhere? Regardless of whether it'd be permanent or temporary. I’d love to have my own house somewhere built from an old ruin, maybe in Italy or Portugal. I used to want to live in the US but it’s too big for me. It feels too unfamiliar. I really like living in Stockholm because of all the restaurants, friends and my family. I’m with a friend almost every day. If it weren’t for that, I’d probably wanna live in the countryside. I guess I really dislike cities in general. I’d rather give a speech in front of 200 people without a script than walk on a crowded shopping street.

When did you start with music? What influenced you to start in the first place? I started producing music because a friend in school was really cool, which I also obviously wanted to be. It didn’t originate from a spiritual connection to art or the need to express myself like it seems to be for many musicians. To me it’s just something to do really. I could’ve worked with anything or done anything and be content. That has been one of my “issues” when it comes to making music, because I don’t feel (and never have) this divine calling to make it. I admire people who cook, work in accounting, grow food or design video games, and I genuinely feel like I would’ve been happy doing any of those things. I recently saw a documentary about oyster farming and now I feel like I should’ve done that instead lol. Maybe the point is that there are good things and bad things about working any job. How I listen to music is kinda similar too, I have never been into a narrow type of music like some other producers I know are. I know producers who *only* listen to club music and also *only* make club music, which makes it kinda easy for them to do what they do, and you can’t really do everything so it feels like that kind of personality is the best type you can be to become really successful at what you do. On the opposite end, I like all types of music very equally, and when I say all types I genuinely mean all types. My playlist goes from Squarepusher to Alex G to Burial to Kurt Vile to Faye Webster to Vegyn to Pigbaby to Kanye to Blaze Foley to Digital Underground to Taylor Swift to Quasimoto to Sun Kil Moon to Kal P. Dal to Young Thug to The Shitlickers to Dean Blunt to Snail Mail to Erik Enocksson to At The Gates to Basshunter to Lifelover or to Billy Strings, it’s a mess really. It’s just really hard to stay consistent with what music you make when the mix of things you listen to is too chaotic. One day I want to make jungle, another trance and another outlaw country. Very often I’ll just end up making nothing instead since I can never make up my mind and commit to something. It's just very incompatible with an "all or nothing" mindset. It basically becomes hard to just make something based off of that, and creating in a vacuum is definitely not easy either. If I’d only loved hip Hop, it would have been really fucking easy to put out a lot of music. If you heard my radio mix from last year, you’d understand what I’m talking about.

But I guess I’m just really happy that I listen to music again because in 2018-2020 I basically didn’t even listen to music. Dark times!!

How has the world wide web affected your music and career?

The internet was the engine in a way, because of websites such as Soundcloud and forums/blogs where I used to read about music. I wanted to be a part of that. If it wasn’t for that sense of community, I would’ve never started making music. But at this point I really want to burn the internet down and make a new one or something. Social media has made it into such a contest that it has basically become unusable, and that mindset has spread from the internet to real world. You can REALLY feel the tension all the time. It’s just so uncomfortable. Instagram was at least good when people posted pictures of their cereal in the morning. Now it’s just indirect (consciously or unconsciously) brandbuilding, all the time. It’s all about this “persona” whether or not it is just for the webs or if people really live life that way. It creates an exhausting environment nonetheless. That is why I admire musicians who don’t bother being online, just living their lives. It’s unfortunately a privilege for artists who already had an audience pre-internet. They can just keep living outside of it, but if you’re building yourself up in 2023, you almost have to be online. It kinda feels like the internet in a way forces you to be a narcissist in order to keep up. On the other hand, it’s also such a lame thing to be “anti-social media” when it really is what you make it into. I guess I haven’t figured that out yet.

Looking back, is there something you would've done differently? Oh, there are many things that I’d do differently if I had to do it all over. I wouldn’t be so stuck up and convinced that I was the best. I’m obviously far from it which took a while to realize.. speaking of narcissism. But I’m happy that I think in this way now because that means that I have changed and I would never had done so if I hadn’t experienced those things. I can’t even imagine what kind of person I would’ve been if I hadn’t got slapped in the face a couple of years ago.

How did you get in touch with Yung Lean for the Frost God sessions? I got in touch with him through our mutual friend Ivan, and it all started out with me mixing some songs for Lean. He then asked me to be his engineer and it went from there. I think we recorded Hennessy & Sailor Moon on the first day. At first, It was really fun and exciting, but the circumstances of my life at the time were both chaotic and bizarre. I wasn’t in a good spot as a person either so it all fell out. On top of that, I moved to New York during the fall of 2016 which in retrospect was a huge mistake, both as a producer and as a person. The fallout of moving from Sweden really contributed to the way I felt at the time, which was really bad. Then, all the things that happened between us, including the things I did and said that ultimately led to the falling out of my friendship with both Lean and Woesum, is the stuff that I initially was really angry about. I woke up every day and felt wronged. Today however, I would absolutely be “on their side” of this whole thing, because I agree with them on basically every point. The things I was called out for that is. I was an idiot to be honest, and I’m glad that I feel that way now since it means that at least something has happened inside my head.

Can you share anything about any projects you are working on behind the scenes? It's been a few years without much new Acea in our ears.

The fact that I didn’t put out any music for a really long time is because I had a bit of an identity crisis from 2017-2020. I even went to school to study philosophy for six months, and I did some small jobs here and there, naively thinking I knew everything about politics and the world. Mostly I felt sorry for myself, unfortunately that practice doesn’t net you any cash so I had to figure myself out, so I took a job as a graphic designer which was really good for my head. As I said before, I didn’t even *listen* to music during those years. Now I make music and play tennis every day and I can’t even imagine life anymore without those things. But we all go through our own shit and hopefully we can grow from it. I’m just really glad I went through it and that I can confidently say that I love making music again.

When it comes to projects, I have my music with Saffran, who is an absolute boss. When it comes to my own music, I have thought about it more than actually doing something about it. I’ve been back and forth about how to go forward with it, and I’ve decided to just put out music independently through my label Sundogs as I make it. I guess I need time to find out what works and what I like instead of forming a pre-determined plan on how to go about with things, so I’ll just start throwing things out in the coming months. I don’t want to make it as a business, which being a marketing machine on social media would be. I really need to focus on the music instead.

What are the last 3 songs you added to your iTunes?

The last three songs in my library are Yves Jarvis - Bootstrap Jubliee, Loke Rahbek & Fredrik Valentin - Beginners Mind and DJ Spanish Fly - Cement Shoes.

Two honorable mentions are pigbaby - Palindromes and Ayla - Ayla (Taucher Remix).

Hymn is out now: