Lisa Ullén transcript

I’m thinking I could talk about how I got into creative music
considering that I have an education as a classical pianist.

I wasn’t listening to experimental music when I was 5 years old.
I wasn’t that kind of child.

But music has always had a big influence on me, since I was very young.

I think my first proper musical experience was probably when I was in a church
for Julotta.
That’s where you go to church very early in the morning after Christmas Eve.
The cantor played an organ piece that was just a massive experience.

I thought it was really, really incredible.
So it was a sort of influence, or it made a big impression.

And I listened to music a lot when I was young.
But after my education, I left the music scene because I had a child.

I thought that I just wanted to be a mother.
[laughing] It’s true.

Maybe this sounds really pathetic… [laughing]

After studying I had my first child
and that’s how it’s been throughout my career
that I had a child and then I left the scene,
came back, then I had another child,
and it’s like starting over all the time

But during a particular period,
I got very curious about what was happening at Fylkingen
this was a place that I knew about, but hadn’t been directly involved with.
I did something there in the early, stumbling years of my career
but – then it was like I went there and listened to almost anything
as soon as I had some spare time after my kids went to sleep
so it could be on a Wednesday or a Thursday.

So in this way one got exposed to the music
and it could be anything from electronic music to performance art,
arrangements by members, or productions by Fylkingen.

So it was a very ‘mixed bag’ so to speak.
But it also means that I got some kind of inspiration
and a sort of platform for trying to formulate and articulate
what I wanted to do myself.

Even though it was quite far away from what I was listening to there.
Because I was more into, how to say,
contemporary music, experimental jazz and improvisation.

But this probably meant quite a lot to me, or it did mean a lot to me.
To have, as a musician and composer,
the possibility of trying things out before anything is finalised

and maybe not even knowing where it will land,
or what the final product, or end result will be.
And there I could see that Fylkingen was this kind of a place,
where one could present things that weren’t finished,
because I had seen many productions like this myself,
and it was also a way to
while spending time in such an environment, one also becomes…

I also became inspired to keep investigating my own work
and also to be able to present things there which weren’t entirely finished.

Also, at that time, I didn’t have an instrument at home
so I could also be there and practice.
And this was of course a huge and important thing as a pianist,
to get the opportunity to play on a grand piano.
And this also meant that I could spend time there…
to sit there playing, working,
and meeting other artists and musicians informally in this way.
So absolutely

I think that all the music I make is constantly sort of in development
at least I hope so in any case
…and that it isn’t finished in any way
even if one decides to maybe make a record or something
it is a continuous, eternal process of testing one’s way forward.
Sometimes it can be very frustrating
to just want to be finished with certain things and leave it.
At the same time, it can also be quite comforting
that it never becomes finished in some way
but rather that one gets periods of continuing to explore and try things
that one is thinking around
and how to resolve them in a musical way.