Music connects us to a realm beyond thought and logic – to a place where the field of possibility is infinite.
This is the mystery and the bliss of the melodic drum & bass produced by Etherwood, known for his distinctively beautiful and unique production.
What inspires Etherwood to create music that touches the very core of our being? Meditation, forests and nature guide him to “… a really special place I can only access through sitting and letting go. It’s as natural as falling asleep and dreaming. Like writing a diary but the words writing themselves from a place further than we could reach to write them.”
This sense of ‘flow’ that Etherwood feels is cited by many experts as being a foundational pillar for flourishing and thriving in life and contributing to a sense of wellbeing. With wellbeing in the music industry and beyond finally getting the attention it deserves, we were very keen to chat to Etherwood about how nature, meditation, forests and stillness help him write music from a “deep place”, connecting us all through the emotion and meaning of his tracks.
What activities/strategies have you found help you access that “special place” that you refer to?
I started meditating a few years ago and now do it whenever and wherever I can. This totally changed my life and my outlook on the world and the universe. Since then, sitting and writing music has felt so much more natural and I feel like I can tap into an area of my being that was hidden for years. Wherever this creative process takes place for me must be calm and allow me to feel comfortable enough to let go and then the music can begin to flow. I’ll sit and meditate for a short time before I start to write.
You spend a lot of time in nature and travelling through forests, how do you find that this helps your songwriting?
I loooooovveeee forests and being totally immersed in nature and I’m so lucky that I’m able to travel a lot. Without this, I feel as though my songwriting would be entirely different. Inspiration is a difficult word to refer to here but i would say that the times I’ve been most inspired to write is when I’m on my own in the middle of nowhere. Nature has a huge power and an overwhelming sense of innocence and purity and that’s exactly the area we need to find within ourselves to be able to be completely and honestly creative. My last album was all written in a cabin on a little island in Finland and it pretty much wrote itself. I never thought about it, never said to myself ‘I want to write a tune that sounds like…’ it all just happened.
Music inspires listeners to access their own creativity. What are your thoughts about there being a universal creative energy that we connect to in order for the creative process to flow?
I’ve asked myself this question a lot. I remember reading something that Tom Waits had said about music creativity and melody being ‘out there’ and offering itself to us at any moment, even if we’re driving home or doing something ordinary. I personally feel as though we all have so much energy within us that we often struggle to access. Anyone who has been truly in love can feel all the energy bubbling around inside them when they even just think about that other person. Creativity comes from a very similar place for me. We all have that energy inside us but some feel it more strongly than others. Whether or not that energy is universal or individual I don’t know. The thing that can’t be disputed here is how incredibly influential and universal music is, over all other art forms in my opinion. It can make us cry, make us smile, make us happy or sad because it’s been written from such a deep place and in that respect, it connects us all.
Etherwood returns with his 6-track release ‘Lost In The Right Direction’, out June 14. PRE ORDER