ib: How would you explain your music to a deaf person?
I play electric guitar and sing, Steffen plays drums, Nikola plays keyboards, samples and bass on the keyboard. The music is a mixture of folk, rock, electronic elements, pop and punk. Live it sounds more rocky and powerful than people expect! It´s dreamy and powerful. Soothing and relaxing.
ib: What is your vision for yourself as a musician, if you have one?
I want to get further into different styles of music, I´m very interested in the process of producing on the computer and in electronic music. I’d like to learn more about it.
On the other side I´d like to get more people involved in the project on stage. Like flute and harp and percussion and bass. And to have dancers and performers would be a dream. I´d also like to record the songs I´ve written this year and last year with an analog recording machine.
As a musician I would like to do a couple more records, maybe also try different projects and styles. And get worldwide recognition. The problem for Berlin artists is that they often get stuck in Berlin and Germany. I´d like to find a way out.
ib: With which other bands would you like to go on tour or to play together with?
Of course it would be a dream to open for one of my heroes – Cat Power, Bill Callahan, Blonde Redhead or Leonard Cohen
ib: Tell us a little about Solaris Empire.
I started the label in 2007 with my first release “Future Air Hostess”. Since then a lot of Berlin acts and artists from all over the world have released their albums via Solaris Empire. Such as Bernhard Eder from Austria (his 4th album is coming on November 9th), My Sister Grenadine (Berlin), Dan Freeman and The Serious from Tasmania, PJ Harvey Tour guitar player Giovanni Ferrario, Grimmon and Marta Collica (John Parish/Hugo Race) from italy, Lasse Matthiessen from Kopenhagen, JUNES and The Legendary Lightness from Switzerland, Toni Kater from berlin, and some more.
Solaris Empire has an extremly artist-friendly label concept that gives the artist much freedom and independence and helps them to grow with a bigger network. I don´t do any CD pressing , I only work with finished products, but prepare the infrastructure of label, distribution and promotion for the release. Artists can sell the CDs on their gigs and on their websites on their own bill, and this gives them a lot of freedom and independence.
I built up the Solaris Empire Label as a home for many interesting and great artists from Berlin and all over the world. My dream is to grow and find partners and a worldwide network.
Kitty Solaris in indieberlin interview
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