Niven discusses creative process ahead of EP launch show in London

How did the EP come together?

I wrote Dragonfly last year over the course of three months. I see it as a collage of sounds created from my own hardware and digitally altered Foley recordings made during my long commute across London I took almost daily.

How does it differ from what you've done before - what does it do different?

I was aiming to explore darker sounds in this EP than my previous release, Manta Ray. Dragonfly was built completely from the ground up, with almost all of individual sounds you hear designed by myself. The focus this time was much more on creating a complete body of work than on creating individual tracks. There are recurring sonic themes such as the scuttling, semi-random percussion parts.

What side of the project do you feel it shows best?

I leaned away from the more song-based music I have created in the past in favour of more sound design-based structures with melodies and more complex beats layered over the top.

Can you explain more about lead single "Heart Click"?

"Heart Click" began through a modular synthesizer patch that generated its bleeping, twisted, and high pitched sounds that run throughout its four tracks. I love the unpredictable and natural sounds made by modular synthesizers but I wanted to tie these into something more traditional than the random bleeps they’re famous for. Through layering in a repetitive chord pattern and beat, I slowly built each track into crecendos that in many ways serve as a climax for the whole EP.

What do you find is the hardest part of the whole writing/recording/composing process?

I initially found the process of developing my initial idea into a more worked out structure difficult. I have hundreds of loops and sounds in my archive that could form the basis of a track but these rarely get developed into more complete works and even more rarely get finished. I usually come back to these ideas weeks or even months later, redeveloping them to move into the next stages.

How do you know when a song is finished?

I have a bit of a habit of tweaking things indefinitely. I usually reach a point where I am completely bored of a track, naturally moving onto something else. Now and then I return to something I’ve worked and decide it's good enough to put out or decided it needs to played to nobody. Ever!

Are you often working towards a defined idea when you write or is it more spontaneous?

I usually let things grow organically. Once I get further into a possible track, I end up with something that begins to take shape a begin to slowly refine it into something more structured.

What should we expect from the launch show?

For my live show, I hope to reimagine and reinterpret the versions of tracks I’ve already released with a blend of ideas that I’ve only created to perform live. I think Archspace is one of the best venues in London at the moment. The sound is fantastic and one of the best places to see electronic music in the UK right now.

Why are the visual elements so important?

The visual element of my live show has been created in collaboration with visual artist Emily Bailey. She creates hypnotic glitched-up visual madness that will take the live show to a whole other level. Emily and I have worked together a lot over the past few years and she also looks after the visual element of my own night SPHERE.

What's next for Niven?

For Niven, I am totally focused on live shows at the moment, so I’m not trying to get too far ahead of myself. I have recently finished off a couple of new tracks that I’m thinking of putting in the set next week and will hopefully be looking to release them in the not-so-distant future...