When I’m in the process of creating an EP/album, I don’t like any outside influence whatsoever, though my girlfriend will still be playing her meditation music and I’ll hear stuff on TV shows and movies. When I’m in between projects, I listen to as much as possible, but not usually anything in the same vein as my own stuff. This is a fairly new process for me but it helps me create things I haven’t heard before and there are obviously (unavoidably) years of different influences in the back of my mind.
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Daniel Avery’s stuff makes me want to stop listening and start playing…(hahahaha, that sounds like a burn, it is not a burn, I like his stuff and often put it on, but for some reason it reminds me I could be making musics.)
Susumu Yokota and Tangerine Dream always make me want to turn on a synth 
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Jeff Mills jamming on a 909 is pure fire for me.
He doesn’t just make me want to turn on my gear and make, it makes me want to practice like nothing else has.
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Sounds lame but updates and things like firmware upgrades always get me intrigued and switching things on.
Music-wise, for me it’s always not what I think. I’ll be on a tip for a certain genre or something and it’ll bend off in another direction before I even know it. Nothing like Shuffle on your music collection to just throw you a curve ball and rinse your palette. You think you’re onto something, and then some other music just completely grabs you totally unawares…
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This might seem like I’m kissing ass but honestly for the past half a year or so the biggest musical inspiration has been the awesome eye/ear-opening thread linked below. In fact, it’s a kind of logical extension to the fact that the biggest inspiration throughout my (creative) life has come from having close friends who are active musicians and/or otherwise creative people (like writers). The whole synth thing is also still so fresh to me (started in spring '19) that I find it inspiring just switching on a synth.
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I can’t fully watch a docu about a certain artist teling why and what their doing, their studio tour and workflow. It’s not about a particular album but the way people talk about their passion.Mosty i got so much inspiration and lust to fire things up my self. Same applies for visiting some festivals or gigs, after a couple of hours i wanne go home to make stuff myself.
List goes on and on
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Digitalism, they way they mix the codes of electronic and rock/pop always impress me.
Honestly, listening to other people’s music almost always puts me off turning on my gear and playing.
I’m much more inspired to make music by visual stuff, I like trying to recreate a feeling that certain images conjure in me with sounds.
If I’m in a particularly creative/productive patch, I will actively avoid listening to other people’s music, as it will inevitably put me off my stroke and make me start questioning/comparing the music I’m making, usually leading to some sort of impostor syndrome, ending my ability to make anything worthwhile for weeks.
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Strangely enough, this guy
Although this type of music is usually not my cup of tea
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Lil B, original, pushing boundaries and not polishing up for no one
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Thinking about it (again) it’s crazy how inspiring music and tools came in play with such impact, in so “little” time, from the moment i decided to try hardware devices with a “shy start” getting the Model:samples, to this day as i’m considering Make Noise or Soma Labs for future gear, because of known artists or Elektronauts.
In summary, these changed everything within a year :
Jupiter 8 Vst
Disasterpeace
@Eaves
The Digitone
FM Synthesis
Hélène Vogelsinger
Bump to @Omar post : Baseck
Bump to @korpinen post : Current Sounds coming from your Gear Thread
…especially @trytykee 's material.
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Skinny Puppy singlehandedly made me save up for my first sampler and start producing. It was like a whole new world of sonic possibility opened up to me and I wanted to be a part of it.
Over the years may other artists have pushed boundaries that made me want to create, like (in no particular order) Autechre, Severed Heads, Massive Attack, Stakka&Skynet, Blush Response, Thom Yorke, Front 242, Burial and so many contributors to this forum.
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John Coltrane
Autechre LP5
Colleen “Captain of none”
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I read this topic earlier today and have been kicking the idea around all afternoon. Ultimately I think people who make music that is unlike the music I make inspire me to want to make things.
- Jim O’Rourke makes me want to process sounds through hardware synths (yes, modular, but I don’t really have modular)
- Simon James (aka The Simonsound) makes incredible, skewed, organic (largely beatless) things with his Buchla. There’s an air of Radiophonic-ness about it that I love - especially his “Two Knocks For Yes” (under the name Black Channels) and his soundtracks for the Akiha Den Den podcast radio drama
- The Books / Nick Zammuto stuff make me want to sample ALL the sounds & then process them through random household objects whilst chopping up random recordings from cassettes I find in charity shops (I never find cassettes in charity shops, alas, which is why this is a non-starter)
- Hainbach, musicking with non-music things, is often very inspiring, although maybe part of that is his infectious enthusiasm / sense of wonder regarding sound
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FSoL, usually does it… there was a while where I couldn’t listen to a BoC album without stopping to make a track.
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There’s a LOT in that short set, great stuff!
Always. Still chucking out original ideas to this day:
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I get more inspired by live sets & performances, since that’s what I focus on trying to produce with my kit (When I can be bothered to do anything at all that is):
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That Disrupted set sealed the deal on my ideas about getting into Elektron gear.
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…i always have my ears in the global underground/subcultural progress of ALL kinds…
and i’m aware of the fact that overall popculture is the fastest medium of whatsoever art might and can be when it comes to signs of their times and natural evolution…
but it’s pretty rare, that i’ll find and have the time and muse to dive into some certain artists piece of work…
if i listen…i really ONLY listen…
while most of the time i pretty much avoid realtime influence from all sonic outsideworld…
to stay always in most possible focus on what’s my next mission…
therefor, in those rare moments, when i just wanna fill the room with some sonic background, i’ll end up with classical music…
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