Ephemeral Objects —08: Polygonia
Ephemeral Objects —08: Polygonia
There is a moment in Polygonia’s Mixmag interview last year where she talks about breaking free from the “deep techno” tag, and you realize she’s describing something more profound than career strategy. She’s talking about what it means for her to stay alive as an artist. Living relationships, whether your own with music, with a particular scene, or with a cat that disrupts your workflow, require growth, change, and breathing room. Openness is the condition for that growth. The way to honor what you’ve built is to let it have life and become something neither you nor anyone else predicted.
Polygonia grew up a classically trained musician within a family of orchestra musicians while simultaneously spending years bouncing through hip-hop, drum and bass, dubstep, psytrance, jazz, and eventually techno (s/o Freqs of Nature Festival 2018), absorbing them all as different words in an ever-widening vocabulary. This distillation and filtering of styles with a classical music foundation resulted in someone who can code-switch between genres with genuine fluency and fluidity.
You can take a look at her excellent back catalog and see that it’s true, but some of Polygonia’s more recent releases drive the point home. When you hear her tracks on the brilliant “Cross Passage” collab/split EP with techno visionary Wata Igarashi, her 2-step remix for Bristolian bass music vanguard Peverelist’s Pulse VII, and her solo contribution to Japanese techno label Daybreak’s latest comp, it’s made abundantly clear that the more vocabularies you speak, the more interesting things you can say.
In Ephemeral Objects —08, Polygonia brings us 5 items that favor a creative practice rooted in living systems, physical interaction, and natural cycles.
Check out her Bandcamp for all the latest releases as well as the links below!
Wata Igarashi & Polygonia – Cross Passage [Reclaim Your City]
Polygonia – Focus [Daybreak Recordings]
Peverelist – Pulse VII (Polygonia Remix) [Livity Sound]
Polygonia @ Blitz Club, Munich for Mudd Show (
Look closer. Stay a while.
“Object” 1
It’s actually two “objects” and I’d rather call them personalities ;) -> My cats. They are crucial to my creativity. They always manage to give me a quick smile, a soft interaction or a little break as they walk in front of my screen and force me to do something else like giving them food or play with them. Their presence always gives me a very positive mood. Their names are Flocke (German for flake) and Momo. They have completely contrary personality which makes the whole dynamic between them also very lovely to watch.
They round up my desire to have a natural environment in my home, I want it to feel like a tiny forest.
“Object” 2
I’m caring for many plants in my home, also more than one object but important to mention them as a group as well. I have most of them in my (home-)studio – I’ve built long relationships with several of them. I own some since ten years. They give me calmness and radiate a strong energy which connects me to nature.
Since I had to move this autumn, I had to reduce the number slightly. I had to give away two big ones which made my heart ache a bit. But I kept the most important ones and gave them some special positions so that we are in contact every day when I’m in my studio at home.
“Object” 3
Again a group of objects – it’s my acoustic instruments (not all of them included on the pics but some). It is very important for me to have them hanging outside so that I am able to play them at any moment. The haptic feeling which I get from playing acoustic instruments gives me a big rush and satisfaction. The vibration within their corpuses and the beautiful timbres feels like magic to me.
Also, with the instruments it’s a relationship which you build over time. With my violin I have the longest one, we already know each other since around 22 years. I already dreamed of it many times, the worst ones were when I accidentally lost it and was searching for it desperately throughout the whole night.
Also, I’m quite addicted to collecting ancient ones like the Chinese Er-Hu, the Xiao flute or the Armenian Duduk. Every instrument comes with a lot of history and own techniques. It’s super fascinating.
“Object” 4
My mechanical keyboard contributes to the quality of my working environment. I love the sound of it, it’s clicking very softly yet with strong character. I was already thinking of sampling it for a percussion at some point.
I chose the natural design to make it fit with my plants ;)
As I love shortcuts and keyboard control in general, my keyboard has to be on point.
“Object” 5
I got this little Totoro in Japan when I visited the Ghibli museum. Their movies are some of my very favorite movies since I’ve been a child. There is so much wisdom yet so much playfulness to find, kind of trippy as well. I feel as if my music was definitely also very inspired by their sound tracks and general aesthetics. Surreal yet emotional and full of little details.
It connects me to my Asian roots (I’ve always watched all the movies in Chinese actually) and adds to the nature touch as Totoro is also a creature which is directly connected to nature. It’s the main character of a film which carries its name, directed by Hayao Miyazaki, an absolute genius.