Sound Magnet Records presents our Origins Mixes & Interviews series, featuring mixes & stories from artists across divides, with music and themes inspired by their city of birth, current cities, or places they reside in, spanning artists and mixes from all over the world.
For mix no. #009 we have a mix by Prishtina, Kosova and Tirana, Albania-based electronic artist ecotonal.
Listen to ecotonal’s “Origins” mix on Soundcloud:
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Sound Magnet Records. Origins 009 // ecotonal by Sound Magnet Records Sound Magnet Records |
Listen to ecotonal’s “Origins” mix on YouTube:
ecotonal is the moniker of electronic artist Norbert Pijls. ecotonal uses modular synthesis and field recordings to create textures and generative compositions that take inspiration from nature's form and patterns. The interlacing of field recordings and synthetic sounds invites the listener to (im)possible landscapes.
Hi Norbert! It’s a privilege to have you on our Origins series. Let’s get started with the questions!
Where do you consider “home,” and how does that place live in & shape your sound?
“My home is in many places. I originate from The Netherlands and have lived and worked for the last 20 years in various Eastern European countries, mostly in Kosova and Albania where I live nowadays.”
“My music project ecotonal reflects this: the ordered calm and straight lines of The Netherlands, and the untamed spirit of Kosova and Albania, where nature and culture run wild and unorganised. As ecotonal I make field recordings from hikes in the alps and forest of the Western Balkan and colour them with electronic sounds. ecotonal creates impossible landscapes from structure as well as chaos. Neither one nor the other, both at once.”
Which artists/music scenes/mentors/records shaped your ear early on?
“ecotonal’s music is inspired by a meeting point between experimental electronics, environmental atmosphere, and cinematic composition rather than by one fixed genre tradition. The strongest reference points come from labels and artists that dissolve boundaries between ambient, industrial, electroacoustic, and imaginary soundtrack music.”
“An early inspiration was the Made To Measure series from the Belgian label Crammed Discs that was released between 1984 and 1995. The series consists of about 35 releases of instrumental, ambient, experimental, and soundtrack-oriented music. The series focusses on music designed for specific contexts and environments. It inspired me to think spatially and contextually about sound, creating a sense of place within music.”
“Another important inspiration is the music of Jon Hassel. It showed me a fusion of electronic and traditional sounds, of music that transcends cultural and geographical borders. Hassell’s blending of ambient textures with world music is reflected in ecotonal’s sound, particularly in the way it merges field recordings with electronically generated sounds.”
“David Toop’s work as a writer, musician, and curator in ambient and experimental music has further increased my sensitivity to sonic environments. Toop’s explorations of soundscapes, improvisation, and the relationship between nature and music have helped shape my appreciation for organic audio textures and anthropological sound exploration. David Toop’s writings and recordings encourage a deep listening practice, which is central to ecotonal’s ethos.”
What’s a turning-point city, or place (or gig or year) that shifted your musical direction?
“A formative moment for me was at the age of 17 experiencing a sound installation at the Trajecta 87 exhibition in the Eurohal in Maastricht, The Netherlands. The installation consisted of a rotating carousel-like construction with amplified objects that generated an immersive landscape of mechanical and spatial sounds while the audience sat around it listening. It made me realize that sound could exist far beyond conventional music, as texture, movement, environment, and physical presence. It was an entry point for me into the vast world of sound art, experimental composition, and electroacoustic listening that would later become central to the atmosphere and philosophy of ecotonal.”
“A second decisive moment came decades later during the COVID lockdowns. Around that time, I had bought a synthesizer and started working with Logic Pro, suddenly finding myself with an unexpected sea of time to fully immerse myself in music-making. I also discovered VCV Rack and began studying modular synthesis intensively, following the work and courses of Sarah Belle Reid and Omri Cohen. Week after week I built and patched virtual modular systems, exploring generative structures, evolving textures, unstable rhythms, and ambient sonic environments. These sonic experiments were combined with self-made video material from hikes and travels through Kosovo and Albania: mountains, roads, landscapes, weather, ruins, and border regions which I distributed through social media as audiovisual sketches. Out of this convergence of experimental sound, modular synthesis, landscape, and memory, the first album of ecotonal gradually emerged.”
About the mix, describe a track or track(s) in the mix that feels close to your origin story. Why that or those ones?
“I have selected works that have a shared sonic language: slow-moving, atmospheric, and geographically ambiguous music that feels suspended between memory, landscape, and ritual. The pieces by David Toop, Jon Hassell, Peter Principle, and ecotonal all inhabit a liminal space where field recordings, distant voices, drifting harmonics, tape-like textures, and sparse rhythmic gestures create imaginary landscapes rather than conventional songs.”
“There is a sense of wandering through abandoned coastlines, forgotten villages, deserts, mountains, or urban ruins. The music is intimate yet dislocated, ancient yet synthetic. The music feels less composed than unearthed, as if transmissions from forgotten cultural edges are slowly surfacing through fog, static, and time.”
“A piece that resonates strongly with me is “Slow Loris Versus Poison Snail” by David Toop featuring Jon Hassell. The track moves between ambient composition, imaginary ethnography, environmental sound, powerful percussion and abstract storytelling. It unfolds like an ecosystem of textures, fragmented rhythms and suspenseful atmospheres. Jon Hassell’s solo trumpet dissolves distinctions between organic and electronic, ancient and futuristic, local and imaginary.”
“Like the works of David Toop and Jon Hassel, I am interested in atmosphere, natural patterns, transition zones, and deep listening: music as ecology, composition as searching and listening as immersion.”
Talking about gear & producing process, what are your go-to instruments, hardware and/or VSTs & how has your process evolved from your first releases to now?
“During 2023 and 2024, I mainly made music with VCV Rack, an environment of virtual modular synthesizers, where I spent a lot of time experimenting with different modules and learning modular synthesis. Over time, the setup became more focused around a few key elements: a chord generator, an arpeggiator sequencer, delays, reverb, and a saw oscillator shaped with modulation, phasing, and ADSR envelopes.”
“A sampler was used to bring in field recordings from hikes in the forests and mountains of the Kosovan-Albanian Alps, giving the music a strong connection to landscape and atmosphere. Another important sound source on the first album was the Befaco Noise Plethora module, which added gritty textures and unstable layers of noise to many of the tracks. With this set-up I made my first album And You, Oh Trees, So Lofty.”
“In the summer of 2024, I moved from virtual modular systems to hardware. My hardware setup has continued to evolve over time. Some modules became central to the ecotonal sound: the Oxi One sequencer and Oxi Coral oscillator, the Starlab reverb from Strymon, the Doepfer phaser (that mimics a 1974 phaser), and the Rossum Assimil8or sampler. I also process sounds through pedals such as the Mood and Generation Loss from Chase Bliss and the Microcosm from Hologram Electronics, which add looping, texture, degradation, and spatial effects.”
What’s inspiring you right now in music & outside music?
“Nowadays, I am very inspired by Sounds of the Dawn, a platform and radio series that explores forgotten ambient, new age and experimental music from the 1970s to the 1990s. A lot of the music on this platform was released on small labels or homemade cassettes, often combining synthesizers, nature recordings and calm repetitive structures. The music is less focused on rhythm or songs, and more on creating a certain atmosphere: quiet, reflective and connected to landscapes, memory and ethereal sounds.”
“I am also inspired by Florigenix, an audio visual artist who travels around Australia in a camper van with a modular synth setup and records modular synth patches in the places he visits. Forests, rivers, rain, birds, insects or distant background noises often become part of the music and videos itself. I like the way his tracks feel connected to real places and moments, instead of sounding overly polished or studio-based. His use of modular synths is very open and intuitive, with explorative and creative changes, small imperfections and evolving textures that make the music feel alive. His approach has influenced my own combination of field recordings, modular synthesis and improvised pieces that grow into immersive soundscapes.”
What’s next for you in 2026 & the coming years?
“With the new hardware setup slowly completing, I am planning to begin recording a new ecotonal album in the coming months. The project will explore sound shaped by hardware synthesis, field recordings and live improvisation. At the same time, I am considering collaborating with an acoustic solo instrumentalist. I would like to develop a live set built around a dialogue between electronic textures and the intimacy of a single acoustic voice.”
“But this is only one of many directions currently unfolding in my head around ecotonal. These ideas are drifting like unfinished sketches waiting for the right season to emerge.”
ICYMI, here’s ecotonal’s Origins mix (again):
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Sound Magnet Records. Origins 009 // ecotonal by Sound Magnet Records Sound Magnet Records |
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Spotify:
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ecotonal Artist |
BC: https://ecotonal.bandcamp.com/
YT: https://www.youtube.com/@ecotonal6774
Discogs: https://www.discogs.com/artist/17477497-Ecotonal
FB: https://www.facebook.com/ecotonal0
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/eco.tonal/
Tracklist:
[00:00 - 09:17]: David Toop Slow Loris versus Poison Snail – Virgin Records Ltd/1996
[09:17 - 12:11]: ecotonal: Bubbles – Demo recording/2026
[12:11 - 24:17]: ecotonal: Accursed Mountains (Excuse Me, I Am Lost) – Red House Records/2024
[24:17 - 25:07]: Peter Principle: Sub-Lunar Folly – Crammed Discs/1988
[25:07 - 26:48]: ecotonal: Glass Insects Breaking Light – Demo recording/2026
[26:48 – 35:08]: Jon Hassel: Paris II – Intuition Records/1987
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