Oine shapes poetic electronic worlds where analog synths, field textures, and emotional precision meet—and Gen Human is his most focused statement yet: compact, intense, and deeply human at the core.
Introduction
Q: For those who don’t know you yet: how would you describe yourself as an artist today—and what role do sonic storytelling and emotion play in the way you write and produce?
Oine: These are difficult questions to answer. For me, making music is tied to a long-standing search: the feeling of awe in front of something I’ve created myself. It’s something that has been with me since childhood. I remember experiencing it while building spaceships or structures with Lego—those moments when something imagined takes shape and, in a way, surprises you.
I find it hard to identify with the label of “artist.” It feels less like an identity and more like a process: exploring, experimenting, and getting closer to that feeling.
As for sonic storytelling, there was an experience that deeply shaped my understanding of composition. I went to see a Cirque du Soleil performance, and I was struck by how, between scenes, the actors and technicians would subtly transform the stage through small changes in lighting, objects, and positioning. If you weren’t paying close attention, you would barely notice that you had moved into a completely different scene and narrative.
That idea has strongly influenced how I approach transitions in my tracks: gradually altering small elements in an almost subliminal way until, without realizing it, you’ve entered a new phase of the piece. I aim for that shift to feel fluid, organic, almost invisible—yet with a clear emotional impact.
Q: You have classical training as a pianist, yet your music lives in the space between ambient, downtempo, and experimental electronica. Looking back, was there a defining moment when you realized you wanted to tell stories through electronic sound rather than more traditional forms?
Oine: My earliest conscious memories are tied to music. One of the first I can access is of myself at around four or five years old, listening to ABBA before going to sleep on a small portable radio I kept in my bed. I remember my mother coming into the room to ask me to please turn it off.
My deeper approach to music came through a structured education—first in music schools and later at the conservatory, where the focus was mainly on the classical repertoire. However, I never lost my fascination with contemporary productions—hip-hop, metal, and the IDM of the time. I always had an ear searching for sounds that felt different, yet still worked, to the point where I developed something close to an obsession—not so much with music itself, but with production, and with what makes each artist, each genre, and each track sound unique.
I think it was precisely because of this that moving into production felt like a natural step. And it still does today, driven by a clear purpose: to find that balance between musical content and a truly distinctive sound.
Latest Work
Q: Please introduce Gen Human in your own words. What is this album to you—and how would you like listeners to approach it?
Oine: Gen Human is my attempt to take my production one step further in terms of maturity. Until this work, I felt my music had a somewhat naïve quality—an almost childlike resonance. I don’t see that as excessive self-criticism; rather, I understand that there was a part of me that needed to express itself in that way.
With Gen Human, the intention behind each track was to project perhaps a more adult, more restrained version of myself… although I’m not sure I can fully define it.
I would like listeners to come across my music almost by chance and, in that encounter, discover something original. I don’t think there is an ideal way to listen to it; any approach is valid.
Q: The title Gen Human is described as more than a name—it’s a statement of intent, a search for what is essentially human. What emotional or conceptual thread did you keep returning to while making this record?
Oine: The album title came after it was finished. In reality, there is very little “human” about the narrative of the record in a literal sense: there are no vocals processed to the point of sounding non-human, and hardly any passages or instrumentation that evoke earthly landscapes.
In that sense, Gen Human almost works as irony, or even as the identification of something that is, paradoxically, barely present within the album itself.
I found it interesting that a visual artist created a video for the track Inside, one of the singles, where different robots appear and no humans at all. I think that approach captured well a part of the essence that led me to create the album.
Creative Approach
Q: This album shifts the balance: tension, rhythm, and force move to the foreground, while your ambient side remains present. How did you shape the contrast between the brutal and the subtle, the technological and the organic, so it still feels like one coherent world?
Oine: I appreciate how you describe what you found in the album; in a sense, you’re putting it into words that feel very close to how I would like to understand it myself.
The short answer would be: I don’t fully know.
I suppose the premise was to try to build a sonic flow that could feel recognizable to anyone in terms of order, continuity, coherence, and sequence—even if the elements that make up that flow are not necessarily familiar to the human ear.
Nature, from our perspective, manifests itself as both brutal and subtle at the same time. I imagine that part of me wanted to translate that same quality, but through non-natural components.
Q: A core decision was brevity—no track exceeds 3:44. What did this limitation change in your writing and editing process? And how do you keep depth when you deliberately remove unnecessary material?
Oine: Many of the tracks were originally longer. My wife, who is Gen Z, always gives me the same feedback whenever I show her a project: “Make it shorter.” And, in part, I took her advice.
I’ve also noticed that my own attention span has decreased over the years, although I’m not sure whether that’s due to age or the way we consume content today.
I wanted to embrace that reality rather than resist it and concentrate the tracks’ intensity and informational density. For me, it was actually a fun process: shortening the pieces, refining what was essential, and working on the transitions between sections in a way that could remain engaging while still bringing a sense of surprise.
Personal & Creativity
Q: The album is inspired by a very specific aesthetic universe: brutalist architecture fused with nature, plus sci-fi and the narrative worlds of Hideo Kojima. How do visual references like these translate into concrete musical choices?
Oine: During much of the album’s production, I was playing several Kojima games, including entries in the Metal Gear series and Death Stranding. His visual and narrative universe has deeply inspired me since I was a child.
I think what draws me most to his work is the blend of mystery, technology, and a certain sense of human decline that runs through many of his stories. I feel that Kojima builds worlds and moments that disrupt our understanding of reality, both aesthetically and conceptually.
I would say that this same philosophy is what I tried to translate into Gen Human: the creation of environments where the organic and the technological intertwine in strange, sometimes almost unrecognizable ways, yet still coexist within the same sonic space.
Q: You split the album into two energies: four ambient pieces and five more rhythmic tracks. How did you decide which ideas belonged to which side—and what connects them emotionally?
Oine: I imagine that the intention behind intertwining both energies within the album—without separating it into something like a rhythmic “side A” and an ambient “side B”—was rooted in the idea of inhaling and exhaling throughout the record itself.
The goal was to balance moments of expansion with more intimate ones, so the album could feel like a living organism, constantly breathing and transforming.
Q: When self-doubt or creative silence shows up, what helps you move through it—especially when you’re aiming for such precise, distilled forms?
Oine: I suppose this is where one of the biggest conflicts I have when making music comes in: on the one hand, there is the urgency to finish the tracks, and on the other, what that very urgency ends up doing to the music itself.
What has helped me the most in moving through blocks and refining the work has been precisely introducing a kind of internal mantra: “Calm down, there’s no rush; tomorrow, or whenever it comes back, we’ll continue working on it.”
Inspiration & Listening
Q: Which artists or albums have inspired you most recently—and what did they unlock in you creatively?
Oine: The usual suspects for me would be Max Cooper, Rival Consoles, Janus Rasmussen, Jon Hopkins, Arca, Skrillex, Catching Flies, Low Roar, and Reid Willis, to name a few.
I’d say they all share a certain refusal to settle for what is already established, along with a constant drive to push further into newer, more personal sonic territories.
Q: If you could recommend one piece of music—any genre—that everyone should listen to at least once, what would it be, and why?
Oine: Enigma by Thomas Lemmer and Oine.
Creative Philosophy & Vision
Q: Your work often balances intuition and technique—granular detail, but also emotional immediacy. When you’re producing, how do you know when to stop refining and keep the raw emotional truth intact?
Oine: I’m a bit surprised by some of your questions, because when I try to think of the answers, nothing really comes to mind immediately.
I suppose it’s not so much that I stop refining, if that makes sense, but rather that I keep refining until the emotion appears—or until, in the process, I end up completely dissolving it. The latter actually happens quite often: many discarded ideas within projects are due to this.
Sometimes an idea captures an emotion in its most initial state, but when I try to give it a more finished or refined form, that emotion disappears, and the material stops making sense within the work. In some cases, this has even led to abandoning entire projects.
Q: If there were no limits—no budget, deadlines, or technical restrictions—what would your dream project be right now?
Oine: This is a question I’ve often asked myself. I suppose that in this case, my dream would be to take on almost the role of an editor or assembler: bringing together multiple artists or instrumentalists to create my own libraries of all kinds of sonic elements, and then building tracks from that material.
I would also like to work with arrangers who could shape and refine the structure of the pieces. In that environment, my role would be more of a creative director, guiding the overall process and the project’s broader vision.
What you mention about giving it a visual identity would be truly enriching, as well as being able to rely on people specialized in music promotion, so that the work could reach the people who might actually enjoy the project.
From Silence to Sound – Creative Identity
Q: I often explore how personal decisions shape a musician’s signature sound. Which choices do you feel most strongly define your sound?
Oine: I imagine that what I enjoy working on the most—and what ultimately ends up shaping my sound—is building sonic structures in terms of the positioning of elements within space.
Sometimes I try to imagine sounds as solid entities within that space, as if a sculptor were working with physical matter. Other times, I feel more like someone sculpting air and vibration. In both cases, the intention is the same: to shape the audio, to construct geometries and forms out of sound.
Q: Looking back, what were the biggest turning points that changed how you make music—and how did they shape the mindset behind Gen Human?
Oine: I’m not sure to what extent my industry experience has actually changed the way I make music. I suppose they must have had some influence, of course, but I feel my evolution is more the result of a gradual maturation process.
Over time, I’ve gained more experience, discovered more music, and become clearer about how to achieve the sonic results I’m looking for. In the end, it’s a matter of years spent dedicating time and passion to music production, which gradually shapes and refines the language—sometimes through addition, by layering new elements, and other times through subtraction, by removing what isn’t necessary.
Closing
Q: Gen Human is described as an album that breathes identity—not built to fit trends, but to speak honestly. What do you hope listeners feel or take away from it?
Oine: I would love for the listener to find my proposal interesting, to feel something new when listening to it, and to sense that there is a clear intention to present something different behind it.
I hope it can work as a space that activates imagination, that invites the listener to build mental scenarios, and that, in some way, can inspire something in whoever listens to it.
Q: Finally, what’s next for you after Gen Human—do you feel drawn to push further into rhythmic territories, go deeper into pure ambient, explore more conceptual storytelling, or open a completely new chapter?
Oine: The reality is that I don’t know. The album received very good reviews in certain circles, which was gratifying for me, but it was also quite difficult to position within genre-specific contexts and playlists. It is a genre album that, paradoxically, doesn’t fully fit into any genre, which made its promotion more challenging.
I suppose what I feel drawn to now is to ground the conceptual side in something more identifiable or classifiable, to reach a wider audience as well. It’s important to explore one’s own limits, but it’s equally important to allow works to find recognizable spaces from which they can be heard.