As I’m sure you know, earlier this year we welcomed the wonderful dokxid to the focusonthe family.

I spent some time with dokxid, asking her a selection of questions to help you learn more about her and her musical influences!

What inspired you to start making music?

Music was that one creative area that I was always scared of, and I never gave it a chance at all in my entire life. But after trying out making digital paintings for music I had heard, I listened to these little efforts and ear candies more and I felt like I really wanted to know how to make music to really appreciate the music I’m listening to.

That’s why I started and I started regretting the fact that I was always scared of making music because everything looked so complicated, because everyone I knew was kinda gatekeep-ey about it and everything looked so elitist and intimidating. ITS SUCH A FUN HOBBY LIKE DRAWING AND PAINTING, but the difference being that you can also progress by closing your eyes and let the music influence you to find the next steps to incorporate more of yourself into the project. Everyone should AT LEAST try to make music, that’s why I make music and try to maybe inspire people to make stuff like that too!

What’s your favourite album of all time and why?

My all time favourite album is “Karuki Zāmen Kuri no Hana” by Sheena Ringo (stylized: 加爾基 精液 栗ノ花 by 椎名林檎).

Overall the album really showed me the art of not settling for a genre and arranging tracks so they make up for an unique listening experience. It also has so many catchy memorable melodies but with a dark undertone, but also so many frustrating melodies with happy and uplifting rythms and arrangements.

Also it showed me a lot about using vocals as an instrument instead of just conveying lyrics and meaning to the track. Also the importance of silence, sudden cuts and contrasts between the tracks AND parts of the tracks. I’m still amazed that this album came out in 2003 especially with its production quality and weird picks of sound and instruments even though it has such a huge pop feel in it.

I remember hearing this album for the first time had made me feel okay and in peace for the first time being weird and different. I have a lot of emotional connections to this album. hehehehe

Your first full length project “have you ever thought about moving to another planet” released early this year. What were your inspirations during your creative process?

“have you ever thought about moving to another planet” is about an innocent human creature on their journey to overcome their safe space and explore the world to find purpose and meaning for themselves; Maybe even to find inner peace living in this universe.

This concept idea made me think about how I and others confront this topic, how to cope, and how little control we actually have in our personalities and changes to them.

The universe is big, so why not just run away? Being confronted about trauma and self inflicting thoughts will just remind yourself of your own fragility of your existence and you will get sucked up forgetting about the beautiful things the world have to offer.

But the above mentioned beautiful things are out there! Ready for you to be explored at any time, yet there are so many bad things to ingest that you have no control over. How far will you go? Is it really worth it?

This whole concept was the perfect setup to do make distorted and frustrating vocals and drums; With lots of contrasts and heartfelt, uplifting and hopeful guitars, synths and pianos, driven by 12 months of experiences I had while working on this album.

My inspirations for my chosen sound for this album were:

Welcome to the label! Is there anything you’re looking forward to as a member of the family?

First of all, thanks for giving me this chance to represent a part of focusonthe!

I feel like I still am really new in this music scene, because I only really opened up online personality wise in early 2023 with my focusonme release “have you ever thought about moving to another planet”.

But I feel well here and I want use this platform to inspire as many people as possible to give making music / drawing a try before succumbing to mean people and bad thoughts!

What plans or visions do you have for the future of your music?

I plan on including better sounds via better sound design, more vocals with voice synthetizers and using this platform to learn and include concept arts and visuals.

I really want to include more things to accompany the listening experience, but I also don’t want to ruin the listeners’ ability to make their own individual interpretations.

So be hyped for my next official full length project on focusonthe! >:)

Thank you dokxid for taking the time to answer these questions! I hope this can give you further insight into her creative process and inspire you to listen to some of dokxid’s past releases!

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