Interview: Confusions

Based in Columbus, Ohio, Confusions has been crafting immersive soundscapes for nearly 20 years. With a background in music therapy and a love for analog textures, they explore vulnerability, memory, and emotion through sound. Influenced by Brian Eno, The Knife, and Conny Plank, their process is both playful and deeply intentional. In this interview, they share thoughts on gear, inspiration, and the importance of letting go during creation.

General info

Artist Name: Confusions

Age: Early 30s

Location: Columbus, OH, USA

Social Media / Music Links

benturneraudio.com/press
confusions.bandcamp.com/album/vocoder-chorus

How long have you been making music?

About 20 years.

Do you release music under a label or independently?

Label

Creative process and inspiration

What drew you to ambient music in the first place?

I wasn't always aware of it, but playing with distortion, repetition, and sampling in my early experiments was about grounding myself.

Can you describe your creative process when starting a new track?

Practicing disregard of inner criticism. I go through a process of improvising and listening back where I have a reaction. I'll often work with organic textures I create with drum set, Wurlitzer organ, microkorg, bass guitar, electric & acoustic guitars. I also use a lot of field recordings from treasured times. Rainy afternoons, performances, woods. I'm into speed and pitch changes, both the glitchy digital modulations, and the smooth analog modulations. I reamp a lot of my sounds to the point of sources being unrecognizable.
I give myself a chance to find a place in the landscape for every idea, even if almost inaudible in the mix. I try to be as playful as possible and then find meaning as it comes. I'm both releasing attachment to something and learning about something I enjoy and want to hear. It's probably no surprise that Brian Eno and Karin Dreijer are my primary influences.

Where do you find inspiration? Emotion, nature, science fiction, or something else?

I have a background in music therapy and I think that's always helped me explore vulnerability in music. Putting myself into new situations. I'm inspired by the fact that life is uncertain too. I'm trying to make as much music as I can however long I'm alive. I feel a pull to it that I won't ignore. It is both my fear of dying and my acceptance of it. I also find a lot of inspiration in well-fitting collaborations, and artists with varying catalogs. I have always read the title of The Knife's album "Shaking the Habitual" as an expression. I'm finding inspiration in loosening the hell up and letting go of illusions.

How would you describe your sonic identity or the mood you aim to create?

Fluidity, acceptance, & place.

Are there any artists that deeply influenced your style?

Conny Plank, Eno, Harmonia, Animal Collective, Mira Calix, The Knife, Fever Ray, Can, so many to name. 

Gear and setup

Are you using hardware, software, or a hybrid setup?

I have always loved the onboard effects on Roland samplers. For a long time I exclusively reamped through those and never used plugins. Now I use a combination of Pro-tools plug-ins for analog delay, the Moogerfooger simulations, and pitch/speed effects. 
Everything starts with as clear of a source as I can get with microphones, pickups, or other inputs, while still being playful. I love sm57s in my DIY sound-treated space, a ribbon mic, and the built-ins on Zoom field-recorders. These all present me with a level of clarity and fidelity I can really dial in and I've been able to build it slowly with a limited budget. 
I also love recording sounds in unconventional spaces too. Recently I've been messing around with recording reverby drums in a garage, applying gate, and and then modifying the speed of those tracks. 

What’s your favorite piece of gear or plugin, and why?

SP404SX. This tool allowed me to understand music composition in a way that works for my needs. There are parts of it I understand and other parts I've never explored with it and don't know how to use. But I have a processes with it live and in studio. I feel confident I could create an album exclusively with that hardware and a dynamic microphone. 

Challenges

What’s been the biggest challenge so far in creating ambient music?

Deciding what becomes more of a poppy, melodic, character exploration song, or what becomes more of a fluid landscape. I definitely explore the spaces in between those too, but sometimes it isn't always clear which direction I'm headed. I've turned ambient to pop and pop to ambient, through addition or stretching. I usually don't know exactly what I've made until I find a thread of connection. Even if I have to create those connections, I think that can be an empowering exercise. I'm more and more comfortable with not knowing what a song is while I'm working on it and savoring the process of it revealing itself.
Financial constraints, trauma, fascism, and a culture that puts everyone and everything into a box can sometimes be tough on the spirit to create, but those are also the things I'm trying to confront in my art. It's always about feelings for me and sometimes those are challenging in this culture.

How do you stay motivated or inspired when you're in a creative rut?

The rut is sometimes about expectations for me, but I have an active practice of letting them go. Eno interviews have been great reminders to go back to the archive. Go back to something I put away. Or start with drums. Record a bunch of takes, then listen for something. Call in a collaborator. Set a poem.

Is there anything else you’d like to add?

Creating ambient music has helped me way more than self-help books.