Interview: Rumore
interviewsIn this edition, we speak with Rumore, a Bucharest-based artist whose ambient explorations evoke distant memories and introspective moods. With a background in minimal techno and a growing passion for field recordings and drone, Rumore’s music is both personal and poetic. He shares how his creative process is guided by emotion rather than routine, and why absence can be just as powerful as sound. Join us as we dive into the quiet tension behind his sonic world.
General info
Artist Name: Rumore
Age: 45
Location: Bucharest, Romania
Social Media / Music Links
How long have you been making music?
Since i was 17, so since around 1997-1998. Back then, my interests were related to a different genre of music, not ambient. I'm making and experimenting with ambient music since 2018.
Do you release music under a label or independently?
Independent
Creative process and inspiration
What drew you to ambient music in the first place?
I've always been interested in electronic music, at the beginning techno-minimal and eventually in more experimental forms of electronic music. Slowly, I became more interested in drone music and also field recording, both sectors related to ambient music. In fact, I would say that what drew me to ambient music was a sort of need to escape from the area of music with voice, text and lyrics, the same reason that made me consider classical or instrumental music.
Later, after I started making music myself, I learnt to critically question this longing for dissolution of boundaries and to experiment with breaks and supposed genre boundaries. However, I am still interested in the stories within music - I have actually become a storyteller myself.
Can you describe your creative process when starting a new track?
My process is somehow in a constant change. I have steps that I always consider, while some other aspects are more improvised and adapted depending on the situation. I would say that most of the times the very basic input is starting a jam based on a sample, field recording or on something that caught my attention. From there, I start to built a structure around that input, searching for harmonies or other elements suited to blend in.
Where do you find inspiration? Emotion, nature, science fiction, or something else?
From both my immediate surroundings and my interior reality. I use to say that my music production and my tracks are an attempt to transpose the "background music of my thoughts" - to transpose a sort of personal and intimate sonic footprint. I search for elements I empathize with, appropriate them and blend them into a bigger picture. I think we all have a personal sonic vibration, a vibe that accompanies us throughout our lives, one not necessarily musical but which we try to translate into music.
How would you describe your sonic identity or the mood you aim to create?
A lofi, dark-romantic and melodic register. Most of the time, I try to create (or recreate) music that sound as if it's coming from afar, like when you're walking on a beach and hear music in the distance, blurry and unrecognizable but still somehow familiar.
Are there any artists that deeply influenced your style?
From the very beginning, I adopted a particular approach in relation to other artists. I avoided to listen to many artists, in fact, I followed and search after very few. I tried not to be influenced by other artists' production, and to see where my production would go without such influences. By doing this, I later came to realize how some of my productions ended up being extremely close to those of other artists I had never heard of, which confirmed to me that ideas float in a sort of common cloud that walks above the heads of several people. I truly liked the workflow behind the works by Alessandro Cortini or Iancu Dumitrescu's spectral music, among few others.
Gear and setup
Are you using hardware, software, or a hybrid setup?
I'm mostly using hardware. Beside Ableton, everything I use is a tactile piece of gear that I can put my hands on. Yes, I'm fully aware that many times, by software, I could reach the same results, but I prefer to have a physical approach, like playing an instrument.
What’s your favorite piece of gear or plugin, and why?
I really like the Plinky synth module, which I use as stand-alone module (not inserted into a modular / eurorack structure) and the Chase Bliss MOOD II pedal. I find them both very suited to my workflow, very good in order to reach the harmonies I'm looking for. The Plinky has a quite powerful granular engine and a sort of "native sadness", a specific timbre which gravitates around deeper and sad sounds, which I like.
Challenges
What’s been the biggest challenge so far in creating ambient music?
To detach from the idea of being successful, gain followers or sell many albums on bandcamp or whatever other platform. Since the beginning, I was already aware that my goal wasn't about financial gain, likes or praise. My sonic/ambient journey is meant to produce a sort of empathy. Lets say that I needed some time in order to recognize that to me and to continue my productions in a more sincere way.
How do you stay motivated or inspired when you're in a creative rut?
Sometimes it's best not to force things, to let them settle and happen in their own time and rhythm. I could never approach music as an office job, to be done daily in a set schedule. At least for me, the music I produce is a type of reaction, one directly related to other aspects that are happening in parallel and that, eventually, push me to compose. At the same time, there must be moments of breathing, of silence, between production sessions. Time when things settle, metabolize and you have more capacity to consider them with a different kind of discernment.
Is there anything else you’d like to add?
I would just like to add that sometimes absence is more relevant than presence, as happens, for example, in architecture, when we talk about negative space. Absence comes with a kind of tension, and tension makes things work, like the mechanism of a clock that works due to the tension assigned to a spring.
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