Diversity Of Silence // Loner

In the wake of their latest 3-track ambient EP ‘Loner‘, we asked 28 year old producer Diversity of Silence to send us a few words surrounding their background, musical inspiration and their haunting new release.

My name is Nawid Salimkhani I’m 28 years old and I’m based in Cologne, Germany. I make ambient music under the name of ‘Diversity Of Silence’ since 2014 or maybe two years earlier, but started focus on my sound around 2014. I often get inspired by photography, films or visual art in general and night walks.

I like it to capture the mood of something I see with music. I’m also trying to find new textures and sounds to capture that mood. To show how that could look and sound like I started a Series on Instagram called ‘Capture The Mood Of…’ where I make short music snippets to the work of photographers I like.

I can spend hours on sound design. For my music I mainly use real instruments, field recordings and create my own ambient sounds or textures with everything I can found in my household or outside.

For my EP ‘Loner’ I designed all the sounds on my own except of a virtual piano and some drum samples for the track ‘Loner’ but I’ve also added percussive elements with things I could find in my kitchen. I’ve also recorded different instruments for example the duduk (Armenian Oboe), Flute, Bass Recorder, Guitar, Bass and field recordings.

On my Track ‘Anxiety’ you can also hear atmospheric sounds in the background, which is basically me rubbing a pencil over my table and put some effects on it. And playing short notes with duduk and recorder.

On my Track ‘Nostalgia’ I’ve played the flute with a lot of atmosphere. I don’t play the flute virtuously, but I like how it sounds. I’m also no multi-instrumentalist, because most of the recordings are edited and I don’t play the instruments very well. I just like to get on an instrument and jam with it, so I’m not always programming on my pc or playing on keys, that way I come up with new ideas and sounds.

The EP is about the feeling when someone realize that he/she is alone (Anxiety), then the moment of not wanting to admit, where the person fight against that feeling and tell them self that they don’t need someone (Loner) and finally where they realize what a great time they had with people surround them (Nostalgia).

With my music I’m trying to create rooms/spaces in which the listener is guided through atmospheric sounds and different textures. I think why my tracks carries so much emotion and sorrow and evokes a specific mood is because how I get inspired. And until now I got mostly inspired by melancholic art or night walks in abandoned places. But maybe some day I get inspired by something else with less melancholic feeling and darkness..

Artwork illustration by Jonas Wapenhensch