Breakfast with Rhye

Michael Milosh and Robin Hannibal are the musical duo behind Rhye, debuted in 2013 with the album Woman. On a very warm summer day, Mike invited us upstairs to his Los Angeles flat tucked within a sun-speckled garden complex, the minty building exteriors casting a cool glow over the encircled trees. We spent a long afternoon inside the apartment – it was too warm to be outside or keep the windows ajar – which he shares with his fiancée, and which is home to a cabinet of collected cameras, a bedroom recording studio, two sweet dogs, and a uniquely resilient guinea pig. Mike is warm, open, and excitable – an artist with whom conversation is easy and unencumbered. He is keen on sharing his experiences and enthusiasm and learning from others, too. Over a serving of perfectly prepared egg sandwiches given new life by a spread of sweet blackberry jam, Mike told us stories of his time spent abroad, being inspired by phenomenology, pursuing intimacy, and living forever.

DC

Your guinea pig! I love guinea pigs.
MM

Yeah, it’s actually crazy how long he’s been living really.
DC

How long has he been living?
MM

Like double the expected lifespan of a guinea pig.
DC

Really. Okay. What’s the secret?
MM

Well. I’m not sure exactly, but you different there. I knew the farmer and I was eating the meat from his farm. I was eating the cheese from the cheesemaker himself, and I get here and it just felt so different. I drove by that farm, Harris Ranch, and it was just heavy.
DC

I’ve heard about this. But you can get all of that that you got in Holland here, know, he eats only organic vegetables! too. And it brings this other thing to light – you know, what you eat… how is it affecting you? You know – for example, you really shouldn’t eat sugar... Sugar is the worst. And yet we do.
MM

It’s so good, but it’s so bad! And that information is just kind of becoming real for more people outside of a smaller niche of interested people.
DC

Have you ever tried not eating any sugar?
MM

No! Still wrestling with the reality personally.
DC

Okay, it’s really addicting. It’s so addicting.
MM

Well… On that note, should we eat something? I’m actually the best egg chef in California. It’ll be good.
DC

Oh wow!
MM

Do you want to know about the technique of this fried egg?
DC

Yes, absolutely. Are you willing to divulge the secret?
MM

Alright. Yes. Here’s why. No one understands that you also need love when you’re cooking. If you don’t put love into your cooking, it just isn’t as good. So, yes, I can share it. The key to the fried egg is you have to steam the top. It’s the simplest thing. I cook the veggies and that releases water vapor – and it is amazingly simple and perfect.
DC

I like this idea of the love being a critical ingredient, I have to say.
MM

It’s why I don’t love eating in restaurants that much. You never know who’s cooking it or what they’re thinking.
DC

That must be hard when you’re touring! What about friends’ places? Isn’t that the best for that reason?
MM

Oh way better. That’s good.
DC

Are you a foodie, do you think?
MM

I really like food. I like cooking food. Risottos and pastas mostly. Things that take time.
DC

There’s a romance to food that takes time.
MM

Yeah. I used to cook a lot of meat, but I’ve since become a vegetarian, so none of that anymore. I got really into exploring more about my food when I came to the US. I used to live on this farm in Holland, and it was just so different there. I knew the farmer and I was eating the meat from his farm. I was eating the cheese from the cheesemaker himself, and I get here and I just felt so different. I drove by that farm, Harris Ranch, and it was just heavy.
DC

I’ve heard about this. But you can get all of that you got in Holland here, too.
MM

Totally. It just led me down the path of exploring more about meat, and I moved away from it.
DC

It’s interesting how different the food cultures of different places throughout the world are.
MM

Yeah. I lived in Thailand for a while, and it wasn’t a rich thing there, but I had a chef. It was like $30 USD a month! She was 60 years old and she’d get all of the Thai prices on everything, so it was actually really smart. And she would cook, but only with really thin slices of meat in the food – the focus was more on the flavors that it added. The rest was vegetables, whatever else. That started the shift. And you know, I kind of want to live forever so…
DC

Oh yeah? Okay, I want to hear more about this. Go on…
MM

Okay. So, the idea is that your cells work off of frequencies in your mind that tell them when to age.
DC

How old are you?
MM

I’m 39.
DC

Yeah, okay, you look much younger than that.
MM

Well, I have my secrets. My grandma was a witch doctor. I feel like I’m into this concept of never dying. When she was 94, she broke her neck after falling out of her bed. She broke her first vertebrae. The doctors told her she was lucky she wasn’t paralyzed. She gets out of the hospital after being on bed rest recovery, and goes on this binge of eating tons of animal fats, boiled pine needles and fermented alcohols, and staring at the sun for like, 8 hours a day continuously. She healed herself.
DC

Wow. And here we are back to this idea of what you eat is super important!
MM

Yeah. It gets challenging when you’re always traveling.

DC

I imagine. What’s one city you really love that you’ve spent time in?
MM

So have you been to Berlin? To me, that’s an amazing city. It doesn’t have the hectic feeling [of London, or New York]. It has a chill vibe. Hey, do you want this blackberry jam maybe? It’s homemade. Nothing in it but fruit. I get it from the farmers market over here…
DC

Ohh. Salty and sweet. Perfect. Yes.
MM

In Berlin, people have more freedom to do what they want with their lives. It’s not quite as expensive. My apartment in Berlin was 300 Euros a month and twice the size of this! Right across from a park… The way you look at life is so different.
DC

You can afford to say no, I imagine.
MM

Yeah, you can be like, wow, I don’t need to do anything commercial. I can just play a couple of shows, pursue my art.
DC

How nice.
MM

Do you want some truffle salt, too?
DC

I don’t love truffles! I know that’s crazy. I taste it in my nose. I know that’s crazy.
MM

No, that’s what it does! It’s very, like, Neanderthal. You feel like you’re…
DC

Eating with your face?
MM

Yeah, like you’re a dog. It’s kind of weird. The flavor is a little animalistic.
We sit
DC

This looks amazing.
MM

Thank you! Awesome. Enjoy. Sorry it’s so hot in here. It’s too hot out to even have the windows open!
DC

Summer in Los Angeles… So okay, how long have you been here?
MM

I came to L.A. to live on October 6th, 2011! I’ve been here ever since, though this last year I was barely here as we were on the road a lot.
DC

What’s been your experience here?
MM

It’s funny. Everyone in Europe is so into Los Angeles right now. I think there’s lots of good, creative stuff going on right now here. Food, music, film. You know what’s crazy about L.A. I think it’s really progressive on a lot of levels, and I think it has a lot to do with the sun. Its movement from the East to West makes you kind of think, I don’t know, ahead, into the future or the unknown. There’s also, I think because it’s really expensive, it raises the bar a little bit, in a good, competitive way. You can’t be lazy here. In L.A. you can find musicians that are really talented, that show up to rehearsal – they take it seriously. It’s a transaction; it’s a commerce, in a way. I’m more socialist I think, but it’s very effective for getting things done. And yeah, it’s a very materialistic town, it is, but I feel like a lot of people still feel that strong connection to the earth here. The lack of seasons messed with me at first!
DC

Oh yeah – passage of time can get confusing. But you attune to it.
MM

You become more sensitive to those subtle shifts and moments in each season. I feel really nourished by the sun and the earth here. If you want to talk on an actual cosmic level, I feel like there is an actual vibrational shift taking place in Los Angeles right now and that’s the cause for the creative outpouring.
DC

I think I have felt that. And I certainly know others agree with you.
MM

I think you can feel it. I mean, the Earth is a resonant body. You can attune to its energy.
DC

So it’s different everywhere you go.
MM

Yeah. For me, music I think ends up feeling a little happier, a little more hopeful [in Los Angeles]. You know, making music in Berlin, it was very like, dreary and downcast. I made a whole album in Berlin that I threw away. It was like 20 songs.
DC

Was it when you’d left Berlin that you felt that way towards it?
MM

Yeah. It was gloomy. It made me feel heavy. If you record your albums in different places, it’s better than a journal entry. You can feel the place in the music. I’ve recorded albums in a house on a beach in Thailand, in Montreal, part of one in Copenhagen. When I hear the songs I made in Thailand, I can smell the ocean there. It was interesting with the Rhye album, which we made here. We recorded it all in a bedroom.
DC

This bedroom?
MM

Not this bedroom. But another bedroom. I don’t like studios really.

You know what’s crazy about L.A.? I think it’s really progressive on a lot of levels, and I think it has a lot to do with the sun. Its movement from the East to West makes you kind of think ahead, into the future or the unknown.

DC

You know, I don’t think your music sounds like music that would be recorded in a studio. There’s that intimacy.
MM

Yeah, studios are sterile. Every time I go into one I’m thinking what it’s costing me every hour, I’m looking at the clock. There’s also a deadness, because they over treat the room so it doesn’t sound… I don’t know. There’s only one studio I’ve ever been blown away by and it was in Berlin. Called Funkhaus. It was designed by East Germans for propaganda. But they made this studio that is just the best stuff I’ve ever seen.
DC

The equipment.
MM

Yeah, like the microphone, that I was singing in… and the microphone that I used, I was like, if I were to buy this… and he was like “No, no one can buy this, this is like a $2M microphone, at least.” And there is one of these and it is not for sale. I was like… “oh.”
DC

“You’ll just have to come back!”
MM

Exactly. The walls move so you can change the arrangement of the space and alter the sound. If you want more acoustics you can open the wall. It’s crazy. And it’s kind of falling apart.
DC

Oh, in a beautiful way?
MM

Yeah, in a beautiful way. And the floors are this amazing wooden herringbone design, it’s amazing.
DC

Did you record any of your albums there?
MM

Some things that I never released. I want to go back. But I’m doing a record right now, and I’m doing it here.
DC

Right here?
MM

Yeah! You can see it if you want.
DC

Awesome. Hey can we go back to this idea of intimacy in your work?
MM

Yeah. So for me, intimacy by its very nature is to be shared by a very few. It’s this idea that I am constantly trying to bring across in recordings.
DC

You feel that when listening to the music.
MM

I personally feel it’s really important to put music out into the world that has its birth in real moments that I personally experience. It’s why I won’t do covers, they aren’t my experiences.
DC

That must take some self control though.
MM

Something real that is birthed from a real moment carries a vibration that can be felt, if the listener is open, in a way that just doesn’t come across from fabricated or forced endeavors in music. For me, my biggest inspirations are the moments in my life that have moved me in a special way.
DC

That makes sense. But it lends to your music a real element of you. And it’s being shared with us. That’s special. So are you touring soon?
MM

Yes! I think one was just announced yesterday actually. We’re doing some festivals… I’m also trying to work out this show in Denmark. I’m in talks with this symphony to do a whole show with them.
DC

Oh wow.
MM

Yeah, we’re in talks.
DC

I’ll keep my fingers crossed for you! How many people do you usually perform with? The sound of your music is so lush. I always wondered that.
MM

I just had like 9 people backing. Usually I have 6 including myself, I didn’t want to do like 20 people. I always want to maintain that intimacy. We didn’t have an opener. We had those globes – I got these LED balls and had them all around the stage.
DC

Oh, I can imagine it.
MM

Have you seen James Turrell? Yeah. The same LED technology in those globes that he uses… so its just cycling really subtly through colors.

DC

I loved that exhibit at LACMA so much. Did you see it?
MM

I went 3 times!
DC

Oh. So you were a fan.
MM

Yeah. What really struck me was the peacefulness of the work even though it is all very grand. Some of the installations, though somewhat intimidating at first, had me lulled into this beautiful grind. Almost a subtle reversal of my senses tipping inwards. It was beyond introspective – it was an almost gentle examining of my self through this experience. It felt both cathartic and uplifting. His work kind of serves as a reminder to me that we see the world through a culmination of our own individual senses. Have you seen the crater?
DC

No! How can you though? Is it open to the public?
MM

You make a donation… but it’s tax deductible! And then you’re having dinner with James Turrell... in the crater! He was a really nice guy. A gentle soul. Him and Olafur Eliasson are like the two artists… he does very phenomenological stuff like James Turrell. He deals with time a bit more. He turned the TATE Modern into a sunset.
DC

The whole light and space movement is pretty spectacular. I like what you said – a peacefulness despite a grandness. That sensorial experience is so fascinating.
MM

Did you get to do the Perceptual Cell?
DC

Yes! I loved it.
MM

We lucked out and got to go after hours and spend an extended period of time in there. It made no sense how amazing it was. The whole fractal universe of it in there was just, it was incredible. An unbelievable experience for me.
DC

Yes. I felt like I wanted to float in that purple-lilac color forever.
MM

For me, he is so inspirational. For a long time I was doing shows with no light at all because I wanted people to have their own experience of the music. I didn’t want people to see who I was, I didn’t want people to care. I want to create music that produces both an uplifting and cathartic response in the listener. The sparseness of Turrell’s work, or the exactness of Eliasson, seemed to highlight the experience of their art for me, or to heighten the intensity of my feelings towards it.
DC

Hence the sparseness and simplicity of your live performances?
MM

Yeah. It’s why for the first run of shows I performed only in candle light, so there was little if anything to distract the listener from the music and the feelings in the songs. Due to fire codes… this is somewhat impossible to continue with. However, the idea that that feeling can be induced in someone is something that I’m really interested in. I would like to be, as performer on stage, something like a conduit for an inwardly moving experience for people in the audience, with elements leaning towards the mystic.
DC

I think you go to an almost trancelike space. And the music becomes a kind of distant, intangible element that produces this emotional response. I like that.
MM

I’ve started doing some subtle light since then. Those gentle movements through color that become hypnotic in an unobtrusive way. I want to do what James Turrell does – something that is only backlit, like that huge purple room in the LACMA exhibit!
DC

Should you ask him to see if he’ll do something for you?
MM

Yeah, I mean…
DC

What if he’s like, well, no one ever asks me!
MM

I could. That would be…
Laughs