Heft is the ambient project based out of Yangon, Myanmar. Established in 2018, Heft’s aim is to connect with people through his musical expression, which is an extension of himself and his story.
Heft recently premiered his track ‘Me, You and Pinnacle of Us‘ through The Playground, a taste of his characteristic “electronic cosmic music”.
Ahead of his performance at Butang Terbuka, we are pleased to present an interview with Zwel Mun Wint aka Heft.
Hey Zwel, how are you and what you are up to today?
I’m good and I am writing music as usual and pretty excited to say that the second album is getting to be finished.
What is your earliest music memory?
It would be that my dad brought to me Micheal Jackson DVDs and Bryan Adams Live In Japan DVD. It totally hooked me up into music a lot ever since.
How did you get into creating your own music? What keeps you inspired?
Long story short, I was a metal vocalist and I hate waiting the whole band to finish the instrumental parts and most of the time were me, having a lot of frustrations on excuses, situations and delays. Then I decided to write my own songs and figure out how to produce it from scratch.
Inspirations from real life events, people and stories engineer and drive my mind to express in my own voice.
How do you think you fit into the current music scene?
Music has each of its own scenes clearly more than the previous decade and in this current age of music, some artists who do not even have radio or TV appearance can even pull up big shows and making sustainable income in the moment. And right now, I have found a place where I belong to in a big music kingdom and I am working on it to have my own status in that particular field.
You are also a member of the post-rock outfit Pandelic. Tell us a little about this project.
It’s another distant musical persona of mine to speak different language.We got a new lineup and everyone is thrilled to finish the second album.
How does your creative approach differ as Heft?
To define Heft in two words is “cosmic horror”. This project is extremely inspired by the cosmic horror films and real life events which question the life, purpose and everything beyond phenomena. And I wanted my music to sound like cosmic horror which is unspeakable, not easy to explain in normal perception. It can be said, this is the most challenging part of my career right now where I am willing to take any kind of creative risks by combining different musical background of mine from post rock, metal to even techno and ambient to have something bold and heavy.
All that I have heard from you is purely instrumental, what draws you to this style of music? Do you have intentions of incorporating vocal elements in your projects in the future?
A freedom of instrumental music provides the space for listeners to have imagination without any influence of lyrics and its contents. You might notice even I make instrumental music, there is a subtle work of vocal elements in the mix already. And I am going to have a singing in some of the records but I want to keep this whole project as instrumental.
Tell us about the music scene in Myanmar. What other acts from your side of the world should we all be aware of?
To be honest, the music scene here is pretty much struggling in their own ways and we still have a long way to go, compared to our neighbouring countries like Malaysia or Thailand.
There’s a band called Cold Fish People here and their potential cannot be denied. Check out their first single on bandcamp.
What are your plans for the rest of this year?
Finish second albums of both Heft and Pandelic.
Famous last words?
Creativity comes from practice.
Follow Heft:
Soundcloud – Bandcamp – Facebook – Instagram – Spotify
