15/01/2026
About : river's new EP reads like a short film in four scenes. Piano sketches become themes, clarinet replies become memories, and the synths color everything with tape-warm glow. About : river’s gift is how they keep the arrangements breathable: small details carry real weight; space does the talking as much as the drums. Each track begins close to the skin and then widens, turning private moments into shared momentum—music for the room you’re in and the night you’re heading toward.
This is storytelling you can dance to. The duo’s acoustic threads—clarinet, piano—anchor the heart; their analog machines pull the horizon closer. Between them, the songs chart a path from reflection to release, stitching nostalgia to forward motion. Four cuts, one feeling: hope that lingers after the lights go low.
Q: Please introduce yourself
We are About : river, a father-and-son live electronic project from Estonia. Our sound sits somewhere between melodic house, organic, deep stuff but still meant for the dancefloor. We play hybrid live sets with clarinet, keys, synths and sometimes vocals.
Q: One person you'd dream to have a coffee with?
I think we’d choose Arvo Pärt, the Estonian composer. His music has an incredible depth and calm, a kind of meditative simplicity that has inspired me for many years. I’d love to talk with him about how he protects that inner silence in a noisy world, and how he manages to keep creating something so pure and honest for so long.
Q: If you could have any superpower, what would it be and why?
I’d probably choose the ability to slow down time. Not to save the world, just to have a bit more space around the moments that matter and simply being present instead of rushing to the next task.
Q: If you would have been given the chance to do a film score, what movie would you choose and why?
I’d probably choose something like Tarkovsky’s Stalker. Not because I think I could improve on the original score, but because that kind of film leaves a lot of space for sound. Long scenes, slow pacing, not much dialogue: you can work with texture, silence and small details instead of fighting with the picture. That’s very close to how I like to think about music.
Q: Who has been the most influential in your music career? And why?
If I have to name one person, it would be Arvo Pärt. His music showed me how powerful simplicity, space and silence can be. That meditative depth has been a reference point for me for many years. A reminder that you don’t need many notes or big gestures to say something honest.
Q: Tell us about your journey, what got you to where you are today?
Our journey has mostly been a long series of choices between what feels honest and what feels imposed from the outside. Scenes, trends, expectations, they’re always there, and it’s very easy to start writing music that “should” work instead of music that actually feels true.
So for us it’s a constant process of stripping things back to what still feels real right now. Life changes, our roles change, even our dynamic with Ervin changes and the music follows that. That’s why our sound keeps evolving over the years: it’s less about a fixed style and more about staying close to what feels sincere in the moment, even if it means letting go of what worked before.
Q: What’s one piece of advice you’d give to someone just starting out their career in music?
Don’t start by trying to impress anyone. If you’re writing with some imaginary crowd, label or playlist in your head, you’ll very quickly lose your own voice. Make things that feel honest to you first.
Q: Can you recall a DJ set or performance of yours that remains unforgettable to you? Where did it take place, and what makes it stand out among all others?
One of our summer festival shows in Estonia stays with me very clearly. I remember being really stressed about how the live set would go – all the usual doubts: will the sound work, will people connect, are we ready enough.
Before the show we were driving with my son on a summer evening at sunset, having just grabbed some pizza and listening to his playlist in the car, and it suddenly hit me how deep that moment already was. No matter what would happen on stage – whether we’d crash the set or play the best show of our lives – the fact that we were doing this together as father and son already felt bigger than any “success”.
I felt very calm after that. The set itself turned out to be one of the first where I felt we had really found our audience: people stayed, listened, reacted to the quiet parts as much as to the peaks. That combination of inner calm and connection with the crowd is why I still think about that night.
Q: How has your music style evolved over the years?
Before Ervin joined, I was making almost pure ambient stuff, no beats or barely any. Really slow, all about mood. But after a while I realized I wanted people to actually move, to feel those emotions in a lighter, more social and freeing way. That's when rhythm and groove started creeping in.
We're always checking what still feels genuine and cutting out whatever doesn't anymore. Life shifts, our roles shift, even how Ervin and I work together keeps changing, and the music just follows. That's why our sound keeps evolving. It's not about clinging to one style, it's about staying close to what feels real right now, even if that means letting go of things that used to work.
Q: If you were to venture into another music genre, which one would you choose and why?
I'd probably go for hypnotic techno. There's something very honest about that minimal, syncopated, repetitive sound. It doesn't rely on big tricks, it just slowly pulls you into a certain state, and I like the idea of working with that kind of long, focused tension. At the same time I enjoy a lot of different styles of music, and at different points in my life I've seriously wanted to write in completely different genres, so this answer could easily change with time.
Q: Could you name 3 tracks that got you into electronic music and why?
The tracks that really drew me into electronic music didn’t come from records or concerts, but from games I played with Ervin when he was little.
We were really into the Amanita Design games, and that’s where I discovered the music of Tomáš Dvořák, aka Floex.
If I have to pick three tracks, I’d say “The Glasshouse with Butterfly”, “Mr. Handagote” and “By the Wall” from the Machinarium soundtrack. What struck me was how rich and detailed the sound world was: electronic textures, small noises, harmonies, field-recording type stuff, all working together without feeling like “genre music”.
Those tracks made me realise how wide the palette of electronic music can be, how many moods and little stories you can create just with sound design and harmony.
Q: Can you recommend a hidden gem in your home country that would be perfect for a rave?
I’d choose Rummu quarry in Estonia. It’s an old limestone quarry that’s now partly flooded, with white cliffs, clear water and the remains of buildings under the surface.
Q: Could you tell us about your upcoming releases and plans for the year?
We’ve just released a new record on Bespoke Musik, and in February we have an EP coming out on Stripped Digital. We’re also working on new material for our live set and shaping ideas for the next releases.
A huge focus for us this year is preparing for a tour in the United States in collaboration with Bespoke Music, and we’re really looking forward to it
Q: Can you share a fun fact about yourself that most of your listeners are probably unaware of?
A fun fact is that About : river was born from a “Minecraft deal”.
When Ervin was about 11, he was really into Minecraft and kept asking me to play with him. I was just at the beginning of taking my music career more seriously, so one day I joked, "If you play one live show with me, I'll play Minecraft with you." He just said "okay", and that was it.
Two weeks later we had a 12-track live set ready. He played keys and synths on most of the tracks and even one piece on clarinet. It was our first live show together, and I was genuinely surprised by how fast he picked everything up.
After that it became our thing. We explored Minecraft worlds together a lot, and I really enjoyed having that as our time together outside of music. Even now we still sometimes play, just much less often.
About : river - Sonday EP [Bespoke Musik]