On music as a mirror for personal change

You just released your fourth album, titled Sonor. How do you typically start composing or writing an album?

This album, my album called Sonor, is actually the third album I’m doing with my label [Squama Recordings]. So every time [has been] kind of different, but for this project I really wanted to have some specific musicians. It was a dream come true. I brought in some music [that] I was writing and composing for maybe a year. We just recorded the album within two days, which was so overwhelming. But sometimes that’s the way music is made.

So it starts with the music before the words for you?

It’s always different. For me, I think what would come in my mind is more like a story, and it can be in a certain place and I feel touched by something, and then I would try to capture this moment. So it can be in words and it can be a single melody. It appears differently every time. But I think it’s more like a story and maybe a word.

You sing in Mongolian, but I hear you speaking in German as well in some tracks. What is your relationship to language and music together, and how do the stories come about?

Yeah, that’s very interesting because I’m a native Mongolian speaking person, but other cultures and other lifestyles influenced me, such as Germany. I’ve been living in Germany now for almost seven years, which is a long time. And it’s not only about speaking the language and knowing the culture, it’s also my personal change and my personal Enji. Enji myself, also, I find myself changing in these years while I’m living abroad. When you live alone and in a different country, it’s like a mirror so you start to see your true self, you start to talk to yourself very honestly. So that’s why [the album] is like a little time of my story.

I think every language has their own very strong expressions, rhythm, and also how you express feelings in a language. So even in Mongolian I really enjoy writing my songs, my words, more well-thought, and more poetic. And also the rhythm of the word at the same time has to be the best version of this one particular song. I’ve been trying to compose or write songs sometimes in English and sometimes—actually I always tried first in English, but then I changed it into Mongolian because that’s the story that I can confidently and very truly–I can really mean it in my mother tongue. But even in writing in my own language, I would choose the words very carefully. And this was actually the first time I wrote something in German. So it’s because it’s not like, “Okay, now is the time I have to write something in German.” It’s not like that. It’s because I like the German language pronunciation, and how it sounds was very suitable for my stories. Some words for example, kaputz, which means broken and worn, this sounds very authentic, only in German. So I could have just translated in my language, but I thought the language itself is the very exact vibe that I wanted.

I can feel the authenticity through what you’re saying. And Mongolian is so beautiful, it really becomes its own instrument. I’m always really glad when people sing in their native languages.

Yeah, absolutely. I also enjoy songs in Brazilian. I don’t speak Portuguese, but it’s sometimes very… It feels so free to not be able to understand every word so music really can start to speak itself.

Yeah, definitely. And you said earlier, you were saying “this Enji” of the current moment. Do you feel like when you make an album, you’re kind of encapsulating a moment you’re in?

Absolutely. I think that’s the beauty of it. We grow and we change a lot. And even it’s sometimes opposite. You have to look back at where you come from and who you really are, and especially when it comes to music, so it’s always often, for me, so many core memories and feelings from my childhood. I’m getting older and I’m getting more perspectives, so you start to realize actually the things that were so precious, and that maybe you see it now differently than when you were a little girl. So it’s always the chance to bring out little life moments, I guess.

When did you realize you wanted to become a musician?

Oh, actually, I always loved art in general. I used to dance a lot. I actually originally wanted to be a dancer, but I was too short. I was told I was too short. But I think I had always that feeling to rhythm and music and I was always singing, but more in my family and more later a traditional singing. But I never imagined myself standing in front of an audience or on the stage because my imagination of being a singer was back then I think a little bit limited, so I was imagining you have to be something different than who you are, because I’m a really ordinary person, a very simple person. I grew up very simple and I still enjoy a simple life, so that’s why I couldn’t really imagine myself being an artist. But later I got introduced to jazz, and then I started realizing, you can keep your voice without changing yourself. Especially in jazz, it’s very equal, very democratic. You’re constantly changing, exchanging energies and creating new moments. I really liked that element of jazz. I felt very at home, and I felt so heard and seen, so I thought, “Okay, this is the place. Now I feel myself. I can see myself as a singer.”

I love that—that feeling of home in music. I know you said you collaborate a lot when you compose, and you often spend a lot of time probably figuring something out together in the music. How is it like, for you, this balance of being in a “democratic” band, as you were saying, and then composing alone?

I think most of the original ideas would come from the moments where I’m alone, actually, mostly. So I just try to capture in many different forms, like quickly sketching something or writing something or with my phone and humming or singing little melodies or just sitting on the piano and listening to music. And then later, I have a story and I have a musical idea and I can tell it on my own or I can tell it with others. So it’s not direct because obviously they don’t speak Mongolian. But it’s sometimes even better. So sometimes they try to understand and they ask me what’s this song about, and I tell the story and I translate the words, so it’s then totally different how they interpret my music. And sometimes, they don’t ask anything and we just start to play, and every musician has his or her own voice on their instruments. So it starts like a single thought in a conversation. That’s why, for me, it’s very important to have musicians who have their own voice.

You talk a lot about stories. Are these things in the album moments that happened to you in life? Or do you sometimes invent stories?

It’s both, I guess. I think for some reason it is never about romantic love. It’s more about love to homeland and love to [my] mother and father, but I really want to explain it in more of an interesting way because in Mongolian poetry, it’s always [about] comparing something. I really love that in folk songs, even though it’s singing about steppe or it’s singing about that wide land, but it’s actually saying that unconditional love of mother, or something is always like nature and comparing it to something, and it’s always there behind the meaning of it. And I really love this, not saying everything directly. So I guess I always try to write my songs more like a behind-meaning, but sometimes it’s a really personal story. So about a dream, for example, there’s a song called “Dream” and I’m telling about the dream that I had. And in the dream I was losing my mom, and it was very clear. It can be super uncomfortable in a way. Because it’s very personal. But I think my confidence and my trust in music and in my listeners has grown through the years since 2020. It was more about a very comfy zone first. And the next album, I dive a little bit deeper into that and now I can be more brave in a way.

Do you think a lot about Mongolia when you’re writing?

I think so. Yeah, but it’s also a very beautiful language. It’s not only that pronunciation and that the consonants are very unusual, but also there are so many possibilities to express, and there are some words that may be a little bit old-fashioned now. I remember when I was performing in Mongolia, a young girl came to me and she told me she actually never heard one of the words that I was singing and I had to explain to her, and she was very inspired because today it’s very globalized. And even in Ulaanbaatar it’s very international and young people would sometimes talk to each other in English very well and today’s world is more mixed up, and they eventually forget some Mongolian language and expressions. And so I always try to keep it, bring it, and do my research and what word I can use.

That’s really nice. You seem very thoughtful of even though there’s a lot of jazz improv that can happen, you have this intention with it. You’re trying to preserve things and say the right story and with the right words. In a different vein, how would you say you feel success in, or how would you define it?

I don’t know. I think success can be in many different forms. So for me, it definitely is a success to live my life how I really want to. Every choice that I made was always true for me, and so I’m definitely on the right path since I am able to play music and do music. I have an amazing team of people who always encourage me and who always support me, which is a success.

But for me, as I said before, I also appreciate simple life and simple moments. So that’s why I was never sure about becoming a musician, because it’s something different from me. But of course it’s really nice if many people would listen to my music and it actually turned out more successfully than I expected, actually. It’s surprising that so many people from different countries, and even though they don’t speak my language, somehow connect to my music. And of course I really appreciate and cherish this moment, but in the end, it’s not about having my momentum and being famous.

You mentioned this young girl who was asking you about a word. Are there times when you’ve looked up to people and gotten mentorship from other people? And now, would you say you also want to inspire younger generations?

That’s so beautiful, how you say it. Yeah, I would love to. I think so, in a way, especially some young Mongolian girls wrote to me and they are really happy that they also can feel they can also do it and they can also do music. Mongolia is not a big country, and that’s why it’s not often Mongolian artists would sing in international stages, I guess, so I’m very privileged, of course, and very glad. Once I was in Nepal. I was performing there at the jazz festival, and I also gave a small master class in jazz singing, and we also performed there. They were telling me the fact that I was Asian—and usually jazz is, yeah, mostly American and in Europe it’s very well-developed, and more popular. It was interesting to hear that I inspired them, that it’s possible to have more faces, from all nations, singing jazz.