Interview
Loke Rahbek Intimacy and the World Around Us
The artist behind Croatian Amor on love, Copenhagen and the strange closeness a piece of music can create. The original 2016 conversation, with a separate introduction and afterword by Justinas Mikulskis from 2026.
Read the conversation
The original introduction / 2016
Loke Rahbek probably needs no introduction or further elaborations for the majority of Secret Thirteen readers. Behind various guises and within different projects he consistently crafts enchanting soundscapes ranging from elegant noise outbursts to cold pop explorations or synth laden ambient suites. He always manages to find that right spot between the harshness of the industrial heritage and the haunted beauty of pop in a subtle way. Croatian Amor is the prime example of this coalescence. Through the dialogue between sensitive melodic lines and unhomely, yet strangely resonating atmospheres Loke channels this neon-lit world around us, filled with glittering airports, disorienting city lights, strange midnight encounters and constant uncertainty. It is like the a distant echoes of strobe-light filled surreal nightclubs fading into obscurity. Neurotic undercurrents and inner contemplations go together with hedonistic patterns.
Before the forthcoming live premiere of his new program – “Love Means Taking Action” – at Berlin Atonal festival , Loke agreed to shed some light on the various aspects behind this project and his creative motivations, how it started and evolved into what it is now.
01Love and fragmented experience
Love seems to be a recurring topic in world of Croatian Amor. It features in the project title, the name of the new track is “Love Means Taking Action”, one of the latest tracks was also named “Most Major Cities are Built on the Foundation of a Love Affair”, and there are other references. It appears in different forms and contexts. What does it mean to you and what does it represent in the context of the project? How do you see the role of real emotion/affection in the modern world?
It’s an impossible question Paulius, at least for now. I guess you have one point though – I seem to be repeating myself. But with a subject as big as love maybe you can forgive me.
I was on a plane just now and I was listening to Kanye West’s “808s and Heartbreak”, for the first time and I got really into it. While I was listening, one of the airplane engines broke and we had to turn around and make an emergency landing back to Copenhagen and the whole plane was in panic and I didn’t realize it, because I had been playing music in my headphones so loudly. Birk from Vanessa Amara send me the MP3 a long time ago, proclaiming that it was a masterpiece. I never got around to listen to it before now. If it is a masterpiece I don’t know, but it did save me from joining the collective panic attack.
In the Fact Mag interview you mentioned that the Croatian Amor project reflects our generation (information overdose, global travels, placelessness). It feels like a surreal collage dream, yet there is the utmost feel of melancholia and longing. Where does that feel come from? Is there a sense of loss or utopian nostalgia in Croatian Amor? If not, what is the primary emotion that triggers the mood you transmit?
It is important for me to find something that is now to build narrative from. In some aspects it is a challenge, but it is also a lot more rewarding, when we can write a story that is our own. If I am to say something to feed into that machine, I think I have to somehow relate to the times I am living in. I think its an interesting one, we got completely new ways of interacting and communicating and they are fascinating to me. There is a lot of bad and a lot of good and it is all mixed up. I think the real world feels like a surreal collage dream a lot of the time.
The emotion, that is more difficult. I think to an extent when I make music the emotion is not often conscious. This is what the music ends up sounding like. I could wish for it to be less one sided honestly, but there seems to always be a certain mood that comes with. You never outdance your own shadow I suppose.
I find Croatian Amor, Lust for Youth, Janushoved label productions and others to be an echo of romanticism in contemporary contexts. Romanticism is known for its escapism and rebellion, for seeking out new places and challenging the surrounding world. Do you have these motivations? Is creativity for you is a way to escape or reflect the surrounding world?
To escape or reflect? I guess it is always a combination of the two. But I don’t think we should escape the world, rather I think art can be a transmitter, that can get us further and deeper into it. I have learned as much about living from art as I have from life in its more straightforward approach. It takes practice.
02Copenhagen and the changing project
How do you think Copenhagen as a city and the place you live and grew up in influenced the aesthetics of Croatian Amor and your other projects? What are the most remarkable and vivid memories relating to this place? Aside from its rich musical scene, how does the city itself, its places and surroundings inform the art you make and your personality?
Copenhagen is my city, so of course it plays a part. I was biking to Posh Isolation the other day and got overwhelmed with the look of the city, there is a certain air and a certain light, you know, most places have their own signifiers and some take longer to find. I have lived for 27 years in Copenhagen and while I enjoy leaving a lot I am also always very happy to come back. There is a lot of water.
Croatian Amor has been in existence for about five years now and your sound has become more mellow and refined over the years. How has the project changed in comparison to its roots and initial creative intention? How do other projects you are involved in influence CA?
On really good days I have a feeling that I know what I want to do, on bad days I have no idea. Today is an in between day so I am not really sure. 5 years is a long time and there is a lot that I didn’t know how to do 5 years ago, there is a lot I don’t know how to do now, but I pick up things along the way. Of course all the different projects and the different personnel that goes with them feedback into each other just as how people that I know and people making music for Posh Isolation inspire me and teach me new things.
Damien Dubrovnik live sets are very intense, expressive and emotional. What are Croatian Amor live shows like and what can we expect from your Berlin Atonal performance? What are the main challenges of transmitting the Croatian Amor sound live on stage? Is it a more introverted experience?
At first I didn’t think it should be a live project at all. I think it works well in headphones and maybe it works best alone, like you say. But I think that it can work. There is a feeling of confidentiality that I would like for it to have, much like someone showing you a secret handshake. If that is possible to translate onto a big stage I am not sure. It feels like it has worked on some occasions and failed on others. We can be alone around people, I believe most know that feeling. Can we be together, when we are alone?
03Private worlds and shared feeling
In order to obtain the “Wild Palms” tape people had to send their naked selfies to you, which creates a very intimate relationship with the listener. Do you think about the potential addressee when you create? How is the feedback/emotional response important to you? What were the most pleasant/unpleasant reactions from the public that you have ever experienced?
Of course I am interested in who is listening and I am still very interested in liquefying that relation, it is easier said than done. But I think that there is something in the artist/audience relation that needs fixing. Think about computer games, where the platform and plotline is directed, but how you get there is up to you. Roleplaying games are the same. I would be interested to see what happened with art if we moved a bit away from being “the artist” and a little closer to being a “game master”.
Croatian Amor seems to be a more introverted and personal project than the others? Is that true?
I see what you mean, but there is also something absurd about releasing and performing something and then claim that it is introverted. For it to work it needs to work inwards and outwards.
What did the most cultural impact recently for you and how? What was the last time when you experienced a strong cultural experience (or even a shock)? Do you often find yourself excited/amazed by what is happening around?
I am not sure what you mean by a cultural shock. I was in America last week and perhaps there is no place better for it, the culture shock is lurking on every corner.
Your projects are very diverse, but there is always a strong sense of underlying subtlety, beauty, aesthetics. What is the most beautiful sound for you? What would be the symbol of beauty for you (not necessarily a physical beauty)?
One symbol of beauty, that is a difficult question. A piece of furniture can be beautiful as can a violent orgasm. I would be sad to have to choose one and not have the other.
04The distance between people / 2026
Justinas Mikulskis / September 2026
What interests me most here is Rahbek’s refusal to separate a private emotional world neatly from the public one. A sound can be artificial and still carry a feeling that is difficult to name. An experience can be mediated by headphones, travel or a recording and still become intensely physical. The interview gives those contradictions room to exist.
In 2026, connection is an easy word to use and a harder thing to describe precisely. These answers locate it in particular situations: a city’s light, a room shared with an audience, the unexpected timing of a song. That specificity keeps the discussion from becoming a general promise that music brings everyone together. Closeness can be temporary, uneasy and differently understood by each person involved.
The later releases offer their own perspectives. Rahbek’s note for Never Give Up, Pt. 1: Puer Aeternus describes it as an argument for living, prompted by conversations with a friend. The expanded All Worlds, made with Lust For Youth, returns to earlier sessions and adds two pieces in its February 2026 edition. Both provide further listening around the question of how an intimate exchange can take a public form.
The archival distance matters too. The discussion of The Wild Palms refers to the project’s historical exchange in 2014; it is not a current invitation or a condition for hearing music on this page. Reading an archive well means allowing a gesture to remain situated in its time, even as we reconsider what it asks of an audience.
I want this return to leave the listener with a little space of their own. The music does not need a final explanation. The conversation, photographs and records can bring us closer to how its world is made, then let us decide what we recognise in it.
05Listen further
Damien Dubrovnik
Loke Rahbek (Damien Dubrovnik, Posh Isolation) curates an introverted selection (STM 165). A collision of Scott Walker’s avant-balladry, Serbian folk, and raw industrial texture.
The 2016 album and three later listening points from the 2026 archive edition.
Forthcoming in 2016, the record accompanies questions about feeling and fragmented experience.
Official release artwork
A later Croatian Amor chapter to place beside the 2016 conversation and its account of intimacy shaped through electronic sound.
Official release artwork
Rahbek’s release note describes an argument for living, emerging from conversations with a friend.
Official release artwork
A collaborative world revisited with two additional recordings, “Someone” and “Parasol”.
Official release artwork
In the 2026 afterword, Rahbek’s release note for Never Give Up, Pt. 1: Puer Aeternus provides a later listening point, separate from the original conversation.
About this 2026 edition / Credits & sources
The complete 10-question conversation remains in its original order and wording. The original publication date and URL are retained. References to new releases, future plans, ages and contemporary events in the interview belong to 2016. The new introduction and afterword are by Justinas Mikulskis.
Original interview: Paulius Ilevičius. The original archive photograph is retained. A separate AI-assisted 16:9 adaptation is used for the featured image. Additional photographs are credited beside each image. Record sleeves retain their original artwork and link to the official release pages; full artwork and recording credits remain available there.
Sources and image credits
- Original interview: Paulius Ilevičius. First published 2016-08-23.
- Croatian Amor at Masskultur / Photo: Anja Enerud / Edited photograph
- Hero photograph: AI-assisted restoration / composition adaptation. Original photograph retained. Original colour or monochrome is preserved.
- The introduction and afterword are by Justinas Mikulskis, September 2026. The original interview date and byline remain separate.
- Original archive reference: Klara Lewis interview.
- Original archive reference: Drew McDowall interview.
- Release artwork and listening context from the 2026 archive edition; official release pages are linked beside each sleeve.
- Intonal 2024 artist programme; uncredited photographer: Photograph source.
- Original publication: Secret Thirteen archive.
Archive introduction
Justinas Mikulskis / September 2026
Croatian Amor makes room for feelings that do not arrive in a clean sequence. A fragment of a voice, an electronic melody or a remembered place can pull the listener towards something familiar and then leave it unresolved. Loke Rahbek’s music allows these partial encounters to remain partial. The gaps are part of its intimacy.
In this August 2016 conversation with Paulius Ilevičius, Rahbek speaks just before the release of Love Means Taking Action. Copenhagen, travel, collaboration and the relationship between performer and audience move through the answers. His account of a frightening moment on a plane gives an unusually direct example of how a recorded song can become inseparable from a lived experience.
The interview also asks what art does with the world outside it. Rahbek resists treating music as a place that simply removes us from reality. Its capacity to intensify an encounter, or to make a connection possible, is more compelling to him. The listener becomes a participant in a situation whose meaning cannot be supplied entirely by its maker.
A decade later, the catalogue provides many ways to revisit those ideas. Love Means Taking Action and Isa document different stages of Croatian Amor, while Never Give Up, Pt. 1: Puer Aeternus and the 2026 deluxe edition of All Worlds with Lust For Youth bring the listening closer to the present. The original interview remains a conversation from 2016; the surrounding material opens paths out from it.