Qual has always felt very physical to me. Not just sound coming from machines, strings and voice, but something pushed through the body, through repetition, tension, sweat, maybe even exhaustion. Since you've been carrying this energy for years now, I'm curious how time changes that relationship. Does the body become more of an enemy, more of a tool, or maybe more honest with age? Do you still try to overpower it, or do you listen to it differently now?

You said the body receives energy from the music it creates, and that this has only increased and continues. I understand that as a listener too, in a smaller and probably less heroic way. Some music can pull you out of a comfortable chair and almost repair your sciatica for a few minutes, and Qual can definitely do that to a body. But how does this loop work from your side? If the music feeds the body and the body feeds the music back, what exactly has increased over the years? Is it stamina, hunger, anger, discipline, joy, stubbornness, or something harder to name?

One thing I always notice with Qual is how precise the visual codes are, even in small details. Glasses, leather gloves, boots, folded denim, posture, the way the body carries the music before anything even starts. In EBM, goth and industrial, these things were never just decoration, but now all those codes are mixed, copied, sold, rejected, or sometimes deliberately hidden. How important is that visual and physical alignment to you today? Do you feel people understand Qual more deeply when they can read those codes, or should the music be able to wound, seduce or disturb even someone who knows nothing about the world it comes from?

Madonna is interesting to mention. To be fair, I adore her earliest work, and I've heard stories from fellow artists about how she moved from the Detroit area to New York and carved her way through it with almost absurd force. Quite astonishing. I have also seen some of the films she acted in, especially Desperately Seeking Susan, and I should say some of them are perfect Sunday morning popcorn, even for goths who need to lie down for once. But back to the point. When you mention Madonna, MJ, Art & Design, and then mysticism, I'm curious what mysticism actually means for you in this context. Is it about keeping part of the work unreadable, or about giving the image and sound a charge that cannot be explained only through style, genre or biography?

You move through a lot of different places with Qual and Lebanon Hanover, so I guess you see the underground from many angles. Different cities, rooms, crowds, levels of devotion, style, posing, danger, humour, boredom, whatever. I'm curious if you still feel some common pulse underneath it all, or if everything now feels more fragmented, self-aware and online. Where does it still feel alive to you, not polished, not branded, but strange in a real way? I mean those moments where a room still feels slightly unstable, bodies too close, bad decisions, broken glass, smoke, candles too near the tablecloth, someone going too far without turning it into a performance. And where does it become too safe, just arrival, soundcheck, show, hotel, photos, departure, with nothing left to haunt anyone afterwards?

You said you're fragmented, that you're not really looking to any single underground, and that you're not one for repeating yourself because spontaneity is where it becomes real. That feels like a strong position now, because artists are constantly pushed into becoming a recognizable shape by scenes, audiences, promoters, algorithms, even by their own past. Is it hard to stay spontaneous once people think they know what Qual is supposed to be? Do you see Qual as a fixed identity, or more as a way to keep escaping the identity people attach to you?

Love Zone feels like a strange title in the best way. It sounds almost soft, erotic or inviting, but the record itself feels poisoned, physical, irritated, funny in a sick way, and very much trapped inside the present. There is this sense of digital decay, screen addiction, chemical shortcuts, artificial happiness, the body being fed too much and still wanting more. What is the Love Zone for you? Is it a place of desire, sickness, comedy, addiction, tenderness, disgust, or all of those things rubbing against each other until something starts to spark?

I like that you added this intimate centre to Love Zone, the retreat from modern-day chaos into the arms of your wife. It opens the title in another way. In music built around pressure, decay, violence, sweat and damaged pleasure, love can almost become the strangest element because it refuses the pose of total darkness. How do you keep love inside Qual without making it sentimental or clean? Is it a shelter from the chaos, or another force that makes the chaos worth surviving?

You called Qual a protection amulet during battle. What kind of battle are we talking about right now - the world, boredom, numbness, normality, your own softer parts, the feed, or something else entirely?

You said there is no discipline, just constant curiosity and the urge to create. I like that, because it goes against the usual idea of electronic music as control, structure, programming, precision. With Qual, especially when working with hardware, it often feels more like you are provoking machines until they start giving something back. How does a track usually begin for you now? Is it a bassline, a texture, a rhythm, a phrase, a mistake, a physical reaction? And how do you know when it has become a real Qual track rather than just another interesting sound in the room?

You said there is a time for chaos and a time for control, and I like the marble image, where something is already leaking through but still needs to be chiselled into shape. That feels very close to how I hear Qual. It can sound like something erupting, but also like it has been cut into a very specific form. How do you know when control is sharpening the chaos, and when it starts killing it? Is there a point where you deliberately leave some dirt, awkwardness or excess in the track because that is where the life is?

For a Moment of Happiness stands out on Love Zone because it slows everything down and lets in those piercing guitar lines. Of course, knowing your work with Lebanon Hanover, that world is not foreign to you, but inside Qual it feels different, like the same wound translated through another temperature. What makes you bring guitars into Qual now? Do they open a more vulnerable, romantic or mournful space for you, or are they simply another weapon when electronics alone are not enough?

Since you don't want to be chained to one style, and since guitars, samplers, machines and whatever else can enter the room if the gut says yes, where do you feel Qual could mutate next? I don't mean this in an announcement or press-release way. More in terms of what kind of force you still feel curious to let in. More romance, more violence, more slowness, more absurdity, more collaboration, something cinematic, something uglier, something strangely beautiful?

The dying SQ80 on Cyber Care is a beautiful detail. A machine almost collapsing, but leaving exactly the right wound in the track. Do you believe instruments have ghosts? My early Secret Thirteen colleague Paulius Ilius once pushed me deeper into the whole hauntology thing, and it stayed with us as something really interesting - sound as memory, technology as a haunted object, machines carrying traces of time, use, decay. Or is it simply what happens when electricity, memory and damage meet at the right second?

You said you want to slice through the obvious shit that exists today. What feels most obvious to you now — in music, in scenes, in how artists present themselves, in the way people try to look strange but end up looking the same?

You have released through different labels and also through your own Operation Qual Records. What does a good label still give to an artist today, beyond format, pressing, distribution or promotion? Is it trust, taste, protection, timing, a certain world around the record, or just someone who understands when not to interfere?

Goth and romanticism can easily become costume or nostalgia, but at their best they still touch something real. What does romanticism mean to you now, as an adult, not as a teenage fantasy? Is there still something dangerous in romance?

One wider thing I'm curious about. In a time where almost everything becomes content, taste becomes identity, and even rebellion can quickly become a look, what do you think is still worth protecting in a person? What should remain private, strange, ugly, sacred, childish, ridiculous or impossible to sell?

After all this talk about body, mysticism, curiosity, control, love, machines and the soul, I wonder what you actually want to leave in people. Not a message exactly, and not a lesson. More like a residue. When someone leaves a Qual show or finishes a Qual record, what would you like to remain in them the next morning? A bruise, a laugh, a desire to move, a strange image, a bit of courage, some discomfort, or simply the feeling that something inside them was allowed to froth for a while?

You said you want to give people power and permission to explode and be themselves. That sounds simple, but it is a lot to actually mean it. Do you think people are more repressed now, even while everything looks expressive online?

One random one. Do you believe more in ghosts, aliens, fate, magic, machines, love, or accident? Or are they all just different names for the same pressure moving through life?

A small Secret Thirteen archive question. When was the last time you listened back to the mix you recorded for us years ago? Would you change anything in it now, or does it still stand as that version of you? And would you ever be up for recording a new S13 mix, now that Qual has mutated again?

A more personal one from my side, because I'm dealing with this while bringing Secret Thirteen back. We are a completely non-commercial journal from a corner of Europe, not the biggest platform, but built with real care, context and a long memory. Coming back now and inviting artists for mixes sometimes feels strangely harder than before. It feels like many artists who speak the language of underground still choose platforms with bigger reach, corporate backing, sponsors or safer visibility, even when the context is much thinner. What do you think changed? Is it just survival, ambition, algorithms, fear of disappearing, or has the underground itself become more dependent on the same systems it once wanted to avoid? I also notice it is often easier to speak with older, more experienced artists who have already been through fire and water, while many rising names feel unreachable, like they are already managed by the logic of exposure. What would you say to someone trying to keep an independent platform alive without turning it into another content machine?