Hunki Dori is an instrumental project shaped by epic minimalism, building vast, colorful worlds from looping foundations that feel capable of spinning on forever. Layers of sound stack and shift, letting familiar motifs recombine into new shapes while the warm, saturated arrangements stay alive with motion. Voices drift through as texture rather than narrative, often arriving via field recordings, placing the music somewhere between space jazz and bedroom pop: intimate yet expansive, exploratory yet grounded. On the new album Ciclo, those cycles play out like inner scenes from everyday life, woven together with audio captured in New York City and Seoul—street calls, open windows, passing moments that blur intention and accident. Named after a stray voice heard on the street, the title reflects themes of repetition, balance, and forward momentum, a feeling echoed by contributions from Takuya Nakamura, Jay Rodriguez, and drummer Rob Heath. Like riding a bicycle, Hunki Dori keeps moving, finding meaning not in arrival but in the flow. We caught up with songwriter Dorothea Tachler, the main force behind the project and talked about creating this epic new album:
Q: In your opinion, what are the essential qualities that make a “good songwriter”?
In my opinion, someone who writes from an authentic place, writing about their personal experience that is unique and can use music as a vehicle to transport their experience with emotion, or whatever it is they choose to express that emotion, like musical elements or poetic choice of words that is authentic and expressive. I like nuance, dynamics, sensitivity. If you can write a song that lets me feel what you are feeling, that is a good songwriter in my opinion. Though not everyone might relate to the specific experience, we are all experiencing the same human emotions.
To me, someone who is good at an instrument and can write the parts for instruments, or writes a song using an instrument makes for a good songwriter,
But also artists who don’t play instruments can be good songwriters for sure!
Q: What is the basis for writing attention-grabbing music in this day and age?
I think for many, it’s a catchy hook like, chorus, melody or maybe even a catchy beat. To me, it is again authenticity, and feeling a real human connection, and of course interesting musical choices.
For me, it is not attention grabbing if a bands music is just full on loud and fast, for me it would be the opposite, music that is more subtle, That almost requires stillness to be able to hear and understand it. Someone who musically nails a feeling, story or situation that I can relate to, That grabs my attention!
Q: Can you pinpoint some specific songs and songwriters that changed the way you write music?
It might be such a long list, but I always listened to a lot of different music.
Starting with the music my parents put on when I was a kid, which was classical music, or Beatles, Pink Floyd, King Crimson, Django Reinhardt, etc.
I think they and Mozart, Bach and many many more influenced my writing for sure,
But its hard for me to pinpoint at specific work, or it would take me really long time to trace back my steps and music I listened to over the years, and since my childhood...
Q: Do you find it hard to be inspired by your peers? Can you name any new artists you find inspiring?
Sure, I like Bitchin’ Bajas, Pullman just had a record out, I like the sounds of Olafur Arnalds and Max Richter, just to name a few other current instrumental artists, but I like so many different artists, genres and also vocal music that might influence me in some way, but you might not necessarily hear it in my music. And a lot of them are not peers or alive anymore...
Q: For your new album, what inspired the lyrical content, album title, and overall vibe?
I use field recordings in some of my pieces, and sometimes people talking gets on there, in this case, someone calls out “Ciclo” in the song with that title, and I just love these happy accidents. Ciclo means cycle in Spanish, but also bicycle. And I love bicycles, and wrote a song about that in my other band project My Favourite Things. And cycles, phases, thats life, I think there’s always different phases we move through, sometimes its not in our hands what kind of cycle we have to go through, but the good thing is that there can always be a new phase, cycle, another round. Also, most of my pieces are cyclical music, meaning it moves in a cycle, and could theoretically go forever!
Q: Do you find that you ruminate over writing songs and hold on to them for a long time before including them on a record? Or do you prefer to write them, release them, and be done with them? Do you ever re-visit old material to do a re-write or once it’s done it’s done?
Yes, both actually! I did sometimes have a burning feeling of a song that needs to be written, recorded released asap. Other songs, like a bunch on this record actually have been a slower process. I started writing them in the pandemic in Berlin, after the release of my last album “Reverie”. I even received some grants in Berlin, so I had really time to only focus on the music, which was a new experience.sometimes I come back to an old song I forgot I started and know how I need to continue it until finish. Its like that with some thoughts, I think. Sometimes, I need to come back to a problem or question, and go through a process of understanding it first, until I feel complete about a song.
Q: Were there any lessons you learned in the writing and recording process for your current release that you will take with you into your next project?
Ha, I’m sure. It was great reconnecting with Rob Heath and playing/performing and recording with him, as well as having Takuya Nakamura and Jay Rodriguez, who also played on “Reverie”, and it’s always lovely to collaborate with them. And maybe I found a new conviction of slowness, slowly-ness. In my other band, it sometimes feels like we need to play everything a bit faster to grab the audience. But I think in the stillness, in the slowness, in the space in-between is where a lot of truth lies, magical wisdom, and more understanding. Its an easing into accepting what is, and just realizing what is there. Pretty simple, like meditation - but not easy to do sometimes.