EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW


For many artists, music becomes a language for the unspeakable—a way to hold conversations with memory, grief, and love. For Dutch DJ and producer Rose Ringed, a long-awaited album marks not just the release of new music, but the release of a grief carried quietly since childhood.


The album is a tribute to his mother, a jazz ballerina who passed away when he was just 11. Though she’s been physically absent for most of his life, her presence continues to shape everything, especially his music.


“I had a loving and warm mother who always encouraged me to talk about my feelings,” Rose Ringed says.


“She gave me everything I needed in the years I was fortunate to have her around.”


She also gave him a dream. A dancer who never fully pursued her ambitions, she told her son to always follow his heart. That advice stayed with him. In 2020, Rose Ringed left his job and committed fully to his music career, finally taking the leap he had never taken.


But her absence left a mark just as deep as her presence.


“Her passing is the most traumatic event of my life. Since I started making music, my inspiration has mainly come from that absence.”


Initially imagined as a tribute to her, the album gradually transformed into something more personal.


“I wasn’t sure what the main point was. A tribute to her life? Or was it about me? I eventually realized it was about my grief—and about finding a more emotional, grown-up way to cope with that loss.”


The process led Rose Ringed through family conversations, emotional obstacles, and therapy. Through it all, he uncovered a version of himself—a young boy still trying to hold on, trying to honour his mother through music.


“This album is a story told through sound. It’s about finally letting go of the 11-year-old version of myself who was still holding on,” he says.


“For a long time, I carried a quiet grief. This is my way of releasing it.”


Now, with the album’s release on the horizon, he feels truly ready. “Only now do I understand the deeper layers of my psyche. I wasn’t ready to re- lease this before, but now I am.”


This album is both a farewell and a love letter. In honouring the mother who taught him to listen to his heart, Rose Ringed has found healing—and the courage to let go.


“Both her presence and absence shaped the emotional arc of the album... She would always tell me to follow my heart... her passing is the most traumatic event in my life and has formed me as a person so much.”


This confession from Rose Ringed is raw, tender, and resoundingly human. His story is one of duality:


tum. The emotional maturity in how he talks about his grief is mirrored in the album’s musical DNA—an elegant interplay


love and loss, memory and momen-


reckoning and melodic grace. The choice to express grief not through lament but through light-infused tracks reflects a deeper philosophy: that pain can be retranslated into beauty. It’s not escapism. It’s a transformation.


There’s a bravery in putting words to things most of us suppress. Rose Ringed doesn’t romanticize his pain; he honors it by giving it movement. He gives his listeners more than just soundscapes, he gives them a roadmap for mourning.


In the studio, the rules of this album were spiritual as much as sonic.


“The tracks included in the final selection must be tracks where I was emotionally struck during the making process,” he says.


This self-imposed filter makes the project feel like a soul audit. Tracks like “The Boy Full Of Melodies”, born from his mother’s


“Reading her diaries reminded me of how much she loved me… she was such a warm-hearted soul.”


It’s significant that this moment of rediscovered love manifested not in a tearful ballad but in an uplifting track. This is how Rose Ringed rewrites the narrative: not by burying sorrow, but by alchemizing it.


Then there’s “Mama”, a track that marks both the emotional and literal beginning of the album.


“It started as the first track of my album and has also become the starting point of my healing process.”


Its lyrics, in Dutch, root the song in the soil of his earliest identity. And a violin solo? Not just an arrangement—it’s a voice. A mother’s lullaby echoes across decades.


Beyond the album, Rose Ringed is building a community through HRMNY, his event series, and creative ecosystem.


“I truly believe music can be of great spiritual help... With HRMNY, we will try to go back to the point where the people themselves feel the central part of the party.”


mixmagnl.com 5


illuminate how intimacy with the past doesn’t always wound. Sometimes, it frees us.


diaries, of emotional


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