DOKA on Motorik and the Making of ‘Cycli’
On ‘Cycli,’ the debut release from Dutch outfit DOKA, motorik is the main concept.
What began as solitary guitar noodling over a drum machine in a noisy apartment evolved into a hypnotic full-band communion, channeled through layers of tape-hiss psych, minimalist kraut, and blown-out basement energy. DOKA’s founder—who stumbled into the Neu!-coded groove by accident—replaces the clean lines of digital production with immediacy: single overhead mics, real drums, and a devotion to instinct over polish. You hear it in the grooves: loops morph into trance, guitars pulse like sonar through dark matter, and space—both cosmic and domestic—is rendered elastic. There’s a warmth here, too: the accidental origins, the late-night mixing sessions, the dusty discovery of ‘Space Ritual’ in a grandparent’s record stash. ‘Cycli’ isn’t nostalgic, though. It’s a live-wire response to now, where the long trip still has a place if you’re willing to surrender to it. This is the sound of music as filter, as vessel, as quiet revolt against the scroll-speed void. Not retro. Not ironic. Just necessary.
“It all started with a memory and an obsession with the motorik beat.”
What initiated DOKA?
Marijn Filius: Basically, a memory and an interest in the repetitive drumbeat which is called the motorik beat. When I was a kid, I used to have a friend whose father had bought the reissue of the NEU! complete box set on vinyl. I was quite impressed by the lovely vinyl but didn’t know then what I should think of the music. I think I found it a little strange because I was more into blues-based stuff at the moment and couldn’t really relate it to anything in that framework. Around ten years later, I heard this music again and I was like: WOW, this is crazy, hypnotic! So that made a lasting impression on me musically – even though I had been playing and listening to different kinds of music for a while by then. After that, I found out Klaus Dinger had a holiday home in the small town where I come from; sadly, he had already passed away by then.
‘Cycli’ sounds like a space ritual held in the engine room of a malfunctioning interdimensional train. What warning would you leave for future listeners?
Thanks, that’s actually a great reference. One of the first records I heard was ‘Space Ritual’ by Hawkwind, which I found in my grandparents’ record collection haha. But nonetheless, I would strongly advise them to look out for the sonic attack on their mind — you know, space is deep…
There’s a lot of cyclical repetition in bands you mentioned as influences, but it’s never just repetition… it’s hypnosis, propulsion, trance-state conjuring. Would you say your concept is based somewhere between those lines?
For sure! Especially the discovery of the Scandinavian masters of improv (Träd, Gräs & Stenar, Pärson Sound, International Harvester), and listening and reading about CAN gave me more of an idea to really let go of my thoughts and just jam. And even before that, I always found just zoning out playing the guitar very meditative — just listening, ears wide open to your subconscious intuition. That has also really helped me to relax at some times in my life too. And also, I think there is some primal energy in improvisation and hypnotic music, in which you can use yourself as some kind of filter to channel the way you interpret and experience the world via an instrument into the ears and minds of other people.
In 2025, when everything is designed for short attention spans, how do you get people to surrender themselves to the long trip? Do you think people still can?
I think there are a lot of people around now who actually long for the escape out of these speedy, short-term experiences and invest some quality time into a listening session. And even if people in general are not so used to longer tracks anymore, I’ve heard a lot of reactions from people who really enjoyed the groove of the album, which can maybe carry you sneaky into forgetting the time and just enjoying the ride haha.
As a band putting out a record in the 2020s, do you see this as a resurrection of ritual listening, or is it just a hipster status symbol? What do you want people to do with the LP?
It’s definitely not meant as a hipster status symbol. But if I were to say it’s meant to be part of the resurrection of ritual listening — although I really like that term — I would implicitly agree that it had died, which I think it hasn’t. Because I still know a lot of people who actually enjoy the whole experience of going to the record store and hanging out there, having a chat about music, then going home and putting on a record and looking at the artwork. I also think that having something tactile and having to interact in real life with the record player gives you more attention to the music. And also, I was pleasantly surprised by the fact that I heard so much more when I first put on the record — it’s crazy. I had heard the tracks so many times on my computer, but the vinyl really did add a quality I cannot address.
Would love it if you could share some further words about the recording and production process behind it?
It was all an accident, haha. I started noodling on my guitar to a drum computer beat. Then I found that, by chance, I got myself into kraut-territory—at least, it just clicked with Neu! and all the stuff I was listening to at the moment. Because I lived in quite a noisy building at that time, I couldn’t use my amp, but I just plugged everything into the computer and recorded the sessions. Afterwards, I would usually play some bass over it and add some guitar effects or synths. This turned out to be quite a big collection of jams, loose ends, and other improvisations.
Some time later, I started to listen to these again and select some of the ones I actually liked, and began to “mix” them a little bit better and do some editing of the length and endings. Then I moved houses, and I got to have a nice little basement, in which I could actually set up my drum kit. Then I decided to redo all the drum computer parts with real drums (also because I thought I could really channel my admiration for Mr. Dinger). Fun fact is that all the drums are recorded with just one overhead mic.
After that, I tried to mix it as well as I could, but that wasn’t really satisfactory, so I played a little bit with the idea of letting it get mixed professionally and then just releasing it myself. But then I met a guy from the city where I live, Jelle Haagsma (Jellephant). He’s the guy that everybody in the area has played in bands with, and he’s a fantastic musician—and, in general, a super nice person—but also has a great ear and skills for producing. So he eventually mixed and mastered it.
I think that was about the same time Jeroen from Twin Dimension Records had heard my pre-mixes and asked if I was interested in maybe releasing it. That was really a big, but very nice, surprise! But that suddenly also required coming up with a name—and, because I couldn’t play everything live on my own—a band. After brainstorming with my girlfriend, we landed on DOKA. In the meantime, I recruited some notorious local musicians (Twan, Lasse, and Björn) to get together and rehearse the material. Once the name was decided, I could also design the cover art, and Jeroen and I scheduled a release date and some shows to support the release.
Are you playing some shows in the near future?
At the moment there aren’t any planned, also because I’m quite busy with other projects and life in general, but we sure want to play some more in the coming year!
What’s next for you?
As DOKA we are still rehearsing, though somewhat on an extensive basis, and we are planning to record some of the jams that came into being from all the playing we did over the last months. We then hope to be playing some shows again in the summer. That being said, I also still have a lot of material I recorded solo and which I think about releasing as an album sometime in the future.
What else currently occupies your life?
Next to the fact that I became a dad last August—which is absolutely fantastic but also demanding at times—I’m quite occupied with some other projects, all with a common denominator that is meditative, improvised, and includes even drone elements. For instance, I’m working on a release of some solo acoustic guitar music and playing some shows and planning to record an album with a folk duo called Judasoor, in which we (Björn—the guy that also plays synth in DOKA—and me) play our own interpretations of Dutch traditional songs.
Then there’s also a side project in the form of a psych/kraut band Staugefahr, with whom I played and gigged quite a bit last year but had to put on hold for now. And then, if there’s any time left, I also have a full-time job as an ecologist.
Klemen Breznikar
Headline photo: Björn, Lasse, Marijn, Twan
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