Steffi presents The Red Hunter, her fourth solo album and the first project released through Candy Mountain, a new label, studio, and creative hub founded with Virginia at their home base in Portugal. Dedicated to Steffi’s late mother, the album tells a story of family ties, female spirit, and the dynamics of change. Its ten tracks are drawn from drafts written on the move over the past few years and brought together during immersive sessions at the Candy Mountain studio. They reflect a time of personal flux transformed into something new, resolute, and affirmatory.

In this interview, Steffi talks about the development of The Red Hunter, the details of its striking album cover art designed by Michiel de Vreede based off of a sculpture by the Berlin artist Rein Vollenga, and how she and Virginia came to create Candy Mountain.

Interview by Interlocutor Magazine

What is the significance of the title The Red Hunter, in the sense of that particular track itself, and how it may reflect the feel or tonal message you're attempting with the album as a whole?

The Red Hunter is an inside joke between my brother and I. It was our nickname we had for my mother when we were teenagers. She used to have bright red hair and she was a force of nature to say the least. Very energetic and full of fire. Translated to the music on the album, it has a very fast flow and moves forward with pulsating rhythms sections. She is in there a lot to say the least.

Since your album is dedicated to your late mother, how did you approach the work compositionally, as a way to fully and sensitively express this dedication and to communicate a feeling of family, personal connections, and change?

The album was written in the last four years, I started writing shortly after my mother’s passing. The years to follow, on a private level, were a lot about my mother’s absence. This affected my everyday life a lot and of course it also reflected where my head was musically when I worked in the studio on these new tracks. It’s fair to say that you take a certain mood into your writing, especially me as I always have a strong melancholic element in my music as the main theme. Looking at it from a more conceptual aspect I really wanted to dive deeper into my rhythm sections and take that to a next level. More definition and detail were my main goal. Small melodies on top of complex and heavy beats. Rhythm becoming a melodic element.

You've done a lot of work with the producer Virginia, and now you have both founded Candy Mountain, which is a label, studio, and bucolic artist retreat in a remote part of Portugal. What's your overall vision for this space and in what unique ways do you think it will help nurture the creative process for artists?

We bought a house in Portugal in 2017 to spend our time between Berlin and the Portuguese countryside. In 2020 we wrapped up our lives in Berlin and ended up moving everything to Portugal permanently, and we set up Candy Mountain. Candy Mountain is a label, studio space, and creative hub. It is an artist-driven platform is based here in the countryside of Portugal but operates on a global level. The studio sits in the middle of nature. artists can live and work under the same roof with zero distractions in a tranquil environment. The perfect space to work and also connect with the local scene in Portugal. We both feel that it’s important to give something back to the place we moved to and welcomed us, so we hope to do so with this new concept.

The album cover for The Red Hunter was designed by Michiel de Vreede and it features a Rein Vollenga sculpture that has been modified significantly from the original. How does this modified design reflect the music of the album and also your own creative process?

Michiel de Vreede is my friend since high school, we used to be in art class together and he has been the designer of most of the artwork of my labels. He also designed the Candy Mountain logo. Over the years we talked about designing something together, so this was the perfect moment to dive into it. We are both big fans of Rein Vollenga’s sculptures and art.

The ground idea was to use one of his sculptures as a starting point and through postproduction create a new image based on a real piece of art but becoming a totally new image. Key words for me were ancient female energy and how that gets passed on from generation to generation, referring to the strength my mother gave me and the opportunity to honor her and this power, through the music on the album, and the artwork being a reflection of that too.

The Red Hunter is available now.

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