Every Set Is a Letter

There's a moment RYZER keeps coming back to. He's 16, maybe 17, and a song comes on. Black Eyed Peas, one he doesn't know by name. And suddenly he's 5 years old again, in his parents' living room, their CDs playing in the background. "I realised music had shaped me without me even knowing it," he says. "I never knew the song's name. I just knew what it felt like."

That relationship between music and memory runs through everything he does. The Swiss DJ, photographer, and graphic designer doesn't separate his creative practices so much as layer them, each one feeding the others, all of them rooted in the same impulse: connection.

It started with football. Years of team sport left him with something he can't quite shake, the belief that things are better when shared. "When you win together, it means something different than winning alone," he says. "And losing together is probably the better lesson. You sit with it, you reflect, you figure out what you'd do differently." He pauses. "When something just works, you stop asking how."

When you win together, it means something different than winning alone.

— RYZER

The photography came later. An old analogue camera, bought secondhand for 20 Swiss francs on a friend's recommendation. He started shooting his friends, then started building concepts, making it intentional. Covers for musicians. Visual work for people making sound. And somewhere in that music bubble, he noticed something: how much it mattered when the right people ended up in the same room. "I find it incredible when I think two people match, same passion, same energy, and I can make that happen," he says. "That's something I find genuinely beautiful."

DJing came during the pandemic, almost by accident. He and his friends had rented a studio together before the lockdowns hit: musicians, producers, a videographer, a photographer. When the clubs closed, they threw parties anyway. Everyone took a turn at the mixer. RYZER was one of the last. "Everyone was doing it and I didn't want to just follow," he laughs. "But then it caught me."

But it's his solo project, Letters, that reveals the most about how he thinks. The name came from a simple idea: that a DJ set, like a playlist, is a form of communication. A thing you make and send to someone. "A mix can be understood as a letter," he says. "It says something. It gives something." The concept grew from there, an event where people come for the music and leave having written actual letters, posted to actual addresses, through an actual box he brings himself. Local artists make postcards. He designs his own, based on his mix covers. He even designs his own branded pens for guests to write with.

I want to make it as easy as possible for people to write letters again.

— RYZER

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What's most striking about RYZER isn't any one thing he makes, it's the thread connecting all of it. The photographs that became covers. The covers that became a concept. The concept that became an event. At every step, someone new pulled up a chair.

"I've always believed the best way to learn something is directly from another person," he says. "You can watch tutorials. But the setting gives you more."