designboom listens: YONT studio on music, spaces, and the art of setting a mood

yont studio turns listening into a spatial experience

For YONT Studio, music is a way of thinking about atmosphere, memory, and how people experience a space. The Berlin-based creative studio, with Turkish roots, works across interiors, installations, objects, and visual storytelling, drawing on the everyday rituals and cultural moments that shape how we live. This connection between sound and space comes into focus in its latest collaboration with Telekom Electronic Beats, a tape installation that invites visitors on an open-ended road trip (find designboom’s previous coverage here). Visitors can sink into salvaged car seats, load a cassette, and set off without a destination or a digital feed. The installation brings together 140 cassettes and makes the act of listening a more tactile and personal experience.

For this edition of designboom listens, YONT shares the music that informs its creative world, from queer pop anthems and nostalgic music videos to experimental electronic sounds. Some tracks take the team back to watching VH1, while others provide the energy to keep experimenting or help them find a way through a creative block. Their selections also reveal how music can become part of a project’s identity, connecting sounds, objects, materials, and spaces. As the studio’s cassette installation suggests, sometimes the best way to experience music is to slow down, pick a tape, and enjoy the journey. Read on for YONT’s answers and discover the playlist behind its creative practice, with tracks that bring back memories, spark new ideas, and shape the way the studio thinks about space.

between club anthems, old memories, and creative discoveries

What song best captures your creative practice?
YONT: Sophie – Immaterial. It’s queer, playful and feels unfamiliar.

What is the very first track you play to clear the air and get inspired when starting a new project?
Y: FKA Twigs – Girl Feels Good. It feels like the beginning of a journey through a forest: you don’t know what’s ahead, but you’re ready to discover it.

Is there a song that instantly takes you back to a specific memory or place from your past?
Y: Juliet – Avalon. It takes us straight back to watching music videos on VH1.
What song is stuck in your head right now?. Madonna & Charli XCX – Danceteria Afterhours. Confessions II was on repeat in the studio, and this new collab is soo good.

What is your ultimate 2 AM studio track, the one you secretly know every word to?
Y: Robyn – Dancing on my own. Ok it might be sad, but it is really the 2am gay anthem.

What song do you put on when you are stuck and need a breakthrough?
Y: Avalon Emerson – One more fluorescent rush. Her sets always help when we’re stuck. She’s the best.

What track is dominating your speakers this week, and is it influencing what you are making right now?

Y: Fatboy Slim – Build it up, Tear it down. It’s upbeat and a little chaotic. The right energy when we need to keep making and experimenting.

What song helps you slow down and focus on the tiny, quiet details?
Y: Moby – Memory Gospel. It brings us to the church, where we can dive deep.

If people would wear headphones while experiencing your latest work, what one song should be playing?
Y: David Bowie – Heroes. A road trip song that captures the feeling of our installation for Telekom Electronic Beats x Namilia: watching the world pass through a car window and becoming a little detached from everything.

What is your favorite album cover art?
Y: Arca-XXXXX. Not an all-time favorite, but this album inspired us while designing the set for Telekom Electronic Beats x Namilia.

What is a track that best describes your favorite project you have worked on so far?
Y: Joe Goddard – Truth is light. Torstrasse 220. The record store project where everything started for us. That project brought together our love of music, objects, materials and spaces.