Fleanger: "Music became my canvas, sound became my ink"

FLEANGER is an electronic music producer and DJ based between Tel Aviv and Berlin, renowned for his emotionally charged and melodic approach to deep house. His sound masterfully balances warm, introspective melodies with subtle grooves and evolving textures, exploring the delicate space between what we feel and what we show. Drawing inspiration from urban contrasts, inner vulnerability, and visual storytelling, FLEANGER crafts intimate, reflective sonic journeys that seamlessly connect emotion with movement.

"Behind the Smile" hints at a contrast between what we show and what we truly feel. What emotional story were you aiming to tell with this release?

For me, "Behind the Smile" is about the quiet space between appearance and truth.

We all learn to move through the world with a certain expression,  functional, polite, composed. But beneath that surface there’s often a parallel emotional current: vulnerability, doubt, longing, tenderness. I wanted this release to live exactly in that in-between space.

The story isn’t dramatic in a loud way. It’s subtle. It’s about moments when everything seems calm from the outside, while inside something is still unfolding. The melodies carry that inner voice, restrained, warm, slightly melancholic. while the groove keeps moving forward, almost as if life doesn’t pause for what we feel.

"Behind the Smile" is a reminder that emotions don’t always need to be explained or resolved. Sometimes they just need a place to exist. This EP is that place for me…honest, intimate, and quietly human.

Your name is inspired by the Flanger effect, with the addition of an ethereal "E." How does this blend of technical experimentation and emotion manifest in the sound of Behind the Smile?

The name Fleanger was always meant to sit between two worlds for me, the technical and the emotional.

The flanger effect itself is about movement, phase, and subtle modulation. It’s not something you always hear clearly, but you feel it shifting the space around the sound. Adding the “E” gave it an ethereal layer. Something less defined, more human, more emotional.

In "Behind the Smile", that balance is very present. Technically, the tracks are built with a lot of attention to detail: gentle modulation, evolving textures, small changes in filters and harmonics that keep the music breathing. Nothing is static. The sound is always in motion, even when it feels minimal.

Emotionally, those technical choices are there to serve the feeling, not to show complexity. The subtle movement mirrors inner emotional states… thoughts that don’t stay still, feelings that slowly transform rather than explode. The music doesn’t push for big moments; it allows space, patience, and intimacy.

For me, "Behind the Smile" is where experimentation becomes emotional language,  technology used not to impress, but to express what’s harder to say out loud.

You grew up in Tel Aviv and are now based in Berlin—two very different yet intense cities. How have these places influenced the mood and narrative of your latest project?

Tel Aviv and Berlin live inside the music in very different ways, almost like two inner voices having a conversation.

Tel Aviv shaped my sense of rhythm and warmth. There’s an emotional openness there, a pulse that’s very alive, very present. Even when things are heavy, there’s light, movement, and a certain softness that finds its way into the melodies and grooves.

Berlin brought the contrast. It taught me patience, restraint, and depth. The space between sounds matters here. Silence, repetition, subtle tension, those elements became part of how I tell a story musically. Berlin allows emotions to sit longer without needing to be resolved.

In Behind the Smile, the narrative is born exactly from that intersection. Tel Aviv is the heart… expressive, human, warm. Berlin is the mind, introspective, minimal, slightly melancholic. The EP moves between those two energies, just like I do.

It’s not about choosing one city over the other. It’s about learning to exist in the space between them, where emotion and structure meet, and where the music feels most honest to who I am right now.

Before music, drawing and graffiti were your creative refuge. Do you still approach music with a visual mindset when composing or structuring your tracks?

Very much so. I still think visually when I make music, maybe even more than I realize at the moment.

Drawing and graffiti taught me how to translate emotion into form: lines, contrast, negative space, repetition. When I compose, I approach a track almost like a visual composition. I’m thinking in layers, depth, light and shadow, foreground and background. A melody can feel like a line moving across a wall, while textures and atmospheres behave more like color washes or shading.

Structure is also very visual for me. I imagine how a track unfolds rather than how it performs. Where the tension sits, where the space opens, when something should fade instead of arrive. Silence and restraint play the same role as empty space in a drawing, they give meaning to what’s there.

So even though the medium changed, the mindset didn’t. Music became my canvas, sound became my ink, and the goal stayed the same: to express something honest without overexplaining it.

You’ve spoken about music as a response to a struggle for connection. After releasing Behind the Smile, do you feel you’ve found a new way to connect—with your audience or with yourself?

I think Behind the Smile didn’t solve the struggle, but it changed the way I relate to it.

For a long time, music was my way of reaching outward, trying to be understood, to feel less alone in what I was carrying. With this release, something shifted. The process felt less about proving or explaining, and more about allowing. Allowing emotions to exist without turning them into statements.

In that sense, the connection became quieter and more honest. With myself first, accepting that not everything needs resolution, that vulnerability doesn’t have to be dramatic to be real. And with the audience, the connection feels more mutual. I’m not asking people to feel something specific; I’m inviting them into a space where they can bring their own emotions.

The messages I’ve received after the release reflect that. People don’t talk about drops or moments, they talk about how it feels. That tells me the connection is happening on a deeper level, beyond words.

So no, I didn’t "find" the connection in a final way. But I found a new language for it… one that feels softer, more human, and closer to the truth.

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