From graduating cum laude in Animation Film to touring European punk clubs in the ’90s with the chaotic El Guapo Stuntteam, to building the surreal universe of Vermin Twins with Lotte Vanhamel, traveling space and beyond with Meteor Musik and Jaak De Digitale, making VHS soundtracks with Chrome Brulée, recording and producing albums for Gruppo Di Pawlowski and The Germans, collaborating with artist Miet Warlop on ICCHĀ in Dhaka, Bangladesh, and having 4-bit fun with Dijf Sanders in GameboyzIImen…for over two decades, Micha Volders has inhabited countless worlds.

Since its inception five years ago, he has consistently released new projects every year on his label, Mutropia, which he describes as “like an old ship, isolated in the middle of the sea: a place to be undisturbed and fish for new ideas.” Operating outside of the music industry, he thrives on complete freedom and loses interest when things become too functional or repetitive. “In a world where everything is already controlled, why sacrifice your artistic freedom for anything? It is maybe the last token of inner freedom you possess.”

Unplugging.

We’re seated in a quiet corner of a local café in Liège that smells of celery soup and cigarettes, a place that feels like the last proof of another time. Volders shakes his head, lamenting the disappearance of places like this.” Lateley every single authentic thing has to make room for global corporate trash.”
“Look at Starbucks buying up all the train station cafés, selling horrible coffee for €6 a cup, while probably exploiting half of the world’s coffee farmers!” “Please! Don’t drink Starbucks coffee…” He begs me.

He leans back, staring into the distance. “Yeah I know, It’s easy to be a complaining old fart!” He laughs. ” But I’m not hopeless… I think one day people will break the mold we’re living in now and take matters into their own hands, organizing things on their own terms, giving these corporations and big tech the middle finger, unplugging all of the bullshit, and go back to real and honest interactions. You see it already happening here and there.”

However great the temptation to keep on pondering on such matters, we’re supposed to talk about SǒN, his first short film, and also an album, it’s a rogue DIY project, a hybrid universe that mixes dream and reality, fiction and documentary into a story were failure, perseverance, legacy, and human vulnerability collide, leaving the viewer free to interpret its meaning.

The Beginning of an Impulse: SǒN.

In March 2023, Volders began outlining the first contours of the project. “I already had a strong interest in Muay Thai,” he recalls. “Not just as a martial art, but as a cultural phenomenon… the rituals, the discipline, the way it’s deeply embedded in Thai society. There’s also this contrast between the brutality of the practice and the humble grace it demands, it’s incredible. But as an outsider, it’s tricky; I didn’t want to fall into Orientalist “kung fu” clichés, nor appropriate it, but rather approach it with respect and humility.” he confesses “At the same time, I wanted to visit my much missed brother Jethro, who had been living and working in Bangkok for many years with his partner. It felt as though these two things alligned at the right time.”

Before he took off, he contacted several Muay Thai associations and clubs. To his surprise, he quickly received a response from none other than Samart Payakaroon, a four-time Lumpinee champion, legendary fighter of the ‘Golden Age of Muay Thai,’ “When I read that he was willing to participate, I couldn’t believe it at all,” says Volders. “It was surreal. Of course, I didn’t have the budget for the fee he requested; it was far beyond my reach. But the fact that he even replied, that he took my proposal seriously, was pretty crazy. But man! I was intimidated: the idea of placing such an icon before my inexperienced lens… I felt completely unprepared.”

The second reply came from Grandmaster Woody or Chinawut Sirisompan, another renowned name in the Muay Thai world. president of the Muay Boran Association of Thailand, the organization dedicated to preserving Muay Boran, the traditional and deadly precursor of Muay Thai, used centuries ago by Thai soldiers in the wars with Burma.
“He was immediately very helpful in finding locations and actors,” Volders explains. “His name already sounded so mythical, I was completely intrigued. When I finally met him, we had a great conversation, and he shared all these legendary stories: how he met Bruce Lee in Bangkok during the production of The Big Boss in 1971 and was invited to train with Lee; how he later landed a role in the James Bond film The Man with the Golden Gun; and how he worked as a bouncer in England in the late seventies. After nights of knocking hotheads to the ground, some of these guys started asking him for training, and that’s how he opened one of the first Muay Thai gyms there. He truly embodied the entire history of the sport. Meeting him was incredibly enriching. I was very lucky that he supported my project.”

places Of Pain, Encounters in Endurance.

The journey took him to a lot of memorable places. In Bangkok, he visited the Sangmorakot Gym, where he interviewed the owner. “I tried to learn as much as possible about the sport, the culture, and the aura surrounding it, but when you step into an open-air gym like Sangmorakot, where only professionals train who fight in the legendary Rajadamnern Stadium, you feel seriously intimidated. Their strength, coordination and speed is simply insane… it’s incredible how far a body can be pushed through years of intensive training. You also feel how fragile you are as a “normal” person… Initially, I felt as an intruder, but after a few conversations, some of the athletes opened up and we had some interesting conversations.”

Samart Payakaroon

Aiming to Shoot.

in April 2023, Volders traveled through Thailand with a budget camera, a vague one-page script, and a few email contacts. “That was basically my master plan,” he laughs. “I really didn’t know how to prepare for it, because it was my first time doing this I had no funding or production company backing it and I just thought, how hard can it be? You just film stuff and edit it afterwards!” He admits, “I’m so used to working in a studio, with video or music productions where everything is more or less under control. Shooting in a foreign country, with unknown people and no crew…I didn’t imagine what that would actually be like.”

Luckily, his brother Jethro was there, along with his partner Cheunsu Dhama, who teaches at the Bangkok University and acted as guide and translator. “Without them, this would really have been impossible. The language barrier alone can slow everything down immensely. They helped make contacts, set appointments, and defuse tricky situations. But even with their help, working with non-actors in uncontrollable environments remained a challenge. Often it came down to courage, chance, and timing to capture a shot.” On the other hand, the improvisational nature fit well with his approach as a musician and producer. “The freedom to create something on the spot, to trust your intuition, that creates urgency. It’s a process of constantly discovering, welcoming the mistakes along the way.”

Sanit Lookthamsuea on set.

On Koh Samui, I met a practicing coach in his late sixties. “He told stories about his youth, how he started training because other kids bullied him and stole the little money he had. Over his lifetime, he fought in more than 300 tournaments as a professional Nak Muay. At nearly 70 years old, he was still fit and demonstrated his powerful kicks. We laughed together. Such chance encounters gave the making of the film a personal dimension, while also providing more context.”

Wachara Kanha.

“We were desperately searching for someone to take on the lead role, and only a few days before the first shoot Wachara responded. His presence was intriguing, mysterious, and carried an air of danger. He’s a self-made personality with a past, very versatile…he immediately brought character to the story”

The first scenes were filmed in a half-abandoned slum. Wachara arrived on a battered, rattling enduro motorbike, while children played between rubble and rusty car wrecks, with chickens, cats, and dogs swarming the street. Scents of unfamiliar food, waste, and burnt rubber mixed with the distant traffic. Volders often felt like an intruder. “It sometimes feels like you’re entering a world that isn’t meant for you,” he says. “You’re constantly balancing between observing and intervening, somewhere between being a spectator and a director. Everything felt intense: the sounds, the smells, the chaos, and yet there is also the warmth of the people who allowed us a glimpse into their lives.”

Volders already realized that not everything he captured would appear in the final cut, but that the memory of those moments, would seep into the music. “That’s exactly what it is: the collecting of memories,”he says. “Even if they don’t end up in the film, they still form its foundation.”

Working with Wachara Kanha also meant that the line between fiction and reality blurred. Kanha’s personal history, a childhood dream of becoming a celebrated actor, his relationship with his father, periods of derailment, the pressure of expectations…all flowed directly into the film. And although he is not a Muay Thai athlete, his physique was impressive. Like a lot of kids in Thailand, he had taken gym classes and practiced Muay Thai during his school years. It perfectly aligned with the film’s narrative of a once-promising young fighter who spent twelve years in prison and struggles, in vain, to reclaim his dream.

At Wachara’s home the tension became even more intimate. The small house, barely distinguishable from the chaotic surroundings, housed his father, his brother, a barking dog, and a blaring television. A thin cardboard partition wall divided a room where his younger brother was playing old video games. You had to sense when to make yourself small and invisible. “But it’s like being a bright white polar bear in a forest,” Volders laughs, “it was impossible to be subtle. ”Still, a rhythm emerged, a shared language of gestures, nods, and small instructions. Wachara understood the game instantly, reacted intuitively, and added his own interpretation to the scenes.

Music as a Parallel Universe.

After his first trip, Volders returned to Belgium with hours of footage. In his studio, he began creating music, directly fueled by the memories and impressions he had gathered. “Some moments weren’t even filmed, but they lingered as memories and shaped the music,” he explains. The result was a kind of framework, a mental architecture upon which he could hang a musical world. Gradually, this became a very acoustic and organic universe, where the fast and powerful movements of Muay Thai translated into angular orchestral motifs, rasping woodwinds breathing in and out, chased by scrap-metal percussion. In contrast with meandering soundscapes, where the contemplative voice of Kanha drifts in and out with audio recordings of some of the unused footage.

Each new phase of editing gave rise to new compositions. In November 2023 he returned to Thailand to continue his research, interviewing more coaches and athletes. And lastly In 2024, a third journey followed, during which he filmed missing scenes and completed the narrative. Yet every trip also generated new music. “The film became a well of inspiration,” he says. “Many of my encounters kept resonating. It was as if a parallel universe emerged in sound, where imaginary side-quests of all the people I met found their own little soundtrack… Sometimes in the form of miniatures, sometimes in extended compositions...The film might have been finished, but the world it opened just kept expanding. At some point I had to pull the brakes, otherwise it would have become a three-hour album,” he points out.

The album ultimately runs 81 minutes, divided into 30 pieces of music, and will be released as a double LP on Mutropia on November 7.

Looking back, Volders doesn’t see SŎN as a finished project, but more as a kind of transformation. “Because I worked without budget, support, or resources, I only realized later that it’s basically madness, to shoot it, edit it, score it… Even for a short like this, It’s still a lot of work, and you quickly lose the overview. There’s a reason films are made in teams. I cursed a lot during the process!” He pauses. “but it changed the way I look, listen, and remember. I gained so much from it, both personally and artistically. It’s far from perfect, and you could argue it is a glorified travel diary of some kind, but it convinced me that I want to do it better next time, that this was only a taste, an impulsive but honest experiment.”

The Future of SoN.

Today, SŎN exists not only as a film and an album but also as a live performance. Together with BL!NDMAN [hybrid] and Japanese percussionist Tsubasa Hori, they developed a concert where music and image merge. Hori brings her background in soulful intensity and improvisation, BL!NDMAN their rooted radical approach to sound. They will present selections from the album in a concert, premiering on November 7 at C-Mine in Genk.

Volders avoids offering a single, clear-cut message. “I could attach many themes and meanings, but it’s not my task to dictate how the work should be understood. There’s already enough curating and explaining how music and art should be perceived in culture today. I prefer to leave space for others to interpret it like they want, like artist and writer Tom Lambeens, who wrote beautiful liner notes about his own listening experience that appears on the album sleeve. What matters is that the experience resonates and lingers with people on their own terms, without over-explaining conceptually.”