Sandy Ortega: Finding Meaning in Restraint

For Minimal Sounds UK, the focus is never on noise — it’s on intention, space, and what happens between the notes. That’s exactly where Sandy Ortega operates.

In a time when electronic music often competes for attention through excess, Sandy Ortega moves in the opposite direction. Their work leans into restraint, patience, and subtle emotional weight, where silence is treated as part of the composition rather than something to fill. Each release feels carefully measured, shaped by instinct as much as design, and grounded in a deep respect for minimal form.

In this interview, Sandy opens up about their relationship with simplicity, how environment and pacing influence their process, and why knowing when not to add more can be just as important as knowing what to include. It’s a conversation rooted in sound, space, and the quiet confidence of an artist who understands that minimal doesn’t mean empty — it means intentional.

Read on as we sit down with Sandy Ortega to explore the thinking behind the music, the discipline of restraint, and the subtle details that often speak the loudest.

1. Your music feels precise and intentional. How much of that comes from planning, and how much happens instinctively? 
   
   Let me just write here my hands are not my own they are given over to the higher power.  When I compose it is instinctively and when I practice and perform there is much room for improvising on that composed structure it is instinctive as well.  The planning is not much at all but there is some. 
   
2. Silence and space seem just as important in your work as melody or rhythm. When you’re producing, how do you know when a track has enough? 
   
   Silence and space is SO SO important for me!  My hands are not my own.  So it comes to me when it is enough it just does that is when I know.  My hands are not my own.
   
3. Minimal music often asks listeners to slow down. Do you think about pacing and patience when you’re creating? 
   
   I absolutely think about pacing and patience.  It is up to me to be suave and despacio to be gentle and not rush.  This along with El TOQUE the Spanish touch is all of it for my creating.  Go one phrase at a time pace yourself be creative be patient it will come to you no doubt.  I don’t think.  It just comes to me.
   
4. What usually comes first for you — texture, emotion, or structure? 
   
   Definitely structure.  The structure I do is exquisitely beautiful compose perform practice. 
   
5. You avoid excess, both sonically and visually. Is minimalism something you consciously practice, or has it become second nature? 
   
   It is definitely second nature.  Visually I wish to put myself out there more though. 
   
6. How does your environment affect your sound? Do certain places, times of day, or moods shape your sessions? 
   
   Definitely places.  I lock myself into my room and compose and practice.  It all happens in my room. 
   
7. When you’re deep in a track, what tells you it’s finished rather than just paused? 
   
   I try not to make my compositions too long so I know when to stop.  I can’t explain it my composing leading to the ending.
   
8. Do you see your music as something meant for focused listening, or do you like when it blends into someone’s everyday life? 
   
   Certainly focused listening.  My music is exquisitely beautiful that Spanish sound!  It will draw you in you even will meditate on it! 
   
9. What role does restraint play in your creative decisions? 
   
   I don’t really make decisions but I must restrain myself it is most difficult to encompass this exquisitely beautiful Spanish sound! 
   
10. Has your relationship with simplicity changed as you’ve grown as an artist? 
    
    Yes!  My goal always is to and this mostly when I perform is just that the listeners hear the exquisitely beautiful Spanish sound it may not be complicated that may be best so it has changed me as I have grown as an artist.  It is not complex the Spanish sound it could be I could do that but it really is not complex!
    
11. When you listen back to your own work, what do you pay attention to first? 
    
    You know I just go off somewhere I listen to EL TOQUE the Spanish touch but I just go off somewhere.
    
12. What’s something you’re currently exploring sonically that feels subtle but important to you? 
    
    I am currently exploring melody it is just so very important in my music the Spanish melody is…