Let Yourself Be Carried: SALMA H°F on Floating, Sound and Minamo

This story first appeared in Farmatuur Magazine, issue 3, autumn 2026.

In The Chapel, the heated indoor pool of Farmatuur, people float with their eyes closed while live music washes through the space. That is Liquid Dreams. Music therapist and DJ SALMA H°F brought her own version there: Minamo. Ahead of the next edition on 12 November, she tells in her own words how it came about.

Music you feel in your body

"Music was always something I didn't just hear, but also felt in my body. My first memory: in the convertible with my mother, singing along loudly to Somewhere Only We Know by Keane. I still remember how I was completely absorbed in the sound, in the bass, and in the vibration of my own voice in my chest. Perhaps that is telling in hindsight: my first musical memory is not about a melody, but about being completely absorbed in something.

By day I am a music therapist, by night I become SALMA H°F. Not because those are two different people, but because there are different sides and a broad spectrum within me. People often experience me as calm and thoughtful, but there is also a very playful and intense side to me. What connects both worlds is my fascination with what happens when people, through sound, start relating to themselves and their surroundings in a different way."

The space sings along

"When I first walked into The Chapel, I was immediately struck by the silence and the atmosphere that was already there. It didn't feel like a neutral place in which I had to create something, but as if the space itself already carried something and invited me to listen. My first impulse was to sing. You sing a note and it lingers in the space for a while. From that moment on I saw The Chapel not just as a venue, but as a fellow performer in Minamo. The architecture, the acoustics, the water and the bodies: they are all part of the music.

A week beforehand I went listening in different spots in the space. Where does an instrument sound dry? Where is there more reverb? A flute truly comes into its own in a reverberant spot, a djembe works better where the sound stays drier. I prepared atmospheres and music, but I didn't want to fix the evening itself."

"I prepare the conditions, not the result."

Playing for closed eyes

"During Liquid Dreams people lie almost still, with their eyes closed. Yet there are many small signals: a face softening, someone seeming to sink deeper, a body relaxing or, on the contrary, growing more restless. I try not to give that a meaning straight away, but see it as information to which I tune my music. That makes Minamo less a composition I perform and more an ongoing conversation with the space.

I also deliberately work with sounds that are not always harmonious. Dissonance, rougher timbres and silence belong there just as much. Silence is not the absence of music: it gives room to what has sounded, and makes audible what can emerge afterwards."

Being carried

"When you float, you are carried. Your body, which is normally constantly busy moving and carrying itself, doesn't have to do anything for a while. For me that evokes the image of a very early experience of being carried, a kind of oceanic feeling. I don't use it as an explanation of what someone should feel, but as an image that feeds my imagination.

What do I hope you experience? It could be calm, but just as well tension, emotion, curiosity or nothing special at all. I don't want to set up any expectation. You sometimes hear that certain frequencies are said to cause specific emotions or physical effects. As a music therapist I am careful with that. I wouldn't claim that a specific frequency on its own has a predictable effect, separate from the context in which that sound is experienced. For me, the meaning and experience of music are always connected to the person, the context, the relationship and the musical situation. That's why I find it important to stay close to what the scientific literature supports.

Minamo is not therapy either. I do bring a way of being present from my work as a therapist: listening, attuning, improvising and leaving room for whatever arises. At the same time, I don't want to confuse my therapeutic framework with my artistic practice."

Music that emerges with the water

"If The Chapel could ever be my laboratory, I would like to experiment with sound under water, with light that responds to the music or to the movement of the water, and go much further with scent. And if everything were technically possible, I would build a system that truly listens to the water, where the movement of the water in turn makes music. Then you don't get music played over the water, but music that emerges together with the water.

Perhaps that is ultimately what Minamo is about: not deciding what someone should feel, but creating an environment in which there is room to feel."

Join Minamo on 12 November

The next Minamo takes place on 12 November in The Chapel, Farmatuur, Maastrichtersteenweg 22, Hasselt. It is an intimate evening for a small group: you float fully clothed on an air mattress on the warm water, while SALMA H°F builds the evening live with electronics and instruments.

• Single ticket, €115
• Duo ticket for two, €200

Places are limited. We look forward to floating with you.