The only girl on her music technology degree course, Emika is a self-identified geek whose enthusiasm for music and technology runs scarily, infectiously deep.
British bred, Berlin based, she recently released ‘Drop the Other’ on Ninja Tune, a dubstep-inflected tune that gets played everywhere from fucked up underground parties to Radio One. Talking to her and listening to the music, you get the impression that she could be the one to shepherd electronic music from its current state of flux to somewhere entirely new.
FACT caught up with Emika to find out what’s been going down. Quite a lot, it seems.
How’s the response been to the Drop the Other EP?
“Absolutely shocking. Fantastic. I kind of regard what I do to have quite an underground sound and I’m really very happy that my music is translating to people from all different cultural divisions.”
How did you get into making music, was there a point when you were turned onto sound?
“There was a moment actually when I was at my Grandma’s house and she was playing David Bowie on a cassette player, I must have been nine or ten. I realised that music didn’t just kind of happen, it actually came from something. My mum’s very creative, she’s a textile artist and I’d spend a lot of my time just making things with her, like cakes or clothes, always making something and she said there’s a guy, David Bowie he makes music, and explained it as best as you can to a kid. That was a moment in my past where I realised you can make this stuff: Music.”
‘Drop the Other’
Scuba’s Vulpine Remix
How did you end up on Ninja Tune?
“I did an internship there, I sat on the floor and stuck stickers on CDs for four weeks, it was the most boring experience I’ve ever had. That was my first foot in the door. I carried on sending them music which was totally rubbish, then I moved to Berlin, got very inspired by the music here and made some new stuff, sent it to Ninja and they offered me a deal.”
What prompted the move to Berlin?
“I got really ill at the end of my degree, I had to have my appendix removed and they completely messed up the operation. I needed more and more surgery – it was a complete nightmare. Then I spent a long time on morphine not really understanding anything. When I was well enough to get a job again I couldn’t relate to society anymore, nothing made sense to me. Then HSBC gave me some free flights for upgrading my account to a postgraduate account, and because I’d spent a lot of my childhood in Prague and I’d been to Paris and the usual EasyJet spots, Berlin was the only one I hadn’t been to, so I thought fuck it I’ll just come to Berlin. I discovered the underground music scene here and I felt really good again; for the first time in a year I felt like me.”
Do you go out on the Berlin scene, Berghain and those places?
“Berghain is the place for me! I’ve done some interviews where it’s so difficult to communicate the kind of vibe you have in these clubs. Also I’ve experienced a lot of stigma towards techno, I think people still picture it as the Love Parade! It’s such a different culture today. I get up on a Sunday, go and spend all Sunday there and I write lyrics in my head over the beats, come home and try and make what I’ve heard in the club.”
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