Do you think you’re drawn to dark, offbeat sounds?
“Yes, totally. I’m quite rebellious in a way, I want to show people what you can do with sound, I don’t necessarily want to show off my technology. I want to show people that sound can be really ambiguous and interesting because I focus on sound and because we don’t have a language where we can talk about it, people instantly classify it as being dark and futuristic, they don’t quite understand it. Maybe in twenty years from now people will listen to my music and will think “oh my God it’s pop cheese!””
Drop the Other combines distinct glitchy and dubstep tropes with abstract vocals and structure which could almost come from a pop song. Is it important for you to have these two elements merge?
“That’s something I learnt when I was at university. All the music people were making music that was so avant garde and it just left me feeling really alienated. The more I studied avant garde music the more I started to love pop music, I used to go home with my friends from university and they’d be like “we’re not going to listen to Radio One, it’s for the ignorant masses” and I loved it! I totally fell in love with Beyonce and Britney Spears, it started to sound really amazing when you’ve been listening to the sound of radiators all day and reading about conceptual art forms, it was a nice release. My bigger ambition is to influence the pop world with avant garde sound. I don’t think avant garde sound needs to live in the art sound world, I think it can live in many places.”
MyMy feat. Emika – ‘Price Tag’
MyMy feat. Emika – ‘Lights Go Down’
Do you have a stock answer when journalists inevitably start asking you about “women with synthesisers”?
“Last year I watched La Roux and Little Boots become really big and I was feeling really sorry for them because they’ve been crowned “LADIES!” In the beginning I was really fighting against all the press because it would always say ‘new female producer’ - I was always trying to get rid of the word female.”
One thing I’ve decided is that I hope, one day, there will be a woman who comes up with a computer programming language that’s not based on any of the stuff that the guys have come with over the decades.
“I think if you can create a programming language from a woman’s brain, create music technology from this language, then if you can have new software that doesn’t look like how the software today looks, if it all comes from a woman’s brain I think that could be really exciting. Only when that happens are we going to have true new music.”
What do you want to achieve in 2010?
“I want to work out how to perform my music live because I have a set up at the moment but it’s like karaoke. I have some technology and I can switch stuff on and off but for me that’s not performing live. I also want to run a marathon! I need to stop being such a nerd and do something for my body.”
Louise Brailey
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