HEKA // NO ONE
Your latest EP (a) was the product of several songs written over the course of a couple years. How do you process which songs belong together and tell the story you want to tell?
The annoying answer is - sort of instinctively. I know more or less as soon as I finish writing a song what other of my songs it belongs with, and I tend to follow my gut with this stuff. There’ll usually be something in the lyrics or the style of a new song that is a continuation on the theme of a previous one, and the narrative of these collections tends to write itself as I go, almost like separate threads of the same conversation weaving in and out.
With (a) as my first self-produced EP, another factor I also considered quite carefully was the way the songs’ arrangements would complement each other, wanting for the collection to feel cohesive and the tracks to flow seamlessly, through soundscapes and a shared sound, into one another.
You’re from the Italian hills and currently reside in London - how do you feel like your music reflects the spaces in between, and the movement between places? Do you feel each track is quite literally a product of its environment?
A song is like distilled brain soup and songwriting is an extension of my thought in a very direct way. I’ve definitely noticed a difference between the songs I write when I’m in Italy and the kind of material I come up with when in London and it’s very interesting to observe. I’ve always felt kind of in between the two cultures and so the idea that my music might reflect that hybridity makes sense to me. I like exploring the space between genres and perhaps this is somewhat informed by that.
You’ve said before: “I quite like comparing things that are physical and attached to you, with feelings – the connection between the body and the emotions that the body feels.” Music feels like a good example of something that creates both a mental and physical response - joy/sadness, dancing et all - is your intent to summon that sort of response through your music?
Hm I don’t know that I have the intention of summoning any specific response with my music.. As much as it excites me to find out that others enjoy what I do and feel a connection with my work, I ultimately write for myself.
HEKA
MIX
When you refer to your music as “butchered folk” - I think there’s a certain gothiness that comes from even living life and expressing yourself in the modern age where mortality can feel more real than ever, and more and more people are reaching for unorthodox ways to express that conflict in art. Is this something you’d agree with?
I definitely think that there is an absurdity and a brokenness to modern life that inevitably translates to the work people are making these days. For me “butchering folk” meant breaking the old so that something new could start making more sense. It meant corrupting folk songs with elements of rock and electronic music, and finding a new language to express the conflict and contradictions of my own experience.
[Though credit for that expression goes to my friend (and producer on a few of my past releases) Alessandro La Barbera, who I believe said: “Let’s go butcher some folk songs” on one of our recording studio sessions for my song i see you. He said that because we took that song - a simple voice and guitar demo recording in my room, and sampled parts of it to create the arrangement toward the end of the track where it all kind of corrupts into this more electronic sounding instrumental. I always loved that expression and the way it perfectly described the metamorphosis of that song, so I wrote it down and have kept it through the years to describe my music.]
You’re both classically trained, inspired by folk music & experimenting with electronica. What’s the opposite of tradition?
Hah I love this question. Hm I guess the opposite of tradition is experimentation and rupture ! :)
Tell us more about the recording process/inspiration behind this new track!
I really enjoyed playing with space in this particular track actually! I like to incorporate field recordings or samples into songs and what I usually do is scavenge through my phone for sound recordings that will fit a specific mood or texture. In this particular song I used an old recording of a morning on a balcony in Berlin that I’d made a few years ago while visiting my friend Damien. It’s a really simple airy recording with some wooden wind chimes moving, but playing with adding and subtracting this sound creates a dynamic within the arrangement which is both subtle but quite incisive (I hope ! haha)
Any under the radar musical peers we need to know?
Glows, Saint Jude, Sophie Jamieson, Julia-Sophie, Jockstrap, herbal tea, bonsi, Jemima Coulter, Aga Ujma - gosh so so many really amazing artists everywhere! All of the artists in my playlist, salve the not so under the radar ones ;)
What’s special about the mix you’ve made?
It’s a multi genre mix packed with new music from my peers and contemporary artists that I admire. Most if not all tracks released this year and just plain awesome.
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