Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I do love voices so much that I will use them and manipulate them. The presence of a human voice in a piece of music is really exciting, even if it's just someone's breathing.
A mother isn't someone who does it on purpose; mothers are who they are, and just by existing, they affect the way other people negotiate with the environment and with themselves.
When I was about 13, and I would write in my journal, I'd be like, 'I just watched 'Spice World,' the Spice Girls movie, and I loved it.' Sometimes I would sign them with the name Xen.
I've come to the conclusion that the best way for me to grow is in a very self-forgiving way: to take a risk and, in response to how a record pans out, take a risk in the opposite charge.
We try and banish whole inner realms. Sometimes, you have to touch the thing inside you're most afraid of and see what happens when you touch it rather than look away from it all the time.
There is also a particular frustration that I have with language. It's so clumsy. And the reason I'm feeling that is more because on your breathing and your intonation than the actual words.
I had an unspoken treaty with myself to never lie in my lyrics, so, for a long time, when I wrote love songs, I would use genderless pronouns, like "dear" and "darling" - like some kind of granny!
Arca means 'box' or 'wooden' in very old Spanish. It's a ceremonial container where you store jewelry or valuables, an empty space that can become pregnant with whatever music or meaning I give to it.
Making music is an inward and outward gesture at once. I make it because I'm communing with a side of myself that might help me look people in the eye. But at the same time, I'm reaching out, in a way.
I think for the longest time I used to be kind of embarrassed that if I hung out with someone that had a really, really strong personality, I would end up accidentally catching myself talking like them.
When I met Bjork, I felt like it was a friendship first; it was like an oxygen you get from a person you only can exist with symbiotically. It's one of the most beautiful relationships I've had. She is incredible.
There has to be an entry point to learn about myself, or an idea I've never tried, because then I can try on a new skin and see the world through a different perspective. If I have that spark, then I'll save the file.
It's been a growth process for each of us to understand why we find certain things beautiful. And if we do find something beautiful, we'll chase it, because you want to understand yourself and what your psyche is creating.
If I crave a frequency in the mid, I'll just drag in a sound and try to mold it into what feels right. It happens very quickly. And if I've been making a piece of music for five hours and it sucks, I'll just throw it away.
When I was younger, I used to say, 'I'm not making music. I am getting catharsis for emotion.' For me, vulnerability is an act of uncovering. It's a revealing: the idea of putting aside your armour and allowing pain to enter.
I hoped that being attracted to men might go away, but what I never ever hoped would go away were the feelings of femininity, and of softness and fragility, that could live inside of a boy. They were private, but they were mine.
I think there's a certain poetry to having your body reflect what you feel inside of you. Perhaps you have a feeling that's so pure, or overwhelming inside of you that your body disfigures to it - contortions match your confusion.
It struck me at some point that the things I wanted to say had to be wordless. I had to renounce words in order to go deep into the practice of making materials and textures that would express what I'm trying to say more accurately.
Arthur Russell is very important to me on many levels, and when I read Tim Lawrence's biography on him, 'Hold on to Your Dreams,' one of the things I took away was: first thought, best thought. I live by that when I make my own music.
I love vocal music, but I've had a hard time understanding myself through the English language. So it just seemed to me that if I relied solely on creating a voice out of the music, then I might be able to reach something more profound.
It's not about living my life as a boy or a girl - but I'm also not trans - it's just that one day, you wake up feeling masculine, and one day, you wake up feeling feminine. The flickering in between those two states is what's most fertile for me.
When I sit down to make music, I try to enter a flow; I always open a blank session and just make something that I feel like making. Only after a piece of music is done does my frontal cortex allow me to organize what might be trying to come out of my subconscious.
It's a really deep and layered psychological situation - making music with someone - if they're trying to make something real and personal. It's almost like dating: you allow yourself to be consumed by the other - not in a bad way, but in a way that happens in nature.
I always make a point to make my records different. Let's say I have a record that's influenced by hip-hop in an abstract way; for the next record, I'd try not to do that. They are all connected in a personal way but it's important not to repeat myself, because then I can always learn something about myself through my work.
I kind of roll my eyes when people say they make music for themselves or they make art just for themselves, because, maybe in their head, what that means is that they're making it for someone who they don't think is real. Their audience isn't real. But it's still a communicative act. It's still an outward manifestation of longing.
The only thing that mattered to me with 'Xen' was setting things up against each other in an uncomfortable way. If there's a really soft piece of music, and then you're hit by a painful explosive sound, your brain does this funny somersault trying to make sense of why this happened. And at that very moment, your brain is malleable.
There is also a particular frustration that I have with language. It's so clumsy. There's often two words that are close in meaning, yet what I'm trying to say is in between them, or it might be a little more layered and nuanced. Having this conversation with you is exciting, because I can feel you resonate, even though we're on the phone. That's really beautiful to me.
A lot of me figuring out how to love myself more involves finding the things that I'm ashamed of and looking them right in the eye. And something I always find beautiful about Jesse's work is that he finds beauty without any calculation. People say that his work is dark, but he never sees it as such. For him it's all almost about educating people to process why they feel disgust.
A few years ago, I had an interest in making things that felt more like "pieces." That was when I was making a lot of stuff that you could call beats, and it dawned on me that I could say much more nuanced, precise things if I tried to make them more composed. It sounds a bit corny, but I do love the idea that something can make you forget that you're listening and just transport you to somewhere else in your head.
You might be raised as a boy in a very conservative environment and then somehow, at some point, there was a side of me that felt really powerful and sensual in a way that was more feminine. For me, it's not about living my life as a boy or a girl - but I'm also not trans - it's just that one day you wake up feeling masculine, and one day you wake up feeling feminine. The flickering in between those two states is what's most fertile for me.
I try to get my subconscious to puke out as much stuff as I can because I'm really not judging myself while making music. If I crave a frequency in the mid, I'll just drag in a sound and try to mold it into what feels right. It happens very quickly. And if I've been making a piece of music for five hours and it sucks, I'll just throw it away. There has to be an entry point to learn about myself, or an idea I've never tried, because then I can try on a new skin and see the world through a different perspective. If I have that spark, then I'll save the file.
