By: Alejandra Gil M.
Q) How would you describe your sound?
A) I kept saying while making it that it’s the sound of a stained glass spaceship crash-landing onto Earth. I know we took the sound of this EP to live somewhere between glitch pop and experimental and house and dubstep. At its core, it’s music we made for ourselves in our bedrooms, in bursts of feeling, in moments of grief and joy. And when it’s shared, it expands beyond us. Our sound is the score to that expansion. It’s glitchy, it’s operatic, distorted, dreamy, and always trying to connect something.
Q) Who are some of your musical influences?
A) My influences range wildly. Skrillex, James Blake, Beyoncé, Portishead, Timbaland, and Imogen Heap are huge for me. But I also pull from opera, film scores and a lot of global sounds that I grew up with. Lately, I’ve been inspired by artists like Brakence and Sevdaliza, who make the abstract feel intimate.
Q) In what way has your music changed from your sophomore single “Sinister Things?”
A) “Sinister Things” was a survivor’s anthem that I made in my bedroom and, to me, feels rough around the edges. It was defiant and it came from this place of wanting to heal so badly and thereby forcing these really powerful sounds out. I think working on PROMETHEANS; however, inspired me to seek strength in gentleness and seek strength from joy. I think I’ve actually grown more comfortable with being vulnerable and letting myself be gentle, and that has actually made my music sound more polished by comparison and somehow more energetic. PROMETHEANS still carries that same emotional core in some ways; it’s still Aurelia. But it’s expanded into world-building and sound design in a much deeper way, and I think I sound a lot more vocally present.
Q) Your new EP PROMETHEANS came out July 25th. What are some themes you are exploring on this?
A) I think when making this EP, I just tried my best to free myself of judgment and shame. I was going through a lot at the time, and this EP was my escape, and I tried my hardest to make everything have so much energy that I didn’t feel in real life. Then, when making all the visuals, I found myself asking what it would feel like to live in a world where I didn’t have to shrink, hide or decode myself to be understood. How weird could I get, on a reasonable indie budget, with my day job?
Each track reflects a different facet of that planet. There’s rage and play and longing and confidence. And then we added a lens of science fiction, archival footage, invented language, etc. I did the best I could with what I had at the time and I’m really proud of it.
Q) What’s the songwriting process like? Do you need music before lyrics?
A) It’s different every time, and for this EP specifically, it was WILDLY different. Normally, I write fragments, journal entries or poems that live in my journal and then I string them together. Or I come in with a VERY specific concept already fleshed out. This EP, I just turned on the mic for one take each per song and let out whatever beast had been sitting in my chest. “ABRASIVE” is a one-take freestyle, “SUPERNOVA” is one take and “SECTUMSEMPRA” is one take, using laptop speakers because I didn’t have access to a studio when writing that one. You can hear the clicks from my mouse at the beginning.
I loved this process, though, it made me a better songwriter.
Q) Do you have a favorite song from the release and what is the story behind it?
A) “ABRASIVE” AND “FRACTURED” are my two favorites. “ABRASIVE” is a freestyle that I did in one take that we ran with and pulls from all the different styles I love the most. The music video was literally me and two friends running out to the desert with props I thrifted and found in dumpsters, fully dressed in blue, cold as hell and wielding baseball bats. I had the most magical time, and I am so proud of that song and the rage it lets out.
Q) Is there a song from the LP that challenged you the most emotionally?
A) “FRACTURED” is probably the most personal. I wrote it during a long-distance relationship where love and longing were starting to split. It poured out in one sitting. I had been carrying around the feelings in this song for such a long time, so heavily, and to write for a voice like “Echos’” was a challenge but a dream. I trained in classical music for many years, but cast that to the wayside for electronic music and this song encouraged me to add these wails to the second drop that I am really proud of and helped me release so much pain. Bringing it to life with “Echos” and Icarus Moth made it feel like a goodbye I never got to give.
Q) What do you hope people take away from it?
A) That they’re allowed to imagine a world where they feel safe, free and uncontained. PROMETHEANS is strange, genreless and dreamlike and it’s made by two nonbinary people who painted themselves blue for like six months nonstop. I want people to feel joy and kinship.
Q) What is some feedback you’ve received that’s stayed with you?
A) As a producer, I think the thing that stuck with me most was that you have to get the idea out as quickly as possible and that urgency matters. For a long time, my brain would imagine entire songs faster than my hands could translate them and by the time I caught up, the moment had passed. But with practice, that gap has started to close. The goal is always to shorten the distance between the idea and the audio and to make that bridge as immediate and fluid as possible, that’s where magic lives.
As a songwriter, someone once told me my music helped them process their own assault and that floored me and changed how I write music, which is sometimes for me but sometimes for THEM, the listener. That voice is sometimes in the back of my head, thinking of how something might be perceived. It also reminded me that vulnerability is never wasted, it becomes a bridge.
Q) What does it mean to be gaining more recognition for your music?
A) It’s surreal. I make a lot of things from pain, and to know it resonates is like nothing else. Making songs and visuals in my bedroom is an act of creation and release for myself alone. When I share it with the world, it is no longer mine and the story is now someone else’s. To have anyone else on that other line is the best feeling there is. Art exists to transport and connect and this planetary body has been a huge cornerstone in connecting different parts of my life, in different time zones, in all the different ways joy and identity can be expressed. And to share that is so special, I’ll never not be grateful.
Q) Who would you most like to collaborate with in the future?
A) Jean Dawson, FKA Twigs, Natty Peluso, Brakence, Moses Sumney, Pharrell Williams and SOPHIE if she were still with us…
Q) What artist are you currently listening to and why?
A) Jean Dawson’s Glimmer of God album has been my guiding light right now.
Q) What would you like to say to supporters of your music?
A) Thank you for seeing me. To share art is to share a whole world (in this case, quite literally). It’s an honor to have that experience with you. Thank you for listening to the ugly parts, the soft parts, and for supporting my very weird dreams. I promise to keep building worlds to dream in.