neonme channels dark, Icelandic electronica in forthcoming album 'premiere'
"This album is the first piece of music that I write that feels completely true to myself as a musician"
neonme has unveiled her forthcoming album, 'premiere', set for release on October 25.
The record draws upon a variation of sonic influences around the Icelandic artist, who simultaneously works across studio production for other artists and sound design for theatre shows with the Icelandic National Theatre and Iceland's City Theatre.
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Pulled together with a feel of electronica, the album blends powerful lyricism with ethereal samples - taken from flowers, bees, and even vacuum cleaners - and live instrumentation
"This album is the first piece of music that I write that feels completely true to myself as a musician. It took me a while to figure out who I was as a musician outside of a band as I’ve always had collaborators and created music through a somewhat compromised process."
"This task, figuring out my sound, was very overwhelming and it took me about four years to create the album from start to finish. I initially planned on barely having any vocals on the album as I wanted it to be an exploration of my production skills and I thought using my voice might take away from the productions. I was very aware that once you sing as a female producer you usually get labeled as a singer and this I wanted to avoid as much as possible.
"To my surprise, as soon as I had decided not to sing on the album a bunch of lyrics started to come to me. I started writing poetry again for the first time in a decade and I was way more productive as a lyricist all of a sudden than as a producer. Instead of suffocating this sudden need to write I tried to embrace it and let the lyrics and the storytelling be one of the main aspects of the album.
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"It was a completely new way for me to write songs, as almost all of the songs were written lyrics first. Most of the time the lyrics were poems that had a certain flow and structure to them that guided the songwriting. As a result often the songs became strange in structure and unpredictable which I think really defined the sound of this album. The production aspect became a decorative element to the lyrics of the album which was totally the opposite of what I had planned initially."
'premiere' by 'neonme' is available on October 25, check it out here.
Niamh Ingram is Mixmag's Weekend Editor, follow her on Twitter