More everything: On ‘hexed!’, aya processes her dark impulses

Following 2021's 'im hole' is no mean feat, a record that placed Yorkshire-born producer aya as a paragon of electronic innovation — raw and avant-garde in its ingenuity, yet familiar in its swell of references. Four years on, aya's astonishing second album, 'hexed!', has landed, and looks fixed to become a definitive contribution to the experimental music landscape.

Marking her return to Hyperdub Records, 'hexed!' is a juxtaposition to the awe for after-hours culture heard in her last LP, instead forcing us to look at the dark underbelly of partying — lead single 'off to the ESSO' confronts the moments of discomfort felt within the throes of insensible decisions, reflecting a tangible unease that can be heard throughout the entirety of 'Hexed!', which also explores addiction, toxic relationships and buried trauma. Everything is told through aya's trademark multifaceted forms of expression, each track colliding and melting through spoken-word poetry, keening vocals, intense bass and trickling, piercing percussion.

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We caught up with aya before the release of 'hexed!' to find out what went into creating her nail-biting second album, seeking a "non-impossible form" between mechanical and human, and the parallels between death metal and dance music. Read the Q&A below.

A big theme within ‘hexed!’ is confronting the “scary parts” of addiction and desperation; can you tell us a bit about where it came from? I think I heard on No Tags that you are sober now right?

I've been sober for coming on seven months now, which is great. I actually got sober just as I finished the album, so the writing process was around looking at the different patterns that I had for self-soothing. I've been doing drugs such I was 15, and I realised that I was putting distance between myself and traumatic experiences in that classically tragic way that so many people who are into club music do: Going out partying as a a form of a escapism, developing an entire social ecosystem around going out and getting fucked up — in doing so, pushing themselves further away from dealing with the things they are escaping in the first place.

Coming out of 'im hole', I was touring a lot, going from place to place on three hours' sleep, it's just easier to drink and do drugs through that, you know? Eventually, as the gigs started to peter out and took the time to start writing the second album, I was like: “What the fuck have I been doing for the last two years."

Do you think it’s a problem that people often romanticise quite dysfunctional/potenitally harmful behaviours?

Yeah, it's just so normalised in this country to have a degree of alcoholism. I'll talk to friends in the US and they are like: “Oh man, I went to bar last night...”

“I had two glasses of wine!”

Exactly, they are like: “It's a Wednesday, I feel so embarrassed.” Sure. You're not wrong. But where I come from, it's a little bit different.

On 'off to the ESSO’ you can hear that kind of, almost doom-y energy you feel when approaching the club; was that a purposeful move? To kind of remind us of that little bit of fear in our stomach before smashing an all-nighter?

Yeah, absolutely. What I was shooting for was this sound in the intro to be similar to a tap, reminiscent of splashing your face and being in the bathroom at the afters and being like: "Christ. Ok." Put on your brave face, then you're in. It's about the manic pursuit of joy, insane levels of afters-hopping — we've all been "off to the ESSO," you know?

Were you trying to insert that feeling of unease on this record?

I wouldn't say I write it in intentionally. It's more in form, arrangement and mix decisions. The emotional stuff is more intuitive. I get asked a lot about where my lyrics come from and what the process is, but they really sit in that emotional register. The reason the second to last track - 'The Petard is my Hoister' - is the only one that isn't giving that sense of unease is out of wanting to give everyone a breather, before we have to go again.

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Is it difficult to marry together those intentional and non-intentional parts when creating music?

Oh, absolutely. I mean in being an electronic producer, you have to make decisions based on what you're trying to express, but also your technical capability. It's like you have multiple roles and you have to manage them all inside your brain. It can be a bit of a head fuck. But I'm not very good at managing other people, I'm not good at relinquishing control, so I end up just doing everything [laughs].

How long ago did the process start in creating 'hexed!'?

I actually wrote the poem that originally had been the third verse on 'off to the ESSO' in 2020. I woke up one morning and had this dream about afters-hopping, I had all these lyrics and I was like “Shit! grab my phone!” [she makes a frantic typing gesture]. It sat there for so long because it didn't fit into 'im hole', it just wasn't that record. When I started writing the instrumental for 'off to the ESSO', I realised these two things were the same thing and started growing them together. Pretty much straight away, I knew it was the first single on the new album. I had a plan of how I'll do another track that's more grimy for the second. Before I'd even got to having title...

...you already had a roll-out plan [laughs].

Yeah! You just know. But the writing on 'Hexed!' really was done over the last year-and-a-half, mostly coming together last summer. At first, I had this deadline of when I wanted the record in my head, It's what everyone does to be honest, I call it the “Grand Designs fallacy” — when you say “I'm going to have it done by Christmas” and then it gets to January and everyone is crying because the windows don't fit.

The family has moved into a caravan on the building site...

Exactly! But I moved away from that, I took my time and then it was done by last August. It's been a long process.

Was 'hexed!' always going to released on Hyperdub?

Yeah, definitely. I just had such a good experience working with them last time.

Do you feel, kind of, like you're part of the Hyperdub family now?

It's weird, you know. Me and Steve (AKA Kode9) keep making plans to have tea round his house and it never happens [laughs]. I guess I'm never quite fully in there because I've never created any dance music EPs with them, it's just been two albums. I do feel slightly separate from Hyperdub in that respect I have no beef with it, it's fucking amazing that I'm releasing music on Hyperdub – I've wanted this since I was 15. The label is still synonymous to me with like Burial etc — but really now it's like me, Nazar, DJ Haram [laughs], you know? So maybe it actually does make sense.

Had it been a purposeful thing to juxtapose that sort of “celebration” of early hours culture from 'im hole' with this album then? Or more of a knock-on effect from the success of the record and touring?

Yeah, I guess. I never want to repeat myself. Every release I've made has been distinct from the previous one, because my process of writing music is all about a very intentional experimentation — looking at different genre forms, using new techniques and stuff like that. It's always going to build on the previous one. There's maybe parts where there are similar tonal things between the records, but it always is this iterative process for me. I didn't want to come back and write: “the last record part two.”

Does it feel strange to be releasing this record that kind of challenges the notions of clubbing to the electronic world? If you were to play a live set with this do you think it would be kind of ironic? Or are you not really thinking about that when you're performing?

Yeah, I guess I do go into the zone when I play live. My finger hits the first pad, I blackout and then 40 minutes later I'm like: “OK cool, set's done. See ya!” It really is like a blackhole that goes moment-to-moment. It's both more a clubby record, but it's also more of a metal record... it's a more everything record. I really fit a lot of album into this album [laughs].

You’ve got a pretty hefty list of inspirations behind the record, SOPHIE, The Deftones, Eyvind Kang, ’95-’99 Slipknot — do you think this like huge variation in your taste comes through in your productions?

I mean, I remember when I first went to Bang Face, I discovered there was this whole other world of electronic music that I just knew nothing about. Obviously I know about drum 'n' bass and jungle, but not about hardstyle or breakcore and stuff. Then going to Thunderdome and seeing Angerfist, it's a completely different ball game to what I'm used to. Simultaneously I was getting back into the screamo I was into when I was a teenager, thinking: “I should probably learn about this black metal thing, it seems to be upset a lot of people but it's kind of good.”

So when it got to 'hexed!', I realised I wanted to try and bring all of these things together – some hardcore, some death metal, some of the music I listened to when I was a teenager. The whole thing is practice as research, right? I wanted to find ways of writing for a band without writing for musicians, synthesising everything and having it be soundsystem music. It's technically in the lineage of dance music, but really it shares more in common with death metal.

It does seem like death metal is a common starting point for a lot of electronic artists.

Oh I mean, I'm not even close to the first person to try and do this. But It does make a lot of sense, some forms of death metal are such an intense, visceral experience. When you start to find the same thing in electronic music — sure, there's less of a drugs culture in metal and the events don't happen late at night — but there's modulation due to drugs that allows you to keep up that level of intensity with dance music, and you can extend that out across the course of a whole night instead of a hour-and-a-half gig.

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Do you think on the death metal to dance music trajectory, people might become attracted to it due to being able to crank up that intensity with machines rather than instruments?

Sure, but then one of the things you lose there is humanity. Trying to recreate that, in the interplay between digital and acoustic, is something that I'm obsessed with. This non-impossible form, things that feel mechanical but also human.

I'm obsessed with the description for ‘Peach’ being “BSDM-core” and putting you in the role of "Marquis de-Sadie Plant" — can you tell us a bit about where that comes from? Is it about a juncture between cyberfeminism with sadomasochism?

That particularly piece of music is about co-dependent queer relationships that I see around me, where there are positive gestures made that are damaging both the person doing it and the person receiving it. Sort of “I can slice up half this apple I'm eating, I did it for you,” even though the reality is all we're eating this afternoon is this slice of apple. There's an S&M energy to it, but not in the overt sense; it's a warped sense of subservience.

‘droplets’ explores memories as a teenager in a sad Yorkshire village – can you tell us about revisiting those types of memories when creating music?

To be honest, the whole process of creating this record has been really difficult in that sense. Knowing that I'm essentially forcing myself back into visiting trauma and PTSD, putting myself through the ringer; originally the first track had a lyric: “If it has to be this difficult I'm not doing it again” and it was extremely uncomfortable. But also, it's been a positive experience, I've given myself quite a lot of space to work things through and forcing myself to face up to things that are difficult, giving them breathing room. This is a big thing with PTSD and BPD, any kind of trigger for a memory will set off everything like you're reliving it – so forcing myself to do that in a self-guided way, in a safe setting, has been therapeutic for sure. I don't know if it was necessarily the wisest idea for me to do it? [Laughs]. But whatever, we've done it, we're through and I'm sober now, so.

Do you think there’s a contrast in coming from a village in Yorkshire and then making music that is so futuristic and machine-driven?

I guess people do associate that sort of machine thing to city living, but I think the futuristic element comes more from wanting to be contemporary than anything else. I don't think I envisage the future when making music; the future doesn't look great to be honest [laughs], so I don't want to be there. This is the high point.

God.

[Laughs]. But yeah, it sounds kind of twee but I think coming from moss and bracken, it has more of a grounding sensibility — it makes me want to create music that's tangible, tactile. I'm really obsessed with texture, things having breath and movement. Getting battered by rain and wind your entire life will do that.

What is coming up next? You mentioned potentially a live show... a band?

So I've got a bunch of shows booked with MFO, who is a genius stage designer and sceneographer. We've done four or five shows together, but as I was writing the last record we really got together and said "this will be the live show for the next album." I'm also doing some live solo shows, will eventually move to a band situation I think – but if I want to do that, I'll write a record that is for an ensemble. Makes more sense that going in all guns blazing with someone on a baritone sax and a p bass [laughs].

aya's 'hexed!' is out via Hyperdub now, buy it here

Megan Townsend is Mixmag's Deputy Editor, follow her on Twitter