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Name: Sijya

Nationality: Indian
Occupation: Sound artist, vocalist, songwriter
Current Release: Sijya's Young Hate EP is out December 2nd via Matthew Herbert's Accidental imprint.
Recommendations: A 1 min 30 second film everyone needs to watch – Dots by Normal Mclaren.
Also, "Yes it is" by the Beatles

[Read our Matthew Herbert interview]

If you enjoyed this interview with Sijya and would like to stay up to date with her work, visit her official homepage. She is also on Instagram, Facebook, and twitter.



When did you start writing/producing/playing music and what or who were your early passions and influences? What was it about music and/or sound that drew you to it?

I started making music in early 2018, so it’s a fairly recent thing for me.

I’ve been a graphic designer / artist for much longer, and I found myself working on graphics for music over and over, and then I started making music myself!

When I listen to music, I see shapes, objects and colours. What happens in your body when you're listening and how does it influence your approach to creativity?

I think I feel movement in my feelings and thoughts, when I listen to music. I am always associating a colour, but I don’t think it’s much more synaesthetic for me than that.

It’s mostly just strong movements in my feelings, like exploring different corners of a feeling.

How would you describe your development as an artist in terms of interests and challenges, searching for a personal voice, as well as breakthroughs?

I go by what I think I’ve heard Stefan Sagmeister say, that you get your personal ‘style’ by not worrying about it too much. More than a thing to work towards, it might be a thing that’s just always there – it might be harder to get rid of it than the other way around.

I think I do rely on mistakes and accidents though. Very often I feel like I’m just waiting for something interesting to happen while I’m making. For something to grab me and then I can go from there.

Tell me a bit about your sense of identity and how it influences both your preferences as a listener and your creativity as an artist, please.

I think I’d say it’s a bit rebellious.

I don’t like squeaky clean or properly made things, they’re boring. I think that affects what I listen to and make.

What, would you say, are the key ideas behind your approach to music and art?

I think emotional impact is very important to me, and I’m always chasing that.

Along with that I think I detest the notion there exist certain correct processes or even goals in crafting anything. I find that very limiting and I like to fight that in small ways, by making things in my own incorrect, sometimes frustrating ways.

How would you describe your views on topics like originality and innovation versus perfection and timelessness in music? Are you interested in a “music of the future” or “continuing a tradition”?

Of the two, I’m much more interested in originality and innovation.

I don’t think I’m for ‘continuing a tradition’ for most things. I admire and can enjoy it of course, I’m not interested in making anything like that.

Over the course of your development, what have been your most important instruments and tools - and what are the most promising strategies for working with them?

All of my music work has been in the box. It’s more about patching sounds together, purely on their textural or affective quality, not caring much for the historical context of their sources.

Take us through a day in your life, from a possible morning routine through to your work, please.

These days I’ve had a slightly odd routine. I wake up really early, at like 6am, and watch a film for an hour or so. Then I hang out with my cat. Then try to go for a walk or work out (where I listen to music).

I start working on music at around 11 am. These days I’ve mostly been prepping for my first ever performance in life, at Magnetic Fields Festival.

The second half of the day I pick up commissions and do meetings and things like that. I’m reading and, unfortunately, scrolling through the day. I go to bed super early, sometimes even by 9pm.

How do your work and your creativity relate to the world and what is the role of music in society?

I don’t know about that – it can be different things for different people. Some people I’m close to truly do not care about music.

But I guess it’s about connecting, beyond language, which can be so limiting, and that’s probably what draws me to this conceptually.

Art can be a way of dealing with the big topics in life: Life, loss, death, love, pain, and many more. In which way and on which occasions has music – both your own or that of others - contributed to your understanding of these questions?

For all listeners I presume, the act of listening is like curating a soundtrack to your life. I’m often doing that, especially when there’s a change or something big that’s happened.

It’s weird and interesting to revisit times in your life by listening to the same music again.

How do you see the connection between music and science and what can these two fields reveal about each other?

I find the mathematical alignments in frequencies of notes bizarre and fascinating. It would be interesting to experiment and make with a mathematical lens, perhaps in the future.

Creativity can reach many different corners of our lives. Do you feel as though writing or performing a piece of music is inherently different from something like making a great cup of coffee? What do you express through music that you couldn't or wouldn't in more 'mundane' tasks?

I think that performance and cooking have a lot in common, but not necessarily making something, because that requires you to go a bit wild, no end in sight. Shouldn’t making be anything but mundane or repetitive?

Perhaps it can be after years of doing it, I can feel it sometimes too, there’s comfort in that. But it feels like you haven’t tried enough.

Music is vibration in the air, captured by our ear drums. From your perspective as a creator and listener, do you have an explanation how it able to transmit such diverse and potentially deep messages?

The ephemeral quality of this is what draws me in.

I can’t understand it and so I’m endlessly stunned and fascinated.