Part 1
Names: Liza Dries, Mathilde Nobel
Nationality: Dutch
Occupations: Producer, vocalist, visual artist (Mathilde Nobel), producer, sound artist (Liza Dries)
Current Release: Liza Dries and Mathilde Nobel team up for their new EP Akyra, out now via Intercept.
If you enjoyed this interview with Liza Dries and Mathilde Nobel and would like to stay up to date with their music, visit their respective Instagram profiles: Liza Dries; Mathilde Nobel.
For a deeper dive, we recommend our Alberta Balsam interview, one of Mathilde's collaborators.
What were some of the musical experiences which planted a seed for your interest in electronic music?
Mathilde: This one goes way back to when I was a teenager. My best friend introduced me to dubstep and drum n bass, which was mind-blowing for someone who was not used to hearing electronic music (only to Bring me the Horizon and the Architects at that point!).
From that time on I was raving in Rotterdam from the age of 14 (secretly). But the real turning point wasn’t really the raves and the club scene. It was this very clear moment I discovered Grimes and CocoRosie on Youtube on my pc at home.
That is when I started to realize that electronic music is so much more than only raving in the club, but could be delicate and angelic and very playful. This was the first moment I thought to myself ‘… but this could be me one day!’
Liza: I’ve had a similar secret teen introduction to d&b parties – I grew up in Groningen, and the genre was pretty booming as the base of NOISIA.
Something in dubstep or d&b rhythm felt easier to dance to, to me– a bit quonky and un-elegant. At the same time I grew up listening to a lot of 2000s pop RnB– i.e. Usher, Amerie, Cassie.
There was a time stretch where my music interests were spread between dancing to electronic events and creating songs in an acoustic songwriter approach. Learning how to record the songs and finding the interaction between songwriting and the computer built the bridge in those.
Most genres of music make use of electronic production means. What does the term “electronic music” mean today, would you say?
Mathilde: For me it could be anything that is processed by analogue electronics or a computer. I would also argue that I want to hear that.
I recently started making music for the choir in SATB, all done through the PC (first recording of my own voice and melodies, then processed into midi, then turned into sheet music), but when performed, it is for the human voice and we don't hear the electronic processing as a main element or instrument.
My love for electronic music comes from hearing sounds or samples that are not possible to be heard or played without processing through electronics and software. I like this idea that we can make a whole new alien language that is unknown in the ‘real world’ .
Liza: I love the idea of electronic music as an alien language – also because as a hybrid, it blends with the known or organic.
Debates around electronic music tend to focus on technology. What, though, were some of the things you learned by talking to colleagues or through performing and/or recording with other musicians? What role does community play for your interest in production and getting better as a producer?
Liza: Community in music creation has meant so much for me over the past years– as with this release. Mathilde and I would sit at this wonky little table in a big ballroom in the monastery, with ableton and FL open and find what sounds resonated with both of us at the time and space we were in.
Every collaboration expands your soundrealm. You start hearing rhythms and melodies you wouldn’t reach alone, every person’s clock ticks differently.
Mathilde: I agree – it is sometimes very lonely and hard to find inspiration all by yourself. This is the major downside of producing music for me.
Our collaboration is an example of what a community can be; a perfect harmony which brings the best out of each other. There was no force or pressure, and our collaboration was so natural and organic that I think we were both in awe of what just happened.
Having people around you that you can have this energy with is just so very important for fighting loneliness, inspirational sources and having fun! I think that if I did not have these people around me, I would have not made music at all.
What are examples for artists, performances, and releases that really inspired you recently and possibly gave you the feeling of having experienced something fresh and new?
Mathilde: I think the newest album and performance by aya was really inspiring for me lately. Coming back to the more dubby sound that I was raving at as a teenager really hits hard into my soul.
I am also a huge fan of metalcore such as Bring me the Horizon and I feel aya is kind of in between the total chaos of dubby experimental and metal.
Another really beautiful performance I attended was actually a classical piece of Joby Talbot called Paths of Miracles performed by Cappella Amsterdam. I was sobbing from beginning to end.
It's so different from electronic music, hearing the most human instrument you can think of, the voice, building chords I have never heard anywhere else, playing with different rhythms and switching atmospheres all the time.
Within this piece I feel as if we are time traveling back from medieval times to the now all the time. It's so eerie and then suddenly, angelic.
Liza: I’m in with aya, I saw her play at Roskilde and felt like her productions and punky live energy transcend the room.
I’ve also been really enjoying live-acts that blend electronics with playing instruments, recently for example Mabe Fratti, Naemi and Brighde Chaimbeul— I find the interaction between computers and the edge of playing something live compelling.
When it comes to releases, I’ve been inspired both by music that brings me in touch with nature and the world around, artists like Hiroshi Yoshimura and Lyra Pramuk – and more raw, punky electronic sounds from Bass Victim, Mun Sing, James K, Body Meat.
I’m also reconnecting with music from the past, both new and familiar to me.
[Read our Mabe Fratti interview]
[Read our Amor Muere interview, Mabe's project with Gibrana Cervantes, Concepción Huerta, and Camille Mandoki]
What kind of musical/sonic materials, and ideas are particularly stimulating for your own work right now?
Liza: I got a flute in Portugal and have been super happy playing around with that – it’s more versatile than I thought, and with some reverb it just sounds magical and I could easily sit in a room for hours playing the same melody.
I’m also leaning towards enjoying somewhat broken sounds, unpolishedness – like elements in a recording that feel a bit too loud, field recordings or drafty demos.
Mathilde: Recently, I have been training my voice more and composing classical pieces for the voice.
At night I also work as a bat researcher and I collect echo locations and social calls that I record with a batdetector. I have the vision of making a new album which combines pieces for the choir with sounds from bats and electronic music.
Where do most of your inspirations to create come from – rather from internal impulses or external ones? Which current social / political / ecological or other developments make you feel like you need to respond as an artist?
Liza: Probably a bit in between. I think I have a lot of internal impulses for sounds, whether it’s singing or just squeaks on the bike, walking, doing things. I’m mostly recording melodies that come up when I’m half distracted, in traffic or while commuting.
I think creating has always been a mix of escapism and connecting to feelings. Dreamworlds, fantasy, anything that brings me out of the mind and into the heart, moving out of daily structures.
In every city, it seems like the sound of the music I work on partly counters the surroundings– living in Copenhagen, a very clean and organised city, I’m moving more towards field recordings, messy productions and untuned vocals.
Mathilde: After I have been struggling with a mild burnout, my productions are kind of on hold. I am really trying to find peace with myself, feel safe at home and comfy enough to rebuild my own world again. So silence, and rest had been the most inspiring place to find (literal) harmony in myself again.
And to be honest, even without my gap year, I always find funny melodies under the shower, or when I am cleaning my house. How typical :)
