In two of the most important foreign music lists for the best albums of 2016 (of "Fact" and "Boomkat") you see a Greek name that you have never heard or met before. Sophia Loizou, with her album "Singulacra", gathered the best comments from everywhere. But apart from the description / review of the album, there was no other information about this mysterious - so to speak - musician. And no matter how many interviews you read, all you will learn is that he lives permanently in Bristol, where he works.
"Singulacra" is Sofia's second release, which is half Greek Cypriot (on her father's side) and half Irish (on her mother's side). "I grew up in a small town west of Blackpool in Lancashire. My family was quite leftist and anti-conformist, but we lived in a small and backward society. I always felt very different. I had my first son at 17 and then I left my hometown. But living away from my family was quite difficult. To be honest, my biggest dream was to make every sacrifice in a big city, "he tells us.
Today she teaches Music Production at the University of Bristol, while raising her two children alone. She does not talk much about her personal life. The first album released was in the form of a cassette and was entitled "Chrysalis". He started playing electronic music when he was 20 years old. "I did a tutorial to enter the Fine Arts then and I started to be interested in the audiovisual arts. I bought my first synthesizer, a Korg X5, and an Akai S20 sampler and connected them to an old computer I had. Back then, long before synthesizer software and samplers became fashionable, it was quite difficult to learn to operate them yourself. Now everything is so easy, YouTube is full of tutorials. If you do not know how to do something, it is easy to learn. Then I learned to use them, reading their manuals. That's how I ended up studying Music Technology, "he says.
"In a way, it's hard to be taken seriously if you're a woman. "Technology is still a man's business, and some people think that just because you are a woman, you know a few things."
In "Singulacra" he deals with dance music, but with a more experimental and nostalgic mood. This experimentation and nostalgia, the way she treats sound in general, made the foreign press compare her to Burial - a not-so-light characterization. They also wrote that he does something like "rave archeology". "Rave archeology" is another new musical term now used for the work of musicians who do not exactly fit into one genre, such as Burial, Lee Gamble or even Zomby. To put it another way, Loizou does something like Caretaker, only instead of '50s ballroom music, she takes samples of jungle dance pieces and not just distorts them, she literally changes the lights. The result is a sound that sounds like something completely different, other than dance music. But it is fascinating and keeps you interested.
To understand her music, one must first connect it with the stage and the musical genre she deals with and, it seems, has marked her like no other. The same is true of all those artists who nostalgically look at the past or, better yet, are obsessed with it, calling this situation "hauntology" or someone similar. In Loizou's case we are talking about hardcore and jungle music.
"I learned music through radio and mixtapes, because I grew up quite isolated from the then modern culture. I made it my life purpose to discover underground music and that was quite difficult. Experimentation is at the heart of what I do. I'm not interested in creating the same thing over and over again. "Singulacra" is a very personal album. Instead of doing a dry academic exploration of an idea, I wanted to rediscover my dance and music roots. My experience from hardcore and jungle was the free parties in the countryside. The muffled, distant and underground bass and the rhythms carried away by the wind give something truly archaic and magical to such an environment. Clubs are so claustrophobic that they seem to be part of a machine, a designated space for a controlled celebration. There is nothing better than watching the sun rise while you are at a huge party on a hillside in Wales! I also love pirate radio. It is as if the music belongs to us again. Apart from the financial part, it is very important that we meet, exchange experiences and have a good time. There is not the same pulse in clubs or commercial radio. Everything there is very dry and coded. "The magic is gone," he said.
 |
| I like that there are multiple versions of the same audio object. This is a technique that runs throughout the "Singulacra". |
And if she speaks somewhat academically, her music is anything but academic, as it captures the things she describes from a different perspective.
"I like that there are many versions of the same sound object. This is a technique that runs throughout the "Singulacra". Today, one of the most impressive things is how quickly ideas move, spread, change and become something else. This is very strong in the album and in my whole work. Nothing is complete. "Ideas are born, they develop and in the process they change, they never remain constant or static".
It is also noteworthy that Loizou is one of the few women involved in this genre, perhaps the only one. I ask her to comment on it.
"It's hard to know if I would be more successful if I were a man. I am quite lucky because I have friends who support me and they all happen to be great musicians. But I do not feel part of a whole. Those I know who are involved in experimental electronic music are exclusively men and many of them are friends with each other or belong to a group or a record company. I believe that there is a collective effort that helps them start their projects and feel confident about their work. It would be great to be part of a collective or a group of like-minded producers / artists, but I have never been in this position and I think that partly has to do with the fact that I am a woman but also that I have a family to take care of alone. I have minimal time for socialization. Also, I do not believe in absolute categorization, that something is purely feminine or purely masculine. In general, I believe that these things should be based solely on the music you play and a common vision. I do not know what the solution is. In a way, it's hard to be taken seriously if you are a woman. Technology is still considered a man's business and some assume that just because you are a woman, you know a few things. Despite the fact that I have a bachelor's and master's degree in Music Technology, I am forced to accept suggestions from men less qualified than me. I try not to deal too much with such situations, because they are ridiculous. I also gradually discovered that knowledge can work against you. If you seem to know things, a lot of people can be scared. "The best thing is to be just yourself and if someone has an issue with that, then it is clearly their own problem."
Source: Lifo.gr