Music Insider

Interview: Little Monarch

in ,

Little Monarch is the brainchild of LA-based artist Casey Kalmenson. Recognized for her exceptional songwriting, production, and vocal abilities and blend of indie pop, soul, jazz, and funk, Casey has collaborated with a diverse range of artists, including Daisy The Great, Jessie Ware, Far East Movement, Parra for Cuva and more. 

Little Monarch found viral success as a solo artist with her debut single "No Matter What," which has wracked up over 25 million streams across platforms.

She has seen her work feature prominently in a variety of TV networks and film projects (including ABC, CBS, MTV, and VH1 and popular shows like Grey’s Anatomy, All American: Homecoming and Love Is Blind).

With her sound as a summer sunset, Little Monarch continues to shine in the music industry, resonating with audiences globally. Her more recent single "Same Old" followed Little Monarch's track "Tears" and an extensive tour playing in Gracie Abrams band. The tour included multiple opening act performances for Taylor Swift on the Eras stadium tour. "Tears" combines pieces of soul, jazz, and indie pop to create a sunshine filled sonic reminder to let go of control and find your own place in the flow.  

What's the one thing you hope fans will take away from listening to your new song “Same Old”?

In general, it's always “self confidence” and a renewed sense of self worth. And not giving up. That's always been kind of the pillars of what I write about. Because it's always what I need to hear and what I want to transmit into the world, the messaging of “don't give up, just keep showing up”. You just gotta keep going and things turn around.

What's the most unexpected place/time/space you found inspiration for a song?

I don't think this is unexpected, but it's recent. I was feeling really blocked creatively and I went for a hike. There was this little rock and I thought “that looks like a wonderful rock". I'm gonna sit on it”. And I sat on it and I closed my eyes, did a little meditation and I got this inspiration for a song, came home and started to play it. It was just this feeling that I really wanted to capture and I think that I did. It was just so renewing because I had kind of felt a little bit lost, trying to navigate putting this album together. I was thinking “I really want something, I don't know what I want yet, but I don't know what it feels like”. So, I kind of landed on this when I got quiet and got out in nature. And that always seems to do the trick for me.

What's an important lesson you've learned in your music career?

Ooh, I mean, so many but…don't give up. Just keep going. There's really no “one path”. You can read people's bios. You can study the greats (and you should) but there's no trajectory that you can copycat. So you really just have to be patient and keep showing up for yourself and your own path, which is going to be unique.

What’s a piece of advice for finding creativity on a tough day?

Don't force, it would just show up. Even if it's just 20 minutes of practising or journaling, there's a lot of ways to be creative that doesn't involve sitting down and writing music or producing something. Also, make sure you’re giving yourself a “creative palate cleanser”; get a little bit done, go take a walk. I love to do that - it just clears my head - and then I can come back to something with fresh ears. And also, most importantly, if it's a tough day and you're not feeling it, just don't. You don't have to. You can take a rest and that's just as productive sometimes.

What’s your top tip for people that want to become music producer, singer songwriters etc?

When I wanted to start producing, I was buying some gear (I was you know, figuring it out what I needed) and somebody ironically (amazingly enough) at guitar centre said to me “give yourself seven years and then you'll actually be a producer, you'll be good enough for you to want to hire yourself”. I actually still think about that and think that's kind of true.

You have to give yourself this runway of time to you know, learn the skills and you're always learning. I think, just giving yourself a runway of time and setting yourself up for that, knowing that it could happen overnight or you might want to build something where it has a lot of longevity and you can sustain it - in which case you, you need to set up a support system and figure out a way to really know that it's a 5 to 10 year journey to get to a place where you might deem yourself successful or comfortable or sustained. Just give yourself some time and patience because it's beautiful that you're even showing.

What are some of your favorite songs to wake up to?

This week it's been “Love and Happiness” by Al Green (and just anything by Al Green). I really love to take a morning walk and listen to some (Frédéric) Chopin, it just stimulates my brain, it's beautiful.

Three things you can't live without in your bag.

Aquaphor, sunscreen, earbuds. Pretty pretty standard.

Follow Little Monarch:

▶ Stream: https://ONErpm.lnk.to/-LittleMonarch

▶ Instagram:   / littlemonarchmusic  

▶ Facebook:   / littlemonarch  

▶ Twitter:   / littlemonarchla  

Music Insider: Halina Rice

in

Halina Rice is an electronic musician and AV artist creating emotive electronic music ranging from evocative soundscapes to beat-driven tracks.

Her live shows have been described as “part-rave, part art-happening” taking audiences from immersive experience to dance-inspired tracks.

With her last album ELISION released in 2022 to critical acclaim, her music has been described as “sublime and infectious” by Electronic Sound magazine and as “modern electronic music at its finest” by Headphone Commute.

As Rice states “my main focus is to present compelling, emotive and innovative music and visuals in order to move the audience outside of their day to day experience. I want people to come away from the shows feel invigorated and inspired.

Read our interview to discover more about Halina’s work and insights.

As an artist who aims to move the audience outside of their day to day experience, which emotions or reactions do you hope your music and visuals evoke in your listeners?

When I think about what I'm trying to evoke in listeners, I'm not really very prescriptive about it because I think everyone one kind of comes with their own experiences and things will resonate or they will react in different ways depending on their own individual experience.

But what I tend to find is that if there's something that I create musically or something that I create working with one of the visual designers, if something resonates with us or kind of excites us, then that's often going to create a reaction in the audience as well. So we tend to go for stuff that makes us feel something. I think it's a really individual way that people react to the events.

How do you prepare for large scale events?

For instance, I had a show at Village Underground on October 3rd. In that instance, it's just mainly about the technical side. Planning is probably the most important way that I prepare because in my shows I'm running the audio, the visual jewels and quite a large proportion of the lighting. It's making sure that I've done all the relevant site checks and understand what the venue capabilities are and checking that my setup is going to interact with their setup OK. Also, that I'm completely in line with the promoter for all the details about the event.

Then another aspect is when I run spatial sounds. In some gigs, I'm running multi speaker systems with sound coming all around the audience. I have a show coming up at Ade on Thursday, October. The 19th at a venue called The Other Side, which has just had a 14.1.5 speaker system installed.

And in that instance, there's a little bit extra planning, which is that you need to receive their speaker layout in order to be able to reprogram your sound so that it's coming out into the formation of speakers in their venue. So it's really just about planning and lots today.

What is the central theme or concept that ties all the tracks on your upcoming EP New Basis together? How did this theme influence your creative process while working on the project?

I think possibly for New Basis, the creative theme is something about contradictions. There's a kind of a clash of classical and more experimental forms.

Definitely I created chord structures that have quite a sort of long, almost recognizable contemporary classical structure, but then they would be presented in a sort of electronic instrumentation and I never really wanted those shapes to be 100% recognizable. Things twist and change throughout and there are builds of distortion. Then we kind of reflected that in the creative process.

Working with visual designer Frany Anthony, we actually used scans, 3D scans of natural objects. But then we kind of took those, recolored them and twisted and distorted them so that the visuals were matching the music. Organic and inorganic juxtaposition is what lied through the whole creative thinking behind the EP.

How do you stay inspired and innovative in your music and visual art?

One of the ways that I'd stay inspired is to go and see other people's shows, works or art presentations. For instance, there's a venue in London called Eclectic which is just in Waterloo and it's non profit making so they'll platform quite experimental ideas, students, etc who are just sort of trying things in quite a raw format. And that's really interesting because it can kind of trigger ideas or developments from that. And I'm lucky enough to also play at audiovisual festivals. I was at MUTEK in Montreal a few weeks ago and there was just a huge number of fantastic presentations from around the world.

Sometimes it's seeing other people's work but also just being in venues. For instance, being in a dome projection venue and just thinking this is really interesting and what would I do in this space? So yeah, just sort of getting out and about and having a bit of reflective time while you're absorbing other audience of visual events and you.

What advice would you give to emerging electronic artists?

The advice I'd give to emerging electronic artists is to connect with other like minded people in your area. If there are meetups of electronic, electronic or AV groups, it's a really great way just to share information and learn. Maybe you're going to collaborate or work with a few people that you meet there. And also, in a lot of these groups you're just performing maybe for other people in the group. It can be a really non judgmental place for you to trial before you take that in front of a ticketed audience, for instance.

And I think also it's great to feel like you're connected to a wider community because it can be quite an isolating thing to do. It's good to be able to call on other people as you solve production queries, as you work your way through what the right kind of format and setup is for you.

Halina’s EP NEW BASIS was released on 29th September via AWAL and is available through all streaming platforms.

Catch Halina Rice live at Rescue Rooms in Nottingham on October 12th, and Summerhall in Edinburgh on November 17th.

Halina is also part of the official programme at ADE 2023 this year performing a spatial audio and visual live set at The Other Side on Thursday 19th October, presented in L-ISA hyperreal sound by L-Acoustics.

Music Insider: Iiris Vesik (Night Tapes)

in

Night Tapes (Max Doohan, Sam Richards and Iiris Vesik) is a London-based, genre-blending atmospheric dream pop band with haunting vocals by Iiris.

The band's inspiration came from both their lived experience in the world that they can see and touch, as well as the less tangible spiritual and metaphysical realm. 

The 'Perfect Kindness' EP has been mixed by Nathan Boddy (known for his work with PinkPantheress, James Blake, Mura Masa) and mastered by Matt Colton (noted for his work with Flying Lotus, Flume, and Brian Eno).

Their debut single "Forever" has already amassed over 5 million plays, while their music continues to garner support from various media outlets. Having signed to Nettwerk Music Group in 2022, Night Tapes also made their SXSW debut in 2023.

These are Iiris's reflections on songwriting and valuable tips for overcoming creative hurdles.

What experiences impact your songwriting and the emotional depth of your music?

I think that being a musician is somewhat of a mystical, mythical journey because so many things are out of your direct control. You're a part of a bigger wave than yourself. It's bigger than you. And you're bringing creations from a world unseen, from that big wave out into the real world and making something out of nothing.

And I feel very lucky to have writing by my side because I can describe what the fuck is happening to me. And I agree with the existentialists. When you have the power to describe what is happening to you, you can somewhat take your own experience into your own hands.

For me, that has helped to feel like I can turn the things that happen to me into something useful and that I can take control. No, not control…I can take responsibility over my own reality and spot some treasures in the underworld.

At times I feel like I'm free and on the right path. Carl Jung has said “the work is the expression of my inner development for commitment to the contents of the unconscious forms the man and produces his transformations”. But to be honest, I just trust the unknown because it's been really useful, effective and easy for me to create.

I love the scientific and I love the empirical. But when it comes to art, the work I do is between me and the source. And the more I've let go, the more I've trusted, the more I've been able to flow in synchronicity, meet the peeps that I need to meet. And at best, creation has felt like magic and a journey of individuation. So I do recommend.

Tips for finding your creativity on a challenging day.

I think one can't really be creative if the Maslow hierarchy of needs is missing. The bottom half my body needs nourishment and sunlight and eating and exercise and all that good stuff that I didn't think I used to need. I used to think that music is number one and everything else is secondary and let me tell you, that was a bit destructive. I do NOT recommend.

So on a tough day, I think that there's definitely phases to creation (and to life), and it's good to not mix them up together. It's like if you're resting, rest. If you're working, work. There's chaos, there's order. And it's good to start from order, because without order, there is no harvest. So having a plan, having a setup, having an environment that supports your creativity is necessary and that comes through order. You create those things for yourself. You set them up in order.

And then when you get there, that's when you can go into chaos because you can let loose, vomit out the ideas that you did, just like get the material out so you'd have material to work with.

And then when you got the material, then you can see like OOH, what shape is this? What is this? And then you can your analytical mind, your intellectual knife and start to sculpture the thing of your vision, of your dream, what you're thinking.

And then once again, you have to go into chaos to let go of the outcome, to have some surprise, to be open to the highest, best outcome. Because the thing that wants to come through you is already somewhere out there in the world, unseen. And you can just act as a tool (if you're into that sort of way of thinking, which I am, because it's easy).

And then when things go, a lot of the times it's because you just don't know what phase you're in. Like in creation, try to start chiseling with an intellectual knife of a thing that you don't have to chisel. You need to have the phases in the right order and you need to be able to know which phase you're in.

So sometimes you show up, you try to implement your order for your harvest but sometimes it's good to just ask like, maybe this is not the time. Maybe it's time for a little chaos. Maybe it's time for a little bit of task free time. Maybe it's time to slug out a little bit, to breathe in so you could breathe out.

So that would be my tip for finding some power to go on on a tough day of creation.

(Yeah, this is long).