Soda talks Pierrot.
What is your role in Forest Collective and how long have you been working with us?
My role in Forest Collective is quite versatile. I dabble in a few mediums, most joyously singing probably, followed by DJing and sound design/music production. I first collaborated with Forest for Orpheus (2019) where I played the role of Calaïs.
What is your role in Pierrot Lunaire?
My role in Pierrot was to conceptualise a performance where I reimagine the score through a contemporary lens— taking it in a direction that’s so far removed from the original performance it becomes almost unrecognisable, maybe due to the expanse evolution/accessibility of modern music. I collected samples from the score that hold some vague melodic tonality, then added some chords and beats to become more dance-oriented. Like how do you make an opera like this into stomping music? Anyways I hope to think I did it.
Tell us what you are listening to at the moment?
Mostly my own music to be honest haha! I’ll spend a lot of time just slowly refining and mentally rehearsing during moments of stillness, like catching a tram or going for a walk. It’s actually very soothing! When it comes to other people’s music… I feel like I’m constantly swaying on this spectrum between pop and noise and finding myself in these weird niches, like nightcore, needing to kill the part of me that is cringe to truly enjoy it. Otherwise, I have been seriously enjoying Cibo Matto this summer. The band is so inventive and they use some really interesting scales that ensnare me. I love this unexplainable emotion I feel in these certain moments during summer while listening, it’s some kind of feverish nostalgia for something I've not yet experienced. Like it’s almost dusk you’re walking around dressed lightly, perhaps even unfashionably, and you have some objective which is drowning out the hum of your own exhaustion. You can feel the heat being released from the earth after being charged by the sun all day. You look at things like the gumtrees, the dilapidated architecture and powerlines differently and feel radiant. That’s a main character moment underscored by albums like Viva! La Woman.
What motivates you as an artist in sound?
Image by Kate Baker.
It’s such a primal urge for me to create music because I am extremely fascinated by how immortal it is. In terms of my own, original and more organic music, I usually don’t create a lot when I am busy enjoying my life, so it often comes as a response to constriction. I’m motivated by rage, loathing, disdain, hysteria and spite. I love the insanity and deranged vibe of it all. The concept of being able to trap a moment in space and time perpetually as a form of revenge to those who hurt you. The nasty emotions that come with mental illness need to be expressed somehow and this is how I circumvent the fact. Putting it into my music is such a sadistic win for me because I’ve turned this sh*tty thing into something beautiful and lasting, while often privately tarnishing your rapport with the subject matter. You can be metaphysically holding a gun to someone’s head and that’s addictive. On the upside, DJing is my equilibrium as I am motivated by joy, laughter, singing, dancing and partying. I love when the next song cuts into the mix and you create an absolute banger of a loop in between the two songs and the freaks are getting nasty. The more people enjoy my sets, the more I am able to take the performance risks without consequence. It’s euphoria being able to experience my own artistic prowess in that way.
You can watch Soda perform in the epoch-defining Pierrot Lunaire, available now for streaming at home.
