INTERVIEW. Knife Girl: "I like to mess with my vocals to create an out-there, genderless sound"
Knife Girl is definitely one to watch in 2022. Lili Aslo's music combines everything we love – experimental approach, sincerity, humour, catchy melodies and the drive to push boundaries. Knife Girl has released two EPs and a bunch of singles this year. Her latest release is OONA EP. We talked to Lili about our favourite track from the album.
— How did you start writing the song? What came first – the production, the words, the music or the concept?
— Hi Aidar! Angels started out as part of the previous song on the EP, Only You. It's in the same tempo and key, and shares a lot of the same sounds. When I ended up recording the soft pads and drums on top, the vibe of the song changed so much that I ended up writing what came next as a whole new song. The sound had me imagining a sort of beautiful loneliness, so I tried writing about that.
— The song seems to deconstruct the ballad genre. To me it sounds like the romantic episode is happening somewhere between heaven and hell, where only ghosts and angels tread. Is this interpretation too wild?
— I don't think that's far off! The theme of this EP is the relationship between purity and impurity. I can see how the detached echoing voices in the backgrounds of these songs can evoke images of ghosts.
— You often pitch your voice up or down, and this broadens your sonic palette, helping your songs evoke very special emotions not often found in other popular music. How do you make the creative decisions when working with your voice? And how does this work technically? Do you specifically record the music and voice in different keys?
— I like to mess with the way my vocals sound to create an out-there, genderless sound. I usually achieve this by recording my vocals on top of slowed or sped up versions of my instrumentals. Once I return the speed back to normal, my vocal's timbre is changed. I guess what really drives me to mess with vocals is that I'm a girl with a relatively deep, boy-ish voice, and I don't want the listener to connect my voice to a "boy"-image.
We already featured Knife Girl's single Why and give it 2 yu from her EP Metro. Also check out the title track from that EP.