Audio Cantrips: For starters, as I stated a few days ago, your album is definitely the bee's knees. I wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone who likes fantastic instrumentals, albums that tell stories, and water. Especially water. But let's say my review and the reviews of others who have stated just how awesome your upcoming album is just don't cut it for that prospective discerning customer who is on the fence. Here's your chance to do your sales pitch. This person is undecided, and you need to convince the undecided potential customer to buy your album. What do you say?
Shikhee: Ha. Selling is certainly not my strong point. For starters, it's not for everyone. In fact, it's not for most people. It's an album that experiments with sound. The sound of elements that surround us. It's the sound of something brewing and something else emerging. It's the sound of an internal process.
Audio Cantrips: Crater Vol. 1 seems very close to nature in feeling and mood. What brought about the inspiration for this? What kinds of feelings did you want to evoke in the listener?
Shikhee: The sounds are really coming from all walks of life. The Human Animal had a lot of environmental samples too, such as geese, pigeons as well as whole list of other found sounds. The 'natural' sound you're referring to on "Crater" is probably water. I played with that quite a bit since I got a hydrophone mic which I used to record sounds underwater. I've been interested in found sounds for a quite a while and "The Human Animal" is really where I first started heavily incorporating them in my music.
Audio Cantrips: So, in this album, we don't really get to hear you sing as much, and you rely mostly on instrumentals. Why is that?
Shikhee: I was having trouble coming up with lyrics so I decided to let it take a backseat. I am used to writing in a song structure so I had a bit of unlearning to do. But it felt right because it got me out of my comfort zone. For every album I try to set parameters that force me to learn something new, or let go of an established pattern.
Audio Cantrips: Considering this album is volume one, it's probably safe to assume there's a volume two, at the very least. What can you tell us about your plans for the next volume or volumes after this and the overall concept behind the whole set? What makes this album connect with others within the overall concept?
Shikhee: My concept for Crater has changed somewhat since its inception. "Crater" volumes will probably be the more experimental side of Android Lust.
Audio Cantrips: To fund the making of this album, you created a Kickstarter drive. Your goal was $4,000, and you ended up making over $14,000 with 302 backers. How long did it take you to make your goal? What do you think of the Kickstarter method of fundraising for your album? What were the advantages and disadvantages? Would you do it again?
Shikhee: It took 27 hours. It was amazing. I had no idea what to expect. It was a very humbling and inspiring experience.
Given the current nature of music industry crowd funding seems a very viable alternative. You're taking your project directly to the buyers, bypassing all middleman bullshit. But like anything it's up to you to make your project attractive to potential backers. If you're brand new though, it may be a bit tricky to get people interested without a track record.
Audio Cantrips: Are there going to be any music videos coming from Crater Vol. 1? If so, which song or songs? What can you tell us about it or them?
Shikhee: Nothing is planned at the moment.
Audio Cantrips: Do you have any plans for touring anytime soon? If so, what are those plans? What can we expect?
Shikhee: No tour plans at the moment either.
Audio Cantrips: So, I hear you do remixes, too. From what I understand, you did a remix of the song "Lucky 13" by Collide for their Bent and Broken album. What can you tell us about the remix? What was it like working on it?
Shikhee: I took a break from "Crater" to work on that track. It was a lot of fun. I kinda focused on kaRIN's vocals and built the rest of the song around it.
Audio Cantrips: One focus of this site is to give people some insight about the goth-industrial things that might interest people on the East Coast. If I'm correct in my assessment, you lived in New York City most of your life, and you only just moved to Los Angeles pretty recently. What prompted the move? Are there things you miss about the East Coast? Are there things you're happy to be rid of and don't miss in the slightest?
Shikhee: I moved to be closer to the industry. But I miss NYC very much. There's really no place like it.
Audio Cantrips: For your previous album, The Human Animal, you went around NYC and recorded your own noises from the city. Can you tell us some specifics about your journey, such as where you went or the exact sounds you picked up? Do you have any cool stories in regard to that trek?
Shikhee: Just everyday traveling, by foot, subway or car. I carried around my Zoom H4 with me and got it out whenever a sound caught my attention. The thing about NYC is that life is happening around you 24/7. Things are happening around you all along and you just get to pick what sound you want to capture. There are sounds of escalators, subways, birds, construction, crowds and many other things that made their way to "The Human Animal."
Audio Cantrips: Finally, from what I understand, you're helping to raise money to support local animal shelters along with someone named Ted Brady, who is bicycling across North America. What can you tell us about this?
Shikhee: I wasn't really involved. Ted contacted me to use a track on one of his videos. I gave permission of course and I totally love what he's doing.
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