Interview with Shikhee D'iordna

If you're a fan of industrial, I'd be overwhelmingly surprised if you haven't at least heard of the person I interviewed here. She is the one, the only Shikhee from Android Lust!

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.

Android Lust - "Making of 'Stained'"

Were you ever curious about how Android Lust made the (really cool looking) "Stained" music video? There is a six-part video series that explains it down to the smallest details. I'll embed the first video, but I'm not going to put all seven videos here. If you're interested in seeing the whole series, you can check out the rest by following the playlist links.

Android Lust - "Dragonfly"

Android Lust never disappoints when it comes to creating something original and artistic. "Dragonfly" from the Devour, Rise and Take Flight album is no exception.

Android Lust - Crater Vol. 1

Do you enjoy everyday sounds being mixed beautifully into experimental electronic/industrial music? Do you like esoteric songs that tell stories with a minimum of lyrics? Do pretty instrumentals get you going? What about water? Do you like water? No -- seriously, do you like water?

If you said "yes" to any of the above questions, Android Lust's Crater Vol. 1 is the album for you.

(Property of Android Lust, used with permission)

[Tracks] - [Time]

1. My Kingdom for a God - 3:44

2. Vereor - 3:01

3. Water Whispers - 4:38

4. I Need to Know - 4:47

5. From the Other Side - 4:11

6. First Man - 2:02

7. When the Rains Came - 5:27

8. Yaakuntik - 1:00

9. Here and Now - 4:15

10. Precipice - 8:05

I hope you're a nature lover, because this album is going to make you feel like you're surrounded by it most of the time. This is not the cold kind of industrial that makes you feel like you're in a jungle of steel, but rather, this is warm throughout. It makes you feel like you're one with the Earth.

The opening song, "My Kingdom for a God", is solid. To be perfectly honest, the piano is downright creepy, but I wouldn't have it any other way. This is the kind of song that would have felt right at home in a Parasite Eve game, because the mix of the piano, scratchy electronic background beat, and faint, almost ghostly vocal track in the middle to end gives the sense of desolation in a place where there was life. This really sets the tone for the rest of the album, which shows almost a forced sense of nature for the listener. You're not surrounded by nature because this is a happy weekend camping trip; you're surrounded by nature because everything just got obliterated around you and turned into nature.

"Vereor" sounds like the theme for someone walking across a barren wasteland. The raspy beat juxtaposed with the flowing melody and occasional piano bits makes for the feeling that you're just walking with no direction other than to not find your final resting place. It feels bleak and hopeless, like what is necessary to endure to survive.

As for "Water Whispers", remember when I asked if you liked water? Here's the first of multiple "water songs" in this album. The entire song is primarily made up of the noises of dripping and running water mixed with traditionally Middle Eastern instruments, mild chorus-like vocals, and electronic percussion. Let it be known to the world that Shikhee knows how to utilize the sounds of water to their fullest extent in her music. I'm not entirely sure if this is supposed to be related to the other two songs in the sense of being part of linear storytelling, but I just enjoy this song because it sounds incredibly relaxing. Perhaps the idea is that the hero or heroine is resting for the night.

The next two songs feel kind of like asides, as if the addition of vocals is supposed to make us stop and listen for something in particular. I think "I Need to Know" is a song about questioning if a relationship is going to go the distance. It's melancholy and conveys doubt throughout. The song does feel like a frozen moment though in an album that had been previously focused on movement. As for "From the Other Side", there is clear and obvious despair over a current situation with the periodic assertion that "there must be another way". This song kind of splits the album into two halves from the world of collapse and desolation in the first half to the world of acceptance and rebuilding in the second half.

"From the Other Side" doesn't have a fade at the end and goes directly into "First Man", which sounds like the noise of an engine firing up and then goes into harsh industrial noise and symphonic horns, almost reminiscent of commercials for sci-fi films involving extraterrestrials. This does feel like the first glimmer of hope in the whole album though for our hero or heroine who doesn't want civilization to collapse.

Our second water song for the album is "When the Rains Come", which -- I'll give you three guesses -- utilizes the noise of falling rain throughout, particularly in the first half. If some TV show about wildlife had a major special, I'd instantly recommend this song for a montage. This is the song where you can just picture a video of all the vegetation regrowing and the fauna starting to come back. The melody that's created by what sounds like a softened electronic xylophone in the second half of the song completely nails it for the song's mood. This is probably tied for my favorite song on the album with the first, "My Kingdom for a God".

The single-minute "Yaakuntik" gives me kind of the same feelings that "Water Whispers" does, except this is a more peaceful, less stressed respite. The sitar really does it for me. Also, even though this is a short song, I think this is meant to be a stand-alone. It's not like "First Man", which was meant to be closely related to "From the Other Side".

"Here and Now" is the third and final song in the album where Shikhee's vocals shine. She talks about a choice that is simple and necessary. In regard to what the choice is, I think it may be left open to interpretation, but I think it has something to do with the healing process from trauma suffered. Within a grander narrative of the world's destruction, there could be a choices in regard to how to rebuild and bring Earth back to its former glory. From a more micro-level narrative of personal trauma, such as the relationship Shikhee mentions in "I Need to Know", this could be her choice on whether or not she is going to break up with her significant other. Either way, this is probably the most sultry song of the album.

Finally, the eight-minute-plus "Precipice" is the last of the water songs. Trickling creek noises and wind blowing opens the song for about a minute and a half until the piano comes in once again to give us that real epilogue feeling. Afterward, we get a little bit of cymbal action going with the trickling water keeping up with the beat as opposed to just providing ambiance. After over halfway through though, we go back to the soft noise of weather and nature, and I feel that brings the song through to the end on the necessary note. We're rebuilding the world slowly after something catastrophic. The song shouldn't convey the rise of a stunning metropolis, but rather the quiet of slow, steady progress. It's supposed to be peaceful, and that's exactly what we get.

All in all, this album has everything you could possibly ask for in an Android Lust release. It has beautiful instrumentals. It has a little bit of Shikhee's wonderful voice. It tells a great story. And it has water. Lots of water. If you want to experience lots of water and other stuff, Crater Vol. 1 comes out January 29, 2013!

Android Lust - "Stained"

Well, if you're going to break up with someone, this might be a good song to pop in.

I definitely respect Android Lust's abilities as an artist. The imagery of a completely mirrored room makes for fantastic visuals. It must have been a nightmare to be able to shoot this without having the camera pop up in the shop, unless there was a high amount of post-production work involved, too. Shikhee likes to use a lot of black-colored blood in this video to get her points across of being wounded by an evil, possibly abusive ex. The music, itself, makes the listener always feel just a bit on edge, as if something is going to boom out at any moment. The fact that the song feels like it's in a constant state of being about to boil over is fitting for a song like this, because the lyrics make it sound like she's about to break, but she's holding on until the end.

Android Lust overflows with talent, and I'd highly recommend her to anyone who genuinely enjoys very artistically-driven music.

People are just giving stuff away!

(Property of Noiseplus Music, used under Fair Use for direct, substantial commentary on product)

According to Side-Line Music Magazine, Collide is giving away a song from Bent and Broken, their new remix album. It's a song called "Lucky 13 (Damaged Mix)" by the Android Lust frontwoman, Shikhee. The link has all the details in regard to the protocol you have to follow to get the free song, which does involve registering on Collide's site.

Also, according to Sam Rosenthal's Facebook page, Projekt Records is giving away a whole sampler for 2013. If you're into the ethereal and ambient stuff, this is definitely something you want to look into.

Finally, the I:Scintilla Facebook page wants you to know that if you're a DJ, media outlet, or other promoter of music that you should provide the band with your credentials, and they will give you a copy of the new "Skin Tight" single.