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INTERVIEW: Sui Zhen

12 August 2015 | 2:16 pm | Lauren Payne

SUI ZHEN is an artist who has developed an image that stands out amongst many modern producers. In a small cluster of female producers, we find women such as Catlips, Banoffee and Chela who have all developed an image that enhances their unique sounds.

Sui Zhen - or Becky Freeman - is a new addition to this small group of female producers who deliver grand visuals alongside their music. Blending Japanese post-punk with vibrant balaeric-bossanova filters, Sui Zhen has developed a sound that is easy and precise and we decided to pick her brain about her writing processes and various influences before she releases her new LP and travels up to Brisbane for Bigsound 2015.


PS: Your new album, Secretly Susan, will be released soon - what kind of writing process do you go through when you're writing music?

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SZ: It's different. If I'm thinking of putting through a song on an album within a sweep of other songs, I usually go for a more pop approach, which is the case for this album. When I write I feel like there's a kind of duality where I'm heading towards more dance music as well, by using the same equipment but in a different way. I've started to DJ more and do more club versions of my stuff, purely because of the nature of the songs lend themselves to that environment and that is a different writing process.

The EPs that I put out before this album were actually written after the songs for the album and they're more dance-y. They usually start with a drum machine, they're mainly self-produced so it's me producing everything and then getting an engineer that I work with to mix and someone else to master. I got a grant from the Australian council in 2013 to do new work so that was probably when [the album] recording process started. I had a bunch of songs written before that time and throughout that process I wrote a few more, which included 'Infinity Street', which was around the beginning of 2014 when I was starting to get them all properly mixed.

Then it was popping around to labels, I started to work with Two Bright Lakes, but then after the single came out they folded, so I had to find another label. I used that time to create the rest of the [music's] world, and in a way it's not the easy part. But it is the straightforward part because I don't have to worry about this three dimensional world yet, I can just focus on audio and music whilst I jot down ideas for visual stuff.

It's interesting that you've pointed out the two different kinds of electronic music that you create, have you always been intrigued by electronic and dance music? 

Yes I have definitely! It's so strange that I didn't really think of producing my own music. I've been making music for most of my life by singing and using my voice for a lot of melodic stuff I learnt during school. I started to pick up a guitar during my teenage years and started writing songs that way and was of the opinion that music began with songs and I thought that I should learn how to write songs that just existed with a voice or an instrument before experimenting.

I always thought electronic music was very experimental and that's just how I thought when I was a teenager, I thought that before I [made electronic music] I should learn the rules and that's kind of what I did. I was going to clubs and was really interested in techno and house music from the get go and so I'd go to these underage raves and then go home and make a folk song! [laughs] So it's been a longer process for me to actually get the confidence to go and produce my own music and think that it's not so scary.

With the tracks for the EPs I was working in shorter time frames and thinking that one weekend I'll make 5 tracks or 3 tracks and they just seemed to come out a lot more energetic, because I was thinking "come on, pump it out!" [laughs]. It's just a great passion of mine, I love electronic music and the difference of repetition and minimalism you can explore.

You did mention visuals before and through your videos for 'Infinity Street' and 'Take It All Back' it's clear that you're visuals are very precise. Do you prefer releasing visuals with your tracks rather than just uploading them on their own?

Yeah I think it gives people a whole world to connect with. [Although] there's a song, the next single actually, that I was reluctant to film. I was unsure because I really like it just as a song and this yet to be released song is actually one of my favourites I've written and I think it's because every time I sing it I just really connect with it and I thought, "do I really need to do a clip for this?"

I think music doesn't need visuals, but when you're operating within the industry, that's how you get [your music] out there and connect with a very visual climate. It makes sense to create that world and invite people to see where you're coming from. It's another opportunity to express yourself and it's really fun to do as well. Watching other artists doing the same thing is great, especially when they do it themselves, it's just getting to know them better I think.

In saying that, your videos have a specific style to them that seems to show a very clean aesthetic. Where do you get your visual inspiration from?

The moods and expressions come from very nuanced characteristics I see in myself and other people; things that are often hard to describe, I like putting them in there. In terms of aesthetics, there are a lot of filmmakers that I like; Jim Jarmusch, David Cronenberg. I like Graphic design and a lot of more contemporary stuff too; art direction that I've seen through different campaigns where they could be advertising stuff. It's just seeing someone's complete vision of something, so if someone has brought a concept through and you can tell that it's mainly one person that's been involved in that process because it's really tight and cohesive, that inspires me.

For the look and feel I work with Pheobe Schmidt and she's got a very bold style. I work with another couple of people who also have good taste in visuals so when we all work on a video it's pretty clear what needs to be done. There's a lot of Japanese influence as well, but I've probably talked about that so many times [laughs]. I have a lot of design books and have been kind of pottering about Post Graduate Design over the years, so actually practising graphic design and also curating a look which involves a little bit of everything. When I was younger I was actually really into filmmaking, but chose to focus on music instead so I try to express that through creating my videos.

Both of your videos seem to have a pretty distinct narrative to them, do you think having a narrative in your videos helps express the lyrics in each song?

The lyrics are kind of interesting because when I write them, they may mean one thing to me at the time and then in a couple of months mean something else. I think that they need to exist in that way otherwise you wouldn't be able to sing them over and over again with a real emotional connection. The song really becomes it's own entity and you visit it sometimes when you perform it. But when you put it in a video, it becomes something that people can really connect with and enjoy when they're listening at home.

I think it's still a form of self-expression for people to see me performing that song. The alter ego will exist and the branding will exist more so within projections and things, but I think it's important that I'm present personally in that performance because it makes it more fulfilling for me.

With your alter-ego Susan as the protagonist in 'Take It All Back', was there any aspects of her that you wanted to emphasise in the song's presentation? 

Once I created the idea, which happened over the duration of photoshoots [where it] became this person and association where we'd think, "Oh, this is a Susan vibe!" [laughs]. I guess it's going back to those nuanced characteristics everybody shares. My main thought behind it was that she wasn't a real person, she was a vision of digital anxieties people have of the world, like a culmination of visual data and all of this stuff that exists on Instagram and Facebook, just all of that social media.

It's self documentation and thinking about what that might translate to as a physical person, as if you were to make assumptions about someone; she could be that kind of representation. I spoken before about my interest in the digital age and so I think creating Susan was a way to help bring that into my music, it sounds weird [laughs] but that's how I got around to it.

Are there any other musical alter-egos that you've seen over the years that you think have been interpreted quite well?

That's a good question because other people have their own ideas. Geneva Jacuzzi I've seen in the last five years or so, is really performative with her music and dresses up a lot. I'm really inspired by her just taking control of her style and satisfying her theatrical inclinations in her music project, I think that's the way to do it. There's an artist called Sean Nicholas Savage who doesn't so much as have an alter-ego, but he really plays [the part of] himself. He's a really good songwriter and he's the kind of person who could perform with just a backing track, his moves and his vibe because he's just so charismatic.

Creating an alter-ego for me was to get that into the visual world and deal with the pop elements in the song. I think it's good to kind of separate it all from yourself sometimes, like it's still very personal but it's a fun way to inform of the world you want to be associated with to do that. For some people it's already habit, like they're a full character anyway and really vibrant so maybe how they present themselves in music is how they are anyway.

SUI ZHEN's new album Secretly Susan in out August 28 via Remote Control and will be performing at Bigsound 2015 on September 10.

Words by Lauren Payne

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