INTERVIEW: Council

Council has her own position on the electronic music scene that matters to us. DJ and producer. The productions and dj sets by Council are powerful statement, emblematic of her no-holds-barred approach. We had the opportunity to talk to her, so enjoy your reading and see her next projects

How and when have you been interested in music? And electronic music?

I started writing songs when I was pretty young, and I took music and singing lessons as well. I found electronic music in high school and then I studied in Prague during college, where there’s a pretty good club scene and some big DJs came to play. I wanted to experience that feeling of being in control of the crowd and the energy, and sharing great music with everyone. Can you tell us a little about your experience? Where are you from / how did you get into music?

I actually went to my first year of college at an art school in New York, and being surrounded by so much music and art definitely influenced my taste. But It wasn’t until I went to Prague and experience the European scene that I started to “get” techno and darker styles of house music. The American music scene is very diverse, but the mainstream tends to be one kind of thing, and I think it can be hard for Americans to understand more experimental music. I remember my first rave, I was like, this is kind of boring — it’s just a bunch of drum sounds and weird industrial sound effects? Of course the more I went, the more I understood it and now I “get” it, and I love it. How is your sound evolving? What artists and genres do you enjoy mixing right now?

Maybe it’s too early to know how my sound is evolving, but I hope to experiment with different styles and to improve my producing skills. I recorded a mix for Polychrome’s series, and the first track is by a producer called Susumu Yokota. I’ve been obsessed with him. He was a genius. I would love to play a set mixing only his tracks.

How do you feel your music influences or impacts your listeners?

I think the best feeling for any artist is when people connect with your work in any way. I hope people feel like my music understands them, or understands how they feel. You know when you listen to a song and you feel like, this person or this song just gets it? Like that.

What projects are you working on right now? What can you tell us about One Hundred Nights?

I created all the tracks for One Hundred Nights last summer, when everything was in full lockdown. I had so much time and spent hours fine-tuning different instrument sounds, trying to find the perfect kick, or hi hat, or whatever. Right now I’m much busier and things are opening up again so I have less time to just be alone and work on music, but I’m trying to make time for it and I have a lot more music that I’ve been working on over the last year. Where are you and what have you been doing now?

I live in New York, and besides music I’m also a filmmaker. Has that sound changed a lot in recent years? What is your musical criteria?

I think if the music transports me somewhere else, because it tells a story, or it feels like another world, that’s always the best thing.

Do you feel safe now to play a more experimental sound?

I think there are no limits to what you can play, you just have to know how to make it interesting for the listener. We all know that the digital revolution has affected sales, but has it affected creativity?

I think it’s made people more creative, and it’s given more people the resources to make music or whatever they want to make. But at the same time, it’s much easier now to just copy something someone else made — there are two sides to it. Can you tell us what your present and future projects are?

I’m polishing a lot of music that I have been working on for the last year or so, and I’m always having new ideas as well, so I’m sure there will be much more to come.

BUY

Council - One Hundred Nights EP

BUY LINK: polychromeaudio.bandcamp.com/

Release date: 2 July 2021

Label: Polychrome Audio (@polychrome-audio)