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Déandrah has been making odd, out-of-step electronic music for a few years with brought-in elements of electro-esque rhythms, breakbeats and granular voices. Coming from a punk and hardcore music background but fatigued by the standard band format limitations, Déandrah’s project is into presenting their interpretation of club music. Ranging influences from sampling early 2000s video game soundtracks and homemade tape loops, churned through broken mixers and filter banks, turning waves of noise into amalgamated anxiety and anger driven music. Not fitting perfectly within the confines of a dance genre, reconciling the somewhat clinical nature of dance music with the essentially human aspects of experimentation such as error, disorder and spontaneity, pushing perceptions of how we can move our bodies to very quaint and odd places.
Can you tell us a little about your experience? Where are you from and how did you get into music?
I am from Switzerland but spent most of my life living abroad. So not sure where I am from anymore. But currently, I am based in Amsterdam.
My family has a really big artistic background and intuition but besides my mum who was a professional ballerina for many years, the rest opted for more “steady” career orientations. Besides this, I think I got into music as most teens do as a way to rebel. So I was in and out of bands from the age of 14 until the age of 24 but started making electronic music by myself at the age of 18. I gave up bands eventually because it’s too much of a hassle working with people. It bored me.
How is your sound evolving? What artists and genres do you enjoy mixing right now?
No direction, just take things as they come and see to what extent I can make my own sound by taking bits and pieces of elements from artists that I like. My favourite stuff to play is music that is genre agnostic. Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t. It cannot be categorised.
How do you feel that your music influences or impacts its listeners?
I don’t know because I don’t care. If people want to comment or give feedback that’s fine, but for the rest I am very self-indulgent.
What projects are you working on right now? What can you tell us about your last job?
Of course. Releases, features and events with the platform I run Dee Dee’s Picks (@dee_dees_picks//deedeespicks.com), a couple of tracks for two different labels as part of their V.A. comp, some DJ gigs, some audio-visual performances and installations that will act like interactive mirrors made with Touch Designer and Xbox Kinect V2.
Last release I did was in December 2021, under my ex name The Midnight Tantrum. It was for Insult to Injury, a sister label of Ransom Note. I even made a little music video in support of the release (titled Circonflexe) as we were in full blown pandemic. I never did anything like that before so that was fun.
Has that sound changed a lot in recent years? What is your musical criteria in your last work?
Always. Especially since I switched from recording on VHS and multi-track cassette decks to Ableton. I wouldn’t describe my music anymore as “analogue lo-fi now”. It’s a lot more digital and “cleaner” sounding because I discovered Ableton something like three years ago, which was necessary for the type of music I do now. Editing breaks and other detailed artefacts where precision is required is infinitely easier (and cheaper) to do in this DAW than on hardware. I still use some hardware, but mainly as effects processors, such as sending audio from my DAW to filter modules/banks to add more character or texture.
We all know that the digital revolution has affected sales, but do you think it has affected creativity?
For sure. The concept of the album is more dead than ever. Singles have always been a thing but usually served as a gateway to the full release. Now, most people only know one song of one artist and listen to music via playlists or mixes. Voices are getting drowned from who can shout the loudest to be heard in a sea of music.
Can you tell us about your present and future projects?
Of course. Releases, features and events with the platform I run Dee Dee’s Picks (@dee_dees_picks//deedeespicks.com), a couple of tracks for two different labels as part of their V.A. comp, some DJ gigs, some audio-visual performances and installations that will act like interactive mirrors made with Touch Designer and Xbox Kinect V2.
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