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CMU Approved
Approved: Zilla
By Andy Malt | Published on Thursday 2 November 2017
Classically trained pianist turned leftfield pop artist Zilla released her debut single, ‘Get Your Way’, in September via Matthew Herbert’s Accidental Records. An immediately arresting piece of music, the follow-up ‘The Sleepwalker’ proves that was no accident.
Both tracks follow a similar pattern, with mechanical percussion underpinning controlled but difficult to grasp melodic elements – all created with non-musical sounds, like drilling, a bunch of oyster shells and an electric toothbrush – pulled together and softened by Zilla’s vocals.
“All the instruments used in the song are real objects”, she says of making ‘Get Your Way’. “The beat was called ‘Round’ and I decided to use all round objects, firstly because the loops in my head at that time were constant, it was like living in a world of sequences, my mind would obsess on bits of sentences or bits of music non stop”.
“Round is also a very feminine shape” she adds, “a pregnant woman, the female body. Round can represent a routine, so it can be reassuring and comforting but also there is something quite disturbing about not being able to get out”.
Herbert adds of his latest signing: “I like the fact that Zilla can sit at a piano and bash out some Rachmaninov and Debussy, but chose instead to make an ahead-of-its-time record out of the ephemera of ordinary life. It bristles with the friction of real life as opposed to the comfort of the recording studio”.
Watch the video for ‘The Sleepwalker’ here.
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