Interview: SorchaLula

SorchaLula and her mates have brushed a cactus, squirted hoses, and hunted for pipes round the back of Wellington Hospital -  all in the name of music. She also contacted exactly one record label, and they said yes. The Wellington DJ and producer just released Love For My Hater with Samuel, the second single from her debut EP, so we caught up to find out where all the sounds (...um, hello sheep) come from.

So you may be ‘new’ to releasing music, but it’s been a journey. Where did it all start for you?

It was always around at home. Music mattered to my parents, and their taste was pretty eclectic. I played violin, then viola, until I was about 18, and I sang in choirs. I also did a lot of dance, ballet and contemporary. I mention that because for me the musicality and the dance are completely tied together. When you're producing dance music, that's what it's for.

How did electronic side of music come into it?

Not so much from my parents. I moved fromthe UK to Aotearoa in 2011, and in 2012 I ended up in a shared house with seven or eight different creatives. One of them was Paige Julia, which is where we first met. I'm one of the few people who's heard Paige play to two people in a lounge.

That was my proper introduction to electronic music, and I fell in love with it. The collective joy of a dance floor, that togetherness with a whole crowd of people, is pretty special. The community is one of my favourite things about the scene, especially travelling around the country and knowing people from all the different festivals and nights. It feels like you're part of something.

DJing came before producing for you right? What made you want to start creating your own music?

DJing started because I loved the tunes so much I wanted to understand how they blended together. A friend gifted me his old CDJ 1000s about seven or eight years ago and I taught myself on those. People heard me, kept asking me to play house parties and gigs, and it grew from there.

Production was different. I used to run a business that ran music production courses for women and non-binary folks, because I could see a massive gap in who was on our stages. Paige, Huia Hamon and other producers were the tutors, and we put at least 200 people through. I wasn't doing it because I wanted to learn production myself at that point.

My moment came leaving a festival. On the drive back I suddenly had this feeling inside that I want to make music and knew exactly what I wanted to make. That was the seed. About three or four years ago I decided I really wanted to know how to do it. I already knew the tunes I wanted to make, I just didn't know how, and you can't shortcut production. You put in the hours and keep experimenting.

You’ve talked about community and doing what you do, has that helped you learn?

I've been lucky. Because I'm in the scene, I know a lot of really skilled producers, and this hasn't been a solo journey. I've had so much advice from friends and I want to acknowledge that.

For a couple of years I've hosted weekly production hangs at my place. At the start everyone knew way more than me and shared tips, and I've done regular upskilling sessions with Paige, who's been my production mentor all the way through. These days I know more than most people who come along, so I pass it on.

I'd always been told you need three years of mahi before you make good stuff. One of the tracks on the EP was made only about a year and a quarter after I went deep on production, so that was a bit of a surprise.

In the electronic scene, Loop is one of the OG labels from Aotearoa. How did you end up with them?

You know what, it’s wild. Loop is actually the only record label I ever contacted. I was shocked when they messaged back keen to hear some tunes. I got a few together, chatted with Paige, sent them through, and they said great. I thought, surely it doesn't happen like this.

Before this, I honestly had no expectations. My only one was that it would be great if one person bought the first track on Bandcamp. There've been a few more now, but Bandcamp is quite niche. When Loop tell me I've landed on playlists, I'm like, oh, is that good? I think they've decided I really have no idea. I was never making music to release it. I was making what I wanted to make for me. But Mikey from Loop knows what he's after and has been doing it a long time.

You've had a couple of collaborators on the singles. Tell us about them, they’re friends too right?

Merlin Webster is my mate Tim, a guitarist who's been around forever and plays with Newtown Rock Steady. Samuel is the vocalist on Love For My Hater, which just came out. We've been friends for years, and they're both great musicians.

Sam and I have made maybe 12 or 14 songs together, and I've been playing them in my sets for two or three years. I just had a feeling to keep them close to my chest and not put them on SoundCloud or give them to anyone. That seems to have been right, because now they get the full treatment from Loop. Love For My Hater is about a year and a half old, and one of the tracks still to come was made close to two years ago.

One of the things that fascinates me about your music is the uniqueness of what’s in there. Part of that is you going out and finding sounds, but what is field recording, exactly?

Anything you've gone out and recorded yourself. Technically it could be in your house, but mostly it's out in other spaces. A few friends love doing it, so every few months we go on a field recording mission, hit things, investigate how they make noise, have a giggle and come back with heaps of recordings.

We've brushed a cactus and squirted a water hose into a barrel. We've found a tunnel with a cool reverb, and there's a pipe near the back of Wellington Hospital with a beautiful reverb if you take the top off. Using them is super cool because they're not samples from somebody else's pack. They're recordings my friends and I made, and that gives the tunes some real personality.

Do you go out hunting for specific sounds, or just see what you can find?

Somewhere between the two. I know which noises are handy, like textures for intros or one hits I can use as percussion. My friend Ed wasn't always sure when I pushed to get certain things, but later when he could see how I was using them, he understood.

Sometimes I hear a chopped-up recording and know it's perfect for an intro. Other times I'm mid-track, I need something, and I play through the field recording folders, add some weird effects and see what vibe it gets.

What field recordings are on Love For My Hater?

Some came from a trip out to my friend’s place. I got my friend Anthony saying “this is my voice through a tube” as an intro, and I just left it in the track. I told him the other day that over 2000 people have listened to it on Spotify and he was like, ‘Oh my gosh!’.

There are also recordings from my family farm on the Isle of Man. I haven't been back for years so I didn't record them, but a film company did during COVID, when there was no other ambient noise. My parents told me about them and they were really high quality. That's the sheep bleating sounds at the start. It's cool to use sounds from where I grew up.

Your debut EP is due in November, what's the rest of it going to sound like?

Diverse, because that's how I play. I like a lot of genres and moods, and I sometimes have to warn people whether I'm going to play more house or four-on-the-floor, or bass, though I blend them together too.

The first single was more organic house, and Love For My Hater is breaksy. The next one is a halftime bass track, and to fill out the EP there's an ambient one with Sam on vocals again and a dubstep 140 track. So it leans towards bass, with house and ambient still in there, because I love so many things and didn't want to limit myself. Loop were totally fine with that, which is amazing.

And do you have plans for once the EP's out?

We're doing an EP release tour. The first show is in Wellington on 20 November, the day the EP comes out, in a brand new club that's opening. A couple of weeks later I'll be up in Auckland, then down to Christchurch. I'm still figuring out how many of my tracks I blend through those sets, because I make so many different things. I'm already working on tunes for a second EP, and Loop are like, all right, when's that coming out?

It can be a bit vulnerable playing unreleased tunes in a club set. You're testing whether it works on the dance floor and whether it feels as important to people as it does to you. I tried the third single last Saturday at the Button Factory and it worked, which was good to know.

SorchaLula's second single, Love For My Hater (feat. Samuel), is out now on Spotify. She's playing Silent Studios on Friday 9 October, and her debut EP lands on 20 November with a launch in Wellington. Follow her on Instagram @sorchalula for the details.