By Keith Walsh
The Analog Girl is situated in a musical space between commerciality and esoterica. Also known as Mei Wong from Singapore, the electronic music maker has created exciting pop electronica since 2005 with Ableton and an array of virtual synths. Non-pop works include the soundtrack for the technically advanced office space “Alice.”
And now her seductive and ethereal electronic sounds can be heard in London at the ongoing art installation, “Latent Space,” featuring visual work by Jake Elwes and Mei’s lovely soundtrack that is quite reminiscent of Brian Eno’s Music For Airports. I asked Mei, who before releasing music worked at MTV Asia, about her approach to this piece, which, with visual and sonic cues, asks the viewer to contemplate the spaces around us, and the environments of our imaginations.
Synthbeat: How did you work, viewing the images?
The Analog Girl: I had a sample of the visuals as I was working on the soundtrack, and that guided the piece.
Synthbeat: How did the images inform the sounds you chose and the melodies you played?
The Analog Girl: The visuals, to me, conveyed a feeling of fluidity, ever-evolving, almost like having a life of it own, and so I wanted parts of the soundtrack to sound generative, and to possibly sound a little different with each listen.
Synthbeat: What is the ‘meaning’ of the entire work, music and visual, as you see it?
The Analog Girl: I approached this project by interpreting the artist statement that was set out for Jake Elwes’ work –
“In artificial intelligence ‘Latent Space’ refers to a mathematical space which maps what a neural network has learnt from training images. Once it has been trained it understands all images of trees as existing in a specific area, and all images of birds in another.
The neural network can be reverse engineered to create fake images from these coordinates*. But what if it was given a new path to travel between these recognisable points, instead moving through the in-between space?”
I see it as a re-programming of the “mind” to think in a different way, and during the course of it, to accept whatever comes out from that, to accept whatever that comes your way.
Synthbeat: Where did you source the footsteps around 26?
The Analog Girl: That’s from the M1 soft synth, a preset called People.
Synthbeat: What DAW and VSTs are you using?
The Analog Girl: I use stock drums from Ableton, the Korg Collection (soft synths) including WAVESTATION, M1, MonoPoly, as well as, Pro-53 from Native Instruments. Plus a ton of effects, mainly stock from Ableton.
Synthbeat: The drums sound very analog? What plug in are you using?
The Analog Girl: That’s nice to hear – it’s a stock drum kit from Ableton called Percussion.
Synthbeat: How was this experience, making a 40 plus minutes piece, different than other work you’ve created, in particular in contrast to three minute pop songs?
The Analog Girl: Since this was going to be played in a public space, I wanted it to sound like an experience, at parts transient, other parts as a reaction to the visuals. I wanted it to accompany both the visual piece and the visitors who will be passing by. The words atmospheric, ambient and metamorphic guided the songwriting process. And the difference between writing for this, and the usual work that I do for my own albums, would be the specific space and context that it will be played in and therefore, there is a stronger purpose, a stronger conviction.
Synthbeat: How did you come to get this “gig?”
The Analog Girl: Nick Luscombe is the founder of MSCTY (previously known as Musicity) and back in 2012, the British Council of Singapore engaged in a partnership with Musicity to bring this series to Singapore. That’s when we first got connected. Alongside other Singaporean and British musicians like sonicbrat, Jason Tan and Jon Hopkins, we each chose a spot in town to create a song for, and mine was UNESCO heritage landmark Hong San See temple.
Here is more info, and the song I wrote for it titled ‘Like Dragons’, including some behind the scenes footage:
https://www.mscty.space/project/mscty-x-singapore
https://www.britishcouncil.sg/programmes/arts/music/musicity
Through the years, Nick and I have stayed in touch, and he is a constant supporter of my music, often debuting my singles on BBC Radio 3’s Late Junction.
And that’s how I was approached to produce the soundscape for MSCTY x Sculpture in the City’s Latent Space by Jake Elwes.
On a personal level, I was super excited to hear of this project as I was starting to take an interest in the use of artificial intelligence in creative works, most notably A.I. generated graphics, and A.I. generated remixes.
Synthbeat: What is your relationship with Jake Elwes?
The Analog Girl: I was introduced to Jake Elwes by Nick, and not only is his work phenomenal, Jake’s also been a real sweetheart, super open during my writing process, giving me full creative reign.
Synthbeat: What is the format of the actual presentation? Is it one screen or numerous screens?
The Analog Girl: I’m not actually dialed in on the visual setup – it looks like one large video playing on the ceiling of the first floor of the building. As to whether it is playing off 1 single screen, or multiple screens, I am not too sure.
Audio setup wise, musician mui zyu made a much-appreciated trip to see it person and summed up the experience nicely here –
(I remixed her song ‘yolk’ recently – the original is a gem of a song!)
Synthbeat: Have you been to London too see it? Will it be in any other cities?
The Analog Girl: I wasn’t able to fly to London for the launch back in July due to Covid-19 restrictions. And, I believe this to be a one-off collaboration with Sculpture In The City London.
The Analog Girl on Facebook
The Analog Girl “Awe”
The Analog Girl Official Website
SonicBrat On Bandcamp
Jason Tan On Bandcamp
Jon Hopkins On Bandcamp
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