By Keith Walsh
From the very beginning, electronic music has lent itself to experimental approaches. Working out of Europa with advanced academic degrees in music performance and composition, Thea Soti has created new ways of making music, using mostly her voice.
The product — a new album ØVER+ on the Planisphère label, is a delightfully trippy mix, with narratives following a pattern of a somewhat sexualized sci-fi story. Though she leaves a lot of her processes mysterious, Thea was kind enough to pull back the curtain a bit on how she works, telling of her studies and her other projects. Some of that info is in Part 1 of our interview, here.

Synthbeat: Where does Grrrl power fit into your musical story?
Thea Soti:  Grrrl power sounds like the Disney-movie version of feminism. Hahaha. I ´d like to think that if we don´t especially accentuate the fact that I am a girl and doing electronic music, then maybe it could be the most organic step towards normalization of the presence of women in electronic music. I definitely have more cables in my bag when I travel than high heels and I find it definitely more sexy.

There´s a changing landscape: I enter clubs and ladies are spinning the records, platforms and collectives shout out for female producers and electronic music composers. There´s something empowering about this change and I am happy to be experiencing it, what´s more, being part of it. I have a live act with two sisters and we do experimental live techno. It is kind of cool, silently revolutionary and bad-ass when three girls are doing a hard-core cool and flowy-experimental techno set at a club. I love it. And I guess, it is not only because of the music, but about the statement that we make every single time. Because girls are good with machines.

Yet, you see, no offense, but if I was a male musician, we would be talking about the content of my album… not explaining this to you…

Synthbeat: What’s your musical background, training and other projects?
Thea Soti:  I have a long musical road behind me with some unexpected twists. Started out with serious classical music training in Serbia, playing the piano when I was six, then switched to jazz piano and finished jazz conservatory in Budapest. Later applied to the jazz academy in Germany, but there I studied jazz vocals, followed by a master´s degree in composition. I got closely acquainted with improvised music in Switzerland at the Jazz School, which tossed me into the direction of experimental vocals and contemporary music. Yet in the past years, my practice has opened up even more, integrating video art, movement and installative works.

Recently, I have started working as an electronic musician and producer. At the moment, I have an artistic duo with Burcu Bilgiç from Istanbul with whom we research co-existence strategies and the politics of intimacy in modern-day communication structures. I´m also finishing a new album with an experimental electronic trio from Cologne (featuring Darius Heid and Anthony Greminger), writing a book with Mascha Corman on vocal improvisation and – obviously – preparing for my solo album release concert, which will be held on the 3rd of July in Paris.

Synthbeat: You have this equipment and ability—what’s holding you back from making commercial music, to try and make some money?
Thea Soti: Who says that I am not making money? Haha. In fact, I earn my living by making music, but not only by playing music live on stage. I’m rather doing a huge variety of different projects, ranging from commissioned pieces (composition) up to producing, sound design, installation works, working with contemporary dancers, giving masterclasses, writing a book on improvisation, collaborations of all kinds, etc. Nevertheless, I completely understand your question; honestly, I truly try to go mainstream every single time. But I fail every time. I´m just simply more triggered by experimenting and discovering than repeating and entertaining.

Synthbeat:What DAW are you using? What other software? What hardware?
Thea Soti: The compositional process of my solos is pre-dominantly based on live improvisation, so I chose to work with Ableton Live. I started using this DAW, as it appeared to be a pretty practical and at the same time throughout intuitive software for playing live sets. Later, based on my experience with live sets, I started producing music and using it as a software for composition and mixing as well. My latest album ØVER+ was also created, mixed and produced in Ableton Live.

Synthbeat:What microphone are you using?
Thea Soti: I use a dynamic microphone that all singers know: Shure Beta 58A. It´s a classic, but does its job. Solid and very hard to destroy. Haha. Sometimes, I integrate contact microphones into my set, too in order to add another level of generating sounds in an analogue way.

Thea Soti dot com
Thea Soti on Bandcamp
Planisphère on Bandcamp
Thea Soti Interview Part 1 On Synthbeat.com

finis