Exclusive video premiere of ‘Everything Changes’ by VooCha.

Robots which we love, surveillance, whales, time and urban meanderings are the subjects touched upon on the debut album by VooCha. These subjects are not a breezy mentioning but have been months long projects for the members of the loose group based around the artist Melissa E. Logan. As VooCha sculpts the subject matter, the sound is layers of house and break beats, a framework in the playground of dropping lyrics, respect given to intimacy and spontaneity. Within the veneer and seduction of EDM the listener is pulled into sound, fragile lyrics and alluringly lyrical content. The comfort of base drum carries, takes a turn, off beat and then can drop out leaving the listener on a broken limb.

The obvious takes on a philosophical dimension with ‘Everything Changes’ when everything changes, when everything changes, then everything changes’ VooCha did not need to sit in university to write these lyrics, but rather it is puzzlement about the present generation growing up knowing that the world can be one way, and very, very different in the next moment. Structures can collapse, shift, the world as a whole, that is, the human part of the world is more Malleable, form-able, changeable, shift able, as a whole than assumed in pre-pandemic times. The lands can sink, and we can be back in the sea with our cousins the Cetacean, the mammals, a part of our family which perhaps formed our limbs, lungs from gills, as the mammals separated, developing in various ways to walk, swim, hunt, breathe.

In this way retaining a form, Timothy Morton refers to as Loop in Dark Ecology’ Ecological awareness is a loop because human interference has a loop form, because ecological and biological systems are loops. And ultimately this is because to exist at all is to assume the form of a loop. The loop form of beings means we live in a universe of finitude and fragility, a world in which objects are suffused and surrounded by mysterious hermeneutical clouds of unknowing.’ VooCha poetically rides on the loop, lowering the gaze embracing finitude and investigating, extending feelers for a way forward perhaps less obvious.

Logan embraces a complex authorship system, smart contracts allowing metadata to credit many sources. This can start by experimenting with various models, and why not begin on oneself. UniCAT – the University of Craft Action Thought – is the lab, label and publishing platform connecting analog with digital to pioneer paths focused on sustainability for the artists and independent label structure.

“VooCha is an adventure, poetic and driven”

It’s really nice to have you. How’s this last year under lockdown been for you? Have you found the isolation creatively challenging or freeing?

Melissa E. Logan: Hi, thank you for the interview. Lockdown is definitely a great time to put in dedicated hours into producing. I have also been traveling, making field recordings and now I have a new studio in Hafencity Hamburg so I will be dipping a Hydrophobic microphone into the harbour to harvest deep sounds. Definitely the slowing down has brought about such sound tech adventures.

You’re well known to work in groups by gathering artists together, connecting themes et cetera. How about in your latest project, VooCha? How did that come along?

VooCha began in Abidjan, Ivory Coast. I was in a performance festival by Gintersdorfer/Klassen collaborating with producers like Champy Kilo, Shaggy Sharoof, Bebi Philip, performing the electro pop style of Chicks on Speed with the beats of these great producers. The collocations are fluid, when I am Cologne I work with Cecilia Candia, (from Santiago Chile) or Nelly Ellinor aka NLLY, Gregor Schwellenbach. In Hamburg with Preach, Erobiqu, Ouro Renate, ask for some base lines from Porky (Deichkind) or shift into performance art modus with my other group Infinite Jest.

“Everything can change so quickly”

Today, we are premiering ‘Everything Changes’, a song about transition that is happening all around us. What does that mean for you?

I love the Warhol quote about change, we cannot be passively watching change happen. Andy Warhol, “They always say time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself”. I was also thinking of the great David Bowie and his timeless song ‘Changes’. And thinking about a generation of people growing up in a time where from one day to the next radical change happened. Perhaps this is an inspiration to know that yes, everything can change so quickly, even global laws, planetary enforcement to protect the environment and avoid imminent self destruction?

Would you like to share some further words about your debut album?

With VooCha, finding a sound was a big hurtle. The combination of urgency, repetitive beats but not focused on dance but rather having a drive. Harmony and melody is very present and off beat, I play sax so I love music to swing around the place, not to be stuck on the beat – embracing the irregularity between rhythm. My father was a music teacher and we listened to so much classical music and this absolutely did not come into question. I love the accessibility of electronic pop music, even if the approach is from the artist’s direction and not from the perspective of a band coming from music studies, or a pop academy approach of how to craft the music “properly” – VooCha is an adventure, poetic and driven.

Is your approach to laying down music a building block process?

The production process is layering and then more layering, composing and editing. I generally dive into the breakbeat of house music as a skeleton. I have a Yamaha digital sax which has versatile sounds to play live.

One of the songs from the album will be featured in the film Abseits der Spur by Ben Kaufmann about the star photographer Horst Baumann. How did the collaboration go?

Ben Kaufmann invited VooCha to perform at NAK, the New Aachener Kunstverein, one of our first performances. He is now solely focused on the film and I look forward to seeing it in the movie Theatre soon.

VooCha is always collaborating with different artists. Would you mind telling us who all are part of the album?

Many of the songs were written with Nelly Ellinor aka NLLY. Lyrics are often by my sister Yohanna Logan, Spanish lyrics by Cecilia Candia. I received funding by initiative music and went to Beirut where I worked with Jana Salah who sings in Arabic. Eric D. Clark is a long time collaborator and Christopher Just is actually more the Chicks on Speed producer but he produced ‘Watching’, on the VooCha album. Many people know Erobique because of his song ‘Urlaub in Italian’. I know him from the 2000’s club scene, him playing vintage keys and burning all night with electro disco drive. Ouro Renate is living at a shared apartment, she walked all the way from Togo to Hamburg over Bulgaria with the refugee wave 2018, she sings the beginning part of ‘Everything Changes’. I love her voice, she sings in church a lot. I am sure I have forgotten someone and on the coming up album the list of collaborators will expand.

“The music is not made to function, but rather as slices in time of ideas, phenomena thrown out into space that someone can discover”

I hope you don’t mind if we ask a question or two about Chicks on Speed? The project has been active for 10+ years. What are some of your favorite memories from Chicks on Speed? I saw on your Bandcamp that you’re still active again releasing several singles…

We drop songs, music is a part of all, perhaps even the heart of what I do. Teaching and building object instruments wearable sound pieces, installations and videos. The dense subject matter of the music is built over time, so not immediate. The music is not made to function, but rather as slices in time of ideas, phenomena thrown out into space that someone can discover.

Do you find yourself to be a perfectionist, in control, or do your ideas lead you, taking on a life of their own?

Some songs take a very long time to produce so yes, I guess it is done when it is at a certain point. I am not interested in a “perfect – pitch”. I definitely embrace glitches and integrate these into the sound/music but I don’t release the music until I am 96% happy, I am trying to go down to 75% – in order to be able to finish music faster.

And you’re also very busy with exhibits. Would you like to tell us about the latest project?

At the moment we have a piece on a world tour. The Theremin Tapestry is going around the world in the coming four years with an exhibition called Techno Worlds, curated by Justin Hoffmann. I strongly recommend having a look and am looking forward to seeing it when it comes closer to the city I am in. [Link]

With Chicks on Speed we take part in group exhibitions, still sometimes as sadly the only females in an all male show. We used to have solo shows but now the underfunded exhibition spaces lour in galleries to support their artists exhibitions by funding a catalog or transport. I am looking forward to a large-scale installation in Marbach as part of Kulturregion Stuttgart. September 26-October 16. Precisely enough time for a complex sound installation. [Link]

What’s next for you?

With Captain Moustache we are releasing an electro pop song on the Munich label Permanent Vacation February 4. Yes, just released and receiving much press and appearing on many playlists.

Next VooCha album is in the making. There is a live performance, Chicks on Speed April 23 in Brussels for #julianassangewave. VooCha album is coming up as well as Chicks on Speed video.

‘Dance Party’, an arty video will be screening Indie Short Film Fest, Raleigh Studios Hollywood, which I am so happy about. We will exhibit at EXCUBE Gallery Space in Osaka, Japan [link] with collaborating artist making textiles and fanzines.

Klemen Breznikar

VooCha Facebook / Instagram / Bandcamp / SoundCloud / YouTube
Chicks on Speed Official Website / Facebook / Instagram / Twitter / Bandcamp
Melissa E. Logan Instagram