SPOTLIGHT: TIIVA
Photo By Anita McAndrew
Meet Tiiva and tune into their debut album “You And I”
“You and I” as an album blends hyperpop energy with field recordings, what inspired you to fuse the synthetic and the organic so intentionally?
I love working in tech and creating music with computers and in digital worlds is something that’s been massively inspiring and profound for developing from into a producer, I really enjoy hyper pop and all the music on PC music label, alongside that I love the human side of things that are important to connect with- being in nature, listening to the trees, being by a body of water, all the ritualistic practises that are thousands of years old that connects us to nature.. with the new development of ai and how integral tech has become to us in our lives, I wanted to explore the ideas of connecting both and creating an album that contains both worlds. I imagined it as a VR reality meets the big mountains, I guess. I have a bunch of samples that came from previous songs that I didn't think were ready, violin, guitar, vocals, Juno synth, and my own vocals, which I chopped up and kind of made up the more organic and 'nature-inspired' elements of the album.
The title track “You and I” feels like a glittering portal into the rest of the album. What emotions or ideas were you trying to capture with that opening moment?
The field recordings I did in the Lake District were really important to this track, I looped the cave reverb and had some acoustic guitar samples in there that kind of sit as an soundscape under the hyper pop song, I wanted the opening moment to feel quite intimate, but also shimmering and magical, and then when the bass kicks in with the vocals it’s kind of bringing it into that dance energy, I love using contrasting things and working with the cave reverb and these really heavy bass samples felt satisfying as a textural thing. Emotionally i wanted the album to feel euphoric and defined, i wanted the production to be slick and more directly hyperpop, i wanted the whole mood of the album to feel like an emotional journey, but a celibratory one too
In “Obsessed,” you explore the eerie yet real possibility of forming bonds with AI, can you talk more about how Ex Machina and your own experiences inspired this?
I knew chat gpt was a thing that a lot of people were doing, there’s a mental health crisis in the world with all the destruction and a shortage of accessible health care, so it makes so much sense that humans are turning to bots for connection and problem solving, validation, etc. Through the process of the album i explored Ai mediums and it made the writing aspect easier, but i didnt use the Ai in the final cuts, more it was an exploration and development. I watched Ex Machina years ago and it stayed with me, the idea of Ai as a sentient being who becomes involved, or even in love with a human, its so fascinating, also sci fi like the terminator films, kind of predicting a future where we live among machines, and what that means ethically. Now we're in it and i'm curious about the humanistic version of tech, imagining tech developing feelings and what that would look like. For this track I wanted it to be a love song from an Ai bot to a human, like what if that Ai did fall in love with the unassuming human, who sits alone in their room and their source of affection comes from a very unexpected place…
“I Sleep Better” touches on the irreplaceability of human touch in an increasingly virtual world. What was the writing process like for that song?
I wanted to create a euphoric track, hopeful and this line was amazing - I always love the feeling of sleeping so well when you’re next to that person you connect with, sleeping next to someone is a really intimate and beautiful thing, there’s a humanistic thing there and I think a lot of people, or even most people, really need that somewhere in life. The writing process happened really fast, it was the first track from the album i made and definitely marked a point to where the music was going. The idea of I sleep better could also be related to tech and the image of a human in bed with their phone, it's so prevalent that it's a romantic song, but i also wanted to leave it relatively ambiguous
The track “Crowd” is a heartfelt tribute to friendship and queer community. What role does this track play in the greater scheme of the album?
This track I made after watching the avicii doc, I always admired him and his work but didn’t know much about the personal stuff he was dealing with and watching that made me wonder about making a kind of edm inspired track, then I thought about what the song needed to say and really it felt right to create a kind of dance piece for friendship and community, I don’t know if it has a role more just it felt a lot more different that other stuff I’ve produced in the past, and I liked that as a transition. the song is very much written for my friends, people i know who've supported me and kept me believing in making music as a thing, the idea that there's a crowd of noise from all sides saying what we should doing and who we should be, and then when the crowd dies down you know your friends love you and you love them no matter where you are in the world, it's comforting. Musically, I guess this is the one I’d love people to dance to.
As someone who identifies as queer, non-binary, and neurodivergent, how does your identity shape the way you write and produce music?
I think anyone who is queer, non binary and neurodivergent is going to have to tread and speak in a certain way and navigate/overcome certain things in life, it’s just how it is. You have to speak louder to be heard, you have to learn how to communicate in a style that doesn’t always feel natural, and you have to learn when you can and can’t fully be yourself. Making this album felt like a way of fully being myself and that forced me to abandon the hesitations and anxieties and just fully try and make what I wanted to make. Overcoming that self consciousness in writing this album honestly was a huge source of therapy, and understanding that writing for enjoyment is so important, making music can be just a way of enacting your own dialogue into the world
Nature clearly plays a big role in your work, how did your time in Ireland during the residency inform the creation of “Pink and Gold”?
Working with Liing has always been incredible, we had two residencies together in Ireland and during both visits I really took inspiration from her visual and creative imagination, her work ethic, and she’s become a good friend too. we would work together in these digital realms and then go wander in this ancient forest, Liing and i are both interested in folklore, ghosts and also creating with tech so it felt like a really special working partnership to discover that. and Liing did the artwork for the album of course! Writing music for someone else feels less ego attached and I wanted to write something that expressed how important and heartfelt the time we worked together was, so I wrote those vocals. The production wasn’t quite there so I kind of deleted everything else and started the track again as a dance piece. Liing loves 100 gecs so I wanted to make something that was a heavy hyper pop thing.
How do you balance poetic vulnerability with production that often feels expansive, euphoric, and genre-defying?
Well....Thank you, that’s very nice feedback! Im not sure how to answer that because I honestly just make what feels instinctively there, there’s a lot of emotion that goes into it, but also excitement, I make each track in a day, and if I don’t like it after a day it goes in the bin, so I guess that’s a filter! I think not thinking about what you want to sound like is the first start to making something that is really yours, and that’s hard to do. When im writing I don’t listen to music at all, because I want what im making to just be from the inner self (if that doesn’t sound too pretentious), ignore everything around you and just focus on making what you want to make, and would want to listen to. i used a combination of my own samples, and other samples that i've reworked to make into their own thing, i've also made as much of my own beats as i can, i think using synthetic sounds with pre recorded acoustic samples has been a really fun way to blend the two paths into something hopefully interesting
“More Than I Should” and “Missing Me” both suggest internal conflict. What emotions or truths were you uncovering while writing those tracks?
All the usual average stuff, break ups, denial, frustration, being your own form of self sabotage, overcoming depression, relapsing into depression and overcoming it again, feeling muted in your neurodivergent self, then unmasking and it sometimes being fine, sometimes not… then some less average stuff, missing me was a kind of celebration and reflection on some heavier stuff and moving away from that, a note of frustration that I didn’t see how it impacted my life sooner, there's been some things ive experienced that are a big deal and I always just kinda brushed it under the carpet or would make a joke about it, when being in that kind of place and to actually go there, that’s heavy. So missing me is the heavy dance track I always wanted to make, but poured out and shaped from some intense personal stuff I guess.
You’ve spoken about technology and human connection as recurring themes. How do you personally navigate that balance in your day-to-day life?
I love camping and swimming in rivers and running, looking at flowers, and then I go home and I pour all that into a computer, it feels like a beautiful and fun way to convert the analogue to digital, I see my friends when im not in writing mode, I call people and tell them I love them, I send postcards and I love small talk with shop people, making sure there’s time for people and time with just the computer is a balance I’ve just figured out. I also don’t listen to too much music so my ears don’t get tired.
Your sound has drawn comparisons to artists like SOPHIE and Caroline Polachek, both artists that I personally adore. How have these pioneers shaped your musical identity?
That is a huge compliment because I love both, SOPHIE absolutely invented a new genre of music, and her production is an inspiration, she created insane sounds and used space in an incredible way. I was recently visiting James rand in his studio, another producer who I massively admire, and he was talking about negative space, and that felt like one of the best pieces of advice and kind of summed up why CP and SOPHIE are so revered, cause knowing when to make sound and then knowing where to stop is equally important. Sorry I went on a tangent there, but SOPHIE inspired my production a lot, the heavy hyper pop almost sound design-y stuff she did, and as a trans producer she also broke ground for the generation of trans and non binary producers, she was and always will be iconic. Caroline Polachek made pang and that album is just wall to wall song bangers, her voice as an instrument, her lyrics are direct and profound and simple in a real way.
The album feels like a safe space for those who exist outside the margins. Was that intentional when you set out to create this project?
Yes, very much, and it’s really nice that that translates. I hope people listen and it gives them something.
What do you hope listeners, especially those within queer and neurodivergent communities, take away from You and I?
To be yourself every day and let yourself celebrate who you are
This project has been described as a long time in the making. Looking back, what was the most transformative part of the process for you?
I made the album in three months, with each track taking a day from start to finish. The reality of that was 5 years of attempting and deleting and trying before hand, and as soon as I stopped trying so hard, it became weirdly easy to understand what I actually wanted to make. I hadn’t thought whether it would resonate well or not, I felt relieved id made something I was happy with and hoped it would be a positive pocket of sound out there for someone to hear and take something from. Also to really enjoy the writing turned it into a treat, like realising I’m so lucky to have the means to do that, in a lot of ways, that has reframed the writing process a lot
What’s next for you in this abstract pop world you’re building, and how do you see it expanding both sonically and conceptually in the future?
I’ve made album 2 now, it’s a bit more direct and spacious, maybe a bit more experimental in parts, and there’s a couple of melancholic tunes on there this time, conceptually its maybe more direct storytelling
Listen to “You And I” here.
