rocknroll_n_blues_queens | One woman band: Shikhee creates Android Lust's industrial rock (Reply)

Android Lust - Stained

The most difficult question to answer. Who is Shikhee?

A songwriter, singer, performer, producer, yogi, mother of a cat named Motu - these are some of the roles Shikhee plays.

What made you start a career as a musician, what it a song, a video or event that got you motivated?

I was always heavily into music and sang for as long as I can remember. But it was in the early 90s when a company called Ryko started re-issuing the entire Bowie catalog. That's when I really got into Bowie. I was listening one day and it struck me that I must make music. That it was the medium I needed to express myself.

What is it that drives you as a person and musician?

The process of writing The Human Animal has been an enormous growing experience for me. I used to think I needed to make Android Lust successful to be happy. And now I feel I need to be at peace to make everything in my life work, including Android Lust. I guess I am looking for the same things everyone is, and answers for questions we may not even know we have.Exquisite pics and more interview at the source

I love the fact that she sings, yells, whispers and screams with equal facility. And apparently she is VERY well respected in her genre...and owns her record company. I am trying to find out what instruments she plays.

In-store performance @Digital Ferret in Philadelphia

In-store performance @Digital Ferret in Philadelphia from Shikhee on Vimeo.

FIXT Interview: Android Lust

FiXT: Speak about your new self-released album, The Human Animal. What’s the story behind it? You also collaborated with your live band members in the studio for the first time when recording this album – what caused that decision after creating three earlier albums completely solo?

Shikhee: When I started writing I realized things were sounding more live in my head. I was playing with these talented musicians and I wanted to bring some of that energy back into the record. I started writing parts that were better played than programmed and started recording with them. The album is still very much electronic, but there’s a warm backbone that is clearly organic, and I love the merging of the two. It also works on a thematic level as this album, on a broad level, is about an inner struggle or quest to find one’s center, or spiritual core. I realized it was developing into a concept album after I had written 3 or 4 songs. So I explored it more and went with the flow, so to speak.

...

FiXT: There are plenty of female-fronted post-industrial bands out there, but few have been given the acclaim that you have received. You compose songs using a much greater variety of sounds and instruments than the average industrial band, which I think sets you apart. Tell us about some of your recording techniques for The Human Animal – what you use in the studio, the sound recordings you took on New York City streets, anything you want to mention.

Shikhee: I tire easily of sounds I’ve used so I need to find new sounds to keep myself interested. For The Human Animal I wanted it to have a more fluid feel. Bass takes on a very prominent role, and other fluid, stretchy sounds. I also wanted to work with found sounds for a very long time, but it wasn’t until I listened to Amon Tobin’s Foley Room that I felt I compelled to do it. This album is my homage to New York which has been my home for the last 11 years. I walked around the city recording sounds of streets, trains, restaurants, escalators, birds, air, people, whatever caught my attention. I kept a Zoom H4 with me and anytime I heard something interesting I tried to capture it. I would capture it 24-bit 48k so there’s no conversion when I dumped them back on my music machine. I had so many sounds I sometimes forgot which was what because I wasn’t very disciplined about naming them. But it didn’t matter. Some of them were obvious though, like the crowds on “A New Heaven”, and the entire percussion track on “Intimate Stranger” which is the 1 train.MORE

Android Lust - - The Body

COFFEE WITH SHIKHEE: WORDS FROM THE WOMAN BEHIND ANDROID LUST at MTV Desi

Dressed in black, Shikhee walked over to me with a timid smile, extending her tiny, brown hand. Her purple bob jostled as she looked over at the counter. “I’m gonna get something,” she said. Her voice was also small. I recognized its high pitch, but not the sweetness that came out in coffee shop small talk. Until then, I’d only heard her use it for the darkest of intentions.

Android Lust is heavy music, and not just in the deep electronic production that Shikhee applies to it. The eeriest thing isn’t the melancholy tone, but the power that her shrill voice commands over the beat. This wasn’t always the case. When she first came to New York and made an attempt at performing, she had no musical background and only the desire to make a sound.

“I was doing some open mics, just on guitar, singer-songwriter kind of stuff. Just to break the ice and see if I would get stage fright. And I did,” she recalled. “A couple of times I was so terrified that I left the venue.”

That fear dissipated when Shikhee’s finally discovered music that spoke to her. She was drawn to the abstraction of David Bowie, Pink Floyd, and other rock bands she heard as a kid in Bangladesh. But the first time she heard something she wanted to make, it was the metallic, grinding melodies of an industrial band called Skinny Puppy.MORE

Android Lust - Refuse

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Android Lust Interview about the Human Animal and bodypainting for the Fetish Prom show

Android Lust Interview from Shikhee on Vimeo.