La sua collaborazione con Ikonika nel brano “Beach Mode” ci ha subito incuriosito, e fatto prendere nota. Le abbiamo inoltre dedicato un po di spazio, battendo tra l’altro un po’ tutti sul tempo, in occasione dell´uscita del suo primo promettente ed intrigante singolo “Kathy Lee”. Ora, con l’ uscita del suo album d´esordio intitolato “Pull My Hair Back” scritto e prodotto in tandem con Jeremy Greenspan dei Junior Boys, l´alone di mistero che circondava Jessy Lanza sta per cadere. Ecco quello che ci ha raccontato durante una nostra recente intervista:
We don´t know much about you. Would you like to tell us a bit of your musical background, your beginnings and how did you get to meet Jeremy Greenspan?
I grew up in a musical family so I started piano lessons pretty young. I went to school for music as well. I’ve known Jeremy since I was a kid because we’re from the same town and when he was making the Junior Boy’s record “It’s all true” he asked if I wanted to do some session work for the album. After that we just started making tracks together and eventually had enough for an album.
Are there any records or musical events that inspired you and informed your style?
I’m a big R&B fan. When I was making this album there were a lot of R&B tracks both old and new that inspired my writing. I’m a big fan of Melba Moore, Evelyn King, Patrice Rushen and Kashif for example. In terms of modern R&B The Dream’s album “Love/Hate” was a big influence as well as tracks by Jeremih and Ciara.
How did you get in touch with Hyperdub and started releasing your music on the label?
Jeremy and Steve Goodman are old friends and they saw each other at a show last year and Steve asked Jeremy to play him some stuff he was working on, so Jeremy played him a couple of our tracks and Steve liked them. Once we had a full album put together we sent it to him and he said he would release it.
Your image suits the music very well. With your black & white pictures you seem trying to bring back a sort of 30s-40s coolness. You look like a James Ellroy´s character of sorts. Do you agree with me?
Yeah, the film noir Veronica Lake aesthetic is pretty appealing to me. I like that it’s provocative but in a distant kind of way. Sean Young has the same sort of look in “Blade Runner”. Very film noir but futuristic android at the same time.
More in general are you interested in fashion? Do you have any favourite stylists?
I don’t know much about fashion.
Can you tell us a bit about your collaboration with Ikonika in the track “Beach Mode”?
She wanted vocals for one of her tracks so she sent me a couple of instrumentals to work on and lucky for me she liked what I did on “Beach Mode”.
Will you tour for the promotion of “Pull My Hair Back”? If yes, how shall your show look like?
Yes I’ll be touring in November. For now I’m using a couple of synths and a delay pedal for my vocals. I’ll also have my computer for sequencing the drums.
Will you release more singles out of your album in the rest of 2013? Are there any remixes that are going to be released as well?
Not sure yet!
» Photo c/o ms mansa chintoh
