Tag: Carmen Villain

ARTIST INTERVIEW: Carmen Villain

Carmen Villain

Carmen Villain’s voice projects the vibes of a psychedelic witch, singing in a spooky fog-covered lagoon, especially in her new track, “Quietly.” Its counter track, “Let it Go”, sounds like its mostly-instrumental sequel. This half Norwegian/half Mexican babe is about to embark on an UK tour with Neneh Cherry, and there is no doubt that she will be wooing audiences with her hypnotizing dream-like performance. I had the chance to ask Carmen a few questions about her growth as an artist, style inspirations, and cover song choices. Take a gander.

AudioFemme: How has your sound changed and grown since the release of Sleeper?

Carmen Villain: It’s still evolving all the time, but there’s definitely some elements that have been left behind, but I have also taken some of them further. I think there’s a bit more light in my music now. Really trying to let most of it pass the song test: whether they can be stripped back to their core and still work. Also been working with different recording techniques and been re-amping a lot, sampling, and also adding some new instruments, like the piano.
AF: What things inspired you while recording the “Quietly / Let it Go” 7”?
CV: Just life and my surroundings. I had just moved back to Oslo from London when I wrote these, so they are definitely influenced by these changes. “Quietly” came about by just messing about with different tunings and just playing for hours in my apartment during winter. “Let Go” was the result of a walk by the seaside (I had missed this a lot in London!) in which I recorded all these seagulls and my dog going bananas. I later took these recordings and played around with drones and different frequencies, and the melodies came from there.AF: A while back you covered Kurt Vile’s “Childish Prodigy.” Are there any other artists you have been covering lately or would like to?

CV: (We covered “He’s Allright”!:) ) I haven’t covered anyone for a while, but at rehearsals we sometimes finish off with TLC’s “Creep” just to blow off some steam!

AF: Based on videos, it seems like in the past you have had other musicians playing with you on stage, and more recently you have been performing alone. Are you going to be solo for your upcoming dates with Neneh Cherry?

CV: Yeah we used to be a four piece a while back to be able to play the way the songs were arranged on Sleeper, but the new stuff is a lot more flexible, so can be performed in different ways. Sometimes solo, sometimes three of us, and right now on this tour there’s two of us, myself and Mona.

AF: Tell us about who you chose to be accompanying you on stage on this upcoming tour.

CV: I’m really lucky to have Mona come along with me on this one, she plays additional guitar, keys and sings. Mona is also part of a duo of her own called Mona & Maria, they make beautiful folky pop. Maria used to play with me, but she’s on maternity leave right now.

AF: Your style rules. Who are some musicians that inspire what you wear while performing?

CV: Why thanks! Hmm can’t say there’s anyone well known in particular, maybe mostly my friends. I guess I just wear what feels comfortable at the time.

AF: If you could go back in time to be an artist during any era of music, which would it be?

CV: I’m good where I am!

AF: What’s on your everyday playlist as of 2015?

CV: Dean Blunt, Jessica Pratt, Grouper, Connan Mockasin, Todd Rundgren, Crosby Stills Nash, Ras G, Kurt Vile, Alice Coltrane, Harold Budd…

AF: Any talks of a tour or any shows in the US in the near future?

CV: US tour is right at the top of my wish list, so going to be working hard to make that happen!

EP REVIEW: Carmen Villain “Quietly/Let Go”

Carmen_Villain

Looking to get lost in a world of sound? Carmen Villain, aka Norwegian singer/songwriter and former model Carmen Hillestad, has released a new 7” single of dreamy pop music, Quietly/Let Go.

“Quietly” is an eerily ethereal soundscape of guitars and brooding background noise. While the music builds around her voice, Villain’s vocals remain tethered down, dark and dreamy. “Let Go” is a quieter track that feels as if you’ve gotten lost in a forest; it starts with chattering bird-like noises and swirls of synths and reverb. Villain’s muffled voice is only present for the last minute of the song, before the track fades quietly out.

Quietly/Let Go is available to download digitally on January 20th. For those of you who prefer a copy you can show off on your bookcase, you’ll have to wait until February 10th when the physical copy is released through Smalltown Supersound. 

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EP REVIEW: “Sleeper Remixes”

CarmenVillain_bySimonSkreddernesHonestly, I’m still at a loss as to why this 12″–an assembly of three remixed tracks off 2013’s full-length Sleeper–exists. Carmen Hillestad, alias Carmen Villain, who ended a successful modeling career three years ago to focus on playing and writing music, released Sleeper this past March, bringing with it a delicately crafted blend of ethereal psych-rock and lo-fi nineties grit. The vocals on that album–the best and most conspicuous aspect of Villain’s performance–seemed to by turns float over and grab at the melodies, always with a palpable undertone of something ominous in the background. The first single off that album, “Lifeissin,” struck that balance exquisitely, creating out of Villain’s voice a persona that was empathetic as well as occasionally becoming a bit obscured and even scary. Unadorned bored-but-beautiful vocals, which, at some points, channelled Nico of The Velvet Underground & Nico, made creepy lyrics (“Stories be told, this is a life, open the curtains/Do you believe I’m going to hell?”) creepier.

But the least satisfying aspects of Sleeper–the album’s floating directionlessness  that couldn’t, for all its distortion-licked guitar lines and catchy, cyclical vocal hooks, carry momentum through all twelve tracks–can only be magnified through remix. The original album needed more grabbing and less floating. On the most recent EP, Villain abandons all semblance of storytelling in the vocals in favor of creating an entirely atmospheric sound. Her voice has no life of its own on this recording, and merely operates in service to the instrumentals.

Which would be fine, if the original versions of the songs didn’t depend so heavily on the persona Villain created to fit them when she released her first album. The mysterious, mysteriously dark character that we first encountered moving through Sleeper  does not really make an appearance on this newly envisioned collection of tracks. However, since the songs were initially created with a heavier vocal presence, the listening experience feels lacking, as if there’s a giant hole in the sound.

“Most of my songs are about escaping something–escaping this weird vacuum, an unsatisfying world,” Villain has said. Indeed, the three extended tracks on this album– “Dreamo (Peaking Lights Remix),” “Obedience (Bjørn Torske Remix)” and  “How Much (A JD Optimo Mix)”–all have a hunted feel to them. This is mostly due to the percussion line, which carries strong weight on every track, leading the surrounding collection of instrumentals in gentle, almost playful, journeys up and down their registers. The color of the melody is always shifting slightly, never sitting still for longer than a few seconds. The attention paid to keeping the instrumentals alive and vibrant on this album adds nice dimension to each track, although (for me, at least) this is no substitution for the strong vocal presence we saw on the full-length release. That being lacking, the mystery on its way towards being developed in Sleeper now feels flattened, overly obscure and boring.

Imagine going to a play, and discovering that in this play there will be no actors and no story line, only an elaborate stage set and really, really good lighting. That’s kind of the experience of listening to Carmen Villain’s remixes. Somewhere in the reinterpretation, these songs have lost a lot of their pull since appearing as originals on Sleeper.

You can go here to purchase the Sleeper Remixes EP via Amazon, or here for the original Sleeper CD via Saki Store. Also, be sure to check out “Dreamo (Peaking Lights Remix)” via Soundcloud below!

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