{"id":15983,"date":"2016-09-19T13:53:46","date_gmt":"2016-09-19T17:53:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/?p=15983"},"modified":"2018-08-09T17:09:08","modified_gmt":"2018-08-09T21:09:08","slug":"interview-rachael-pazdan-hum-lpr-presents","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/interview-rachael-pazdan-hum-lpr-presents\/","title":{"rendered":"INTERVIEW: Rachael Pazdan\/Hypnocraft of The Hum & LPR Presents"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\"the<\/a>
photo by Emeri Fetzer<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/p>\n

We have become so used to the unheard female voice in the music industry. There is an irrefutable gender gap between the number of male musicians who succeed and the number of female ones\u2026I don\u2019t need to tell you about who\u2019s in the lead. But if you think that making it as a non-male musician is hard, imagine the world of curation, booking, and promotion. It\u2019s a tough industry to traverse, but tastemaker Rachael Pazdan of Hypnocraft Presents<\/a>, LPR Presents<\/a>, and The Hum<\/a>, is quite frankly kicking its ass.<\/p>\n

Pazdan wears many hats, utilizing her background in dance and the non-profit arts sector to inform her positions as music director for Le Poisson Rouge and talent buyer for Manhattan Inn. Twice a year, Pazdan lets her love of music and interdisciplinary collaboration run wild with The Hum, a month-long weekly series that features super-group-like pairings of all female musicians jamming at Manhattan Inn<\/a>.<\/p>\n

We were lucky enough to sit down with Rachael to discuss the rift between dance and indie rock audiences, the importance of collaboration, and the problem with saying \u201cfemale musician.\u201d<\/p>\n

Audiofemme: The Hum is approaching! What are some collaborations you\u2019re most excited about?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Rachael Pazdan:<\/strong> I\u2019m really excited to see Yuka Honda [\/fusion_builder_column][fusion_builder_column type=”1_1″ background_position=”left top” background_color=”” border_size=”” border_color=”” border_style=”solid” spacing=”yes” background_image=”” background_repeat=”no-repeat” padding=”” margin_top=”0px” margin_bottom=”0px” class=”” id=”” animation_type=”” animation_speed=”0.3″ animation_direction=”left” hide_on_mobile=”no” center_content=”no” min_height=”none”][Cibo Matto] <\/a>with Arone Dyer [Buke And Gase]<\/a>. Both of them want to do stuff that\u2019s out of the box. Yuka\u2019s been doing this Exotech project, which is a super out of the box improvisational show. And Arone\u2019s been doing these all-women drone choirs<\/a>–<\/p>\n

With actual <\/em>drones?!<\/strong><\/p>\n

No, using women\u2019s voices. It\u2019s a choir of women singing different notes and they have ear buds in and they\u2019re triggered to know what note to sing next. I think that they\u2019re really gonna love working together and find a lot of commonalities.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m really excited about Boshra AlSaadi from TEEN<\/a>-she\u2019s an amazing bass player-with Felicia Douglass from Ava Luna<\/a>, Lindsay Powell from Fielded<\/a> and Nasimiyuu from Baeb Rxxth<\/a>. I get really excited about bigger, ambitious quartet projects.<\/p>\n

Kendra Morris<\/a> with Allison Miller<\/a> and Domenica Fossati<\/a>. Domenica is in Underground System which is an awesome Afrobeat band, she sings and plays flute, Kendra Morris is this pop-soul singer, and Allison Miller has a project called Boom Tic Boom and she\u2019s a jazz drummer\u2026that will be really funky and fun.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t half-ass this. I go after artists that I am personally really excited about. I freak out about this project\u2026bringing all of these different women together that I\u2019ve always wanted to book.<\/p>\n

What were some exciting moments you\u2019ve witnessed in the past? Musical or other?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong>I feel like [The Hum] builds a real sense of community between women, and there are lots of women who have done it and said to me, \u201cI\u2019ve never played with other women before,\u201d which is kind of crazy.<\/p>\n

That gives me chills. That\u2019s ridiculous.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Becca Kauffman<\/a> from Ava Luna told me that now whenever she\u2019s working on new projects she\u2019s going to think of women first. Jen Goma [A Sunny Day in Glasgow]<\/a> and Teenie from TEEN \u2013 that was the first time they\u2019d ever played together and they\u2019re best friends now, they\u2019re constantly collaborating. I think one of the most exciting things for me is this effect that happens after the series and the network of everyone who\u2019s involved growing.<\/p>\n

You\u2019re like a matchmaker!<\/strong><\/p>\n

Kind of like dream band matchmaking\u2026<\/p>\n

You are often nurturing cross-disciplinary collaborations with other projects as well what do find that collaboration brings out in artists?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Sometimes it really doesn\u2019t work. My original vision for The Hum was to do more poly-genre collaborations and it\u2019s really challenging\u2026artists can be less excited about that. Sometimes I\u2019ll do it-I\u2019m putting Kendra together with Domenica. But even though that is crossing genres, there is so much that makes sense between those two worlds, and it works. It\u2019s really hard for artists because it\u2019s really limited preparation. I haven\u2019t been able to support artists where I\u2019m paying for their rehearsal time, and I feel like if I want to think of some really tricky collaborations I want to be able to commission them.<\/p>\n

Looking at some of your previous work like 3:1 and Liquid and Still \u2013 you seem to get excited by the idea of creating art out of traditionally uncomfortable situations, and breaking the fourth wall…<\/strong><\/p>\n

Totally. It\u2019s something I naturally do. That\u2019s such a great observation because as a curator I\u2019m really interested in collaboration and challenging artists\u2019 comfort zone. I\u2019m always looking to give artists special opportunities that are outside the normal presenting zone. Now my job is to just be booking straight shows all the time. But any opportunity I get I\u2019m putting together some kind of weird show. For Liquid and Still, my job is to bring music and dance audiences together so that people who go to concerts feel more comfortable watching dance, and people who see mostly dance are more comfortable going to a concert the next time.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s crazy that they\u2019re totally separate audiences. <\/strong><\/p>\n

It is the conundrum I am thinking about all the time \u2013 my background\u2019s in dance and I love dance, but it was too hard for me to work in dance as somebody who wasn\u2019t the dancer. I feel like dance is slowly dying because their audience is so insular and people get so intimidated by dance, which is strange to me because dance seems to me to be the most accessible art form\u2026it\u2019s just moving your body and everybody understands movement.<\/p>\n

I want to start doing concerts where in between sets there would be a ten-minute dance piece on the floor in front of the stage. And I think that might be the solution\u2026literally putting them in front of a new audience.<\/p>\n

I think people look at dance as a stem from the modern dance and ballet world but it has so many different facets.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yeah, like having to sit down and be quiet for an hour and try to really understand something that\u2019s heavy<\/em> and pick it apart, and I don\u2019t think dance has to be like that. The reason music is so accessible is that you can go to a show late, you can be drinking, you can be talking during the show, it\u2019s totally social. To make dance more social is maybe the way that it is going to survive.<\/p>\n

Classical music has this older, subscription-based audience that would go to Lincoln Center and buy a whole year\u2019s worth of subscriptions to shows and people just aren\u2019t doing that anymore. Our generation is used to being able to customize all of their experiences and do whatever they want all the time, and to commit to a year\u2019s worth of shows is something people aren\u2019t doing anymore.<\/p>\n

One person who is bridging that gap is Nils Frahm<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yeah, love Nils Frahm. He plays LPR all the time.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s completely unpretentious and is like, \u201coh! I\u2019m going to play something with a toilet brush!\u201d Or, \u201coh! If someone texts during my set, it\u2019s going to be in the recording!\u201d And maybe that\u2019s the approach dance needs to take.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yeah, breaking down those walls and making dance more social and accessible to an audience that doesn\u2019t want to go to a ballet.<\/p>\n

How did the name \u201cThe Hum\u201d come about?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cThe Hum\u201d was named by Hannah Epperson, who was in the first and the third series. I was originally going to name it something that had \u201cfemme\u201d in the name, and through conversations with almost every artist who was in that first series\u2026I decided that I didn\u2019t want to have The Hum be something that screamed \u201cWomen!\u201d in the title or marketing, because the more I work in the music industry, the more I want to get rid of the fucking double standard of having to say a musician is a woman. It bugs the shit out of me! Even to see \u201cfemale-fronted,\u201d it bugs me! The word \u201cwoman\u201d adds nothing <\/em>what the music actually sounds like.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s no \u201cMan Band\u201d classification.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yeah, you would never say, \u201cmale-fronted\u201d or \u201cmale-backed.\u201d If you\u2019re a musician you\u2019re a musician. If you\u2019re a carpenter you\u2019re a carpenter. It doesn\u2019t matter. I got really pissed off about this and posted something on Facebook the other day and my friend Cooper had a really good response. He said, \u201cIt\u2019s leftover from a sexist industry. We don\u2019t need to imply that \u201cwhite male\u201d is the norm and everything else is \u201cother\u201d and needs a further classification.\u201d Also, I think that sometimes when people are using \u201cwomen\u201d it\u2019s like a marketing ploy of sex appeal in some way.<\/p>\n

\u201cBoobs-Fronted Band.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

Exactly! But there is another side to it, which is using \u201cwoman\u201d or \u201cfemale\u201d can be really empowering sometimes. My good friend Mindy who runs Tom Tom Magazine<\/em><\/a>, her tagline for the magazine is \u201cA Magazine About Female Drummers\u201d and that\u2019s really empowering. I think that it\u2019s a balance of using the word \u201cfemale\u201d as an empowering description and also just deciding to drop it. I see extreme value in both perspectives.<\/p>\n

Manhattan Inn has traditionally housed a lot of jazz music, which is so male-dominated, and LPR has had a fair share of electronic, which is similarly a boy’s club\u2026have you run into any issues because of those two genres?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Jazz has been a really <\/em>sexist genre.<\/p>\n

To be fair, I noticed in one interview you said, \u201cDon\u2019t get me started on jazz,\u201d and I thought, \u201cI\u2019m going to get her started on jazz.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong>It\u2019s starting to happen. Allison Miller is a fucking awesome drummer and she\u2019s really done her own thing. I just feel like it\u2019s really hard for women to rise in that musical genre, maybe because unless they\u2019re the sexy girl singing Ella Fitzgerald\u2026it\u2019s hard for female musicians who are playing bass or drums to get ahead in any genre.<\/p>\n

Electronic music\u2026I don\u2019t know. I really wanted Discwoman<\/a> to get involved\u2026they\u2019re a collective of DJs that are women\u2026I will get them involved one day. I feel like every electronic musician-<\/p>\n

Is male.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yeah, I think that\u2019s the question. These musicians exist, right? Or are there actually way<\/em> less electronic artists that are women? Or way less jazz musicians that are women? I don\u2019t think it\u2019s that, I think they just have a hard time breaking through and making shit happen.<\/p>\n

I was reading about Vis-\u00e0-vis and the importance of the Brooklyn DIY scene was mentioned-but in the past few years we\u2019ve had so many closures: Glasslands, 285 Kent, Death By Audio, Secret Project Robot\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n

You know what\u2019s funny is that every venue that Vis-\u00e0-vis took place in-<\/p>\n

Is gone. Are you hopeful for the Brooklyn DIY scene?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong>The cops really don\u2019t want it around. Very few landlords want it around. Many of these places close because of lack of codes. Manhattan Inn feels very DIY to me. I\u2019m like running out and buying Christmas lights from the dollar store because none of the lights work in the back, you know? I love DIY venues. I think it will always exist. It\u2019s going to migrate neighborhoods\u2026five years ago there were probably 12 venues in Williamsburg and now there\u2019s like, four.<\/p>\n

I think it will always be a thing in New York because the music scene is too big here. There are too many kids trying to make it in music here, and that sense of community is such a New Yorker sense of community, it will always be here. It\u2019s just going to move around.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s why I like LPR. It\u2019s a very independent music venue. We run our own ticketing, we have amazing relationships with these artists and nurture what they\u2019re doing. It\u2019s sad when a Cameo or Zebulon goes away, because those spaces were really well-run, and the sound was good and it was an amazing place to meet people and hang out and see great music, and those places closed, not for coding but just because the neighborhood got too expensive.<\/p>\n

What are some holes in the NYC\/Brooklyn scene and music industry, and how do you hope to help fill them?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong>The idea for The Hum came from a hole I saw a lack of representation of women playing music. I think there\u2019s a void in venues that facilitate interdisciplinary collaboration. What I\u2019m trying to do in dance and music, trying to bring in a bigger audience for dance, I don\u2019t feel like I have space to do that. In most music venues there\u2019s no space for dancers to actually perform in.<\/p>\n

You have to have a flat floor, preferably sprung. You have to have enough space, and it\u2019s hard to find places like that, so I\u2019d really lose my mind if I ever found a place like that. It would be a place that every night of the week there would either be a show, or some kind of performance art\/comedy thing, or collaborations, dance performances\u2026<\/p>\n

Would you consider opening one?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I would love to have a venue. I would love to be a part of something like that, definitely.<\/p>\n

What would your dream collaboration for The Hum be? <\/strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Karen O, Annie Clarke, Lianne La Havas. Those are my HEROES. I think it\u2019d be cool to put a seasoned older artist with somebody who\u2019s hot right now who\u2019s clearly a derivative of that older artist-<\/p>\n

Like Kate Bush.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yeah, like Kate Bush with Karen O (gestures that her head would explode). Cyndi Lauper with Kimbra. PJ Harvey and Annie Clarke. But that\u2019s how I want to grow The Hum. I\u2019d like to do a mini-festival where the footprint of what I\u2019ve been doing remains: four weeks of new collaborations at Manhattan Inn, shows around town, and then getting enough money to commission one amazing night of big artists collaborating, where I have money to pay for their rehearsal. That would be the vision.<\/p>\n

\"1473984478610\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Get your tickets for The Hum here<\/a>\u00a0and check out the entire lineup on the offical Hypnocraft website<\/a>.[\/fusion_builder_column][\/fusion_builder_row][\/fusion_builder_container]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The world of curation, booking, and promotion. It\u2019s a tough industry to traverse, but tastemaker Rachael Pazdan of Hypnocraft Presents, LPR Presents, and The Hum, is quite frankly kicking its ass.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":16009,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[305,566],"tags":[5090,477,322,5083,5082,1730,5089,5091],"acf":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/IMG_2269-1024x683-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15983"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15983"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15983\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19241,"href":"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15983\/revisions\/19241"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16009"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15983"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15983"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.audiofemme.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15983"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}