Dust Collision

Geneva based musician Kate Wax is much better known in Europe and in Japan than in Switzerland. With «Dust Collision» she succeeded to produce an individualistic concept album. Norient met her and her bass player Raphaël Rodriguez in Bern

Kate Wax (Foto Thomas Burkhalter)

Aisha Devi Enz aka Kate Wax tells us in the interview, that she always starts off with the lyrics, when working on a new track. Each word needs to be in the right place, no inflection too many. Then she produces the beat and composes the main-melody on a synthesizer. She sings herself into trance: screams, sings and whispers into the microphone while recording it all. From her varied library she rummages up sounds and noises, which she produced in previous years, using analogue and digital synthesizers, drum-machines and software. This is how new sound and noise appears in her tracks. Kate Wax manipulates extracts of her singing, puts them in the background, adds hall and alienates it with all sorts of effects.

This is approximately how the multi-layered track-montages on the CD «Dust Collision» emerged. The persona Kate Wax sings polyphonic across ambient layers, eclectic synthesizer ornaments, earthy beats and noise-textures. This is experimental pop music, somewhere between the precision of the CERN particle accelerator in Meyrin (according to Kate Wax, a source of inspiration for the concept of her album) combined with the chaotic whirling of dust in the living-room.

Podcast (14’47)


«This production was like a long trip through a dark tunnel », the musician explains: «I cut myself completely off the rest of the world. Brought my daughter to the kindergarten and then dug myself into my studio. I am a modern hermit. Unless I am touring, I don’t get to see anybody.» Kate Wax transcribes her music into elaborate visualisations. In her video clips dust particles and letters whirl about. When performing live, dots are projected by Niels Wehrspann (of Geneva Graphic Design Studio Schönherwehrs) on her body or are assembled on the t-shirt of her Argentinian bassist Raphaël Rodriguez, before turning into the image of the lead musician.

Raphaël Rodriguez (Foto Thomas Burkhalter)

Aisha Devi Enz, is half Swiss and half Tibetan. Above all she lives and works within international networks. Often she performs with British techno-musician James Holden, who also mastered and issued her CD on his own label «Border Community».

More and more the persona Kate Wax and Aisha Devi Enz become one, explains the musician. Music represents for her both: Escapism from the world as well as connection with the world. «I am hiding behind my music and through my music I reveal everything about myself».

We are dust, we are lovers
The night loves heroes, heroes like us
Night loves, I have shivers
We are dust and kids of the universe
Universe

I’m a dog
I’m your skin walker
I lick your breath
I’m your hot body hunter

I want nothing, nothing

We are dust, we are lovers
The night loves heroes like us
The night loves, I have shivers

Come on steal my inside
Heal my body
I play the bride, a sage bride
Your skin is me

….

Sonic Traces: From Switzerland

Norient spoke to Kate Wax in the context of the project Sonic Traces: From Switzerland.