We talk to Lorely Rodriguez (AKA Empress Of) about her influences, style and her new album
Last October, 23-year-old, Brooklyn-based Lorely Rodriguez (AKA Empress Of) released Colorminutes, a series of dreamy, minute-long electronic pop demos, each presented as an individual YouTube video and paired with a corresponding colour. She did this with no real sense of expectation but within weeks music bloggers were hailing her as the new Grimes, enchanted by her sweetly sung melodies and lilting brand of lo-fi synth.
Since then she has played SXSW, toured with Jamie Lidell, and released a sparkling four-track EP, Systems, further bolstering the widespread anticipation of a full-length album. This week, during her first trip to the UK – to play at the Great Escape and Dalston's Shacklewell Arms – AnOther caught up with Empress Of to find out more about her interests and inspirations, as well as her mother's attempts to revamp her image...
Is music something that you’ve been doing for a long time?
Yes, when I was fourteen I went to a school that was kind of like a conservatory where we studied jazz and classical music for four hours a day and then regular studies, like English and math, for four hours. So I grew up studying a lot of music and then I got a laptop when I was 17 and started making electronic music but it was very esoteric, like when someone is young and anxious and has a lot of ideas but doesn’t know how to project them and it’s just a mess. It was really nice – the naivety of not having any former music out or made and just kind of discovering yourself.
Which other musicians would you say you’re most inspired by?
It's a lot of the Brooklyn bands. Like the Dirty Projectors, they’re a band that have grown so much from album to album. And Panda Bear – I listen record to record and I hear where he’s going, or I hear what he’s listening to. It’s really good.
"I’m really into movies that are beautiful and slow moving and visually representative"
How about other less obvious influences, like art or literature?
I’m really into movies that are beautiful and slow moving and visually representative. One of my favourite movies of all time is 2001: A Space Odyssey. It’s like a collage and the soundtrack is so amazing – with Ligeti. And I’m also really into space; I mean, who’s not? Also, something that really reminded me of 2001: A Space Odyssey was The Tree of Life; when I see things like that and I walk out of the theatre feeling so hopelessly romantic and small – movies like that make you feel really small and human – it’s really inspiring.
How much do you think about how you present yourself on stage, in terms of your style?
At the moment, my mom actually thinks about it more that I do. I went to LA to visit her when we were on tour and she bought me a bunch of clothes but they were all sequined dresses and shiny tops – like something Tina Turner would wear. I was just like, what are you thinking? Because at this point where I am right now, I just like to present myself really honestly. So for the first couple of shows I was just wearing really oversized shirts and pajamas or whatever and she saw a couples of photos of it and was like, "No, how could you do this? You need to do your nails, you need to get your eyebrows done!" She wants me to be Shakira.
Does your work follow any key themes?
I kind of have themes for all of the releases that I do. Like the Colorminutes, obviously colour represents the information from the tracks and everything besides that is kind of ambiguous. And then the Systems EP, I was actually going to call Symbol Systems (but we thought that was too long) because symbol systems can be language or colour – what humans use to identify things. So I divided the EP into languages, that’s what systems means, so the A side’s in English and the B side’s in Spanish [her mother is Honduran]. I don’t know if anyone ever got that. I think I read about symbol systems in the Aldous Huxley book – The Doors of Perception.
How about the new album?
These themes usually come after the facts so I don’t know what’s going to happen with the full-length. It might have a concept and it might be something weird. It might involve space and dinosaurs...
Systems EP by Empress Of is available now.
Text by Daisy Woodward
