Colleen sits down with Resident Advisor’s Mark Smith in her Spanish home to reveal her ever-evolving creative method and its influence on ‘A flame my love, a frequency’.
“Schott’s been making music for more than 15 years, slowly building a small but loyal fanbase. Across seven albums, she’s used a huge range of instruments, including zither, cello, viola da gamba, music boxes, wind chimes, melodica, clarinet, thumb piano, loop pedals and more besides. No matter the instrumentation, her minimalistic pieces are honest and intimate. But as she became more successful in the 2000s, she fell out of love with being a musician, only to return years later with an entirely new approach.
Schott taught herself to sing and developed a unique way of playing the viola da gamba, a stringed instrument dating back to the Middle Ages. Despite her penchant for digitally-edited acoustic sound, A Flame My Love, A Frequency is her first record made entirely with electronic instruments. For many, it will be an introduction to Colleen, though her back catalogue is full of riches. With each new album, she rethinks her creative process and takes risks. In the past, she scoured musical instrument museums and junk shops around Europe for instruments that might inspire a new approach. When she invited me to her studio in San Sebastián, I was struck by how she gets such deep music out of such minimal means. Over the course of an afternoon, she explained how she made one of 2017’s best records using just a few pieces of equipment.”
Colleen headlines our special pre-festival edition of Rewire x Korzo on Friday, 2 March. Also on the bill is Berlin-based electronic musician Laurel Halo. Listen to ‘Winter Dawn’ from Colleen’s critically-acclaimed new album ‘A flame my love, a frequency’ below and learn more about her show at: [P]Rewire x Korzo.
[P]Rewire x Korzo tickets are available at:Tickets.