Interview with Zoè from Keluar

Keluar is the project of Zoè Zanias and Sid Lamar. They both made quite an impression on the European underground synth scene in their previous projects Linea Aspera and Schwefelgelb, so teaming up created a bit of a buzz, but their minimal synth, experimental techno and classic EBM hybrid didn't disappoint. They performed at Totentanz back in November 2013 and we are more than happy to bring them back for yet a concert in Copenhagen.

TOT: You have both been active in the electronic music scene before with bands such as Schwefelgelb and Linea Aspera. Why did you decide to form a band together and how do you feel this band differs from your previous ones?

Zoè: Linea Aspera was coming to an end, and Sid was interested in starting a project with another vocalist – thus allowing him to focus more on the music. It just made sense at the time. Hopefully people can hear the difference for themselves.

TOT: The instrumental part of Keluar is electronic, but the lyrics uses a lot of scientific expressions and is somewhat more organic. Is it a deliberate way of creating a duality in your music, and if yes, then what is the intention with it.

Zoè: The lyrics are simply the way that I express myself. I guess also in both the music and lyrics we do have the intention to create something organic from electronics – that’s one reason why we favour analogue and dissonant sounds, as well as sampled percussion.

TOT: Germany has brought the world some of the biggest electronic music acts. Do you feel like a part of a continuing tradition, or do you feel more connected to other scenes like the ones in Belgium or Detroit?

Zoè: I don’t personally feel a connection to any particular scene in any country, perhaps because the internet has broken down a lot of international boundaries. Of course I feel connected to Berlin because I live here, but I could be making this music anywhere in the world. My influences are from all over the place.

TOT: You recently released a CD that contains your two EP's and two remixes. Can you tell us a bit about the new songs, the decision to get Soft Riot and Distel to do the remixes, and about the collaboration with Ascetic: on the track Rupture?

Zoè: Listening to the songs is the best way to get an idea of what they’re like – text can never really convey what we mean. We asked Soft Riot and Distel to do remixes because both of us love their work, and we thought they’d bring something new and unique to our songs. The collaboration with Ascetic: on Rupture just seemed to happen spontaneously. August is a very close friend and we both have a lot of respect for his work, and somehow he and Sid ended up working in the studio together one night.

TOT: Some of your songs have brilliant music videos. There's also a consistency in your cover art, and it seems to match especially the Rupture video really well. Are you working a lot with your visual communication, and are you doing the art work yourselves or working with other artists?

Zoè: Thank you. We make all the videos ourselves, and I take a bit of a leading role in that since I’ve always had an interest in filmmaking, and it’s a nice way to extend the imagery-building process that goes into my lyrics. The images in Rupture were brewing in my mind for ages so finally placing them on a screen felt really amazing, especially since we filmed it in a place of such personal significance to me (a beach in Victoria, Australia, where I spent a lot of time growing up). I do put a lot of thought into our visual representation. For the Ennoea EP we enlisted the help of Dovile Shurpo for the artwork, then for the CD and Vitreum EP I took the cover photos myself. I feel like the transition from fluid to crystalline forms between the Ennoea and Vitreum covers nicely represents the transition of our sound between the two EPs, and the cover of the CD lies somewhere inbetween.