MUSIC INTERVIEW: SIMONA CASTRICUM

Writer: Clem Wetherall

Smart, sexy, personal and powerful, Simona Castricum’s latest release #TriggerWarning40 is a thoroughly enjoyable collection of gritty techno-pop anthems. This is the third release for the Melbourne musician, artist, designer and writer and it follows on from her 2014 release Exotic Ladies Of Birobidzhan*’.

Reverb drenched vocals and industrial strength percussion are the bedrock across the albums eight tracks and while they capture a particular 1980s Madchester meets Nine Inch Nails vibe they evade pinning down to a time and place. Two years in the making, these are songs Simona says she has lived with for a long time, but now she is turning her attention to how they are performed live.

How long was the album in the making?

“Usually you write, record and play an album –but what I ended up doing was playing the album for about a year beforehand and then putting the album out – I spend a long time on these things.”

“[As I’m] playing live increasingly…. performance has become such a huge component of what I do… before I was just writing pop songs but now I’m interested in how they are to perform, how they are to DJ and where the cross over is between performance and DJing and techno – and sound-scape and pop and vocal – so it’s evolving into something a little bit bigger and that’s great.

What can people expect at your shows in Melbourne and Sydney?

“As it stands at the moment I’m really focusing on playing a half-hour set of pop-songs…

“The Hugs and Kisses set [in Melbourne] I’m hoping to do – I’m hoping to play an hour long live set… I did a set at Pleasure Planet a couple of months ago that was on the fly remixing – where all my tracks were cut up into bits so I got to kind of trigger these things out… so I want to do what I do with other peoples music – and do it with my own and then do what I do with techno…

“At the moment I guess I’m kind of stripping things into the individual ways that I understand how to make dance music and at some point over the next 12 months I think it will evolve into a way I can do it all at once.”

Have you got people in mind to collaborate and play live with on stage?

“Probably not play live with – but I am speaking to people in theatre design and I guess we kind of want to sit down and really flesh out what this performance could be in a more creative way as an intervention in space.

“I’m hoping to start my PhD next year on gender non-conforming experiences of architecture with relationships to space and practice.

“So I’m hoping to mix music and architecture together in a way that is performative… so that means we have to create not only this music and how we perform that music… or how I would do that as a solo musician, which is a really interesting event within itself as my music essentially is all about experiences of exclusion, or emotional responses to that as a gender non-conforming person.

“But the stage is also traditionally a place where gender non-conforming people have been able to… they’ve felt comfortable there, it’s been a safe space, it’s been a catharsis, it’s been a place of identity so I guess I’m trying to celebrate that and communicate something about that at the same time.”

The title #Triggerwarning40 is a very evocative name, of emotion, of trauma, what is the concept or idea behind the album?

“I use social media as an outlet for emotion… I use music as an outlet for emotion – music though is a safer space and social media isn’t really a safe space to… you know, exhaust emotion… I’ve also got borderline personality disorder so social media can be a real trap for me.

“And so when you’re someone who is really quick to engage in an emotional response – be it a good one or bad one – it’s kind of difficult to chuck in a trigger warning – there is no warning, when I lose my shit there is no warning – although I sometimes wish there was.

“But then again the things I say and the emotions that I have are things I’m not really ashamed of or afraid of, they are part of who I am… so this album – when you sing about them you can sort of hide in the abstract nature of it.

“I guess it was a very difficult 12 months for me – my music and my lyrics are always somewhat of a diary and a narrative – so I guess it was more just – if you listen to the lyrics – it’s probably not going to be too good… so I just thought I would put a trigger warning on it haha – and 40 just represents – this is the fortieth year of my life.”

Your music is personal but always mixed with the political – are those things inseparable for you?

“For me they are inseparable. It’s difficult to be political yet keep banging on about your own personal experience – at the same time it’s really important because I think that when you articulate lived experiences you really connect with – not only those experiences, but also you connect with the consequences and you connect with the emotions – but they are kind of understood as one experience.

“My personal experience doesn’t reflect the experiences of other gender non-conforming people – it’s my experience, I’m not going to speak on behalf of all gender non-conforming people – and some people try to – but I think that’s where it can come unstuck.

“What’s been good about the emergence of gender non-conforming people in Melbourne is the emergence of stories – June Jones of Two Steps on the Water has a story, Spike Fuck has a story, Callan has a story… all these people have stories – there is a common thread to those stories, and those common threads are undeniable – but it’s not for me to homogenise that – so when you go see four bands playing together or when you go to Transgenre – it’s this really beautiful moment that I didn’t think was possible ten years ago.”

“But the stage is also traditionally a place where gender non-conforming people have been able to… they’ve felt comfortable there, it’s been a safe space, it’s been a catharsis, it’s been a place of identity so I guess I’m trying to celebrate that and communicate something about that at the same time.”

How have you seen the scene in Melbourne change over the last 20 years?

“It’s kind of weird… you know I’ve tried to come out so many times, in the early 90s, late 90s and that was just to come out and walk down the street – let alone play music.

“Once I accepted the stage was a place I could come out in – that kind of made it easier for me – but it wasn’t until the 2000s and my exposure to the club as a safe space in order to express my identity as gender non-conforming – had limitations – they were fetish clubs or they were gay clubs…

“At that time IPod request culture had taken over DJ culture which was good and bad at the same time – it was annoying cause things were boring – but it also meant that people had access to DJing and the culture of DJing and it meant they could get up there and do it and it freed things up and I think that’s where the bro culture of DJing started to breakdown.

“There was this huge renaissance in queer clubs run by women – but then – they still didn’t totally feel like safe spaces for particularly trans-femmes to be – so out of that I wanted to create that space so I created [the party] ‘The Shock of the New’ – and with doing that in a couple of non-traditional club venues who basically just said look you can do whatever you want here – it meant there was this critical mass of like 70 trans or gender non-conforming or gender queer people – coming out to these shows…

“There were probably only six [shows over 12 months] but there was a feeling in those clubs that brought us all together –and then this critical mass appeared – and I’m not saying we changed the world – but it felt like the right place and the right time… and we collectively created change and community.”

Are there more club or venue safe spaces accessible now for gender non-conforming people?

“It’s important to recognise that in the 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, 2000s there have been clubs for trans and gender non-conforming people and that leads us to where we are now and we are building on those successes….

“But now we can take over the stage of popular clubs as well – I think the fact that Hugs and Kisses or Pleasure Planet or Camp Nong – or some of these really good emerging festivals are booking us, are welcoming us – that are not only looking after us artists but also looking after us as punters – they understand if they are making those spaces safe for us – they are also making it safe for everyone because – you get rid or misogyny, you get rid of transphobia, you get rid of assault and all that kind of stuff and you get a better outcome – and I think it’s really good – but there is still a way to go.”

SEE SIMONE LIVE…