Jan-Willem Marquardt:  You recently released your new album Vivienne on Los Angeles-based label Total Stasis. It seems to me that on each of your releases you focus on a specific theme or mood or even on a certain instrument. While your previous releases were mostly led by guitars and synths, now the piano is being examined. Was this the intention from the very beginning or the result of a work-in-progress situation?

Laila Sakini:    No, it was really intuitive. None of these projects really happened because I knew they would become an album. I work on things a lot and I don’t ever know what will happen. So, it is possible to say that all of the music I have put out has been accidental.  But with these instruments, previously the guitar and now the piano, I just felt really comfortable. I felt able to say what I wanted to say.

JM:     Can you go into details?

LS:      I was in a strange situation in Australia at the end of a relationship. And when I was younger, I used to play the piano very often. I started playing the piano again and was really enjoying it. I just kept going.  For example, on the track “The Glass In Between,” the piano part and the vocals are quite simple, but the mood is really clear to me. It’s about the glass that separates two people that used to be together. It feels like you could see the other person, but you could never touch. Being intimate with each other is impossible. And on that song, you can hear me, it’s like breathing on that glass when I sing. The name and my understanding of the song came up afterwards, but it made perfect sense to me. But maybe that’s a secret I shouldn’t tell people. After a short while, I had seven or eight songs already and I realized that maybe this could be something someone else might enjoy too.

JM:     To put one instrument in the center of an entire album takes a lot of courage. Where did you get the confidence from?

LS:      Yes, it definitely does. I studied piano for eight years when I was a child and I always loved it. Even before I studied it, I was playing it every day, just because I loved the feeling of the keys and the sound of the instrument. Until now I love the intensity of it and also the control I have with it. Since I’ve worked as a musician and especially as a DJ for a long time now, coming back to the piano after such a long time feels a bit like coming home. I can use that one instrument to do bass, play mids, treble, highs. I can just do so many things with it. It felt like remembering how to do something that is just for me, intuitive and personal, yet still an experience that is larger than just me.

JM:     I think it’s definitely possible to experience this intuitiveness on the album.

LS:      Exactly, because it’s not classically perfect at all, but the same is true for my situation and also my life. So, why would I try to make a perfect album? That is what I like very much about it. It gave the album some kind of innocence. It reminded me of being a child and to be actually able to just enjoy the sound of the keys hitting down. A very simple expression.

JM:     Can you tell me more about the process of production?

LS:      It was an absolute pleasure to make this album. I woke up, I had coffee, I wrote songs, I was sad, I was happy. It was just me and the instrument I loved for such a long time. And that felt very comfortable and safe.

JM:     It’s interesting how the context of a musician determines the reception of their music. I think your album can work in several contexts, but since you also work as a DJ, playing records in clubs, this may influence the reception a lot. In which settings do you mostly present your music? Are there any experimental formats you would like to present your music in?

LS:      That is a good question because I am really not sure where Vivienne fits, and that may say a bit about who I am and also the fact that I already work across several contexts in several capacities. But maybe it is also not up to me to decide which settings it will fall into?

JM:     But are there any settings you prefer?

LS:      I would hope that it doesn’t fit to comfortably in any segment. The album is an active expression and it does what music has to do sometimes, and that is not to fit anywhere. It is about feeling the things you don’t know how to talk about. Vivienne is really personal, soft and specific. It doesn’t define me. It’s just one part of me and what I do. I think music should be about what we can’t say easily, it should hold and express feelings that we have. Sometimes it compounds the feelings I have, which might be sadness or something that lifts me up. And I like the fact that it doesn’t fit into a paradigm – an either/or. The spark and the light that keeps me going is the curiosity I feel doing music. It’s a very embodied reaction.

JM:     You also play a lot of radio shows, for example on NTS, Red Light Radio, or Noods. What do you think the radio has to offer as a medium?

LS:      It’s a big question. I also run my own podcast series which is strictly online-based. As a DJ, there are some pretty clear promotional highlights you only get from being on the radio. As an artist, it is an interesting format, especially the restricted amount of time makes it really challenging. As I get older, I found out that I really enjoy limitations and boundaries, because my enjoyment in music is really vast. It might sound boring for people, but I just love so many different types of music that if I have some restriction, it helps me to be more defined. Radio somehow became a third place for me besides playing live in clubs and producing music at home. Maybe I have over-intellectualized it, but I feel like you can create a slightly more experimental narrative in the radio rather than in a club, where your direction is to build up a dancefloor. But in general, I do love it all: radio, producing music, and playing in clubs. And I do have to say that I think it is also kind of an Australian thing, basically a Melbourne thing. There is a strong appetite for music in so many different forms: in restaurants, bars, nightclubs, fashion, art, everywhere. Melbourne is really concerned with architecture, design, and mood, and I could, for example, be occupied entirely with providing the mood for some specific venue. That is what European people sometimes won’t understand. All of us from Melbourne are very busy with trying to fulfill these needs of the city.

JM:     In your shows, you also play a lot of club music. Did you ever think of producing dance music as well?

LS:      I have a huge catalogue of music, absolutely massive. I write music pretty much every day. Of course I thought about and have actually produced dance music, but releasing it is a completely different situation. I tried it very early in my career. I was working on Drum and Bass music, stuff with breakbeats and some proto or industrial sort of techno. But at that time, everyone was listening to house music, so it was difficult for people to connect with it. I then grappled with producing and releasing dance stuff in terms of what I wanted to achieve. I think I veered towards working with mood rather than genre in the end and let the process become a little more subconscious. Anyways, for me giving these songs to someone else, these are steps that come much after the process of writing music. Maybe I’m a bit shy. I don’t show everything to everyone. I wait until I’m really bursting to do it.

JM:     It’s interesting that you are feeling shy about your dance music and at the same time you are releasing a really courageous album focusing on your own voice and the piano. I expected it to be the other way around.

LS:      That says a lot about where I come from. I’ve been playing the piano since I was a little kid, so of course I am not too shy about it. The album is simple and honest. And for me, it’s not even about music, but more about how I felt in a very specific period of time. I don’t care too much if people like it or not. It’s like writing a letter: it shows a snapshot of my feelings.

Issue #21 of zweikommasieben, in which this interview with Laika Sakini was originally published, is still available here. It features artists like Nicolás Jaar, Lyra Pramuk, VTSS, Asma Maroof, MC Buzzz, and many more.