With the benefit of hindsight, Alice ivy he was in wonderland when he cut Do not sleep
The new LP captures a glorious moment not so long ago, filled with companions and nights in faraway places. That was before the pandemic ruined everything.
Talking with Billboard from his home in Melbourne, which has just entered a second lockdown, Do not sleep is the follow-up to the critically praised 2018 I am dreaming.
Spanning 13 tracks, Do not sleep It was written in a dizzying stretch of time zones, and features a diverse lineup with numerous artists and female, non-binary voices, LGBTQI + and BIPOC. “I am a very collaborative person,” he explains. “I would have had a hard time putting a lot of things above the line (stuck) in a room by myself.”
In the mixing process, he enlisted the help of Grammy-winning producer Andrew Dawson (Kanye West, Childish Gambino).
Ivy produced the entire album, the fruit of a year of preliminary work and bequeathing it around the world. It was “squeezed between tours” during stops in Melbourne, Sydney, London, Toronto, Detroit and Los Angeles, says Ivy Billboard. “I’m the type of person who, every time I go on tour or write trips, I try to do everything I can. I don’t go home from the party (early). I need to live everything.” I do not want to miss anything “.
Its source of power is all in the title. Don’t think for a moment that Ivy wasted time with her eyes closed.
“Lack of sleep and the exciting feeling of discovering new places and meeting new people made this an exhilarating party record, for sure,” he says.
Ivy (real name Annika Schmarsel) has had the travel error since she could read. Born to German parents, she emigrated to Australia in her youth. “German was my first language,” he explains. “In kindie I was the German girl who couldn’t speak a word of English, so I had to learn.”
In her teens, Ivy’s musical tastes were shaped by the soul and Motown (“that’s the kind of feeling I try to make every time I go to the studio,” says Ivy), and she played guitar in bands.
As a producer, she discovered, there are no limitations.
Free to move and with many of Australia’s brightest young artists in their orbit, Ivy set out to create an album that cuts across electronic pop, hip-hop, soul, and dance.
Yes I am dreaming She was a young artist with her “head in the clouds”, in this second effort “I matured as a producer”, explains Ivy. “I feel like this album focuses on songwriting and there’s a lot more lyrical content. I feel like I’ve definitely matured.”
His line of guests includes Thelma Plum, Ecca Vandal, Montaigne, Ngaiire, Benjamin Joseph de Safia, Odette, Bertie Blackman, Imbi, and Canadian rapper Cadence Weapon.
It is a “body of work that features a lot of voices that need to be heard and is generally not heard enough,” says Ivy in a statement accompanying the new LP, released through Dew Process in Australia and Last Gang Records in North America.
Some of those voices “belong to women, some are not binary, some are people of color and some identify as First Nations people, some are members of the LGBTQI + community and all of them have important stories to tell.”
The ensemble has received positive reviews from NME and Shock Magazine, and you should enjoy making your presence felt after earning “album of the week” status on the triple j national youth network.
As a leading advocate for female electronics producers, Ivy is fully aware of trolls lurking in the shadows. Conscious and ready.
“I try to stick to the rule of, try not to read the comments,” he explains. “Everyone can be smashed on the Internet. You just have to prepare for that if you’re releasing an album and you’re releasing it. A statement, that there are going to be people who shit shit.”
Ivy is pumped to perform Do not sleep In a live environment. But like many other artists, she is playing a waiting game. A packed 2020 calendar, which included a slot at the Splendor in the Grass festival among 50-something reserves, is on hold. The new dates are tentatively set for early next year.
Releasing music to the world is pretty scary for most artists. Doing it during a pandemic is another matter.
“It’s rare to put out a record and not be able to announce tour dates,” she says. “I was flying a lot last year, going to so many different places, meeting so many different artists. And now it all comes back to Brunswick. Fingers crossed everything is going well next year.”
Stream Do not sleep down.
