Interview: Nicole Turley of Swahili Blonde

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Admittedly, I had a lot of trouble writing the intro to this interview, partially out of nerves of getting something wrong about the mastermind behind not only one of my favorite bands, Swahili Blonde, but also one of my favorite record labels, Neurotic Yell. However, the frustration also stemmed out of just how to approach even trying to describe music with so much going on, so much so that every repeated listen brings out something new. With someone steeped so intensely in both the intellectual and the visceral as Nicole Turley, it’s possible to write an entire fifty page research paper that doesn’t even begin to express the profound emotional experiences and revelations one might find in her music.

To get technical, sure Turley has mastered the ability to modulate unnoticeably between consonance and dissonance, and sometimes there are so many layers her music seems to reflect both tonality and atonality, but there’s so much you simply cannot define with a college music appreciation textbook. Any single song, or album has an entire range of emotions from the peak of beauty (“Etoile De Mer”) to sheer ferocity (“Dr. Teeth”), yet behind all of it remains a steady groove consistent through all changes of direction.

But at the heart of at least the recorded Swahili Blonde lies a perfectly balanced scale, although you may never know it because Turley pulls her music off in such a way it appears effortless. However, if in less mindful and capable hands as Turley were to subtract or add anything at all, say one less African-influenced syncopated drum loop or one more layer of vocals, it may very well tip the scale and become somewhat ungainly.

It’s because of all these layers that makes it something special to first listen to Swahili Blonde, because at once your sense are immediately hit with this inevitable atomic bomb of sound: Bursts of tribal polyrhythms, free form jazz progressions infused with a kick of James Chance and The Slits, influences from every culture past or present, hip hop aesthetics combining with tempo changes more reminiscent of a composition by Edvard Grieg, and above all the characteristic “let’s at least give it a shot”-ness of No Wave all exploding simultaneously, yet producing a single harmonious effect. So, if you’ve listened to Man Meat or Psycho Tropical Ballet Pink before you should know exactly the sensation I have just described, and if you come to this without ever listening to either of those, I envy you for that ineffable experience of your first listen.

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