We recently wrote about Karlfroye’s LP Voicemania that came out on Explity April 14. Explity is a label that she started together with KimberlaiD, as a platform for queer and underground music. This weekend the label is hosting a release party at La Station in Paris, where they will both be performing – along with Talita Otović, Mahée and others.
To get you into the mood for Saturday we’re giving you an interview with Karlfroye that goes into depth about the LP as well as collaboration with others.
You just released your first album – can you tell us why you decided to make a full-length release and what some of the ideas behind the release were?
With this first album, I wanted to be as clear as possible about what I do, who I am, and what my influences are, in order to introduce myself properly to music enthusiasts. The album moves through several moods and styles: hardcore, post-club, ambient, folk, and even videogame music. The process of making several tracks that still belong together helped me a lot. I was able to create a narrative across the tracks, which makes listening to the album as a whole important, because you follow the story it tells.
I wanted to tell the story of how I first started making music alone in front of screens (as a big weeb that I am, haha) but how that eventually led me to meet people in real life, connect with them, and create things together. The idea of gathering people together is very important to me and this project.
You’ve released your own music on Explity before, and it feels like the perfect conduit for your sound. But I can’t put my finger on exactly why that is?
Actually, continuing on that idea of gathering people together: Explity is one of the reasons why I’m here answering this interview today. I founded the label Explity with KimberlaID in 2022, and since then I’ve discovered a completely different way of making music. One that goes beyond the myth of the cursed producer alone in their bedroom.
Music is meant to be shared. It connects people. It saves people. Talita Otović shows me mixing plugins I had never seen before. Claude Murder shows me incredible graphic references. Nouminouw reminds me to take vitamins so I don’t become the cursed producer with ten cans of Monster under the desk.
Releasing my first project on Explity really captures that feeling of collective achievement. Because after all, Explity is literally: expectation and reality in one word.
Your bio says you’re based in the south of France. Do you live in a smaller town, and how does it feel to create experimental music away from Paris nightlife?
I actually live in central France now, in a town called Meymac, in an area known as “Le Plateau des Mille Vaches” which means the Plateau of a Thousand Cows. So yes… not many clubs around there, I have to admit, haha.
I’ve been living there for about two years now, surrounded by very close friends. That environment really helps me produce music far from the noise of cities, in a calmer space.
Sometimes I’ll listen back to a track I just made while walking in the forest, to get some distance and see if the track really matches my mood. And honestly, I wish that experience for every musician.
But I still travel regularly to Paris or Toulouse to discover new music in concerts or clubs. I really enjoy that duality, and I think you can hear it in my music: the urban and industrial side in the kicks and percussion, and the countryside/nature side in the melodies, with something luminous and mysterious.
Your music relates strongly to place – it creates images of shifting environments wrapped in warmth and joy. Is there a romantic behind those harsh beats?
Haha, yes. Like I said before, the places I’m in influence my music a lot. But most of the time they’re actually fictional places that I write for myself, almost like videogame maps.
I think of the tracks on VOICEMANIA as maps with a different boss for each track. Each boss has their own emotional and touching backstory. And of course, those backstories often come from things I’m personally going through, my moments of introspection, my friends, or, as you suggested, my romantic states.
The track You and I was very clearly written and produced while I was going through a breakup. So yes, you read that correctly haha, which means I did my job well actually.
You worked with DJ Würm/Emma Dowdy on mastering, whose music shares some similar elements with yours. How did that collaboration happen?
I first reached out to DJ Würm because I love the work she does on her own productions, I’m a big fan of her tracks really.
When I told her about my project and its narrative dimension (even before asking her to master it) she immediately understood the idea of each track representing a different place or ‘map’, because she also approaches music that way.
We also released her project Anachronism on Explity right before mine. I love the idea of Explity becoming like a spiderweb with all these artists I admire connected on the same thread.
Do you work differently when you are producing solo as opposed to collaborating, like on Musicomancia?
It’s always different producing alone or with other people, I think. There’s a time for adaptation, listening, and compromise. It actually took me a long time to feel comfortable producing with others, because I was afraid of taking too much space or wanting to control everything.
But in reality, working with other people is how I’ve learned the most. It prevents artists from going in circles and doing the same things over and over again.
That’s something very precious to me. And honestly, I really dislike the myth of the producer who “made it all alone”. I think it’s a bit sad and misleading as to what making music really is.
On Musicomancia and on all the interludes from Explity’s two V/A releases, I worked with several in-house producers from Explity like KimberlaID, Talita Otović, Lou Faurroux and everything felt very fluid. I think that comes from how much we care about each other.
I also really love the way we make emotional and intense music without it necessarily being hardcore, with an approach that highlights our relationships as friends working together.
What is your next project?
Hehehe, you’re trying to get the tea! I’m not entirely sure yet, but I really want to start doing live performances. Not alone, but in a group. Maybe that’s something that has already been discussed with people you might know… who knows? But in any case: stay tuned : )
Are you planning to perform these tracks live anywhere?
Yes! I’m doing the release party at La Station Gare des Mines on April 25th in Paris. It’s one of my favourite clubs in Paris, and since I don’t live there it almost feels like the best kind of birthday party. The crowd there is really special to me, and to Explity as well. It’s a space where hardcore nightlife energy coexists with something deeply queer and caring.
And honestly, I think that’s something we should all cherish right now.
Thank you.
Follow Karlfroye and Explity:
@karlfroye
@explitymusic
Buy Voicemania:
explitymusic.bandcamp.com
Top photo by @sidonie_r
