MusicMakers019: Wallace

MusicMakers is an interview series from Adafruit that explores the intersection of the DIY music and maker communities. We’ll be talking to some of our favorite musicians about art, tech, DIY, gear tips and more. Along the way we hope you’ll find some great new music as well as some ideas and inspiration for your own projects.

This week we talk Spice Girls, beaches, with disco with Sydney based songstress, Wallace.

We’ve come across her most recent single, Pantone Home, and are excited to hear a bit more about the influences and creative approach behind this track.

Pantone Home is produced by Danny Barwick (also not to be missed!)

Wallace’s performance is fantastic, laid back but simmering with a distinct energy. It’s a captivating intertwining of classic and contemporary technique. There are flashes of TLC, Little Dragon’s Yukimi Nagano, and the timeless vibrato of Sarah Vaughan. Her delivery is perfectly complemented by Barwick’s soulful and intricate production.

Most remarkable is the place she has built for herself at the center of this collage of style and technique. Every detail in her music offers a pathway to some other time and some other dusty pile of brilliant albums, but when they are taken all together and wrapped up in her creative vision the result is something new and wonderful, and decidedly unique.

If you are in the area, don’t miss her upcoming performances in Australia and New Zealand

Where are you based?
Sydney at the moment but I’m getting very itchy feet and thinking about making the most of my British passport…

What was your introduction to music?
I grew up listening to my dad’s extensive record collection. Blues, soul and jazz were the soundtrack to my childhood.

What have you been working on?
I’ve been away for a couple of months in Europe working hard on my second EP. I’ve got a new track called Pantone Home dropping soon in the meantime.

How have you seen technology change the creation and consumption of music in your lifetime?

I’m a 90s baby so I’ve seen a huge change in the consumption of music. I had the coolest multi coloured boombox as a kid with all my favs on cassette (Think Spice Girls + D Child) My first EP Pole to Pole is actually only available on Cassette or online in homage to my earliest memories of owning music. I definitely remember carrying around a Walkman as well though plus about 10 CDs which were painstakingly chosen in the morning before school.

I’ve been a pretty analogue girl when it comes to music making for most of my life but I’ve learnt heaps working with various producers.

Describe your recording or production setup:
I always jump in a little studio down by the Beach in Coogee, Sydney with Simon Cohen to record all my vocals.

What’s one song everybody should hear?
I’ve been on a disco train lately so I’m gona say Relight My Fire by Dan Hartman

Who do you think we should ask these questions next?
Milan Ring