Bishi live at the British Film Institute in London.When I first received an invite to Bishi’s Albion Voice album performance, I thought I was going to attend a straightforward concert, but then when I arrived at The Kitchen—a center for video, music, dance, performance, film, and literature in New York City—I berated myself for not reading the email properly and panicked because I thought we were in for an evening of performance art. This always terrifies me because I assume I won’t get it and instead I’ll spend 75 uncomfortable minutes not understanding how I am meant to be feeling. But Bish's show turned out to be neither and both all at once and it was REALLY, REALLY GOOD.Bishi is a pop star who also knows how to play every instrument on the planet and sing in a billion (at least four) different languages, while simultaneously communicating a thought-provoking message about identity and non-conformity in a city (London) that claims to embrace multiculturalism.This all unfolds while she performs in sync with a set of mindblowing visuals projected on the screen behind her. Bishi does this with such awe-inspiring accuracy that even Yoncé would be jealz. Additionally, she does all this while balanced atop sky-scraping heels, undergoing several costume changes, and shifting seamlessly from standing under the spotlight enveloped in a white wedding shroud, to dropping it low in a catsuit playing a rock sitar.I wanted to know more about this brilliant creature, so I met up with Bishi a few days after her show to talk about the inside of her mind, digi-diarrhea, sitar-blasphemy, and why falling off the stage is fucking fierce.
Bishi: rock-sitar goddess.
Noisey: Did you set out to be a pop star or did you always want to do something different with your music?
Bishi: I think Nico Muhly actually summed it up best when he interviewed me recently for Bomb magazine: he said I was a pop star with deep understanding of the avant-garde tradition. I bought a book from City Lights in San Francisco when I was 16 called Talking Music by Professor William Duckworth and that was where I learnt about Steve Reich, Meredith Monk, Laurie Anderson… this idea that the audio and the visual can go together in a way that is really avant-garde, yet really accessible. Really, I was born from that book.The visual aspect is certainly a huge part of the show, are you thinking about that right from the start?
Definitely. For this project I commissioned different filmmakers for the visuals. I would go in and meet with them to explain the meaning behind each of the songs. In many of the songs I reference other poets, other people’s philosophies, because I’ve always really enjoyed setting other people’s work to music.Well yes, you’re using Chaucerian medieval language against sci-fi-esque visuals, are you trying to take us on a journey through time and space?
Every show is basically a journey through my mind, so it’s like Chaucer and sci-fi and cats on Buzzfeed.I would love to spend a day inside of your mind…
It’s also the mind of Matthew Hardern, my creative partner. We have a psychic relationship. Ultimately I see myself as a mediator between different styles and collaborators, and I built this show because I was so tired of going to see record labels and being shown these narrow and limiting pigeonholes and boundaries in terms of how artists work. I just thought, “Screw this I’m going to do my own thing.”
Bishi's audio-visual spectactular.You ended up working with countless different creative partners and musicians across this project…
Yes and I would love to do the show with live musicians, there’s been much made of the fact that I use a backing track, but I’m like well, number one, it’s an audio visual show, and two, do you know how impossible and expensive it would be to have a string section and a folk band up there on stage with me? It already takes a lot of time to set the stage up and work on the image on the screen. It’s not as easy as it looks.Well actually it doesn’t look easy at all, how much rehearsal went into that show?
Oh loads, loads, but things can still go wrong. Even something really fiddly—for the last song my mic pack started sliding down the back of my leg inside my catsuit like a digital diarrhea, so I couldn’t quite go as crazy as usual because I thought, “Everyone can see this massive black digi-diarrhea…”I don’t think anyonenoticed—I think we were more focused on the rock sitar. Is this a recent addition to the many, many instruments you already play?
No actually, I used to go to India to train with one of Ravi Shankar’s most senior disciples. That studio sitar was made to aid practice on the road, all the traditional sitar players think its blasphemy. It’s a bitch to mic up but we’ve found a way to do it.Was there ever an instrument you just couldn’t master?
I just take every instrument and interpret it depending on what I can do with it, and use it to the best that I can do with it. I think when you’re classically trained like I was, you always feel like you’re not quite good enough, whereas untrained musicians are more liberated, they use the instruments how they want to use them rather than how they’ve been taught they have to use them. I also rejected my classical training to do what I needed to do—I dropped out of art school, I didn’t complete my sitar training, I didn’t go to music college when I had the chance to become a classically trained pianist, I taught myself the bass guitar and I taught myself analog synthesizers. I sort of taught myself the ukulele too, so big up parents, I’m a drop out…Well I think your parents are still pretty bloody proud. We actually get to meet your mother on stage in larger than life form…
Yes, she’s a classical singer and we perform a duet together on the album. When she comes to the London shows people go crazy and she just stands there in the middle expecting it and receiving it, like, “Yes I’m here and I’m a diva.” She’s amazing.Do you get nervous performing these intimate shows in front of friends and family, and in spaces like The Kitchen where all eyes are on you?I don’t get nervous but it is very charged from a technical standpoint—things go wrong. I don’t really worry about stuff like that, it’s kind of to be expected. I’ve fallen off stage with my sitar, and once someone accidentally unplugged the projector right in the middle of the act. I think the moment you freak out, you’ve lost the audience. I mean Grace Jones falls off the stage and its fierce.I feel like if you’re not falling off the stage you’re not trying hard enough.
Yeah exactly, I’ve seen Siouxsie Sioux fall off stage before…Beyoncé fell down the stairs once…
Yeah and then she had her hair caught in a fan once and just carried on singing.
Talking of hair… what is this work of art on your head? Is there something in there?
There may be something in there! I work with a hair stylist called Christian Landon, who is trained in eighteenth century wig-making, so he will make something for me and I‘ll just sleep in it for a week and keep adding more hairspray. He’s really into the macaronis of Washington, you know—it looks like they’re wearing huge vaginas on their heads, Marie Antoinette-type things. He’s really into making those. Macaroni fishiness.I’ll bear him in mind if I ever need anything. Finally, I know that the technology side of it is a big thing for you—I saw you playing in London recently wearing a sensor suit—are we going to be seeing more of that?
Yeah I’m definitely in the process of creating more interactive performance work, it was like we performed a séance, people were going crazy, I looked like I was out of fucking Metropolis with all the UV make up on, and all these rich art women were trying to grab my bum, so definitely more of that type of work to come.Georgie is a UK writer/TV host/radio person who is living in NYC and she is rad. Follow her on Twitter - @georgieokell.Related:
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Jennifer Lopez May Be the Feminist Leader We Never Saw ComingCaroline Polachek Explains her High Concept DIY Project Ramona Lisa
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Bishi: I think Nico Muhly actually summed it up best when he interviewed me recently for Bomb magazine: he said I was a pop star with deep understanding of the avant-garde tradition. I bought a book from City Lights in San Francisco when I was 16 called Talking Music by Professor William Duckworth and that was where I learnt about Steve Reich, Meredith Monk, Laurie Anderson… this idea that the audio and the visual can go together in a way that is really avant-garde, yet really accessible. Really, I was born from that book.
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Definitely. For this project I commissioned different filmmakers for the visuals. I would go in and meet with them to explain the meaning behind each of the songs. In many of the songs I reference other poets, other people’s philosophies, because I’ve always really enjoyed setting other people’s work to music.Well yes, you’re using Chaucerian medieval language against sci-fi-esque visuals, are you trying to take us on a journey through time and space?
Every show is basically a journey through my mind, so it’s like Chaucer and sci-fi and cats on Buzzfeed.I would love to spend a day inside of your mind…
It’s also the mind of Matthew Hardern, my creative partner. We have a psychic relationship. Ultimately I see myself as a mediator between different styles and collaborators, and I built this show because I was so tired of going to see record labels and being shown these narrow and limiting pigeonholes and boundaries in terms of how artists work. I just thought, “Screw this I’m going to do my own thing.”
Yes and I would love to do the show with live musicians, there’s been much made of the fact that I use a backing track, but I’m like well, number one, it’s an audio visual show, and two, do you know how impossible and expensive it would be to have a string section and a folk band up there on stage with me? It already takes a lot of time to set the stage up and work on the image on the screen. It’s not as easy as it looks.
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Oh loads, loads, but things can still go wrong. Even something really fiddly—for the last song my mic pack started sliding down the back of my leg inside my catsuit like a digital diarrhea, so I couldn’t quite go as crazy as usual because I thought, “Everyone can see this massive black digi-diarrhea…”I don’t think anyonenoticed—I think we were more focused on the rock sitar. Is this a recent addition to the many, many instruments you already play?
No actually, I used to go to India to train with one of Ravi Shankar’s most senior disciples. That studio sitar was made to aid practice on the road, all the traditional sitar players think its blasphemy. It’s a bitch to mic up but we’ve found a way to do it.Was there ever an instrument you just couldn’t master?
I just take every instrument and interpret it depending on what I can do with it, and use it to the best that I can do with it. I think when you’re classically trained like I was, you always feel like you’re not quite good enough, whereas untrained musicians are more liberated, they use the instruments how they want to use them rather than how they’ve been taught they have to use them. I also rejected my classical training to do what I needed to do—I dropped out of art school, I didn’t complete my sitar training, I didn’t go to music college when I had the chance to become a classically trained pianist, I taught myself the bass guitar and I taught myself analog synthesizers. I sort of taught myself the ukulele too, so big up parents, I’m a drop out…
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Yes, she’s a classical singer and we perform a duet together on the album. When she comes to the London shows people go crazy and she just stands there in the middle expecting it and receiving it, like, “Yes I’m here and I’m a diva.” She’s amazing.Do you get nervous performing these intimate shows in front of friends and family, and in spaces like The Kitchen where all eyes are on you?I don’t get nervous but it is very charged from a technical standpoint—things go wrong. I don’t really worry about stuff like that, it’s kind of to be expected. I’ve fallen off stage with my sitar, and once someone accidentally unplugged the projector right in the middle of the act. I think the moment you freak out, you’ve lost the audience. I mean Grace Jones falls off the stage and its fierce.I feel like if you’re not falling off the stage you’re not trying hard enough.
Yeah exactly, I’ve seen Siouxsie Sioux fall off stage before…Beyoncé fell down the stairs once…
Yeah and then she had her hair caught in a fan once and just carried on singing.
There may be something in there! I work with a hair stylist called Christian Landon, who is trained in eighteenth century wig-making, so he will make something for me and I‘ll just sleep in it for a week and keep adding more hairspray. He’s really into the macaronis of Washington, you know—it looks like they’re wearing huge vaginas on their heads, Marie Antoinette-type things. He’s really into making those. Macaroni fishiness.
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Yeah I’m definitely in the process of creating more interactive performance work, it was like we performed a séance, people were going crazy, I looked like I was out of fucking Metropolis with all the UV make up on, and all these rich art women were trying to grab my bum, so definitely more of that type of work to come.Georgie is a UK writer/TV host/radio person who is living in NYC and she is rad. Follow her on Twitter - @georgieokell.Related:
Elliphant's Video for "Revolusion" is a Total Trip
Jennifer Lopez May Be the Feminist Leader We Never Saw ComingCaroline Polachek Explains her High Concept DIY Project Ramona Lisa