Interview with internethacker

In the digital age and as products of the digital generation, it seems natural that young musicians are abandoning the typical guitar-drums-bass-singer quadruplet in favour of a more manufactured, electronic sound. As technology develops, the music scene does so too in order to accommodate the full spectrum of possibilities now available to aspiring musicians. This is certainly the case with Salem Khazali, alias internethacker, whose breezy synth tunes soundtrack the current fascination with creating music with just a computer.

Even his name demonstrates the control that young artists are gaining over their new materials. When asked where it came from, his answer demonstrates the blend that is in process between digital technology and music; he says 'me and my secondary school friend Mark started a project called Tainted Faces in 2012 [...] We took influences from the emerging web stylings of electronic witch house and glitch pop/trap/ The way I'd work on stuff was from chopping up sound glitches that I'd made, so he jokingly called me the internet hacker once, and it stuck.' Then, as an afterthought, and even a further comment on the changing environment of music promotion: 'I was also really stoked that it was available as a username, so that was a bonus.'

Although a London lad born and raised, Khazali moved to Falmouth in Cornwall in September of last year to pursue a degree in graphic design. Surely such a drastic change of scenery would have had some effect on the production of his music? He says, 'what I've noticed is the hang of pace. Things happen a lot slower here, there's less of a bustle, and there isn't much of an emphasis on being totally goal-oriented. Rather, people are doing things the way they know works, so it's more of a quality over quantity vibe. The way this affects my music is that I get quite absorbed into one track, whereas when I was in London I tried to push out a collection on Soundcloud quite quickly.'

Khazali notes that this pressure to bulk up his body of work was rather restrictive, commenting, 'I've probably deleted half of my work from Soundcloud because I really want to work on one sound instead of bouncing around from genre to genre.'


Living outside of London does have its drawbacks, however. 'My friends have met [Jamie xx] on nights out recently.' Whilst this seems rather trivial, Khazali cites Jamie xx as one of the positive examples for him in the music industry, a notoriously cut-throat world. 'He keeps it simple, real, and about the music [...] He is very humble and thankful for how he's blown up and I really like that. I dunno, just let the music speak for itself unless your persona is making some kind of point. [That's why] I also really like his anonymity.'

When it comes to describing his own writing process, Khazali is as in-depth, meticulous and eager as his music would suggest. As a base, he 'starts with modifying a synth until it sounds how I feel at the time. It's way more about melodies for me than anything else... the words just sort of fall into place.' Next comes the beat, and in this he draws inspiration from 'noughties hip hop at the moment, but I've delved into witch house and trap house.' To add interest to an already fascinating mixture of tracks, Khazali says that 'I'm clasically trained so a lot of my chord techniques are heavily influenced [by] my violin scales.'

From what Khazali intimates, it's a very spontaneous process, incredibly multimedia ('I spend a lot of time writing random things in a sketchbook, so that's where the words come from'), adding details of 'what sounds right from the get-go'. However, this apparent spontaneity can be deceptive. 'The time it takes [to make a track] will vary so much from a few hours to a few weeks. I care a lot about it being organic, but the length of time won't change the heart and soul that I hope can be heard in the final result.'

In terms of the artists that inspire him, Khazali notes Moby, Royksopp (Eple is my all-time fave') and Kanye West, to name but a few. 'I really like clever sampling and production that is detailed but not over-worked, so it's a philosophy that I'm trying to live by'. He also notes GLOWS, a schoolmate from sixth form, as a big influence, in that 'helping to coordinate his initiative Slow Dance has been a fun way to genre bend. My softer synths on my Soundcloud can be heard clearly around the time we started doing music together.'

Internethacker is clearly more than a Soundcloud username. Internethacker is thoughtful, considered, chilled. Listen up.

Listen to internethacker here

Listen to GLOWS here

Interview with Lush's frontwoman Miki Berenyi

It’s a regular Tuesday night in everything but the fact that I am currently sat opposite Miki Berenyi, the returned frontwoman of Lush. After nearly a 20-year break, the 90s favourite indie kids make their return. Much has changed for the band in the interim: Elastica’s Justin Welch replaces Chris Acland on drums after Acland committed suicide in 1996; Berenyi all but disappeared from the music scene to start a family and hold down a regular job. In spite of this, she remains the same at the core: she sips on white wine that she brought over, and intermittently takes a few drags on an e-cigarette.

When she speaks of how it feels to be back, Berenyi says it’s ‘really quite odd actually […] I was losing sleep about having agreed to do this. I suddenly thought, “fuck, I haven’t played in twenty years, this is going to be a disaster.” And actually, it was really good to just go into the studio and sing and play guitar and think, “ok, I can still do this!”’

In spite of having been out of the game for so long, there is a clear sense of anticipation to play live again [I spoke to Berenyi before Lush’s headline shows at the Roundhouse]. ‘It’s a bit weird cos we haven’t played yet […] I went on the radio and they were like “ooh so how’s it going?” and all I can really talk about is rehearsals. I mean, I can talk about the EP a bit but even that isn’t out yet.’

Image: Allmusic

In 2015, Lush started working on Blind Spot, a new EP with new material – a fresh continuation of where the band had gotten to in their last years. ‘It’s pretty much picking up where I left off […] Although lyrically it was really difficult trying to get back into it, suddenly trying to write, thinking “ugh what did I used to write about? And what can I write about now? I can’t write about the same things!” But actually, there is a bit of a pattern to it. [My lyrics] are a bit oblique, they are personal, they are of their kind.’ She stops before ploughing on, ‘I’m not suddenly coming back like “right, I’m gonna write songs about the Labour party.” It doesn’t work like that.’

It seems strange that after such a long hiatus, Lush would decide after all that they weren’t quite finished with the music industry; everyone had assumed that they had hung up their guitars and called it a day. Not so. Berenyi says the reunion had been in the pipeline for as long as eight years, but practically just wouldn’t have worked before now. ‘I get a sabbatical after five years, so I’ve got an extra six weeks’ holiday this year,’ she explains. ‘I’m not giving up my job. That’s not gonna happen.’ She has become used to the life of a civilian: ‘If I could be at home, just open a door, play a gig and then come back and be at home, that would be great. Playing music, playing live and recording – great. But the rest of it is a fucking nightmare! It is a lot of hassle.’

For Miki, the separation from the music industry after Chris’ death was total. ‘I almost left completely. I haven’t really followed music, I wasn’t going to gigs and I haven’t played.’ She muses, ‘I don’t know how massively comfortable I ever was in that industry.’ As a response to Chris Acland’s death, everything music-related became a reminder. ‘I’m sure it’s the same for anyone who’s lost someone, but for a while you sort of randomly burst into tears, and you think you’re ready to go out and then you’re not. The music industry is not really the place to do that. You know, you’re at a gig and suddenly you’re really upset and people are like “ooh dear!” So I just completely retreated from it, just cut off all ties. Chris’ aunt trained me to become a sub-editor, and she said “ooh you should try and get work at the NME. That’s where you should go cos you know that subject”. And I wanted to go a million miles away from all of that. Totally turned my back on it, basically.’

So after what was a very conscious and decisive split from music, band business became secondary. It’s more of a case of ‘why don’t we just do this while we can’ rather than prioritising it above and beyond anything else. ‘I can still remember a flight to Japan to go and visit my mum, and I was sat for ten hours writing these lyrics because I just had to fit them in when I could.’ After musing for a moment, she adds, ‘It was really good fun!’

Image: David Lavine for the Guardian

In their heyday, Lush were pigeonholed into every imaginable genre, by the merit simply of being around. First shoegaze, then Britpop; if there’s one label they couldn’t escape, however, it was ‘girls in a band’. ‘The tricky thing,’ Miki explains, ‘is that the scene that we came from, which was really small pub gigs and a whole mix of influences, didn’t have a problem with women in bands. At grassroots level, it didn’t seem to be a problem. To be honest, it was a lot of the journalists that were fetishizing girls in bands. Then when you’re trying to be a professional and you’re going on tour, encountering crew and maybe someone local who’s doing the lights and they go “oh yeah, girl band, right I get it”. So when we were in our little enclave it was absolutely fine. I imagine it’s probably not that different now. If you’re at college I imagine it’s all very right-on and people would fucking dream of saying that shit.’

To explain what she means by ‘that shit’, Miki cites the recent interview with The Last Shadow Puppets in Spin, where Miles Kane repeatedly makes the female journalist uncomfortable by inviting her up to the bedroom. ‘Unless I stand there and act dumb, and laugh at [the men’s] jokes, it’s gonna irritate them, and then I’m a bitch.’

In terms of the constantly changing genre that they were assigned by the music press, Berenyi sees a direct correlation between this and the attitudes towards women in the industry. ‘There’s this thing in the music press of “they’re old news”. And I felt that being a woman was a part of that. It’s like, “there’s a new breed of women replacing you. We’re sick of shoegazing girls: now we want Courtney Love.” It’s one thing saying it about the music; it’s a whole other thing saying it about your gender.’

She sighs. ‘[The industry] wasn’t really created for women of 30+. When [Lush] ended I was almost 30. It gets quite difficult. When you’re 25 and it’s all kind of exciting, but there comes a point, especially for women where you think “actually I’m sick of being bloody patronised by guitar roadies”. I’m sure it’s the same for any women in the entertainment industry, but it is a bit infantile with bands.’

None of this is necessarily breaking news, of course, but every fresh report brings to light just how unfair the music industry is for women. ‘It is about men being allowed to behave a certain way, men being encouraged to behave a certain way.’ But, Berenyi argues, there is a flipside. ‘Now there are quite a lot of older women in music, whether it’s Chrissy Hynde or Debbie Harry, so for the two-steps-forward-three-steps-back that a lot of mainstream music has taken – a lot of the flesh-revealing, bitchy, un-sisterhood stuff that’s going on – there is a separate stream.’

In spite of their seemingly indefinite hiatus, Lush are back and they’re bad. ‘We’d love to make an album! But it’s all about the logistics: it’s funding it, it’s trying to find the time.’ Please find the time, Miki. I speak for the masses. Please.