Monday 2 March 2015

Hazia Q&A

Your name:
Phil Brooker.

Where are you from?
Manchester, UK.

Name of band:
Hazia.

Who else is in your band?
Just me...I rope in vocal samples to help me out.

How would you describe your music?
Blissy electronic dreampop/shoegaze with loops and spoken-word samples.

Who are your main influences musically?
default genders, Cocteau Twins, My Bloody Valentine, Pure Bathing Culture, A Sunny Day in Glasgow...

What do you hope to achieve in music?
I just want to make some interesting stuff and share it around best I can. Keeping the aims small, baby steps :-)

What has been the highlight of your career so far, and why? And what’s the moment you want to forget?
They're both kind of the same moment...I originally wanted a singer for scorched-out lead vocals and lush harmonies, but it got really frustrating trying to get in touch with people, meet people, try and work with people, all that...social media is SHIT for this sort of thing, but who knows how else we're supposed to do it now? So I was getting really restless with that, not really getting anywhere where all I want to do was be productive and get recording, I just seemed to be wasting a lot of time treading water, so that's the bit I'd rather forget. But  I kind of made a decision over Christmas 2014, it just wasn't going to happen with a singer (and I can't sing myself), so I needed to come up with a way of dealing with that...so I started playing around with spoken word samples I ripped from films, interviews, wherever...when you hear these things through the right filter, you can start to hear the basic rhythms of speech, things that don't really translate into 'lyrics' or 'melodies' but which are pretty fucking beautiful as they are...so instantly I started to feel tonnes better about what I was doing with Hazia: I can do this on my own! So I guess realising that and getting to work in this new direction has been the highlight so far...small things!

If you had to pick just one of your songs to represent your music, what would it be and why?
The new debut 'double A-side' (yeah yeah) about sums it up... Bull of God / Lamb of God, two sides of the same coin...

Where can we listen to it?

Where can we find out more about your music?
Twitter: @HaziaMusic

Anything else you’d like to say about your music that I forgot to ask?
Come see me play! Taking this on the road soon as I can - it's going to be pretty intense trying to control all this stuff at once, electronic production alongside 'real' instruments (guitar and bass), should be pretty interesting! Thanks.

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