BETTY HAMMERSCHLAG:

It means exactly that to me. Psycho Summer is a fictional work. It’s a story — my story. It just feels more real to me than some actual memories.

BH: I have various IKEA bags full of cassette recordings. They sit under my desk. Music happens continuously. Psycho Summer is a selection of 13 songs in a specific order. The album isn’t written like a script or anything; it’s more like a selection of paintings from my studio, curated for an exhibition. 13 paintings hanging, 13 short stories in a book, 13 songs on a record. In the other bags is probably stuff I will never touch again.

Music genres are obsolete. Where does pop start or where does ambient end? I know people need guidelines, boundaries, drawers to place themselves and others, but personally I come from the art world. Things like that haven’t existed there for a long time. Questioning boundaries and rules is taught at art school from day one. The music world sometimes seems stuck in time. Questions are discussed there that make you think you live just before the invention of the drum machine… and in the end everyone asks for your star sign anywayyyy.

BH: Cloud comes from the internet. Folk comes from offline. Lol. Like I said, people love genres, so I just gave myself and everyone else this hashtag. To me, “gesture” stands for a kind of artistic freedom, for a sense of transience and situational space. By “gesture” I also mean my personal limitations and preferences. I don’t have much at my disposal to make this music. I still owe Chris a small piece of art because he hooked me up with this killer Fostex 4-track about a year and a half ago. We had this deal that I’d give him something — he has a lot of empty walls at home and wants to hang something up. I ran into him on the street today and realised he’s probably subconsciously waiting for me to finally drop off that piece for his place. Shit, I really have to get that done this week. I used that Fostex a lot for Psycho Summer — every song ran through it. It’s just such a chill machine. I live in a cool neighbourhood where people often put boxes of unneeded stuff out on the street. Sometimes I find old pre-recorded cassettes in those boxes — tapes people listened to years ago. I love using those thrown-away tapes for my recordings most of all… hehe. I like it when there’s something handwritten on the shell, knowing it came from random people. Recording something by hand at home, whether it’s me or some stranger, is always kind of folk-like in a way.

BH: I love it. Imperfection is the goal. I’m imperfect. My life is. My surroundings are. My friends. Imperfect doesn’t mean not being perfect — you have to make that clear first. I record everything a hundred times anyway, but in the end I almost always choose the cassette recording. That’s where I find the most honest moment. I also love using the old SP-404 for effects — I always love baking everything into one big audio sausage haha. Ideally things have to be finished in a single night. The vibe has to be right, it has to move fast. I hate projects that drag on forever and go through a hundred versions with replaceable MIDI tracks. In the end, cassette recording just helps me find that exact point and leave the songs as they are.

BH: Yeah, I can hear that very clearly. I mean, I wanted it to go there. There are a few other things in between, but you can definitely hear where I was heading — without claiming this was some plan or that I’ve arrived anywhere yet. It’s just a state right now that I really love and have always loved. I mean, musically speaking.

BH: For me there is no space between autobiographical and invented. Being invented doesn’t mean it’s not real — if anything, those things are just as real. My music is my personal thing. First of all, all the music I make I make primarily for myself. I’m my own biggest listener. I listen to it over and over and it makes me feel good, it makes me happy. I sit alone at night making this music. What could be better than making fantasies real?

BH:

I lived in Greenpoint, Brooklyn for a while. There was a supermarket where I shopped all the time and someone with red hair worked at the register. That person had great white soft skin and this gorgeous, beautiful red hair. I think about this person a lot. There was no real contact between us or something, just the normal routine of paying at the register — but I looked at their face and body and everything very closely. In a way this person means nothing to me, but on the other hand I think about them regularly. Omg. Milaa studied with me. She makes really cool art, mostly with clay and ceramics. I wanted to visit her when I was in Japan for an artist residency, but she couldn’t make it. She has two kids now and lives two and a half hours away in a suburb of Tokyo. We wanted to meet up, but it just didn’t happen. The title “Yannis” is named after Yannis from the French label Collerette, who put out my album Forever Young. I really like him. He is a real one. I think he’s a really good guy… even though I barely know him.

BH: I really like this question. Beautiful. I can’t answer it.

BH: I hope it leaves a hovering ambivalence. In every senseeeeeeeeeeeeee