UMFANG had an incredible 2017. The New York-based techno artist released her major-label debut, Symbolic Use Of Light, via the Ninja Tune imprint Technicolour in June; she saw the profile of Discwoman, the female-identified focused electronic collective and booking agency she co-founded in 2014 with Frankie Decaiza Hutchinson and Christine McCharen-Tran, increase dramatically via coverage in the major media, sponsorships, and more booking opportunities. Additionally, she was one of the artists who gave their music to the Power Puerto Rico compilation in support of relief, recovery and rebuilding in Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria, and she toured across the globe at festivals like Unsound and Dekmantel — all the while staying true to her regular Technofeminism party in New York.
But she’s more than just a list of accomplishments and accolades; her work stands for itself. Symbolic Use Of Light manages to playfully subvert expectation by refining techno to its bare, essential parts. UMFANG wrote the record primarily on her DR-202 drum machine, and makes clever use of the instrument to create dynamic compositions full of play and contrast.
I caught up with UMFANG via Skype while she was taking some much needed time off in Greece to recharge after the intense year she’s had to reflect on Symbolic Use Of Light, which topped our list of the Best Electronic and Experimental Records in 2017, and look ahead to what we can expect from the exciting artist in the year to come.
2017 seems to have been a pretty big year for you, as UMFANG and as a part of the Discwoman collective. What were some of your personal highlights?
This has been my first real year of constant touring, so I think it went from the beginning of the year and focusing on getting the album out, and then mixing that with a lot of touring, and with the summer playing festivals for the first time, so playing Dekmantel and Unsound was a highlight. That whole trajectory happened quickly and it was really exciting to see so much interest in my album. I had never worked with a major label before. So it’s just been quite the whirlwind, honestly. It all feels like a big stamp of approval coming from an underground scene.
Where are you right now?
I’m in Athens right now. I’m actually taking a break for the month. I rented an apartment with my partner and we’re just taking it easy for a few weeks until the new year.
Are you going to play a show there as well?
I haven’t performed in Athens. I had dates in the UK this weekend and the last weekend. So at least my trip was paid for by touring. And then I just rented my apartment out in New York so that I can be here. I mean obviously the economy is struggling in Greece, so I haven’t been booked here. I’ll be doing a small thing this weekend, but it’s nota big hub that’s bringing a lot of people right now. There is an interesting thing happening with young people, I just haven’t really tapped into it yet.
Is that something you keep your eye out for as you’re touring? Given your work with Discwoman, which helps to make electronic music more inclusive and diverse, do you pay attention to the politics of the places you’re traveling to?
Definitely. I was even thinking about this a lot this past weekend when I was in the UK. The scenes in the UK feel, especially in the smaller towns in England, particularly male-dominated. There’s this bro-culture in Ireland and in smaller parts of England. So I was definitely eager to see the groups of women doing things in those places. Because in New York City, where I live, I feel like we have the unfair advantage where there’s a strong queer culture and a strong counter-culture to what we think of as normal in America. So I think sometimes I can have a skewed perspective that things feel more progressive than they are in the rest of the world. And [as a scene] we actually can have a functioning economy outside of dealing with bro-y techno world. So I’m definitely interested when I’m in those places that feel more aggressively male, to find ‘ok who’s doing the party that feels a little more comfortable in countering that.’ It’s really cool to have something like the context of Discwoman because then I can tap into those even more underground scenes that are politically charged.
You were saying you want to avoid bro-y scenes, are you intentionally making music that you feel antagonizes what you think of as bro culture?
I guess I wasn’t necessarily thinking of it that way, but I am against this formulaic copy and paste way of making music, particularly techno and house. I think it’s important for people to remember that techno and house, when they were created, they were coming from a place of oppression and they were predominantly pioneered by queer people of color or a strong black community in Detroit, so I just think it’s important to remember that at that time it was something really emotional and thought-out and it had to do with afro-futurism and just thoughts of a better future. So if we’re still copying and pasting that formula in 2017/2018 I think it’s important to think about what that is about. Maybe the forward-thinking music now needs to be engaged with the politics now and needs to be engaging with technology now. When we use the word ‘techno’ even now, it means something different. I just want to encourage this idea of people being authentic to what’s inside of them and what they’re experiencing inside of their own world emotionally and politically and whatever. That, I think, is still radical. That’s really important to me.
Those themes and those moods of what was happening politically in the world in the fall were so heavy, especially in America, so that definitely went into my mindset making this album. I feel like the tracks I make are pretty based in self-expression and seeing whatever happens. The concept for me usually comes later. So I’m able to piece it together in a way that makes more sense. But usually, the actual act of making music is just about me having cathartic release relating to what’s coming in at that moment.
When you say you piece your ideas together after, does that mean that you write a lot more material than you end up using?
Yeah, definitely. I’ll just sit down for a recording session and try and do as much as I can until I’m feeling tired and not getting anything I like. If there’s a theme or imagery that I’m very interested in exploring then sometimes I’ll see how those things relate and put it together in a package that makes more sense from the outside. If that makes sense.
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So visual themes that relate to the overall idea?
Yeah, for example, with this album I’ve been talking a lot about how for some reason my mind was going a lot to this film Rashomon, which is an old black and white film, and it has a lot to do with this reinterpretation of the same story told by many different people. Also, the way that light was used in that film is considered to be important in film history. So the title of the album comes from the Wikipedia page for Rashomon that says “symbolic use of light” as a header in the article. Talking about symbolism in the film and how there were parts where things were light, bad things were happening, and when the light is shining brightly on things, you see the bad things happening, and then in darkness- – there’s an interesting interpretation of light and dark symbolizing good and bad but not in the traditional way where light means good and dark means bad. So I thought that was a cool crossover, and that also plays into the whole yin and yang idea. I was able to see those things connecting and then I just tried to communicate that without being too overt.
Does your mind automatically work from a minimalist perspective when you compose or do you build something first and then strip it down?
That’s a good question. I do come at things with a minimal perspective. I usually do my recordings in one live take, which means I tend to prepare for that by just setting up one or two or maybe three machines and then figuring out what I want to have happen, and then either I’ll record some loops that I can play live or I’ll record a drum pattern and be able to mute parts of it to be able to record the live recording. But I definitely try to keep a simple setup using as few elements as I can, and I’m really interested in just seeing the interactions between one or two sounds, or two rhythms or polyrhythms interacting together. I think for me it’s relaxing to my brain, in a sort of meditative way, to be able to break down each sound and hear every little element. I think it’s profound when something can be so simple but also feel really engaging and emotional.
That’s true about it about it being meditative. In my blurb about your album on our list, I described the prolonged “intro” on the album’s title track in as being antagonistic in the way that you play on the listener’s expectations that more needs to happen at a specific time.
I guess I’m not doing it in a rebellious or not in a way that’s trying to be too aggressive or anything, but I think it’s more just that I resist the way that our culture has moved into this incredibly urgent need for stimulus. I have a big problem with and have always had a resistance to technology and a resistance to Facebook and Instagram, you know? Even though I use those mediums I definitely feel there’s an internal battle I’m having with that concept, and I also feel I personally struggle with that being enticing too. Every time I’m looking at Instagram for fifteen minutes I think ‘oh damn it, why don’t I get better at meditating?’ or something. I’m interested in trying to get people to sit with that feeling and I think it’s important for people to go to a techno rave and understand how listening to the same beat over and over again can feel meditative and can feel interesting. Once you can attune your brain to that slower pace of change, you become more perceptive to when it does change, and it feels really significant.
Yeah, I like how you put that. Making people sit with something. Making them feel as though something should happen, and then when it doesn’t, have them recognize that they’re expecting something to happen. And all of that happens in the span of a minute and a half. Another thing I wanted to talk about was how even though your music is “minimal” it also has a great depth to it. Like on the song “Weight,” which begins with this really lovely ominous, dirge-like organ humming. Do you need to shift your thinking to approach your songs that way or is that another aspect that comes naturally to you?
It’s kind of an illusion, I guess, because I’m still only using two machines in that instance. That really big sound is still just from one synthesizer. I think it’s a minimal approach in synthesis, I can have the same sequence running for a long time and then by changing one knob, it feels like it’s opening up and changing, but actually I’m not changing anything, you know? So it’s changing your perception of how big you feel the room is, or you feel that space is being filled up by changing a knob, but really it’s just a simple sequence. I t’s kind of a trick. I don’t really think of that as me changing my mindset, it’s more me going with my formula in a way that is tricking you into thinking it’s bigger than it is. [Laughs] that doesn’t make me sound very good.
You could argue you’re being playful, both in that instance and the one we spoke about before. If you’re getting people to think about the use of space in a song, then you’re not really playing a trick on them.
Sure, and I think it’s cool to have that contrast. If I have only two tracks in my song, and one is a synthesizer that sounds like it’s in a really big room and the other sounds like it’s a tight sounding drum track, when you put those two things together you have a nice contrast that might make it feel that there’s more than just those two elements.
Looking ahead to 2018, are you currently working on new music?
I crave making music all the time, but I feel I’ve always depended on my studio. Now that I’m travelling so much, it’s pretty hard to get that time with it, so I have January off in New York, no travel, to work on music, which I’m definitely looking forward to. But also, while I’m here, I’ve been asking all my friends what apps they use to make music, and what computer programs and open source programs they’re using. So I’m trying to get better at digital production ideas that I can do while I’m on the road. Moog Synthesizers is working with Discwoman as a sponsor, and they sent three of us synthesizers. We have done promotional footage for them for the launch of a new synthesizer. So that’ll come out in January. But getting to play with that about a month ago in November was super inspiring. So I’m also excited to work with the new Moog stuff that I’ve never had access to in the past. They took my prototype away but they’re giving me another one I think in January also, so I’m pretty excited about playing that. When you’re making music and you’re enjoying a certain machine, you might not feel like there’s room for another thing. But since it was sort of interjected into my life, now I’m into it and excited to play with it.
Speaking of Discwoman, you’ve got that Moog sponsorship, and you recently added Riobamba to the artist roster, what else do we have to expect from you in the new year?
We just announced adding another person to our roster, so that’s pretty exciting. We’re gonna launch some new merch in the spring. We’re going to launch a new website by the end of the year. So we’re just doing a cleanup and tightening things so that we can be as prepared for what is to come. We’ve seen such a huge upsweep in the last year. I think honestly the pace is really surprising to us. So I’ve had to pretty much opt-out of every admin thing possible in the last year just because I’m away all the time and feel like most of my time has to be occupied with just doing my music stuff. But yeah, we’ve just tried to streamline things so that we can be ready because so many people on our roster are blowing up and it’s really exciting.
This interview has been edited and condensed for length.
Symbolic Use Of Light is out now via Technicolour Records.
