Suzanne Kraft & Sui Zhen: An Alumni Conversation

March 18, 2016

Our latest Alumni Conversation is between the Australian musician, designer and 2010 Academy alumna, Sui Zhen, and the L.A.-based DJ, producer, radio host and 2013 Academy alumnus, Suzanne Kraft. While the musical styles that they work with vary, they have a deep investment in the process of collaboration. Writing, jamming, recording and planning live shows are all part of their musical landscapes. Here, they discuss such collaborations and how their multidisciplinary work feeds into them.

Sui Zhen

Someone wrote a really nice review of my album recently, where they reviewed it from the perspective of the mixes that I have online. They were familiar with my influences before reviewing it – some people aren’t at all, and probably don’t even get the references. They were saying that the album sounded like it was inspired by a lot of “eureka moments” – when you find one track on a record that actually is good – that it was an album full of little eurekas. It was so cute. That is actually what I look for in a record – that they just hit it with one track. It’s got something.

Suzanne Kraft

I would take that as the biggest compliment.

I’m looking for catchiness in unexpected places.

Suzanne Kraft

Sui Zhen

The stuff that I look for in records is the fusion of things, like someone singing in English when it’s not their native language. They have a different take on the lyrics and the music itself. The band Telegraph Avenue is a good example of that. When music gets lost in translation, I think that’s what I look for. Specifically, I’m really interested in Japanese stuff because of the equipment that was being made in the ’80s in Japan. Obviously, they’re going to be the best at using it first.

One of the things that I grew up listening to that first got me into music, when I was 12 years old or something, would have been a soundtrack to this documentary called Temba about African wildlife. It’s not Sting, but someone like Sting. I can’t remember the guy’s name. He’s a jazz fusion, African-influenced white man making music.

Suzanne Kraft

I feel as if I might have seen that one, too. Is it loads of helicopter shots over African coasts?

Sui Zhen

It would have been, yeah. It was around the time when IMAX first hit.

Suzanne Kraft

When it was still, “Let’s go to the IMAX! Can you believe it’s this big?”

Sui Zhen

That’s what I look for. What about you?

Suzanne Kraft

I definitely look for some similar things: accidents in records, or mistakes in mixing. I like badly mixed stuff where it feels amateur: like someone got a hold of a proper studio, and there was money behind the record, but then some dude just left a snare too loud or something stupid like that. I like that a lot. I’m looking for catchiness in unexpected places.

Sui Zhen

The uncelebrated pop greats that no one ever knew about.

Suzanne Kraft

Of course! Also, I’m into obscure soft rock that makes you say, “Yeah, I totally know this song” when you hear it, but you actually don’t know it. It’s that sense of familiarity that you can’t have because you’ve never heard it before. I love that.

Sui Zhen

That’s what I strive for when I write songs: to write something that almost sounds like you already know it. Maybe that’s when you feel like you’ve got a good song – when it feels familiar to you. You’re like, “Am I ripping something off, or is this good?”

NO ZU - Ui Yia Uia

Suzanne Kraft

Totally. Are you a member of NO ZU? Did that happen as part of a collaboration, and then you became a member later?

Sui Zhen

When I met Nic [Oogjes], we both knew and liked each other’s music. This would have been when I first moved to Melbourne, about four or five years ago. Over the years we always expressed that we wanted to work together, and so things naturally happened musically as a friendship started.

I expressed a liking for this side project that Nic has called Opal Essence, which hadn’t had any proper releases up until at point. He said, “Maybe you could do this project with me. It could be a collaboration.” The idea was always to work towards that project, but I ended up just singing on the tracks that he’d already been working toward for NO ZU, for the new Afterlife album.

Because I had sang on so many songs, I started performing with them in early 2014. As more songs entered the set the ones that I had recorded, I had to be involved. Kieran the saxophonist joined at a similar time. Now that we were onto the new stuff we both have a proper space in the tracks – space for our melodies – so it feels like we’re much more a part of it than before, when we were just fitting in or I was repeating Daphne’s parts. My voice is quite different to Daphne’s. I do more rhythmic percussive stuff, and she does deeper, weirder, offbeat and sexy stuff. She’s really good at that. Now, I’m part of NO ZU. I helped to write some lyrics on one of the tracks with Nick, but it’s mainly Nic’s creation. He’s the ringleader of the motley crew.

Suzanne Kraft

How many people are in the band now?

Sui Zhen

Eight. It’s so much fun, though. I usually have work, then university, and then I ride up to bloody rehearsal. I’m so overtired but then so hyped up by the vibe. It gets really stupid in rehearsal, and then suddenly it’s over and you’re expected to go to sleep because it’s midnight. I can’t go to sleep after that. It’s very different to my solo stuff.

Even though I perform with a band for Sui Zhen, I’m still writing and leading the band. I have a few collaborative things where it’s equally written, but nothing has been released yet. One of those releases will be with Nick, and one will be with another Melbourne artist called HTML Flowers. Do you know him?

Suzanne Kraft

No. I like the name, though.

Sui Zhen

The name is so good. He’s amazing. He’s a visual artist as well, he does lots of comics. We’re collaborating. With any music that I’m writing, it starts by myself unless it’s an equal collaboration. I think both are essential to my music making. I couldn’t only do solo stuff and I couldn’t only do band stuff. I need both.

Suzanne Kraft

I definitely feel the same.

Sui Zhen

I always wanted to be a backing member of someone’s band and I felt like I got that in NO ZU, playing bass behind-the-scenes.

When I do my solo stuff, I’m also jamming with myself.

Sui Zhen

Suzanne Kraft

The band work is always more collaborative and I tend to enjoy it most with people who work like I do. My most serious one-on-one collaboration was with Secret Circuit. We’d meet every week and play around like we would on our own, but we would telepathically figure out what to do with the other person and create songs. It’s like working on your own, but with more hands. I like that – and there’s the social aspect of it. The Pharaohs collaboration was with three other dudes. We would get together weekly and it was more like band practice: drinking, jamming and going through the tracks. I would work that my way on my own, too.

Sui Zhen

You’re right. When I do my solo stuff, I’m also jamming with myself.

Suzanne Kraft

I try to set up the tracks as a backing band.

Sui Zhen

It’s like you imagine all these little versions of you playing different things.

Suzanne Kraft

I think that’s probably why I got into making music in the first place. The ideal scenario was to have my own band but I didn’t have the adequate people around me to create the band that I wanted to be in, so I’d make it all myself on the computer or four-track.

Sui Zhen

That’s probably the same scenario as me, actually. I have another band, Hot Palms, which is more of an improvised thing. The members of Hot Palms move and change – it’s an amorphous thing. It’s a lot of associated bands from this particular scene in Melbourne, with bands like Ocean Party and Zone Out. That’s really fun and collaborative because it’s improvised and then recorded later. There’s this weird synergy. It’s the very nature of the band. The guy that leads that project is my guitarist now, Alec Marshall, but his vibe is so open that people just do what they feel like doing. Alec is a quiet guy and we’re respectful that he’s still leading the project. It takes on his vibe, but it’s still collaborative. When you make your own stuff you can end up being so controlling when you’ve got other people around, but then you get to have this moment of just going with the vibe.

Suzanne Kraft

There’s a different kind of freedom to it. When you’re working by yourself you should be totally free on paper – it should be you doing whatever you want – but you have your own standards. Not to belittle other band members, but you’re your own toughest critic. You’re not as free, in a way. When you’re in a group, there’s this safety net.

Sui Zhen

Did you study design?

Suzanne Kraft design for Secret Circuit Suzanne Kraft

Suzanne Kraft

No. I’ve always been interested in design, though. I’ll have moments of being more serious about it, or I’ll take on a project that I’m not so qualified to do. I did packaging design once – mostly for posters or silkscreen t-shirt designs – and that came from my dublab work. I became the de facto creative director for them. For any visual stuff that needed to be done [for the station], I’d either do it myself or coordinate it all with another artist. I would never seriously call myself a graphic designer. I enjoy it but, no, I never studied it.

Sui Zhen

I’ve worked in and around design since 2009. Before then, I was mainly working as an arts project coordinator. I’ve always drawn and had visual skills, but I never thought that I should embark on a design career. Over the years, though, I’ve gotten heavily into it. I think it might be due to my interest in Japanese aesthetics – not just as a surface level obsession with Japan, but through getting really deep into certain designers in the same way that it’s easy to get really deep into certain producers of a certain era. In 2013, in between day jobs and producing work, I realized that I wanted to head in a direction where I could have my studio to do video, music or visual work. I started a post-graduate graphic design course that I’m finishing up now. I work in that industry anyway – with multimedia, museums and technology – but actually doing design work is something completely different.

I’ve noticed a big change since I started studying design, when I was only engaged with the assignments on a surface level. Now I’m doing so much research before I get to the moment of designing something. I really enjoy it partly because it’s more about problem solving. I don’t consider music a “problem-solving experience.” It’s expressive, emotional and creative. I think that design comes from the other side of the brain. It stimulates my brain in the same way that learning a new language would.

Suzanne Kraft

All the cohesive record covers – that was all you, clearly.

Sui Zhen

It came from doing concepts for videos and I needed to finish the aesthetic. I love design, but it takes me ages. I get really stressed out about it. If you ask me to make a song in a day, though, I’m like, “Yeah, fucking bring it on.” For making a design, I’m like, “What is it about? What is it for? Who am I talking to?”

Suzanne Kraft

It will come with time and comfort. You’re so much more comfortable with music than design, right?

Sui Zhen

Yeah. I can’t wait to make music again. What’s your ideal studio set up?

Suzanne Kraft

It was always changing, especially with all the collaborations that I’ve been involved in. I’d always be in other people’s studios. In my bedroom setup at home, Ableton was the brain. Then I had a rack-mount Korg Wavestation and a MiniBrute bass synth, which I also used as a MIDI controller. (That was the only keyboard synth I had. I also used it as a bass synth.) I also had the NanoSynth, and then Ableton was used for drums, some samples and all of the effects. I guess that’s the ideal situation [for a solo bedroom setup]. My collaborators collectively had every synth, though, so I always had that stuff at my disposal. It was pretty ideal back in L.A., but I no regrets. I was like, “I’ll bring what I never use back home to limit myself.” Do you have a separate studio for audio and visual?

I’m not satisfied by my live options.

Sui Zhen

Sui Zhen

I used to, but now I’ve taken on a couple in the house that I live in so I no longer have a separate studio room. Now, the space I work in is just in design mode. I’ve got paints and ink everywhere. I’m going to America soon and I think I need to have a studio permanently set up for music stuff when I come back. I’ve been gigging a lot and I’ve been using the same stuff for live as well as studio work. I wouldn’t necessarily continue to do that. I’m not satisfied by my live options.

Suzanne Kraft

In anticipation of playing live – which hasn’t happened frequently – I started to get all of this smaller, rack-mount gear. Then once I filled a rack, I was like, “This is not mobile at all.” I did a thing with the MPC, NanoSynth and bass synth, but it was still too big. I admire people who can do a full live set on two iPads. Even though I wouldn’t do it myself, I think it’s cool.

Sui Zhen

I couldn’t do it because I essentially work for a software development company. I’m always interacting with interfaces and touchscreens. I would feel so lame – like someone who sits in front of a laptop and wears turtlenecks all day.

Suzanne Kraft

And pantsuits.

Sui Zhen

That Becky is not the Becky that gets onstage and brings a vibe.

Suzanne Kraft

To do a Suddenly Susan-era desktop computer live set.

Sui Zhen

Let’s talk about roller discos. You did one in Perth with Maria Mendez Miranda. Those guys are pretty cool.

Suzanne Kraft

I love it out there. I want to spend more time there.

Sui Zhen

In Perth?

Suzanne Kraft

In Perth? That’s usually the reaction I get, too. “Perth?”

Sui Zhen

It was cool. I agree. The weather was good.

Suzanne Kraft

You like sharks? They’ve got them.

Sui Zhen

They got them! I haven’t actually rollerskated for ages.

Suzanne Kraft

I surprised myself, actually. I thought I would totally eat shit, but I was told that I was pretty good on four wheels.

Sui Zhen

Skates are cool. I would like to do it. I know people think it’s not cool, though. I don’t know.

Suzanne Kraft

I did it.

Sui Zhen

When you were younger?

Suzanne Kraft

Yeah, I went to the skate parks with my rollerblades on.

Culture Beat - Mr. Vain

Sui Zhen

I grew up in the western suburbs of Sydney and I went to the industrial areas. There was a skate place there called Skate 2000. It was in the ’90s, so Skate 2000 was kind of futuristic. They played “Mr. Vain” and all this ’90s dance music.

Suzanne Kraft

I don’t know that one.

Sui Zhen

It’s so bad that it’s good.

Suzanne Kraft

Support your local roller disco.



Illustration: Shyama Golden

Header image © Shyama Golden

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