Wired For Sound

Seja Vogel is a delight. The German-born local songstress with the chatty nature and infectious laugh struck out solo in 2010 with her pretty and playful debut album ode to the analogue synthesiser, We Have Secrets But Nobody Cares. She's broadened her instrumental palate across All Our Wires, moving away from the bedroom recordings and the childhood themes of her debut in favour of a more robust and considered effort that gets to the bottom of all her bountiful feelings while still honouring her instrument of choice.

“I had quite a few things that were on my mind I guess, and my friends always joke that I have lots of feelings! So I had a lot of feelings; I needed to get them out. I was actually thinking of calling the album So Many Feelings, but I thought that that would just be funny to my friends and everyone else would think I was a dick,” chuckles Vogel. “The title track on the album is about untangling all your wires with people in your life. I think I reached a point where I just thought I really just wanted to be great with everyone in my life; I don't want any problems, I don't want any drama, I just want to have a nice time with the people I love…” she admits of the album's theme.

Vogel certainly has the musical chops to justify the title of synth whisperer, though is truly deserving considering she has a business replicating instruments in miniature using felt – mostly her beloved Moogs. Taking orders worldwide, Vogel had become so adept at her craft that she proposed to make a giant felt synthesiser for her album cover in a grant submission to Arts Queensland.

“Part of my grant application was to replicate this picture of Keith Emerson from Emerson, Lake And Palmer. Keith Emerson was famous for this huge modular synthesiser that he had and they used to call it the monster Moog and there's this famous story of him saying, 'It's not big enough' – so they put a television on top of the Moog so it would be even more monstrous. I had this picture and I thought that it just looked so amazing and I'm such a synth nerd that I love the way those things look anyway, so I was like, 'I'm gonna make this…' And then I got the grant and I remember thinking, 'Oh my god I got the grant',” she exclaims excitedly. “And then, 'Oh no, I'm gonna have to make this thing and it's gonna take me forever'. It took me about four months; I hand-sewed the Moog and I had one sewing circle with a bunch of my friends who helped me sew some of the knobs because I think I had to make about 164 of those felt knobs. So I just made some snacks and bought some wine and had a little knob circle!” she says with a big laugh. Hiring a truck to cart her creation to The Hi-Fi for a photo shoot with Stephen Booth, Vogel played around with poses until an epic smoke-machine backed head-banger was captured. “It was such an amazing photo. I feel like it's a real misrepresentation of my songs, but Stephen said, 'Seja – you've made a giant synthesiser out of felt and hired two smoke machines – you've made a few decisions',” she admits in a fit of giggles.

Prior to going solo, Vogel was already a notable identity. She toured worldwide with her brother Mirko in the power-pop trio Sekiden, and cemented her reputation as a talented synth nerd as a member of Regurgitator, who she still tours sporadically with. Recording All Our Wires with her producer brother who she describes as an “amazing wizard of sound”, the pair had access to a host of impressive guest musicians. 

“[For Like Fireflies] I really wanted a sort of Stereolab-esque running bassline and Mirko and I were struggling to think of something cool to do so we asked a professional bass player!” she says of getting Regurgitator bassist Ben Ely involved. “It was kind of nice because Quan [Yeomans] did some stuff on the first record and Ben did stuff on this one, so maybe I'll get Pete Kostic to do something on the next one,” Vogel ponders of her Regurgitator pals, adding that Tim Hoey from Cut Copy added some noise out guitars on Imaginations In Hyperspace. On the German language Die Wolken, the inimitable Robert Forster features.

“I wanted it to be a duet with a male voice singing in unison with me and I guess Robert was the first person I thought of to do that because we run into each other in Brisbane every now and then, and his wife is German and quite often we talk in German and it's kind of fun. We set up facing each other and sang and every now and then I'd sort of close my eyes when I sang it and every now and again I'd open my eyes and I could see Robert dancing to my song. It was so great!”

Vogel even had Wally de Backer work on an arrangement: “Wally and I share a love for nerdy aspects of music so we always talk about organs and synths and stuff,” she explains, noting their affinity for cult organ record Yamaha Superstar. “He bought the organ, the actual organ – the Yamaha Superstar organ. It weighs about 500 kilos and it's amazing! I had this really great day of playing with heaps of Wally's stuff and nerding out,” she says of taking him up on an offer to visit his Yamaha EX-42.

As Vogel left his peninsula studio, she handed him a copy of her freshly mastered album. She experienced a serious car crash on her way back to Melbourne, and finally arrived after the ordeal to a host of messages from de Backer asking to work on When You Said You Were Mine. The following day he left for the Grammy Awards and international acclaim. “He just became the most popular person in the world straight after, and I felt like I didn't want to hurry him along obviously. It ended up delaying the album a little bit I guess but it was well worth it – he came up with some really good ideas that have definitely made the song better. As we say in the industry, he made the choruses pop!” she giggles.

“I feel really excited. I think it's gonna be fun to tour it and it's definitely been fun to talk about,” Vogel says of All Our Wires, offering a quick recap of the process with her trademark humour. “I almost died and then Gotye worked on my song, yay! I made this giant synthesiser that almost killed me but yay, it looks great!”