All Of The Lights

10 April 2014 | 11:22 am | Benny Doyle

"I write music to perform live, which is also inherently visua."

On For You, the ambitious latest EP from electro pop visionary Michelle Xen, came into fruition following visits to Berlin and New York in 2012. It was here that she romanced the creative opportunities associated with the two cities, surrounding herself with kindred spirits.

“In New York I never felt like I had to apologise for the full extent of my creative ambitions and in Berlin I was completely submerged in a world of artists doing multiple things,” she fondly recalls. “It was like dating two cities, I wanted to know who I might end up with.”

Both stints encouraged the Brisbane performer to move further towards interdisciplinary art, the results seeing the five tracks of On For You all coupled with an accompanying video. Yes, it's an epic workload – Xen admits she had to convince a few people around her to tackle it – but given the chance she'd do it all over again.

“I write music to perform live, which is also inherently visual,” she explains. “I am essentially aiming to create layers of intensity in the live show both aurally and visually. In terms of production, I try to balance the AV elements, for instance after all these music videos I am buried in creating a new body of music for the next EP. It is challenging but the productive energy of working on audio and visual elements together feels like a natural state. I keep calling On For You an AVEP [Audio Visual Extended Play], but people look at me blankly! Tis the future though...”

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Fronting her crack band The Neon Wild, Xen is set to flesh out the full EP for us, tying in with the release of her fourth single from the record, Electro Comb. Built on a circular motion of both sampled drums and synth, the track swirls around your ears. Xen calls it “a weird experiment of a song”, that also stands as a reaction to the world weighing on your shoulders.

“I imagined a kid trying to pull though difficult things, so instead of closing down and shutting things out, you open up and go into the world,” she explains. “Comb your hair and hit the streets with music in your ears. So the Electro Comb is the tool for hard times. There is a thread of finding light in the dark though all the songs on the EP, though this song is the weirdest incarnation.”

And in bringing this and the rest of her canon together, Xen and her Neon Wild cohorts are excited to spread the crazy joy they share with punters far and wide. “We are always there to play hard and seek out that blistering goodness of getting people dancing or shifting people's heads away from the everyday world for a little while,” she enthuses. “And I am sewing a few new pieces to wear as always; I live for that live show.”