Coachella’s Highest-Ever Billed Female DJ Is Searching For "The Truest Version" Of Herself

Alison Wonderland (aka Alexandra Scholler) is making waves internationally as one of Australia's biggest DJ/producers. This month, the Sydneysider will headline Coachella behind her new album Awake, becoming the festival's highest-ever billed female DJ. But Scholler doesn't trade in hype.

Initially, the most striking aspect of Awake is its surreal, punk cover image of Scholler - very meme-able. In fact, it was an "outtake": the photographer accidentally snapped the purple-haired DJ rolling her eyes. They joked about it being the sleeve. "I kept looking at that photo, thinking, 'This is the photo that looks most like me,'" Scholler says. "I wanted to have a photo on the cover that represented honesty and who I really was, just like the album and the music. So I ended up choosing that one out of all the posed and styled photos!"

Scholler went through phases of playing cello in Sydney Youth Orchestra and bass in an indie band, yet she fully embraced electronica on hearing The Knife's Silent Shout in a club. Scholler DJed around Sydney while producing as Whyte Fang. She signed to EMI after impressing judges in 2011's She Can DJ contest (which Minx trumped), although Scholler has since expressed ambivalence about the marketing of the 'She-J'. She enjoyed her first 'hit' with I Want U, singing herself. In 2015, Scholler, now Los Angeles-based, delivered her debut, Run - its official lead single U Don't Know featuring The Flaming Lips' Wayne Coyne. It reached #1 on Billboard's Top Dance/Electronic Albums chart.

Scholler has always described herself as an "eclectic" DJ. However, as a producer, she's uniquely applied that airy 'Australian sound' to trap. On Awake, Scholler expands on Run's cloudy aesthetic - cue 2017 teaser Happy Place. Favouring "organic" collabs, she reunited in the studio with Norway's Lido, but also worked alongside Joel Little (Lorde) and The Weeknd associate Illangelo. And Scholler sought cred underground rapper guests, the buzziest being Chicago's Chief Keef on the abstract Dreamy Dragon (facilitated by her pal Lee Spielman from Odd Future's resident hardcore band Trash Talk). "We ended up meeting in the studio," Scholler says of Keef. "I played him some songs and he resonated with one of the beats and ended up writing to it and stayed there the whole night. It was great. He's actually a genius, honestly. I was really worried, 'cause I wasn't sure how I'd mesh with him. He was just so awesome to work with - really, he's awesome."

An intuitive songwriter, who wires into any "extreme sort of emotion", Scholler ruminated on her experiences with toxic relationships and anxiety. "It was kind of weird, because I didn't recognise I was feeling that way until I wrote it down. It was a subconscious thing. So it's weird, because I feel like sometimes the words I wrote on this album dictated how I ended up dealing with things in real life. I feel like I found my self-worth again from writing this, which is a very strange thing. But it felt like therapy for me."

Scholler is chilled about her expanding influence. She sensationally remixed Dua Lipa's New Rules. "Honestly, I hadn't really heard of Dua Lipa before I did the song. I got played the song and I fell in love with it." In 2017 she likewise entered the DJ Mag Top 100 DJs Poll at #89 (and won New Artist Of The Year over Marshmello at the inaugural Electronic Music Awards). "I don't think a competition like that should really define how good or bad a DJ is, but it's still nice to be acknowledged." As for Coachella? "The Coachella thing's crazy!" Scholler enthuses. "I'm super-excited about that." Last touring Australia recently with her boutique festival, the Wonderland Scarehouse Project, she'll return for club dates in May.

Still, Scholler isn't that super-DJ who flosses about their 'brand'. "I think I come from that indie mentality. I've never really been one to plug a brand, to me it's kind of naff... But, for me, it's really important to stay being myself. Because I wanna look back on this time in my life and know I really was the truest version of me, and the only reason I was doing it was 'cause I loved it."