Interview with Lane Shi Otayonii

Interview with Lane Shi Otayonii
(Dent, Elizabeth Colour Wheel, Otay:onii)

The WHEN team sat down for a call with Lane of Elizabeth Colour Wheel and Otay:onii and had a nice conversation about her approaches to making art, both collaboratively and by herself, as well as China’s music scene, her own artistic practice, and what’s up next...

WHEN: Did you always want to have a career as an artist and what were some of your influences?

Lane: When I was young, I think I joined the choir and learned piano, but I hated piano since then because it was very dull. But later, when I started to sing, I found that it’s really cool and I can express myself.

I have a little bit of a problem with communicating with others all the time. I remember I read a book called Outsider by Guiyeoni, a Korean novelist. She wrote a lot of soap novels. When I was young, I really liked to read and study. When I discovered Outsider, I finished it and found out that she was scouting for theme songs, so I composed a song immediately with just piano and voice; however, I didn’t send it to her, but it became the first starter kit for me to approach conversation and start to sing and compose.

Of course later on, all kinds of punk bands began to influence me, like the Distillers, Queenadreena, Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Back in China, there’s a lot of other bands, Twisted Machine. I had just finished high school and I went to Beijing to see Twisted Machine, they had a whole other lineup back then. I sorta saw the scene in Beijing, it’s quite different compared to now. I’m sure you already know this band Ommnipotent Youth Society. One of the band members I think is either a high school or college Chinese teacher and he wrote really beautiful lyrics. The kind of lyrics that will make you cry and they meld with the melodies super well. They’re one of the huge influences when I was young.

WHEN: How do you view vocals as an instrument and what influenced how you do vocals?

L: First of all, I think most people don’t treat vocalists as having an instrument built into your body or see voice as an instrument but indeed it is. It’s a very intimate and biological instrument. It comes from a place that’s very convenient to carry. It’s in our body, and it needs a lot of tension for us to connect with it, which means we need to take care of it. When we don’t feel well, we instantly feel it in our throat. So in that perspective, the voice is super unique and it changes through the time. I’ll never sound the same as when I was five, or when I’m 90, if I live that long. I think that it’s really interesting and it’s irreplaceable as well. If you have a guitar, and your guitar broke, you can always get another guitar. But if you destroy your voice you can only get so much surgery, your voice will be altered forever and once your voice is gone, it’s done. So it’s a super fragile instrument. I like to think about that because I simply believe everyone has the potential to use voice as an instrument, whether you sing with a melody or not, you’re just using voice to express something, give a yell, give a shout, that’s also an instrument. To me that’s super powerful.

WHEN: Do you think most singers think of their voice as an instrument?

L: I do think that people bring up the subject of voice as an instrument; people like to engage with that, but there’s very little vocalists that fully explore the potential of voice... It comes differently when you talk to different kinds of artists, the endeavor of their approaches. For example, I think that in the environment of classical, (because I used to do opera) I do not think people see it as an instrument. I think they see it as a cliche to call the voice an instrument. They treat it as voice, you know “I’m a vocalist” , “I’m an opera singer” , I need to take good care of my voice, drink a gallon of honey and lemon water a day, never smoke, do this, do that.

For me that is a little different of an approach because I do think that, yes you do need to take care of it and in fact you feel all the effects go through it but for me experience is the most important. I experience my life and I want my voice to reflect life. I don’t want to restrict anything when it comes to voice. I think it’s that nuance that’s different.

WHEN: Your solo work as otay:onii is radically different, sonically, from your band Elizabeth Colour Wheel. Do you write most of the lyrics for the band?

L: Yes, Yes, I did.

WHEN: I’ve seen you mention the differences between working on music in a band vs. solo in another interview. Is there a conscious decision when you write a new song in deciding if this should be a song for your band or your solo work?

L: Yes, Working with a band is much different, and I wouldn’t say I’m autistic, but I do have social anxiety quite a bit. When something is so timid and hard to articulate, and I have to bring it to the band, I have many occasions where I think the band doesn’t get it at all. That is very hard for me, so I tend to push those stuff, materials, to my solo work. Once it’s done, I can propose it to the band, or pick other songs where I think, to my understanding of my bandmates, that they would appreciate more or [it would] speak to them more.

I have a song on my new album Dream Hacker, the first song, You Do. I brought it to the band. It was a very difficult process because I don't think the band knew what to do with the song even though I expressed it vocally. We had to do a demo to fully lay out what’s the feeling and vibe behind it and that was a difficult process. I'm glad to do it, but for me, if this was a year ago and you bring this song fresh out to the band and let them try out anything, it would be impossible. Also for me the creative process is different…when anyone brings a song to the band, I hear voices and melodies instantly, but I don’t hear lyrics. When I compose solely, lyrics and songs come together in a very intimate setting and that allows me to compose with more honesty vs. urgency. With the band, rehearsals are very scarce, when a new song is brought up I feel this urgency. I don't have enough time to compose something on the spot. I think the challenge with the band is a good challenge for me because it’s very rare you can work with people creatively and constantly have an output like that.

WHEN: A lot of your music as otay:onii is sung in Chinese. Do you think the listener gets the full understanding of your music without knowing Mandarin? One of my friends was telling me how in general he thinks you lose a lot from Chinese music without knowing the language even if you’re given an English translation.

L: This is a very interesting question because this is the research I'm going for as well, if people get the meaning without knowing the lyrics. There’s 2 parts. One part I translate the Chinese lyrics to English with my own understanding, and if people really want to know they can always find the english translation on my bandcamp or vinyl inserts. The 2nd is my research on sonic meaning is that even though you don’t know the lyrics, the literal meaning behind it, by hearing it, you can feel what it is about.

There’s an interesting story about a monastery back in the days. There’s a monk, the practitioner, he was not very good at understanding the script the master was talking about. He was assigned to sweep all the dirt off the shoes of every monk in the monastery. One day he just woke earlier than every other practitioner in the monastery and the master asked for the reason for it. He said even though I was sweeping the leaves and the dirt off the shoes, I don’t understand the literal meaning but I was listening as well. When I'm listening I believe the message of the meaning had embedded itself in the sound of the words. I had no clue why I understood it suddenly but I had. This story inspired me so much to a point where sometimes I believe lyrics are very unnecessary unless you really feel like there’s a need for it. I sorta took it to heart, took to my practice as well. I think it’s very hard for the listener to understand Chinese immediately but I do believe some way or another they will.

I have many friends show songs to their friends and they actually ask if i’m singing in English or other languages, which was very interesting to me. I think It is very hard in terms of the way I wrote my lyrics, it’s very abstract and it has no clear pronunciation as well because my pronunciation is very blurred out. I try to bridge the lyrics to the melody line so that is definitely a phenomenon which I encounter very much. Which I’m not worried about at all, again I think if people want to know they will still kinda dig out the details of it

WHEN: I want to ask about China’s music scene specifically; How cohesive are independent music scenes in China, at least in the parts of China you’d be familiar with? Is it difficult for small artists to get their work out?

L: To be honest, I think yes. Because China, I think the music scene has a very interesting hierarchy, even back then, but less and less now, because people try to include everybody and highly emphasize the improvisational aspect of music now. For a band to start a show, I think it’s very crucial that they play with like minded musicians as well. But also I’ve seen my friends doing shows in cafes because there's literally a lot of cafes in Shanghai, like two cafes in one block. I've seen people literally hosting shows there and it’s really quite a community, it varies. Also, in a village setting, everyone was there to see what’s going on, so it really depends whether the musician or players wants to connect with the surroundings, or they want to do it as their career. Two very different mindsets lead to very different places. Back in the days, I started to hang out with local promoters and I had no bands, I had no projects back then, I was in America learning opera and classical composition but I was highly obsessed with the local scene and shows and the community. So I would hang out with them very often and see the shows come and gone and the players too. Later when I joined my band, my friend organized a 14 city China tour for me and I know it was because he was my friend and his crew were my friends too. So still a very really important facet of friendship in this context.

WHEN: Would you say there’s misconceptions about the extent of China’s modern music scenes in the west or is it more so they don’t even know it exists. Even among Chinese Americans, the extent of Chinese music most of us are aware of is usually the old Cantopop singers that our parents or grandparents listened to.

L: That’s definitely true, I think that’s it because back then those singers were international, global in a sense because through Taiwan and Hong Kong they connected with the international stage, and they collaborated with other fashion designers. For example Leslie Cheung collabed with Jean Paul Gaultier to curate the whole outfit for his concert back in the 90s. And that is apparently a big thing in China in general and when the world connects with China that way, it becomes big, or at least known. But now because it’s really hard to get a visa to go to China and it’s on and off all the time because of the pandemic and all that, even before.

There’s a cutoff between the musicians outside and Chinese musicians unless you already have the resources to go outside and show yourself and your music and tour. So that is definitely a huge reason why people don’t know about the China scene. I also want to say that China in itself, people will say that China is a really homogenous country. In some sense I understand why people will say that because of politics and all that. But let’s also separate the government and the people a little bit; if we want to talk about the people, China really has a lot of ethnic groups. There's the Miao, Han, each ethnic group have their own culture and when it comes to that, when culture comes it always accompanies with music first. So I think when people talk about China, it’s also really important to know there’s a lot of this ethnic music that is constantly going on and still thriving in communities and at least they try to. I hope in the future, including inside of China, people can really archive and preserve this music, let's call it music ethnology. Because they’re very important to the heritage of these people and the whole environment and can build better understanding for people to understand the kind of music influences from China.

WHEN: Are there pressures or clashes between the artists and the institutions or any outlets you might work with in China not even on the political side but simply over pieces seeming too weird, avant garde, vulgar or any other way it might seem too unconventional compared to what art traditionally is?

L: Constantly and definitely. And I think it’s really important for me to see Ming Ming released around 2021. When it came out, it had better repercussions in China than the US. I think a lot of weirdos in China started to approach me and started to go “oh yeah I like your music”. Then I put out Dream Hacker. I think I was writing all the songs in a better mental health state. I wish to continue my life with a healthier note, in terms of friendship and all that. People found it more repetitive and weird in a sense that it's not that kind of weird they like. So these weirdos went away, yet I still don’t speak to all the masses that would be really drawn to pop music, which is totally fine. Again I feel like music composition, all the musicians need to realize that these are not done for the crowd, that's never the goal. If you find friends along the way, that's awesome. But if not, that's okay.

I think honesty is the most important part of it. So yeah, definitely a lot of weird phenomena. I quite enjoy it though. I observe it…it comes and goes like wind.

WHEN: I was looking at some of the pieces on your site and was most interested in the piece called Unwrap! you did. Could you explain more about this performance? I'm interested in hearing how you came up with the characters and how their body instruments were used.

L: Yes, so it's a commission piece from this curator Sam, and it premiered in Ming Contemporary Art Museum. First of all I need to thank her and the museum for, you know, literally giving me the funding to do this piece. Because I have tried so many times to apply for fundings and doing similar things in the US or you know, locally in New York, but I have not succeeded once. So going back and receiving such a chance to do this piece is a big deal for me.

Talking about the piece, I think I was trying to establish the meaning of shadow and breaking the boundary and what is it to break the boundary? What is it like to have all kinds of stuff going super wrong and going left and right now according to our plan but you are still walking out, getting a lot of knowledge and wisdom from it. And this piece is exactly that and that's why it’s called Unwrap , it’s to dig into the most nitty gritty side of your thought and find a light shedding through that. I have worked with the architect who helped me build the stage so to speak. It's 4 plates hanging around above the performer's head; so there are 5 performers and, when they move, the plates will move as well. The 2 plates will collide and create a shadow that collides and when the shadow collides, is when the characters start to move around and break their boundaries. So the meaning behind shadow is that while you think it's something that blocks you, it can also be something that sets you free. and for example, I will say, oh yeah, I'm ugly. I'm so ugly, but I'm free. You know, I have no mental low weight for me to be pretty for me to be, you know, always up to date for this and that; I'm free. So that's kind of the realm I'm going to.

I have the Noseblower as the first character which I play with and it's a character that is powerless and blows nose when it feels very embarrassed. I attach a kazoo at the end of my nose, so when I blow my nose, it actually sounds like a kazoo.

I also have another character named Trapo which has a track call attached to its mouth. On the left hand it has a quarter and on the right hand it has a flower so it's a character that constantly lures everything together with these benefits, which means fame and power.

The third one is Necroco, it's a nervous character. I built a heart using epoxy and it has a thunderbolt in them so it has a string and it shakes, making this really loud anxious sound.

Another character's name is called Featherhead and it's a really fat and little grumpy character and the body is a balloon and stomp feet which I have built metal percussion under the shoe. Wherever it feels angry it would stomp the feet and the feather on his head is indeed a symbol of how timid actually this character feels inside and how easy it gets agitated by small matters.

The last character is called Farty and I attach a harp to its butt, so whenever it scratched the butt, it will make this (harp sound effect) sound. And when you hear it, it makes this crowded and almost annoying sound. Its character symbolizes the endless talking and bullshit that it will bring to the table.

So all these characters are having a negative effect on their mental state and it shows on their body which reflects on their instruments. And again, it's one of their body parts. So I play with all these instruments, all these sounds, all these characteristics to compose a thirty-minute piece and and all these characters will perform and break out in the end, they will put down all their instruments and start to sing with me. And that's when they walk out of the stage and walk to the audiences.

I will say that it's quite a trip to compose this piece and actually just recently, my friend Nessa curated a show called More Than a Human and this piece was included and shown as a video in the exhibition in Blanc R Space 81 in Beijing. I'm super glad that it's shown again, even though not in a performance way because I think if there's any chance, I would like to bring it back for sure.

WHEN: Is there a conscious evolution in what you incorporate into your performances over time? I noticed you incorporated the Noseblower mask into your solo work and you’ve used a keytar now in both your band and solo shows.

L: I do think that when I bring the Noseblower back to the US and I actually use it in my otay:onii set, I feel I need to have some company. That's why I bring it back and I see it as my amulet. And still you know I feel as a Chinese-kind-of-immigrant. I just got my green card but the story of getting this green card, it's very difficult, and I have been rejected twice before and have had 2 lawyers, one of which had put me to a debt company because I haven't returned all the money to him because of this visa fee, even though I didn't get this visa through her.

Being such a timid [person] and trying to speak out for our voices as a Chinese American, an immigrant, here I feel that it's necessary and it gives me a lot of courage and comfort to wear this mask on stage. Also I tend to perform with it somewhat naked and I don't want people to see me as a woman, I don’t want to see that they gaze at me with a male gaze, I wanna confuse their gaze by wearing a mask. Because it’s quite gruesome, the mask, so it really makes them confused and don’t know what to do. And it also breaks some boundaries in some terms because I don't see myself as, you know, always having a benefit as others do.

For example, in my band, whenever we go to Europe or Canada, I'm the only one that needs to go to the embassy again, apply for visa, arrange for appointment, have an application fee. Constantly I feel I'm reminded of how I'm not equal or I'm not the same as everybody else. In that sense, I feel like I have found gold in trash. Yes, so what, you know I'm in some sense subhuman, but I could do a lot that maybe people can finally see, finally communicate if they want to.

And also there's an anecdote to why I use a keytar. As you can see the keytar is very big, it looks like an axe, like a big knife of some sort. That's because when I performed in Chicago with my band, some audience members started to fight me when I came down from the stage and walked to the audience. That person drummed on my back and started to feel me on the ground and for literally 5 minutes me and him started to like, fight each other.

So I got this keytar because it looks like an ax and if there's anybody there to do the same thing again, I will just literally poke that person with my big instrument or whack their head or something. So that's one of the reasons why I got it, but I love this instrument so much,

it's literally another friend of mine. For the first time besides piano, I feel I finally have an instrument where I can bring it everywhere I go even though it's still very heavy but you know less heavy than a piano. All the functions and insides of the keytar really speaks to me dearly and when I hold it in my hands, I feel like it really synchronizes with my moves and expresses what I had in mind. So everything is coming together and I'm glad I found them along the way, through very incidental little things that I wouldn't necessarily want to have, but in the end, I'm glad that it came out fruitful.

WHEN: Do you have anything coming up you want to promote? I know you’re doing some shows in New York and a tour later in July.

L: Yes, this is very exciting. I have a tour with Tashi Dorji. Tashi is from Bhutan and we played a show back in December for the Catalytic Sound in North Carolina and Tashi and I started to think about a tour so I would be doing a tour of Tashi and also his son Mila and touring probably a week from Washington DC to New York and also Kingston, upstate New York. Following that I will be going to Montreal and Australia in August to play some festivals and other shows.

In September I will be doing another tour with fitn3ss. I don't know if you all have heard of fitn3ss but I think you would really appreciate fitn3ss as well. A dear friend of mine and also a super interesting performer, same kind of realm as I do. So September a West Coast tour with fitn3ss and in October my band will tour and also I'm going back to China to tour.

So the whole year around, I'm just gonna go because I think it's determined that this is what I wanna do so why not just do it?

Lane Shi’s newest album as otay:onii is Dream Hacker & is available on Bandcamp. We at WHEN thank Lane for taking the time for this interview & hope you check out her website, music & really recommend you catch her live shows, her upcoming tours are shown above.