Getting To Know:Sky-A

Walker' is described as an angry piece of music, touching on anti-imperial levels of anger and the realization of participating in impactful, negative events. Can you elaborate on how personal experiences and emotions influenced the creation of this track, and what message you hope listeners will take away from it?

First of all I just realised the first line of the track is 'Baby steps'... so that's quite cool. I'm not necessarily writing about specific experiences, I think. But the emotions of growing up in the western world, as you come to learn more about our history, what this is built on, swallowing the bitter pill of colonial atrocities and wanting to reformulate yourself as something positive in the context of that, is the feeling behind the song. It's set in a made-up scenario with fictional characters but the feeling is 100% real.

Your approach to music involves synaesthesia, where you perceive music as a multi-sensory experience. How does this unique perspective shape the composition process, and how do you translate the visual and emotional aspects into the sonic landscape of a track like 'Walker'?

The loud pulse at the heart of Walker feels like a piston to me. Like being inside a rigid machine. So then you've got these more delicate elements creeping in around that, they're almost like flowers growing up in amongst the heavy industry. Which is quite on-point thematically as well.

The visual element is crucial to your work, given your background as a filmmaker and motion graphics artist. How do you integrate long-form storytelling and hypnotic abstract visuals into your music, and how does this visual storytelling enhance the overall impact of your musical narrative?

I'm working on visuals for each single that comes out, and ultimately I'm looking to create a full audiovisual show for live performance, with each track like a scene in a film.

In describing your music, you mention each track as a scene with instruments representing characters, akin to your own version of "Swan Lake." Could you delve into the thematic elements and characters present in 'Walker,' and how they contribute to the overarching story you aim to tell with your debut album?

A character called Walker is showing the narrator a new way of walking through the city, one that exposes its rough edges, brutal machinery, but also the space for renewal, nature finding a way. The voice and acoustic guitar are the narrator, the electric guitar is Walker, the throbbing industrial pulse is the city itself.

You collaborated with Adam Betts for virtuoso drums and Aneek Thapar for additional production and mixing on 'Walker.' How did these collaborations shape the sonic landscape of the track, and what was the creative process like working with such talented individuals?

It's a very atmospheric track, so getting the texture and mix right was key. The layers fit together amazingly thanks to Aneek's mix. He's got a way of making everything sound really epic – we got to go full ham on this, with the guitar solo at the end. Adam had fun too, with this slightly stuttering but really heavy beat. I'm obsessed with a particular moment near the very end where we added loads of reverb to a single moment of percussion, absolutely sells it in my opinion.

The lyrics of 'Walker' explore themes of self-knowledge and finding inner strength. How do these lyrical elements tie into the broader narrative of your upcoming debut album, and how does the album as a whole explore the complexities of personal growth and resilience?

The whole album follows this kind of healing / discovery arc. This track is quite a pivotal moment, kind of a 'rock bottom' as an opportunity to turn things around. It represents a shift in energy – the tracks that follow it are wild!

I think mental health, self knowledge and social/political engagement are all quite interconnected, it feels right to me to write music about a personal journey to self-posessed-ness. The experiences inspiring the music might be specific to me but I think there could be something universal and functionally anthemic about the feelings there.

The sound of 'Walker' is described as having a feeling of molten rock and tectonic movement. Can you share more about the sonic inspirations and techniques you employed to create this specific atmosphere, and how it aligns with the thematic essence of the track?

I dabbed an unplugged guitar cable with my finger! Retuned it, put it through some distortion, added some sub bass. I chopped it up, reversed it, added layers with different fx like reverb. Then added chops of other sounds from other projects to spice it up. Because it's so central and so thick, it has a physicality to it, again, like a piston.