Nothing Deep To Say #3 - TWST and Lauren Aquilina Transcend The Self on "Off-World"

I frequently find new music by looking through album credits on sites like Qobuz. I wondered what producer Mike Spencer had worked on lately after his run of UK hits like “Feel The Love” by Rudimental and Ellie Goulding’s “Figure 8”, and then TWST blew me away with a glitzy cyborg epic about romantic transcendence. Taking influence from “All The Things She Said” by T.A.t.u, Seal’s 1991 epic “Crazy”, as well as Ursula Le Guin’s Left Hand of Darkness and Maggie Nelson’s The Argonauts, it follows TWST escaping the real world into a utopia where they are seen, understood, and loved. I previously wrote about this on the revived Singles Jukebox, but I knew I wasn’t done.  

So many things came to mind - the consciousnesses ascending at the end of Her, the transhumanist closeness of Genesis and Lady Jaye, the love story of Neo and Trinity Becoming One in Matrix Resurrections. I have a whole playlist of songs about that kind of merging, both the blissful kind and the deeply toxic kind. (I’ll link it on the paid tier!)

The song was also co-written by Lauren Aquilina, as well as their partner Marcus Andersson. Lauren Aquilina’s written songs like “Swap Places” and “Empathy” about insecurity and enmeshment, respectively, and it lends even more context for this song. When trying to get close to someone, “Off-World” is the goal, and “I don’t want to feel all of your feelings anymore!” from “Empathy” is often reality. I’ve been following Aquilina’s career for a while, as they’ve delved into co-writing for acts like K-pop group LE SSERAFIM and alt-pop star/John Wick 4 actress Rina Sawayama. I grew up watching the singer on YouTube, specifically a cover of the Coldplay song “Charlie Brown” featuring future Hannahfave Orla Gartland. (Coincidentally, Gartland also has a song about desiring to swap places with someone; no, I don’t think Gartland and Aquilina’s songs are about each other).

I asked Davis and Aquilina why British musicians like them and Dodie always sing about this topic, and Lauren Aquilina jokingly lamented “we're all uncomfortable and awkward!" That’s why we need music, getting us that much closer to fully understanding one another through the power of breakbeats and vocal samples.

Below, the pair break down “Off-World”, talking about the production process, the lyrics, and more. 

BACKGROUND:

How did you first get into music production?

Chloe: I went into music production I guess like I was in uni and I was  yeah, I was doing music production in Uni, ICMP in Kilburn. So I guess, my first introduction to it was when I was a teenager. I wasn't actually producing that much back then, but I was always around studios. I would just hear Songs being made all the time. So you would just intrinsically understand how things are built because you just hear it happening. When it came to actually producing, I was like “Oh, this is I really know what to do here in terms of how to build songs, cause I've just listened to it being done so much”. It got to a point where I've written a bunch of songs. And I said to my manager at the time, “I need to get these produced because this is driving me crazy.” I was trying to push him to help me finish the project, and I thought “you know what, I’m just gonna do this on my own.” So I basically just locked myself in a room for two weeks, and that’s when I just really nailed down on production. And then from that I took that approach to everything.

Lauren: For me, it's very new, Marcus and I didn't work together for the first two years that we were dating. But. COVID gave us the chance to say okay, now feels like the right time to try and start working together and it worked out. We worked really well together and he has been producing for a long time. During COVID I got to start watching everything that he was doing and shadow him, basically. But implementing my own ideas in the production slowly as I was learning like the lingo and like how to express what I wanted.

And then eventually he was like - “you are fully co producing these songs, you're playing parts having ideas building the structure of the song, coming up with chords that all counts as production.” I had been doing bits of that in the music industry for 10 years at that point, but I didn't know that was production. I still have a very long way to go with it, but I feel like it's actually an achievable goal now that I've had my eyes open. I'm very excited to get more into it. And these two were kind enough to let me have a co-producer credit! 

How did you meet?

Lauren: This is a great story! What happened first is I watched a lot of YouTube, and I got a very strange ad. I think I was actually with Matthew and Marcus, and maybe Orla was there as well, and we just didn't skip the ad because we were wondering what was going on. And it turned out to be a TWST music video. 

And then by the end of it, we were like “oh my God, that was amazing. Who is that?” So I stalked her a little bit and went to her show and it was incredible. 

Chloe: Aw, Lauren! And then we got pasta a couple of weeks later or something, didn't we? It took us a while to actually write with each other. 

Do you think of TWST as a separate entity from Chloe? 

Chloe: No, not at all. And it's something actually really interesting because it wasn't really obvious to me at the beginning of creating TWST, whether it was something completely separate. I don't know whether I've just embodied TWST more. I don't know where the two come together, but with my first project I definitely felt like a bit of a separation. With this new era I’ve consciously tried to fill the gap for a few reasons, one being that I just want to be very natural and don't want to have to overthink and conceptualize everything to the point. So there's not really much difference. Like when I get up on stage, I don't feel any different. I feel very much like the same person.

What do the lyrics of Off-World mean to you?

Lauren: Chloe is this endless fountain of creative ideas. And I feel like I'm the person who takes those ideas and maybe sorts them into some kind of order or something. I feel like that's our writing relationship. And I love being in the writer's relationship with artists. I get to just let them be themselves, and I remember the day you [Chloe] started the Google Doc of lyrical ideas.

You had all of these crazy things written down, just so many lyrical ideas and a lot of which we ended up using in the song in various ways. But you had the title Off-World, and I remember instantly just like loving it, because I love surrealism, I love thinking about spaces that don't actually exist, and looking at life that way makes it way more magical to me, so I was instantly down. And then we just spent a long time crafting it and shaping it and trying to make it make sense as much as possible.

Chloe: It’s about trying to break free of all the expectations and societal norms that are put onto us and feeling so brought down by them. It’s creating a new space, sonically. physically, metaphysically, just all these different ways to exist.

I first interpreted it as directed at a romantic partner; is it possible that it’s about the listener too?

Chloe: it’s trying to redefine like a space for love as well, and being able to meet someone in this space where you could both exist together. It wasn't written about a specific person in my life or Lauren's life but I think it was about trying to build this space, where you could meet someone and you could both feel super comfortable.

I wanted to ask about the first verse with the lines “two are one/but we’re stuck in shapes/that we didn’t choose/what a human fate.”

Lauren: I like when songs are vague enough that it can be applied to different things. But I feel like we, Chloe and I, have our own reasons why we struggle to be our true selves or connect to our authentic selves or something. And I think we're both - Sorry if I'm speaking for you, Chloe.

Chloe: I think you know me really well, Lauren!

Lauren: We’re trying to do that through our music as much as possible. I really struggle with it socially. I don't feel like I'm able to give a true representation of how I see myself. So for me, the song is I want to be in a safe space where I feel like I'm being my true, authentic self and, and for me, that's usually when I'm completely alone, 

And it would be amazing to have that place where I could do that not alone and meet other people in that space but I think that my interpretation of it is also very different to Chloe's. It's just a song that feels healing for different reasons.

It’s written as “2R1” on the lyrics sheet. Does that mean anything? 

Chloe: What's interesting about this is me and Lauren didn't write it like this. It was a fan that wrote it like this on Genius. And now I've been making TikToks using 2R1… But I looked over it and I was like “this goes hard.” I'm sorry there's not some cryptic insight we can give you. 

I always feel like once a project's released, people chip in little bits, and they interpret it. On my EP cover, I've got a secret language on there, which I didn't intend for anyone to ever spend the time trying to figure out what that thing's saying. On my Discord, they've already figured it out, which is crazy, right?

On the front cover, and on my merch coming out I've written a really long piece of writing that took me ages in the language thinking no one's ever gonna figure this out so I can write whatever I want, but on my discord they've already figured it out. I feel like when a record is released, people put on Genius what they think it is and it just adds more and more of a character around it. I really love moments like that where I'm like “yeah, sure, 2R1, let's go with that.” It feels like a collaborative experience.

PRODUCTION:

Let’s talk about producing Off-World.

Chloe: Marcus found that breakbeat sample and we thought “yeah, this goes hard, this is exactly what we’re trying to encapsulate.” Very early on, we realized “no, this is like Madonna’s Ray of Light.” This is like an anthem. Obviously, also T.A.t.u’s “All The Things She Said”, and that was a question mark for a while as to whether it was too close to T.A.t.u, but then we were like, "if it's going to sound like any song it's going to be that song."

Mike Spencer is credited with production too, and he made a lot of music for Ellie Goulding and Rudimental in the early 2010s.

Chloe: Mike wasn't involved in the production or the creation of the record at all, but he was heavily involved in finishing off.

I started Most Viewed with Mike a very long time ago, but I ended up changing quite a lot. And then he came back on board and he mixed it and did a lot of production. Off the back of that, he was really wanting to do more on the project. I sent him “Off-World” being like “hey, would love to know your thoughts on this.”

But knowing Mike, he will tell you every thought he has. He’s super specific about drum programming. The difference is not crazy noticeable, but he basically was just really focused on rebuilding the same sounds with more clarity. He just added to the drum production, but none of the patterns changed and everything, the energy that we created in the session was, is still very much like what's there on the record now.

The reason Mike was so passionate about the drums on this record is because of the kind of drums they are and the kind of work he's done, and this record felt like a fresh take on stuff that he used to do with a completely new and fresh artist. 

How did Clarence Clarity get involved?

Chloe: Clarence's role in this, really we had a really, such a cute day, didn't we Lauren, down in my flat with me, Lauren, Marcus and Clarence, and because Clarence is like executive producing the whole EP, I think he was interested in coming into the session and seeing how he could bring other elements. We were trying to find common themes that you know, we've had a lot of staccato and dramatic strings and Upgrade and Was I Ever Alone, Most Viewedand we wanted to bring continuity. So Clarence was really there to ask what elements we could bring in to glue everything together. 

Hannah: What was the mixing process like for this song? 

Chloe: At first, “Off-World” did get taken completely the other way, where the drums were so sharp and so clear that it just felt like it was in the breakbeat genre and it didn't have this ethereal “Off-World” space. So we actually had to dial back quite a lot on it, but it was hard with Mike, because he was like “this kind of record isn't going to hit like these records do” but I don't see it like those records. We had to find a middle ground of keeping it ethereal and like another world but also hinting on the breakbeat genre.

Lauren: Yeah, it was definitely a process to get it right, wasn't it? I remember it took a while, but I'm glad that we kept the right emotion in the song, 

I wanted to ask about the vocal run at the end of the song.

Chloe: We were using the vocal chops in Output’s Arcade, I think it was 

Lauren: I think it's called ghost voices or something like that. 

Chloe: Yeah. I remember this now. So I think we were  just playing around on that and found that one kind of combination that made that loop and we put it in.

So it’s not Chloe?

Lauren: No, but it actually sounds like her, which is crazy. 

Chloe: The sample is the bed of everything pretty much. At the beginning, it was just the sample that we had from the plugin, but at the end we were like “let's double down on this” then I did harmonies to open it up a bit, but it did start from that sample. 

So do you have any go-tos?

Chloe: I just use all of Arturia stuff, and I have an amazing Roland synth as well. I use Splice quite a lot at the moment, to be honest. It's super good just like getting for workflow, getting the energy right, then going back and recreating it more in the world of TWST production.

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