These days the word ‘artist’ is a prosaic makeshift for any junior that can strum a half-decent A-major chord.
However, with FlyLo’s latest signing to his Brainfeeder posse of leftfield chieftains in LA-based Ryat, there’s proven dexterity. Ms. Christina McGeehan is classically trained and has a verified history of creating the jazz-fusion opuses that many so called artists can only YouTube safely under her belt. Initially, it may seem that even this is beyond the Brainfeeder scope. So how did she end up brushing shoulders with Samiyam and co.?
“I wanted to combine avant-garde with the live looping that I was doing,” she explains. “When I was going out to watch hip-hop gigs and stuff I would see people using loops and I just really wanted to do that but with instruments. I think that he [Flying Lotus] is just one of those people that appreciates fine-tuned art.”
When she’s not piecing together the glitched intricacies that creatively flood through her work, there are dabbles in the other sections of the arts too. “I always liked to combine all the arts, like I just did a score to modern dance back in Philadelphia and I usually do one a year.”
Clash’s ears pricked up at the complex acoustic wilderness that is her latest project. Second album, ‘Totem’, is about as emancipating as the Native American culture that inspired it; teeming with spontaneous key changes and far-out song structures all coated in esteemed instrumentation. The live emulates the dynamics of the recorded version with a host of experimentation.
And what’s next? “I’m already writing the next record. I’m working on a visual project to go with it. The next record is gonna be the soundtrack to the whole thing.”
Words by Errol Anderson
Photo by Samuel John Butt
Where: Los Angeles
What: Orchestral-led glitch electronica
Get 3 songs: ‘Howl’, ‘Invisibly Ours’, ‘Seahorse’
Unique fact: Christina indulges in her own organic garden with a hope of becoming totally self-sufficient one day.