The self-produced electronic musician is working on creating a “unique sound that will not resemble anything else”
By: Caelan Monkman
Toronto-based musician and producer UNITY is a fierce electronic superstar in the making. Following in the footsteps of her idols like FKA twigs and SOPHIE, the self-produced musician blends futuristic and psychedelic electronic/trip-hop beats with her own ethereal vocals. Ahead of the release of her newest single and music video, “SOMEWHERE IN TIME,” CanCulture’s managing editor and former music editor, Caelan Monkman, sat down with UNITY to learn more about her creative process
Much of UNITY’s musical and visual imagery stems from sci-fi and futuristic themes (Photo: UNITYISEVERYWHERE)
This interview has been edited for length and clarity
Getting started, I wanted to talk a little bit more about you. You're a Toronto musician and producer, but who is UNITY?
I came from Moscow, and I'm currently based in Toronto. I'm an experimental electronic artist. My primary focus for now is music. I'd say that a huge inspiration for me is Pink Floyd and, in general, 60s and 70s psychedelic rock. I also love everything that FKA twigs does, and SOPHIE is a huge inspiration for me. So anything ‘beyond normal,’ you know? Any type of music that sets you in a zone of ‘beyond the genre.’
Can you tell me more about the name UNITY? You’ve chosen to not just perform under your own name, but was that a deliberate choice?
I just like the way it sounds first of all, and secondly, there was an episode of Rick and Morty where Rick travelled to another planet, and this whole planet had this universal consciousness — so every inhabitant of this planet had the same consciousness — and this consciousness was named ‘Unity.’ I was so amazed by this idea that I decided to pick up the same name.
How does that idea play into your music itself?
I feel like my music is very space-y and futuristic, so it kinda resembles the idea of space exploration, trippiness and wild sounds. I'd say that I like to work not in terms of genre, but by just exploring the sounds that I like, picking them, mixing them up together and combining something new. I'm working on creating my unique sound that will not resemble anything else.
What sort of steps do you take creatively to craft a sound that doesn’t resemble anything else?
Creating “SOMEWHERE IN TIME” helped me drastically expand on building my unique sound because the song went through a lot of stages. First, it was a techno song, then I reframed it and changed some patterns, added some trap elements, then I added some hand drums, then I played with my voice. So basically, I just made different versions of the song and combined different pieces of each of them together in a way that sounds good to the year. That's kinda my process: I experiment a lot with various genres and try to pick the sound I like the most — or the drum pattern, let's say. And I try to implement this to another structure from another genre. Basically, I mix it all together until I like the final result.
“SOMEWHERE IN TIME” is, in my opinion, the ‘thickest’ track of yours thus far — musical timbre and texture-wise. What can you tell me about the production of the track?
It has around 100 tracks in it. It has various syncopated drum patterns and a lot of complex sound design effects — especially in the very beginning of the song — that I layered by myself, just creating a bunch of sounds and layering them all together. There weren't a lot of melodic parts in it, but I made sure that my voice played the role of the instrument in most of the parts. I really wanted to make it as psychedelic and abrupt and harsh as possible to translate the idea of the song. The song is a part of my concept album that's going to be out at the end of this year. And this song specifically takes the listener on a cosmic journey through a wormhole, where the consciousness becomes omnipresent, and you experience every single thing all at once. I just wanted to translate this feeling through the sound — that's why it's so intense and unpredictable — because when you’re experiencing everything all at once, you can't really focus on anything.
You've said that you're doing a concept album as your first album. That's an ambitious move. What sort of challenges has that presented to you?
It was pretty challenging in terms of forming all of the songs into holistic pieces of the narrative that I wanted to translate. I was just writing the songs, and along the way, I was switching some details in the whole story that's in the album. The other challenge for me was to make it sound like a holistic piece. Because I experiment a lot and some of my tracks are too different from one another, it was just hard for me to find the sweet spot between all of them and mix them together so it sounded like an album and not just separate singles. But I think I did a good job at it. It’s certainly something to work on, and I can potentially do the next album better in some ways, but for now — for my first album — I think I did the very maximum that I could.
Does that mean you’re already thinking about your next album and where you can go from here?
Oh yeah, absolutely. The first album is going to be very experimental, and I didn't want it to sound commercial because my goal was to define my own sound and to experiment as much as I did and find those pieces that I’m comprised of as an artist. Then, moving forward, I’d implement them into more ‘listenable music’ — something you can dance to. So I think for the second album, I'm planning to do more of a commercial album — but not in a bad way, y’know? — like something that people can dance and sing along to. Something more interactive for the listener.
Speaking of “interactivity for the listener,” you’ve mentioned online that you’ve been working on crafting your sound for the stage without the use of laptops because you want to create an “organic live experience.” How does that work as a largely electronic musician?
My band and I use the guitar, and sometimes, for the live shows, we change the synths to the guitar, so we just try to find a similar sound on the guitar and play it. For the drums, we're actually using a Roland drum pad, and we install the sounds onto the drum pad, and it allows us to play any set, change the patterns, anything. So that's kinda what we're going for to create the most organic experience because I feel like, for some listeners, it's not as entertaining to watch the performance being on a laptop.
Along with the challenges that have come with converting your music from electronic to instrumental, have there been musical discoveries?
I realized that I could actually use more guitar in my productions because with electronic guitar, again, you can apply a lot of effects and experiment with the sound of the guitar itself. And I feel like it adds a lot more organic feeling, and it suits my voice and my drums really well. I feel like that was the biggest discovery: I can actually implement real instruments, and it will still sound pretty electronic.
Shifting focus a little bit, can you tell me more about your music video for “SOMEWHERE IN TIME”?
I think we worked on it for a few months. It's gonna be a space-y, sci-fi futuristic music video. It’s very dark and very suitable to the song vibe I guess. We worked a lot on the set. We had an amazing costume designer who made this wire hat for me, she really worked on the costumes really well. We had an amazing director of photography who shot the whole thing and had amazing shots. And obviously, the director who made this whole thing work together and who basically came up with the idea. And I was in the process as well. I wasn't just somebody who the whole crew was working with — I was also suggesting things and actively adding my own ideas. It was just overall an amazing experience of working with people who are really excited about this idea. A lot of people have been telling me that they love working on creative projects like this, so I feel like I've met a lot of people, and I just generally had an amazing life experience of shooting a music video.
What sort of inspirations were behind the visuals of the music video?
My main inspiration was 2001: A Space Odyssey. It's one of my favourite movies, for sure. It was my inspiration just in terms of the monumentality of the pictures, the colours, the concept and just everything. I was just heavily inspired by this film and its general futuristic aesthetic, I'd say.
Lastly, what can listeners expect from you going forward? You've got this new single and music video; what’s next?
My biggest goal right now is to just release this upcoming album and start playing more shows live in Toronto. We're actually planning to make the first concert dedicated to the album release at the end of the year. So more on that will be on my Instagram. And yeah, that's pretty much the goal: To just play more live shows and continue my experimentations with sound, making new tracks and all that stuff.
UNITY’s newest single, “SOMEWHERE IN TIME” is now streaming on all major platforms. Click here to listen now.