Interview: Kayla Painter

Bristol’s contributions to club culture are well known, but the stuff on the fringes is often more interesting. Kayla Painter’s music shares dance music’s instrumentation but its appeal is more intimate. There are no bangers to speak of but there is a world to get lost in. 

“In club terms it doesn’t really work”, says Kayla. “My tracks don’t resolve and they take ages to drop. I want the bass to be so big you can feel it resonate in you, but that doesn’t mean it’s a ravey or dancey situation. There’s a big emotional influence on my tracks and I think you can hear that in some of the synth lines and basslines and when all that stuff breaks away. It takes those dance music ideas out of context and puts them in a situation that’s more human, less mechanical.”

Bristol has been Kayla’s home for seven years now, but she grew up in Southampton, a city then under the spell of UK garage: “What was really wonderful about garage that it’s given to leftfield music is this wonky, slanted way to explore beats…and sampling things like glass breaking, which I’ve got in my track Gaga.”

At school she played jazz saxophone, while a move to Newport as a student led to a stint as a gigging bass player: “I was in this band – a four piece pop-rock Welsh band – for a couple of years which was amazing. At the same time I was starting to work on my laptop stuff.” 

At first Kayla found working alone daunting, but soon discovered a knack for programming beats. “As a bass player I was always listening out for drums anyway,” she explains. “I think that’s why it’s the main focus when you hear my tracks – the melody is almost the drums. You get a sense of a story being told through the beat programming because there’s no lead vocal line or anything like that.” As a musician with leftfield tastes she was drawn to Bristol, and started living here while still going to college on the other side of the Severn. 

“Bristol’s got a very strong scene, especially for experimental music,” Kayla explains. “People don’t turn their noses up because you’re trying to do something new.” It’s easier to find people to work with too, she says, citing the examples of James Hankins and James Sampson, who directed the videos for her tracks Revert and efa respectively. “You get people doing really weird things,” she says. “It’s like what happened with the Revert video where I walk around in a giant ball. I don’t think someone in Southampton or Newport would have thought of that.”

Moving images go hand in hand with Kayla’s music. Her live shows make immersive use of a ‘dual screen’ set-up, and her promo videos are powerful and distinctive. “The videos for efa and Revert are almost polar opposites”, she says. “One is very light, and very clean and futuristic, while the other is dark and gritty. I think there is a common thread though, in that you can feel a sort of loneliness in them. In the Revert video there’s this big ball in between the main character and the other people so there’s a strange sense of isolation, which I think comes across in the music too. In the video for Efa the characters are versions of the same person, versions of me.  I wonder if that’s because making music is a solo pursuit for me…it’s very personal, almost a one-on-one experience.”

That sense of isolation is certainly present in the music, but maybe it’s something people can relate to. They’re certainly beginning to notice it. In recent months Kayla’s had radio play from Mary Anne Hobbs, and last year she was one of twelve female musicians chosen for a week-long residency in Manchester led by Beth Orton. Closer to home she has supported Plaid, Phaeleh and Hidden Orchestra, and recently played twice at the 6Music Festival Fringe including a beautiful set on our stage at The Fleece. This summer – as she puts the finishing touches to her debut album – she’s booked to play Glastonbury and Farmfest. Those one-on-one experiences are definitely mounting up. 

“When you’re making music on your own you never know if it’s any good…ever”, Kayla says. “It becomes this feedback loop between you and the computer. But now I’ve been doing it for a few years, people come up to me after gigs and tell me how a particular part made them feel, or what it reminded them of. It feels really lovely when people have their connections with it.”  

Kayla Painter plays Afterglow at Take Five Café on April 22, and Electric Harmony at Old Market Assembly on May 7. For more information visit kaylapainter.wordpress.com