ANTHEA

Hello Anthea. Can you tell us a little bit about yourself? To those who have never listened to your music, how would you describe it? 
My songs are battles of inner forces, pure and truly human. Pulsating synths, spheric sound elements and fetching beats create a space where you can live your authentic self and feel at home in times of hopelessness. I’m drawn by the ethereal, driven by inner vigour, embedded in endless longing. Bared by my own fears, kissed by daintiness, mysticism, and mist.

How does your background in fine arts influence your current practice as a musician? What kind of influences do you draw from in your music? 
My aesthetics can be traced very well from the visual to the auditory world. It’s the same part of me that writes music today that used to paint, photograph or design fashion. Besides, there’s so much visual stuff involved in music as well. Stage design, cover photos, and videos are all inseparable from sound. I am inspired by all the visual areas listed above. I do a lot of research in fashion and often a collection inspires me, currently its Prada Spring 1996, which marks the beginning of ugly chic. Through aesthetic interests, I always get to know myself anew and this also helps me to develop musically, it is a chain reaction which is for me of true necessity.

A lot of your song lyrics deal with love and romantic relationships. We would love to dive deeper into this with you if you are open to sharing with us some of the inspirations or situations that lead to these kinds of lyrics.
Experiences of loss were my most pronounced feeling since I became aware of my existence as a sentient person. Unfortunately, this fear was conferred to me from an early age. Love and loss were intertwined and inseparable for me. This symbiosis reached its peak with the death of my mother. In my lyrics, I deal with the effects of this event on my romantic relationships. I draw images of my longing for love and my daily struggles to go back to trust, despite all the loss and disappointment. The struggle to conquer my inner demons and let love finally win.

What is your experience being a genderqueer artist who is slowly breaking into more mainstream spaces? What reactions do you get and how do you navigate it?
To be honest, I’m very glad that you noticed my gender identity. I have always felt this way but only recently made it public. It takes time for people to adjust to recognizing a female-read person like me as genderqueer. I want to be a role model for people who feel similar and show them that even if it is hard and involves a lot of vulnerability, it is still very important to stay true to yourself and fight for your rights. 

I am happy to live in a time where there is the possibility to stand up for oneself and where there is space for it in mainstream pop. Let’s think of Kim Petras. She makes a good point about not wanting to be reduced to being trans. I think we all feel the same way. We don’t want to be reduced to our sexuality, to our ethnicity or to our gender. We want to be seen for our musical talent and passion. 

I think the goal is to keep fighting, to create more space for genderqueer artists and to normalize it so that it doesn’t have to be an issue anymore. But until then, we have to fight for ourselves, for our fellow human beings and be an ally even if we are not directly affected. I am grateful to have non-binary and trans artists like Tony Renaissance, W1ZE or Kerosin95 around me, who inspire me to stand up for myself, and I want to give other people who feel the same the courage to do so. 

Your instagram account seems meticulously curated. Can you talk about how your use of social media relates to your artistic practice as a musician?
If you scroll down my feed, you can observe pretty clearly at which point I switched my career from visual art to music. I often miss the times when I used Instagram as a visual diary. It was a collection of my aesthetics which I used as inspiration for work. Today, it’s the other way around. Since my end product is music, I post the associated visual works that my team and I created as an amplification of the musical piece. At the moment, I try to combine both approaches and slowly come back to the point where I allow myself to reveal a non-polished side of myself. 

You mentioned in an interview with PW Magazine two years ago how collaborations are an important part of your process. How has your approach to collaborative and interdisciplinary work progressed since then and how does this way of producing influence your work now?
The importance of collaborative and interdisciplinary work has even grown over the past two years. It’s an essential part of why I love my job so much. Seeing artists create visual backgrounds for my musical creations is one of the most beautiful things and it also helps me to get to know my own work better. The core of my team is Samuel Haller, the visual God as I call him, and Georg Hampe, an absolute legend with forward looking ideas and insane knowledge of technical implementation.

Internationally speaking, Vienna is probably not known for its hyperpop scene, yet there are a lot of talented musicians here. What can be done to support the local scene?
Even though there is no “official”“ scene yet, I have the feeling that Vienna is slowly developing one. When I started I wasn’t aware of any artists who were doing hyperpop in particular, though there are musicians like Farce, Mavi Phoenix or Tony Renaissance, who definitely draw  their inspiration from hyperpop and art pop music. I am grateful for Radio Fm4 as they are open to the movement as well as excited for what’s actually happening in Vienna’s pop music scene. There are radio shows like Dalias late night lemonade, where hyperpop always had a place and definitely will have for further newcomers.

What we can do is collaborate, give artists visibility, support those who deserve it and keep on working on our passions regardless of what the Vienna music scene had to offer until now. We are the future and we can build a safe(r) space and community if we stick together. 

Are there any exciting projects you are currently working on that you can tell us about (or tease us about)? 
This year I met Kenji Araki, someone I immediately clicked with. We are working on a few things at the moment, which we are very excited to release. And and am looking forward to the Ep – Farce, which Sakura and I created together last year. Hopefully going to be released in Winter!

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