The Art Of Authentic Production In A Post-Internet World: In conversation with Maria Uzor

In a world that’s always online, how do we stay true to ourselves as artists? This week on Girls Twiddling Knobs, we tackle this question with the fiercely original electronic music producer Maria Uzor.

Growing up as a Black artist in a predominantly White area of the UK, Maria often felt like an outsider. But she turned that feeling into a sound that’s bold, raw, and unmistakably hers. Join us as we explore how Maria channels her unique experiences into a blend of basement grittiness and cosmic vision.

In this episode, you’ll discover:

✨ How Maria creates from an authentic place despite social media pressures
🎛️ An inside look at her production process for her album, Soft Cuts
🎤 Why live performances help her reclaim space as a Black female artist
🎚️ The highs and lows of going solo versus releasing on a label

It’s an inspiring chat about resilience, authenticity, and creating art that truly matters. 

Once you’ve listened, share what you thought of the episode in a review wherever you're listening. We’d love to hear from you! 🌟

Check out Maria Uzor’s website >>
Find Maria on Instagram >>

Maria’s live performance gear:
Ableton Push >>
Novation Launch Controller >>

Ready to level up your music making with the powerful art of field recording? Download my new FREE Essential Gear Checklist to Start Field Recording With Your Smartphone >>

Loved this week's episode? Share it with a friend 👯‍♀️

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Girls Twiddling Knobs is hosted by Isobel Anderson and produced by Isobel Anderson and Jade Bailey.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Episode Intro
• 5:18 Intro to Maria Uzor
• 6:10 Maria on using music as a means of asking questions, without expecting answers
• 9:12 Maria on how she started making electronic music
• 11:42 Maria on being true to yourself
• 12:52 How has the internet impacted artist's ability to be honest?
• 20:54 Maria on her artistic practice and her album Soft Cuts
• 22:22 Maria on feeling like an outsider
• 24:41 Maria on how spiritual experiences fed into her artistry
• 28:01 Maria on growing up black in a white environment
• 31:54 Maria on her track Sometimes They Look At You
• 45:10 Maria on her track Face Mask
• 49:49 Maria on the production tools she used on her album Soft Cuts
• 51:22 Maria on bringing her album into her live performances
• 55:38 Isobel on why it's important to own simplicity as female artists
• 58:32 Maria on what she's working on at the moment
• 1:00:23 Episode Outro

Transcript

00:00:00.99
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
So hello Maria, welcome to Girls Twiddling Knobs.

00:00:01.07
Maria Uzor
Hello. Thank you. Thanks. Very happy to be here.

00:00:07.79
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Yeah, I'm really glad that we have got you on the podcast because I've been aware of your work for at least a year. And I think it's since the last season of the podcast because we were in the same issue of moon building.

00:00:21.37
Maria Uzor
Yeah.

00:00:21.91
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
You were on the front and your your your release, you're kind of at the time your new release was being featured. So that's how I came to know your music and that was your album Softcuts which we're going to be listening to a little bit of today.

00:00:34.44
Maria Uzor
Yeah.

00:00:37.36
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
So it's really nice to now have you on on season six.

00:00:40.77
Maria Uzor
Yeah, thank you. I'm really excited about this. I think this is a great thing that you're doing. So yeah, very happy to be part of it.

00:00:44.98
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Oh thank you. Excellent. Okay, so let's start off. We're going to get into, you know, the the kind of process of making soft cuts, your production decisions, your experience of being a DIY and signed artist as well. But maybe we could just start off by, can you explain in your own words who you are and what you do?

00:01:06.50
Maria Uzor
No, basically.

00:01:09.63
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Yeah, fair enough.

00:01:11.57
Maria Uzor
Yeah, I'm called Maria Uzo, that's the name my mum gave me. And I consider myself an artist. At the moment, I'm currently using electronic music to create my art. um And I enjoy performing on stage as well.

00:01:32.68
Maria Uzor
performing the songs that I've written on stage and I kind of see art as a way of asking questions about the world and yeah exploring how the world is to me without necessarily looking for answers So it's more about asking him the the questions and using music to ask those questions that sometimes you can't put into words.

00:01:53.35
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Mmm.

00:02:03.70
Maria Uzor
Sometimes music kind of is a way of, yeah.

00:02:03.20
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
I really love that.

00:02:08.14
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
No, I didn't mean to interrupt you. I really love that.

00:02:09.81
Maria Uzor
Oh, no, no, no, I think that's kind of said what.

00:02:12.54
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
No, I just really love that way that you describe asking questions without necessarily looking for answers because i i I feel like that's one of the most important things about art, just both for the artist and also for people experiencing it.

00:02:18.18
Maria Uzor
Yeah.

00:02:28.13
Maria Uzor
Yeah. Yeah. I completely agree. Cause I kind of think like, I've always felt that once you get an answer to something, then it makes things smaller. Do you know what I mean? It kind of like closes things down.

00:02:38.72
Maria Uzor
When, when we're asking questions, there's so many possibilities. It could go in so many hundreds of thousands of different ways, but once you've got the answer, it's just narrow. And I feel like it does that to your mind as well.

00:02:50.15
Maria Uzor
Do you know what I mean? And I like to have a mind that goes, so yeah.

00:02:53.58
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Yeah. Yeah. And I definitely think like for me, whenever I've created anything, whether it be music or, or like this podcast, for example, it's always coming from a question, questions, plural.

00:03:06.69
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
It's always coming from, I don't quite understand this, or I don't quite know how to articulate this.

00:03:12.56
Maria Uzor
Yeah.

00:03:13.01
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
So that that's why I'm making this.

00:03:15.42
Maria Uzor
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I love that. I love especially like in the moment with social media and I've noticed particularly on threads there's this whole sort of like move towards people promoting themselves as experts in fields you know what I mean and it's just like you know five things a musician needs to do in order to like do this and I've been in the industry for 10 years and this is what I've learned and blah blah blah and you need to do this and it's also it closes it down where's that wonder where's that exploration where's that kind of

00:03:30.37
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

00:03:47.58
Maria Uzor
that ability to say, do you know what? I don't actually know. I've been doing this for like 15, 20 years and I don't know.

00:03:51.23
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Yeah.

00:03:54.50
Maria Uzor
Do you know what I mean?

00:03:54.70
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Yeah.

00:03:55.00
Maria Uzor
There's like, there's something so refreshing and human about that, you know, especially in an age of technology.

00:03:59.29
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
I agree.

00:04:01.20
Maria Uzor
It's just, it's, yeah, that's keeping hold of our humanity is, is like, I think that's really important for me anyway.

00:04:08.38
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Yeah, I agree. And I think that, you know, attached to Girls Twilling Knobs, there's courses and a membership. And I try and always be really stay in that place that you're talking about of there's other people online that are offering music production courses where it's like, take this course and then earn six figures as a producer, or take this course and get, you know, X number of streams on Spotify.

00:04:23.39
Maria Uzor
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Oh my God.

00:04:28.44
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
And I always say, take this course

00:04:28.71
Maria Uzor
Yeah.

00:04:31.72
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
if you want to feel more independent and empowered as a woman.

00:04:33.86
Maria Uzor
Exactly.

00:04:35.03
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
And I don't know where it will take you, but I know that if you apply these skills, it will open up new opportunities for you.

00:04:35.13
Maria Uzor
I learned something about yourself. Yeah.

00:04:42.86
Maria Uzor
Yeah.

00:04:43.00
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
But I don't know what they are, and I don't know when they'll come.

00:04:43.18
Maria Uzor
Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. And that's exciting.

00:04:47.40
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Yeah, yeah.

00:04:48.20
Maria Uzor
It's like this. Yeah.

00:04:49.69
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
And it's honest, you know, because think that's always inherent in making anything, including art, isn't it?

00:04:50.83
Maria Uzor
Hmm.

00:04:55.59
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
If you create anything that's come out of your brain and put it out into the world, you don't know.

00:04:57.86
Maria Uzor
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:05:00.41
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
where it's going to take you.

00:05:02.89
Maria Uzor
I'm really into the idea that sounds really weird thing to say, but I'm into the idea of honesty.

00:05:09.90
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Yeah.

00:05:10.57
Maria Uzor
It's like,

00:05:13.03
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
So Maria, um you're based in Norwich, is that right?

00:05:15.08
Maria Uzor
Mm-hmm.

00:05:16.35
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Yeah. And so do you make everything from your own home studio space?

00:05:21.01
Maria Uzor
I do. I make it from this studio space, this desk that I'm sitting at.

00:05:26.29
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Awesome.

00:05:26.34
Maria Uzor
And I've got like Ferris instruments and keyboards and my laptop, which has Ableton running on it. And that's, yeah, basically like the hub that everything gets.

00:05:36.04
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Yeah, great. And how did you start getting into writing electronic music, producing, all that kind of thing?

00:05:45.17
Maria Uzor
Well, I started off going right back. I started off in a punk band in 2005. And was singing and playing electric guitar in that. And then I went solo around about 2008. Then I was under the age, under the name Girl in the Thunderbolt. And I started off just playing like acoustic guitar and loop pedal with that. And then I started bringing in other instruments, like sometimes I'd play like stand up drums with that and loop things. And

00:06:17.50
Maria Uzor
other weird things that I'd found like omni chord that became like part of my set, which I really loved doing that. But it's got such a distinctive sounds that you can't really use it in every song. Otherwise, it's just kind of like, it's a bit boring.

00:06:26.02
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Mm.

00:06:29.02
Maria Uzor
And then in 2015, I formed a duet with duet with um another girl and we were called Sinky Teeth.

00:06:39.98
Maria Uzor
And that's kind of like where my sort of production in electronic music started. So it was the tail end of 2015, so kind of like more 2016. And it was because there were only two of us, it was kind of like, well, how do we create like a full sound with only two people? So I had ah ah MacBook, so I got Logic.

00:07:05.05
Maria Uzor
and started producing on Logic, literally teaching myself. I didn't realise that for example the first tune that we released was called If You See Me and I didn't realise that you have to keep like the DBs quite low on the master mix when you're bouncing down so that the master can actually have some space to things like that.

00:07:23.76
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Yeah.

00:07:23.84
Maria Uzor
I didn't know and about sidechaining or how to create pockets in order to make the bass pop a bit more or the drums sound. Do you know what I mean? like this kind of stuff I just didn't know about panning.

00:07:36.65
Maria Uzor
But it's been a learning curve and And I feel like every day I'm sort of learning. There's always so much to learn in technology, isn't there? And in music, it's just like so much.

00:07:44.42
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Yeah.

00:07:46.52
Maria Uzor
And every day I'm learning more, which is great. It's also fine if you don't know all these things, do you know what I mean?

00:07:55.14
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Yeah.

00:07:56.09
Maria Uzor
Because like this track that was mixed, it was like, you know, it got playlisted, it was like Steve LaMax track of the week for like five days, it led to like made a fail sessions and all sorts of stuff, do you know what I mean?

00:08:03.60
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Wow.

00:08:10.88
Maria Uzor
So it's kind of And that was coming from someone who's a relative novice and he created a mix that was quite muddy.

00:08:13.83
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Hmm.

00:08:19.38
Maria Uzor
And I think I I always feel that like, as long as you're, this is what I was going to say about, honestly, as long as you are true to yourself, then you're never going to create bad music.

00:08:33.08
Maria Uzor
Do you know what I mean?

00:08:33.74
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Yes, I so agree with that 100%.

00:08:36.78
Maria Uzor
I think if you're trying to sort of like, um, create something to make someone else happy, then if it gets slated, then you're just going to be like, Oh my God, I'm so like, Oh, but I think like, if you first and foremost write for yourself and create something that comes from your own truth, then it doesn't matter what anyone else says, because it's coming from something that's bigger than you.

00:08:57.78
Maria Uzor
Do you know what I mean?

00:08:57.99
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Yeah.

00:08:58.24
Maria Uzor
It's kind of like, it's not even part of you, what you've created. It's coming from a place of no ego that is. a place of truth, that know what I

00:09:08.65
Maria Uzor
And for that, you don't need to be like an expert. You just need to have created something that excites you because that energy that you've put into it, other people will pick up on that.

00:09:20.78
Maria Uzor
You know, whereas if you put ah ah energy into something of like, oh, I don't know what to do with it. Oh, this is awful. and Oh, I hope people like it. Then I feel like that comes out in the final song.

00:09:30.01
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
I couldn't agree with you more but and I think, well, I'd love to know what you think about how do you think that the internet and social media and this rise of artists taking on more and more of the roles of putting out music, sharing music, marketing, et cetera, how do you think that has impacted

00:09:30.46
Maria Uzor
Yeah.

00:09:47.15
Maria Uzor
Yeah.

00:09:54.03
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
If at all, artists' ability to stay in that very honest, authentic place that you're describing right there.

00:10:00.44
Maria Uzor
I think that's a really interesting discussion that everyone should be having right now.

00:10:04.76
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Yeah.

00:10:05.98
Maria Uzor
It feels, I mean, like when Cinque Tif was sort of like first started, that was around 2016, 2017. And I can definitely in the past eight years notice a huge difference in the way that um artists navigate social media, the kind of things that we're now expected to do.

00:10:25.19
Maria Uzor
like before you could just sort of like post a picture and just say like hey I got a gig coming up blah blah blah this and but now it's like you've got to create reels you've got to post on social media like five times a day because the algorithms aren't back then the algorithms were favoring like yeah they were promoting first of all what

00:10:46.42
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Yeah.

00:10:48.78
Maria Uzor
people followed.

00:10:48.86
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Yeah.

00:10:49.50
Maria Uzor
So if you followed an artist, then you would be guaranteed to see their posts. Now the algorithms are more about keeping people on the platform.

00:11:00.54
Maria Uzor
So if you follow someone, you may not actually never get to see their posts. But it's, it's, yeah, it's all done the business model is now for these big corporations and not for the artists. And a lot of people have noticed like huge sort of like drop off in engagement and reach as a result. And that is being I find that really detrimental to creativity because a lot of artists feel as though they need to then jump through these hoops behave like performing monkeys in order to get the reach and

00:11:36.57
Maria Uzor
That's, mean, its is it's if you're doing that, then you're not spending enough time on your art. And also you're creating for someone else. You're creating for the platform.

00:11:46.32
Maria Uzor
You're not creating from your own connection to what makes you happy.

00:11:46.79
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Yeah.

00:11:51.30
Maria Uzor
You're creating for like, ah, will this reach more people if I dance in my kitchen going? Do you know what I mean?

00:11:58.77
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Yeah.

00:11:58.97
Maria Uzor
It's like, what the fuck? We didn't get into music to do that.

00:12:00.30
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Yeah. No.

00:12:02.45
Maria Uzor
And the fact that so many of us are feeling that we have to, and I feel like we should be making a stand and being like, no, we don't want to part of platforms that do this.

00:12:15.98
Maria Uzor
I mean, we don't want to behave in this way, but we just go along with it. Do you know what I mean?

00:12:21.42
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Mm-hm.

00:12:22.36
Maria Uzor
They're like, these companies are like leading the way and we're just,

00:12:22.60
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Yeah.

00:12:27.69
Maria Uzor
following it and losing ourselves in the process.

00:12:27.72
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Mm-hm.

00:12:31.25
Maria Uzor
And I find that really sad.

00:12:31.44
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And I think, you know, everything that you said is really valid, like it the way that it makes you have to behave or share your work.

00:12:44.34
Maria Uzor
Yeah.

00:12:45.75
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
But then I also think, you know, coming back to what you're talking about, creating from that authentic place, that even before you get to the point of making, I think for so many artists now, you're already evaluating the worth of your idea, thinking, well, is that gonna, how would I share that?

00:13:04.79
Maria Uzor
Mm-hmm.

00:13:05.97
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
How would that do, how would that perform on the platform? You know, even before you've made the work.

00:13:11.15
Maria Uzor
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:13:12.73
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
And then, but also, and I feel like this is like a whole episode in itself, obviously, but also that we spend so much time on these platforms that we don't have very much time to just dream, like daydream anymore.

00:13:26.10
Maria Uzor
Yeah.

00:13:26.75
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
and that you're kind of, you're ingesting other people's stuff and it can be really hard to know what you actually, you think or feel or are curious about.

00:13:27.12
Maria Uzor
Yeah.

00:13:35.85
Maria Uzor
Yeah.

00:13:39.49
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
And that's obviously coming back to art being about questions.

00:13:43.16
Maria Uzor
Definitely. Definitely. One hundred percent. And I feel this really strongly as well. It's like we're losing the ability to of what's it called? Emotional intelligence, you know what I mean?

00:13:53.64
Maria Uzor
And self-awareness, because we need as humans moments in our lives where we're not doing anything so that we can process all of the information that we've received throughout the day.

00:14:05.54
Maria Uzor
And in the past, our ancestors would have probably done that through sitting around the campfire at the end of the night. I mean, just staring at the flames.

00:14:12.31
Maria Uzor
or even like you know our parents generation might go down the pub or like you know whatever I don't know but just have this moment where you're not constantly being bombarded with information you know go for a walk but now it's kind of like we can't even if we go for a walk we've got headphones on listen to music or we're listening to podcasts ain't nothing wrong with podcasts but i gotta say that podcasts agree but but there's also like we need that as humans we need that time to process stuff it's really important and yeah

00:14:36.22
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Yeah, of course.

00:14:42.35
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Yeah because it's it's even like you know queuing at the in the post office now you have no need to just be there you can distract yourself immediately so there's you're just never left alone like I think our parents generation certainly for me are up until about the age of 25 or something if you had to queue in the post office you just had to sit stand there with your thoughts

00:14:48.65
Maria Uzor
so how many people are on their phones

00:15:08.47
Maria Uzor
Exactly, yeah.

00:15:09.35
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
And that's really precious time where you get, you get ideas, you know?

00:15:12.78
Maria Uzor
Yeah, yeah, totally. I mean you get ideas but you also get to process stuff and I feel like we're constantly being bombarded, stuff is building up in us, negative stuff as well as positive stuff and we're not, we don't have an outlet for it.

00:15:16.59
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Yeah.

00:15:26.38
Maria Uzor
I mean because we're constantly like distracting ourselves, we've forgotten how to how to feel and how to recognize certain

00:15:35.33
Maria Uzor
I feel like sometimes like if certain emotions do come up, then we distract ourselves even further because we don't know how to deal with it. It's just kind of like, oh, I'm feeling a bit uncomfortable about that.

00:15:43.70
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Yeah.

00:15:45.57
Maria Uzor
Oh, I'll scroll. Do you know what I mean?

00:15:47.66
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Yeah.

00:15:48.08
Maria Uzor
And I feel like as humans, we're on the precipice of something really, really big in terms of where we go from here, in terms of keeping hold of our humanity.

00:15:50.44
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Yeah.

00:16:01.53
Maria Uzor
I feel, I don't know, it it just feels like, and it feels like it's not being talked about enough and we don't even realise it's happening to us.

00:16:09.29
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Yeah, I agree. And I think that we think a lot about the aftereffects of social media, but I think it'd be really interesting if there was more conversation about what what we've been talking about.

00:16:10.16
Maria Uzor
I mean,

00:16:19.22
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
How does that influence you even having an idea in the first place and then how you shape the idea into reality?

00:16:22.88
Maria Uzor
Mm. Mm. Mm.

00:16:27.79
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Does it become about shaping it into something that is slicer-uppable and content that you can share and get lots of likes on?

00:16:32.66
Maria Uzor
Yeah.

00:16:35.94
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
And but but do you even have any space to process, to have ideas, to have questions?

00:16:39.87
Maria Uzor
Yeah.

00:16:42.15
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Because I think that it is also really important, the pressure that's put on artists to then dance around on reels. But that's much later on. That's even after all the work's been made.

00:16:52.55
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
It's like, how is that work changing?

00:16:54.23
Maria Uzor
Hmm.

00:16:55.41
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
How is that relationship to your creative process changing as an artist? Because I definitely can see in myself it's changed immensely. And I'm so grateful that I grew up in a time where there was that space and that loneliness and that boredom, particular kind of loneliness.

00:17:08.19
Maria Uzor
Yeah. Hmm.

00:17:11.81
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
I know people are lonely online as well, but that loneliness and that boredom and boredoment that that solitude and that space to be able to make art from that place.

00:17:13.75
Maria Uzor
Yeah, yeah.

00:17:22.17
Maria Uzor
yeah yeah without thinking of the end product do you know what i mean i feel like a lot of a lot of yeah yeah yeah

00:17:25.48
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Yeah. And other people's reactions and and how people would validate it through quantifiable measurements, like comments and engagement stats.

00:17:36.96
Maria Uzor
And it's kind of like artists at the really early stage of their career are now thinking about that.

00:17:41.37
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Yeah.

00:17:41.88
Maria Uzor
And this used to be something that only sort of like big artists would be thinking about their second album. Do you know what I mean? Like they've had sort of like a really successful album and then they think, oh my God, how am I going to match that?

00:17:47.34
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

00:17:52.24
Maria Uzor
And now people who haven't even started are just kind of like having those same questions and dilemmas and that's worrying.

00:17:58.46
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Yeah.

00:18:01.05
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Yeah. So bringing it back to your practice though Maria, so how do you stay in that place if you do? And do you feel like you are making soft cuts from that

00:18:12.84
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
I say that place, I mean that place of just as pure as possible curiosity, authenticity, processing, asking questions.

00:18:22.89
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Is that where soft cuts come from?

00:18:23.10
Maria Uzor
Yeah.

00:18:24.25
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
And if it is, how did you get there or stay there.

00:18:27.19
Maria Uzor
It is it mostly where it came from. The first track that I wrote for Soft Cuts actually is a track called Ventilin, and that has been the most successful track from the album. And incidentally, that's the one that I thought, let me write something specifically for the dance floor that is catchy, that doesn't really have any sort of like deeper metaphysical meaning.

00:18:48.65
Maria Uzor
And um some reason, it's kind of like people have been like, oh, yeah, yeah, resonate with that one.

00:18:54.55
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
It means a lot to me.

00:18:58.80
Maria Uzor
But the rest of the album, and I do like that song as well, um I ah ah am asthmatic, so it did come from a place of you not being able to breathe when you're dancing too much.

00:19:06.10
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Yeah.

00:19:10.21
Maria Uzor
But yeah, the rest of the album does definitely come from that place of asking questions and being on a journey and that kind of feeling of

00:19:19.22
Maria Uzor
I think I've always felt like a bit of an outsider and I'm not sure if it's because of certain sort of like experiences spiritually, spiritually tinged experiences I had as a child, but also like being black and grown up in a white environment. There's always been this sense of this isn't my home, for want of a better word, and I think from that it's kind of like led to an exploration of what it means to actually be human and where we've come from as humans and where we go to, and this whole sort of like, so

00:19:57.38
Maria Uzor
Yeah and that's kind of sort of like drawn me to concepts of space and time and sort of intergalactic travel and all of that kind of like fed into soft cuts as well like this concept of a soul being who's on this journey to this new planet and how do you

00:20:09.16
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Mmm.

00:20:23.84
Maria Uzor
make sense of this planet. How do you keep and also how do you keep hold of your humanity? That's something that I've always been really interested in as well. Like particularly like through life I feel like we are born and we're pretty much perfect in terms of our relation how we relate to the rest of the world and then stuff happens to us stuff happens to everyone and i feel like through that we then start building protective layers do you know what i mean sort of like it doesn't happen again so we don't get hurt so we don't get hurt and i feel like each time we do that we're shutting down part of our humanity

00:20:48.99
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Hmm. Yeah.

00:20:58.07
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Hmm.

00:21:03.68
Maria Uzor
and part of what makes us really fucking beautiful as human beings. And I feel like part of life's journey is then realizing that we have all these layers and then peeling them all off again, so that by the end of our lives, we're back to where we were when we were babies.

00:21:20.75
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Mm-hmm.

00:21:21.32
Maria Uzor
This pure state of humanity, but having a greater understanding of, of things, you know what I mean, and a greater depth and a greater opening of the heart.

00:21:33.76
Maria Uzor
i And yeah, so the album's kind kind coming from that space of

00:21:34.24
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Yeah.

00:22:01.63
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
um there's a couple of things, but there's a lot lots in everything that you just said, which is really fascinating.

00:22:01.02
Maria Uzor
yeah

00:22:08.12
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
I wondered, are you comfortable talking about these early spiritual experiences that you mentioned?

00:22:12.80
Maria Uzor
Yeah yeah um well yeah when I was I don't know how old I don't know exactly how old I was I think I was about three or four um and I was one moment I was lying in bed and then the next moment I was in this place that was just completely black, it was like a void, there was nothing there and I felt completely at peace and I felt complete bliss, absolute, just like complete joy and bliss and it's a feeling that I've never felt before in my life, just imagine like no hang-ups, no boredom, just

00:22:53.60
Maria Uzor
complete and utter of bliss and also I didn't know how long I'd been there it was kind of like there was no time I didn't know if I'd been there for a second or a hundred years it kind of didn't matter and then suddenly as I was in this space I suddenly like thought where's my mum and I remember like just having this panic started to rise in me of like where's my mum where's my mum and then I kind of like saw a light and she was in the kitchen just like washing up

00:23:20.08
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Mhm.

00:23:20.84
Maria Uzor
um with like a sort of you know just ah the the light of the kitchen over and then I went back into my bed and then I was like back in the room and I don't know like what that was but that's kind of an interest in you you you know that there must be more to life we must have come from somewhere else and

00:23:20.96
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Mhm.

00:23:24.06
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Mhm.

00:23:43.50
Maria Uzor
You know mean i'm fearful like everyone is we will have our fears and stuff but there's also this other part of me that thinks no we're probably okay because yeah there's there's there's probably something out there that.

00:23:56.92
Maria Uzor
is really good good for and and really cares about us and is on our side and is so much vaster than we can even grasp in this life.

00:24:11.36
Maria Uzor
You know what I mean?

00:24:12.08
Maria Uzor
I don't know.

00:24:13.18
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Yeah and so it sounds like that is an experience and there may be other ones as well that have stayed with you into adulthood and that that's something you've tried to or has fed into this album trying to understand what that is or ask questions of what is that.

00:24:21.06
Maria Uzor
Yeah.

00:24:28.83
Maria Uzor
I think so.

00:24:32.56
Maria Uzor
Yeah I think so. I think as an artist it's kind of, to me I think the best approach that we can take as an artist is to write from our own perspective and to write our own story and to tell our own story from our own truth because every single person on this planet has a different experience and we've all got something that's worth saying And I think if we try and copy what someone else is doing, then we're just copying someone else's story.

00:24:55.100
Maria Uzor
Whereas our stories is equally as important and it's something that is unique to us and no one else has it. So, yeah, so it's just, I think I'm just making music based on my tiny experience as one billionth billionth of a person on this planet, you know, and so yeah.

00:25:15.65
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And the other thing that you said about growing up in a you predominantly white place and being black and it not quite feeling like home, but it felt like there was a lot of question marks over that for you, even in like using the word home.

00:25:24.65
Maria Uzor
Hmm.

00:25:32.72
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Can you talk a bit more about that?

00:25:32.87
Maria Uzor
Yeah. Yeah, so so um im I was born in Norwich.

00:25:39.26
Maria Uzor
My dad is Nigerian, my mum and dad got divorced when I was two, and my mum's from Barbados. So I grew up with my mum and my nan, who's also from Barbados.

00:25:49.30
Maria Uzor
And that was a very sort of Caribbean household. But then I also grew up in the 80s in Norwich, where the rest of, once I stepped outside of my front door, everything was white, you know, it's slightly more diverse now, but back then it it really wasn't. So there was always this feeling of like a mixture of cultures, but also there was racism was rife back then as well, and there was like things like National Front, and we'd often get like, you know, things spray painted on our walls and and you know, all that kind of stuff.

00:26:21.53
Maria Uzor
So, yeah, I sort of grew up in a feeling as though I wasn't welcomed here and this wasn't my home. But then also going to Barbados because I was certain, you know, I'd grown up in a white culture. I didn't really feel like Barbados was my home either, even though it's such a beautiful place.

00:26:42.46
Maria Uzor
Yeah, and then obviously because of other experience that I had, I had like, you know, the one where I was in this void. There's just this feeling of like, well, maybe Earth isn't our home. Maybe it's just somewhere that we visit for a short period of time.

00:26:58.78
Maria Uzor
in order to, I don't know, expand our understanding of certain things, in order to grow, in order to feel, in order to connect with other people, in order to experience senses, you know, like sight, smell, touch, hearing, a whole myriad of emotions.

00:26:59.21
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Mm.

00:27:16.34
Maria Uzor
And then maybe we then return to somewhere else or move on to somewhere else. And then from there, move on to somewhere else. ah ah Yeah.

00:27:26.25
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Okay, yes, I can, I get a sense of how these things connect up of you experiencing these spiritual, almost like slightly destabilizing, but not necessari necessari necessarily a negative way as a child of like what reality is, what, where you are fixed in time and place.

00:27:36.92
Maria Uzor
Hmm. Yeah, yeah.

00:27:43.28
Maria Uzor
Yeah, yeah.

00:27:43.78
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
And then this sense of growing up and feeling othered or out on the outside, but not really finding somewhere where you feel like that resolves.

00:27:48.06
Maria Uzor
Yeah.

00:27:54.94
Maria Uzor
Yeah, yeah, yeah, totally. But I'm really happy to be in that place. And I think it's sort of like, it's, it's made me realize that I've always struggled with the concept of binary as well. And then like anything like, you know, because what is, what is black, what is white, what is male, what is female, what is like, do you know what I mean? It's just, it's, it's, I kind of feel that we're we're we're constantly shifting and moving between things because And it's that thing about questions again and answers.

00:28:26.76
Maria Uzor
It's like, I feel as though if I limit myself in ah an identity, then that is fixed and that's narrowing things down.

00:28:35.02
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Hmm. Hmm.

00:28:37.26
Maria Uzor
But I feel more expansive than that. I think, um, I can't remember who it was. Someone said like, I am multitudes. I can't remember who that is, but I like that concept.

00:28:48.62
Maria Uzor
It allows us the space to grow and to change and to make mistakes and to be in alignment with who we truly are, as opposed to sort of like trying to fit into this fixed thing that we've created or someone else has created for us.

00:29:06.26
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Yeah, yeah.

00:29:06.34
Maria Uzor
Um,

00:29:07.36
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Well, I feel like we should hear some of your music. So, because I'm sure if people aren't familiar with it yet, that we'll be talking, we talked lots and lots, but they're thinking, what we talking about?

00:29:10.09
Maria Uzor
Okay.

00:29:17.47
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
So let's listen to a little section of sometimes they look at you.

00:29:22.13
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
So Maria, can you tell us a little bit about this track? I mean, it's definitely, it's one of the sort of big, like more dance-ier numbers on the album.

00:29:31.57
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
And it was a single that you released.

00:29:34.20
Maria Uzor
Yeah it was the second single from the album and it's kind of it's cool sometimes they look at you and and the chorus says sometimes they look at you like you're fucking nuts basically and it's and then there's a refrain in it that or a line in it is kind of like what the the theme of the song is kind of based on where it says I talk in possibilities you talk in absolutes

00:29:34.86
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Yeah.

00:29:59.100
Maria Uzor
and that's sort of like going back to the whole concept of um how let me take this right back so yeah so it was written after i was in a situation with someone and um

00:30:14.38
Maria Uzor
it would always end in arguments. And I couldn't understand, like, this is a family member.

00:30:18.88
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Mm-hmm.

00:30:20.13
Maria Uzor
And I couldn't understand why we just couldn't hear each other, do you know what I mean? And then I realized that it was because we were speaking different languages. Like, I would always talk from a place of possibility and the other person would always respond from a place of absolutes.

00:30:35.96
Maria Uzor
And there's nothing wrong with that, but it's just kind of like different views of the world. And i my view of the world is always like, What if, what if, what if? And theirs was always like, well, no, that's just the way it is.

00:30:45.12
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Mm hmm.

00:30:46.44
Maria Uzor
And that's why, and if you don't realize that you're having a conversation with someone and they're they're talking with a different view of the world, then you can't realize why it's not connecting.

00:30:58.92
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Yeah.

00:31:00.50
Maria Uzor
So that's kind of what that song was. It's kind of like sometimes they look at you like you're nuts, but that's because we're talking from different, from different views, you know,

00:31:08.81
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Yeah, yeah, definitely. So and it feels like there's like a few different voices production wise in this track, because you've got like, what feels like your normal voice, but then there's also a slightly more kind of high pitched, like when you say sometimes they look at you at the beginning.

00:31:27.81
Maria Uzor
Right, right.

00:31:27.93
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
But then you've also got the pitch down voice that's saying like, you're fucking nuts.

00:31:30.64
Maria Uzor
Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

00:31:33.49
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Can you talk a bit about those decisions if there were any, I mean, maybe they're subconscious, but like why you chose to place the voice slightly differently for different words and.

00:31:43.56
Maria Uzor
Um, I don't know. I think it was probably a subconscious thing, but also I think maybe part of it is the whole, um, maybe subconsciously, I was thinking about call and response because it does have this sort of like, sometimes they look at you like fucking nuts.

00:31:58.38
Maria Uzor
And it's that kind of, and I guess like with call and response, there does tend to be like a ah ah different tone sometimes, you know, sort of like, so I don't know if I was subconsciously thinking that, um,

00:32:12.04
Maria Uzor
yeah i'm not sure i don't know right um i tend to sort of like write music first of all by um

00:32:16.14
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
How did you approach putting this track together? Like, do you write the song first, even though sometimes I know it's not necessarily a song, it's like words or ways of saying words maybe? Or do you start with a beat? Or how did you build up the track from the beginning? Yeah.

00:32:38.17
Maria Uzor
might lock down a beat first of all or even like it might just be like a kick and a snare sometimes or it might be like a um some sort of pad or keyboard sounds or whatever oh actually you know the first thing that comes to mind is always like bpm and um and time signature so i forgot about that i always think about that so um

00:32:57.22
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Cool. Okay, yeah, yeah.

00:33:00.94
Maria Uzor
Yeah, so I might do like, oh yeah, I want to do something in 150 with triplets, or I might want to do something in three, four that has a sort of like do-wop feel or something like that. So that would be the first thing. And then I'll mess around with a beat ah melodic loop. And then once I've got that, I'll then stick some headphones on and just mumble complete nonsense and shit into the thing and just let it run until something comes. So I might sort of and so that's just my way of trying to find the vocal melody. And I'll often sing words that make no sense as well, just the first words that come to my mind, because I kind of find that with

00:33:41.49
Maria Uzor
with songs, it's often the vowels that help create, or with lyrics, it's often the vowels that help create a certain feel, like lyrically. So sometimes you might want to go, how now?

00:33:53.01
Maria Uzor
And you know that you want that ending of that line to be, ah, as opposed to ee. So yeah, so I'll sing like, the bottle is on the table, or something, and not that, but you know what I mean.

00:34:06.68
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Yeah.

00:34:07.70
Maria Uzor
And just keep going. And then suddenly you you're like, oh, i've And then you might stop, chop that up, see if I can make that into chorus or verse, and then like add other sounds and think like, what's the feel of this song as well? Like what sort of landscape am I trying to paint? How do I want people to feel when they hear it? Do I want them to like pump their fists in the air and go, yeah, or do I want them to be like, oh, or do I, you know, like what space do I want people to experience the,

00:34:37.59
Maria Uzor
music from so then that starts sort of coming into the whole sort of sculpting the thing but it's kind of like a block to begin with and then you're just sort of chipping away at the block until suddenly you can see something and it's like oh yeah and then you start refining it.

00:34:48.08
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Yeah.

00:34:53.22
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Yeah. And what is it that the BPM gives to you at the beginning, do you think?

00:34:58.22
Maria Uzor
I think it gives the It sets the tone, I think. I think BPM is really important for setting a tone. Like anything over about 115 is going to be kind of dancy, slinky dancy.

00:35:12.09
Maria Uzor
And then you go into sort of like 130 and that's sort of pumpy fist in the air and anything higher than that.

00:35:16.80
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Hmm.

00:35:19.16
Maria Uzor
But then if you go to sort of like 90 or below, then that's more in line with like the heartbeat. So that gives like more of a, um, uh,

00:35:26.72
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Mm

00:35:29.32
Maria Uzor
introspective kind of like feel and yeah so it's just kind of like I guess it comes back to how do you want the listener to feel and I know we were sort of talking earlier about like do you write for yourself or do you write for other people but but there is this thing about wanting to share your experience and share your story with others and

00:35:30.92
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
-hmm.

00:35:52.07
Maria Uzor
Yeah, so it's kind of, you write for yourself, but you write for other people as well. I don't know, it's kind of, do you know what I mean?

00:35:59.80
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Yeah Yeah, you kind of you have Yeah Yeah, I think probably for most people at some point

00:35:59.86
Maria Uzor
It's kind of, or I do anyway. You know, not everyone does, I should say that.

00:36:09.66
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
they have to slip between writing for ourselves and then writing for other people.

00:36:15.27
Maria Uzor
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:36:16.03
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
And maybe for some artists that happens like by the minute and for others, maybe that happens from month to month, you know, that you might...

00:36:19.88
Maria Uzor
Hmm.

00:36:25.45
Maria Uzor
I should probably also say as well that one of the reasons that I do find myself writing for other people is because I really enjoyed the process of performing live. If I was an artist who worked in the studio and released albums then perhaps it would be less so but I enjoyed the process of sharing a moment live with people and I think when you're in that situation where you're in the room with other people then other people do become part of the music so for me it's like I want to write for you as well but I want to write from my own truth and I feel like if I write from my own truth but then hopefully it will resonate with you but I am also thinking about the live interaction as well.

00:36:51.11
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Yeah.

00:37:16.48
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Yeah, and I'd love to come on to the live, how you perform live later on, but i'm just think about you how you're building up tracks like the one that we've just listened to, sometimes they look at you. You're saying you start at the BPM, maybe you get a beat, or it could be like a synth or something like that that you're looping and then you start kind of improvising on top.

00:37:39.12
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
how much do you let yourself tinker after you've found that hook or after the track started to shape? Like, do you just sort of land on a beat quite quickly and then you're like, okay, that's it, that's fine. It is what it is. Or do you find yourself doing a lot of tweaking and searching after that initial phase?

00:38:01.31
Maria Uzor
Both. I think both. There's some tracks that I'll labour on for a long period of time and there's other tracks that I'll just be like that will do is captured something in the moment and that will do I'm not going to change the vocal take I'm not going to change do you know what I mean like anything.

00:38:22.45
Maria Uzor
So yeah, so it's kind of a ah mixture of two. But I also, like the second EP that I released during lockdown, which was called Innocence of Worldliness, I wrote that, it's four tracks, and I wrote that with a specific intention. And this was when I'd just switched from Logic Pro to Ableton, and I didn't know how to use Ableton. So I just literally taught myself and I wanted to write something completely new on a door that I hadn't used before and so I made the intention that when I write this EP I'll only work on it when I'm feeling positive about it and then as soon as any sort of like negative feeling creeps in or any feeling of

00:39:07.08
Maria Uzor
insecurity of or oh i don't think i can do this or why is it sounding so shit or any of that as soon as that looks like no shut the laptop move it to one side do something else so every single part of the album came from a place of um exploration and feeling self-assured, which is, I don't always feel, but I like the concept of the energy that you put into making something is evident in the end product.

00:39:26.81
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Mm hmm.

00:39:32.85
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Mm

00:39:37.60
Maria Uzor
Do you know what I mean?

00:39:37.89
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
hmm.

00:39:38.10
Maria Uzor
And I wanted to sort of like test that and see, and when I listened to it, I can still hear that it came from a place of playfulness and exploration and yeah.

00:39:41.85
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Hmm.

00:39:49.67
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Yeah, I love that. I think that's a really, I think there'll be a lot of people listening who will find that a really useful insight, you know, thinking what, because it's a bit like, you know, when you cook, you can taste when food has been made with love, can't you?

00:40:02.44
Maria Uzor
Yeah.

00:40:05.96
Maria Uzor
Yeah, yeah, definitely.

00:40:07.11
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
You know?

00:40:08.04
Maria Uzor
Yeah.

00:40:08.65
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
And it's a similar thing that when I have listened to, you know, soft cuts in particular, I do feel a sense of self-assuredness and confidence and playfulness.

00:40:20.83
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
I do hear all of that.

00:40:22.98
Maria Uzor
Yeah, yeah.

00:40:23.15
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
And I think as an artist, being intentional about we putting into this beyond our skills and our ideas, like what are we emotionally infusing in our music?

00:40:28.22
Maria Uzor
Mm.

00:40:34.51
Maria Uzor
Yeah, yeah, I think it's so important. I think it's and going back to social media, I feel like it's it's something that we're losing more and more that ability, but

00:40:44.14
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Mm-hm.

00:40:46.72
Maria Uzor
Because it's just kind of because things move so fast as well, don't they? And there there's this thing of like, well, if I spend time sort of like wallowing in how I feel about things, then everyone's going to bypass me.

00:40:50.67
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Yeah.

00:40:57.30
Maria Uzor
So I need to like catch up and put stuff out and do

00:40:57.89
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Yeah.

00:41:00.62
Maria Uzor
Yeah, but we're not getting in touch with who we really are and what we have to offer as artists. And so every single person has something so special to offer if we stop trying to copy what other people are doing and chase this algorithmic fucking thing that it's morphed into.

00:41:17.26
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Yeah, yeah.

00:41:20.55
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
And with Sometimes They Look At You, the track develops over, know, towards the middle and end. Can you talk us through that development production wise and writing wise and

00:41:30.23
Maria Uzor
Yeah. See, i'm a I'm subject to the effects of social media as well. And I think it changes so much because my attention span has dwindled. to And that's something that I quite often do with my tracks. I'll often start somewhere else. And then after 30 seconds or a minute or something, it will go into something completely different. My current single, what's it called?

00:41:53.46
Maria Uzor
but but what you need, yeah, completely forgot. That totally does that. But yeah, it's just, I mean, there's all sorts of influences in that there's a bit of footwork in there. er er There's sort of jazz influences, there's hip hop, there's punk,

00:42:14.85
Maria Uzor
it's yeah it's bits of soul and R and&B, psychedelia, it's just kind of all the music that I've listened to like since I was a kid up until now it's this I don't like the idea of filtering stuff it's just kind of like if it feels good stick it in you know.

00:42:32.23
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Yeah, yeah, great. Well, I'd love to play some more of your music. So we're now going to listen to a little section of Face Mask, which is a very different track.

00:42:45.70
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Maybe before we take a little listen, can you tell us a little bit about this track, Maria?

00:42:50.47
Maria Uzor
Yeah, so what's that about? Well, it's called Face Mars, strangely enough, because I was, we were just coming out of lockdown and I was touring with a band called, or playing a few dates with a band called Baba Ali. It wasn't really a tour, it was about five or six dates.

00:43:06.31
Maria Uzor
And I was in the hotel room just waiting to on so for a soundcheck in Manchester, I think it was. And I opened my laptop and there was a face mask on the bed, you know, just like a, you know, one of those blue things that we all wore. And yeah, so I just called the track face mask and the name stuck. And I don't really know if that's got any connection to what the track's about.

00:43:37.69
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Yeah.

00:43:31.78
Maria Uzor
But I kind of like the concept of like, you know, sometimes we are all wearing masks, you know what I mean? So it's kind of like stuck with that. But I wanted to write something that I included on the album because I wanted to write something that kind of was at a slower pace to a lot of the other stuff and that had space to kind of form a different landscape, like sonically, and explore those sort of aspects. And in terms of influence, it was kind of sonically, there was stuff like, I mean, even things like All Saints is in there, and sort of 90s R and&B, things like Aaliyah and

00:44:15.31
Maria Uzor
Yeah, that kind of 90 Smoochy R and&B vibe, but then I wanted to sort of ah ah juxtapose that with something quite stark and electronic. um So it's kind of like a juxtapose of different styles and genres.

00:44:30.69
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Yeah. And again, like to come out to the vocal production, they're very sort of floaty. There's a delay, there's a kind of like audible reverb. It feels like it's quite sort of spacey and floaty.

00:44:46.06
Maria Uzor
Yeah, yeah, actually the harmonies on that came from I was a kid and listening to a lot of reggae, like my mum used to play a lot of roots reggae and like Lovers Rock and stuff and some of those have got like really close harmonies like particularly like male male vocal harmonies and I really wanted to try and sort of like create that kind of

00:44:55.47
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

00:45:08.31
Maria Uzor
feel of these really close, smooth, like, slightly discordant harmonies and stick that in.

00:45:16.37
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Yeah.

00:45:17.04
Maria Uzor
So it's kind of like, yeah, another sort of like musical genre influence that's gone into it that you may not necessarily pick up on listening first, but just influences come from everywhere.

00:45:19.27
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Mm. I definitely picked up with this idea of the backing singers, which really now you're talking about it makes so much sense that there's these backing singers that seem to come in and they feel behind the lead vocal and they're slightly to the side and it feels very like a live performance type.

00:45:30.52
Maria Uzor
Right, yeah.

00:45:43.90
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
thing but then amidst all of these synthetic sounds or not synthetic but you know like electronic type sounds and also the discordant thing that you're talking about there's a few kind of synth parts that are slightly um like intentionally like tonally sort of clashing with what you're singing right?

00:46:05.24
Maria Uzor
Yeah, Right. Okay, probably. I can't remember how it sounds.

00:46:11.70
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Just every now and then it feels like it's quite in touch and every now and then there's a note that will kind of like clash, but then it'll quickly slot back into place.

00:46:13.11
Maria Uzor
Yeah.

00:46:17.15
Maria Uzor
Right, right.

00:46:20.03
Maria Uzor
right right okay i'll have to have another listen but i love that though i don't i love that i love imperfection i mean i love the the glitch and embracing the glitch and not being afraid of of doing things that are human because we are human and it's like it's a way of keeping hold of our humanity like um you know like the vocals don't have to be perfect the drums don't have to be perfect it's like the harmonies don't have to be perfect it's it's

00:46:27.12
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Yeah.

00:46:38.89
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Yeah.

00:46:48.71
Maria Uzor
That's what that's what differentiates us from the machines.

00:46:53.75
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Yeah, yeah.

00:46:54.17
Maria Uzor
So it's kind of, you know, that's a superpower imperfection. We should be embracing that.

00:46:58.48
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Yeah. Definitely. I think that looking at like the whole album together, that the two things that I have enjoyed the most on a kind of production level have been your choices or your crafting of the synth sounds that you use.

00:47:14.58
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
both in bass and in other types of synths, so whether they be lead or pad synths, and also your vocal production.

00:47:19.98
Maria Uzor
Right.

00:47:23.73
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Can you share what are the tools that you're using to find those sounds?

00:47:29.26
Maria Uzor
So I use Ableton, first and foremost, and it's mostly software influencers. a Software instruments.

00:47:41.64
Maria Uzor
It's mostly software instruments that I use. um use the Arturia range as well, and also ah native native instruments as well. um And I'll then sort of like tweak certain things, like I've got sound toys, which is a selection of processing software tools. So I might sort of like tweak certain primities in that or lay a filter on it.

00:48:07.38
Maria Uzor
There's, yeah, and ah reverb as well is something that I use. I like gated reverb, like for drums, but also for, but I just, I think it's fun to just

00:48:14.39
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Mm-hm.

00:48:22.06
Maria Uzor
explore and just try and just see what feels right for you do you know what I mean like just try different effects if someone says oh you're not supposed to have so much reverb on the vocal or oh you're not supposed to like who cares if it feels right for you then do it it's like if something's peaking do you know what I mean if that feels right and that's the sound that you want then include that

00:48:33.46
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Yeah. Mm-hm.

00:48:43.96
Maria Uzor
There are no rights or wrongs. It's just what feels right for you, what feels honest to you, what's in alignment with your vision and what you want to do.

00:48:51.89
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Yeah. And so I'd love to now talk a little bit about how you bring, you know, you've obviously got a process that you write. all this at home and you experiment and you've and talked us through some of that and that's been really good.

00:49:05.30
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
How do you then bring that into a live context? Because I think ah a lot of people struggle with this or really get in, we can get in our heads about this, right? Where we feel like we have to do everything exactly how it is on the record or we have to do everything ourselves or whatever it might be.

00:49:19.06
Maria Uzor
Yeah.

00:49:21.95
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
So how do you approach bringing an album like Softcuts then live?

00:49:26.77
Maria Uzor
Right, well I did kind of like struggle with this, I think this is one of the things about electronic music is that when you sit at your computer you've got like so many tools available for you and then once the songs are written you then sort of like think, oh my god how am I going to transfer this to a live space?

00:49:43.58
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Yeah.

00:49:44.46
Maria Uzor
So what I personally did, because I'm a solo performer, I decided that I was going to isolate certain aspects of each track, turn it into a loop, and then put it in an Ableton live setup so that I could have then use something like this.

00:50:06.29
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Huh?

00:50:06.90
Maria Uzor
Or also like I've got a ah push controller.

00:50:07.55
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
So as this is a podcast episode, what is it that you just picked up and showed me, Maria?

00:50:57.49
Maria Uzor
trying to control too many different ah ah inputs and outputs and channels.

00:51:04.79
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
And can you, so if you've got eight channels, but can you like move to a different track and then there's different sounds loaded into those eight channels?

00:51:12.86
Maria Uzor
Yeah. Yeah. So you can basically, I mean, that's what they use for the, um, to turn on and off different channels, but I also have like a, um, Ableton push controller, which I can use to then sort of like take me down to different tracks, um, as well. Um, and there's other sort of cheaper versions as well, um, that you can get, um, and.

00:51:37.78
Maria Uzor
Yeah, so that's kind of like how I do it. And I also run some things on mostly backing tracks as well. And then we'll play like certain parts live over the top of it.

00:51:49.88
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Yeah.

00:51:50.16
Maria Uzor
So I try to keep things quite simple for myself on stage because part of what I really enjoy as an artist is the interaction with the audience. And I think basically when I was, so let me just have some water.

00:52:00.67
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Yeah,

00:52:04.28
Maria Uzor
My throat's a bit dry.

00:52:04.67
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
sure.

00:52:09.18
Maria Uzor
Yeah, I was bullied as a kid, like for being black in a white environment. And that made me shut down.

00:52:18.54
Maria Uzor
It made me sort of like self-conscious about myself and about making a fool of myself and this sort of like almost like this need to not give them anything to pick on you for.

00:52:25.80
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Hmm. Hmm.

00:52:32.100
Maria Uzor
Do you know what I mean? But what I find when I go on stage is that I really enjoy being on stage and just being free to dance around like an idiot

00:52:38.67
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Hmm.

00:52:44.11
Maria Uzor
it's almost like it's reclaiming, it's kind of like well yeah I can just be like and I can just stomp around and I can just like embrace who I am and be in a space of freedom and joy and I kind of feel like if I'm doing that on stage once again it's like the energy is in the final product and I feel like people are then able to feel feel that and maybe that might make them think like, do you know what, I can kind of be myself as well. It doesn't matter if I make a fool of myself, because what does that even mean anyway? You know, I feel like in our society, we're so scared of making fool of ourselves. We're scared of looking stupid, we're scared of not being perfect, do you know what I mean?

00:53:27.38
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Hmm.

00:53:29.13
Maria Uzor
Yeah, fuck all that. Let's all just embrace our humanity and our imperfections because it's a superpower.

00:53:30.54
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Hmm.

00:53:36.11
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Yeah and I love what you said about you know making making your live setup work for you like sometimes that might be a backing track sometimes that might be a live controller where you can trigger samples and manipulate them and every artist is going to feel differently but like I think something that's not talked about enough and I think particularly for women artists in music production and live electronics is like actually owning simplicity where you it's especially if it's not coming from a place of say fear or inadequacy but from what you're saying that you know that there's other parts of the performance that are as important or more important to you than demonstrating your technical ability and that's a decision that you're making and that's an empowered informed decision.

00:53:43.38
Maria Uzor
Yeah, yeah.

00:54:17.76
Maria Uzor
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

00:54:23.96
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
So in that instance, a backing track is okay, because either it would just be almost impossible to replicate what you've done inside of your DAW at home, but also it will then, to try and replicate it, will take you away from being able to actually do the really important stuff that you've described, which is not just connecting with an audience live, it's reclaiming space for yourself as a human with all the experiences you've had.

00:54:32.41
Maria Uzor
Yeah. Yeah.

00:54:48.00
Maria Uzor
Yeah. Yeah. And it also comes back to, you know, if I was to make things really complicated for me, who am I doing it for again? Who am I creating the art for?

00:54:55.72
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Yeah.

00:54:57.19
Maria Uzor
I'm creating the art for some, I don't know, a critic because he's standing there, striking their chin and going, oh yes, I think I'll give her the time of day because she's got like 15 synths set up and she's able to do it.

00:55:05.74
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Yeah.

00:55:06.87
Maria Uzor
Do you know what I mean?

00:55:07.47
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Yeah, absolutely.

00:55:07.55
Maria Uzor
And it's like, and I'm not doing it for myself. So I'm going off target again, like out of alignment with, you know,

00:55:10.05
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Yeah.

00:55:12.66
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Yeah and I do think that's something that I've noticed a lot of female artists bringing to the space of electronic music and how that is performed live.

00:55:24.05
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
I think that there's a lot of female artists who are bringing a lot more kind of ritual into that and I mean like artists that are using are really thinking about when people come into that space

00:55:30.43
Maria Uzor
What do you mean? Sorry.

00:55:39.92
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
how does it become a different reality?

00:55:43.60
Maria Uzor
I know what you mean. Yeah.

00:55:44.49
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Yeah.

00:55:44.64
Maria Uzor
Yeah. People like Lulu York and Julia Sophie and and stuff like that.

00:55:45.24
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
So, yeah.

00:55:50.72
Maria Uzor
Yeah.

00:55:50.76
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Yeah. And I think like, like the one group that, or kind of, i I don't really want to call them a group, but one collective, I guess, that was featured on the podcast was Nix.

00:56:02.99
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
And I don't know if you're familiar with them, but they,

00:56:03.13
Maria Uzor
Oh, right. I don't know them.

00:56:05.93
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
they create this incredibly kind of atmospheric space to perform in NYX.

00:56:09.49
Maria Uzor
All right. How do you spell their name? What's this? All right. Okay.

00:56:14.10
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
And they've, yes, it's like that, yeah.

00:56:14.35
Maria Uzor
Like the makeup brands.

00:56:17.56
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
I think it's, yeah.

00:56:18.14
Maria Uzor
Someone's going to get sued.

00:56:20.78
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
I think apparently it's, I don't think they can be because it is the name of a Greek god.

00:56:25.60
Maria Uzor
Oh, right.

00:56:26.84
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
But yeah, yeah.

00:56:26.63
Maria Uzor
Okay.

00:56:28.18
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
So Nix and Gazelle Twin, that they've done a lot of work with Gazelle Twin.

00:56:28.80
Maria Uzor
Yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, amazing.

00:56:33.84
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
And that there's definitely, and I would count you in that as well.

00:56:34.28
Maria Uzor
Yeah.

00:56:36.70
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
And there's definitely a kind of, um, it feels like a bit of a new wave of women really reclaiming performing electronic music of saying, actually, this, this is an experience that is beyond watching me twiddle some knobs.

00:56:49.82
Maria Uzor
Yeah, yeah.

00:56:50.46
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
You know, this, this can be an experience that is spiritual and supernatural and whatever else it might be, you know, and that there's lots of other things that we need to do to,

00:56:53.51
Maria Uzor
Yeah.

00:57:02.25
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
create that and hold that space, you know.

00:57:03.47
Maria Uzor
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, completely agree 100%.

00:57:06.92
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I feel like this is a good time to maybe finish up, but before we do Maria, can you tell us what are you working on at the moment?

00:57:18.12
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
I know that we we talked about music that has kind of been released kind of a while back now, but you have a new single that is out at the booth can listen to, which is what you need.

00:57:25.47
Maria Uzor
Yeah.

00:57:29.31
Maria Uzor
Yeah.

00:57:29.70
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Do you have, are you releasing more staff? Are you working towards another album?

00:57:35.36
Maria Uzor
I'm always working towards stuff.

00:57:37.06
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Yeah.

00:57:38.60
Maria Uzor
I'm going to be included in a charity compilation for children in Palestine, which is coming out in November.

00:57:42.36
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Oh wonderful.

00:57:46.21
Maria Uzor
I'm not sure when this podcast is coming out. I can't remember the name of the album, I'm afraid. But but all proceeds are going to be going towards helping children in Palestine.

00:57:57.55
Maria Uzor
So that's something that I'm really happy about and excited about.

00:58:01.06
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Yeah.

00:58:01.93
Maria Uzor
I'm also currently working on a next follow-up album and going at my own pace. It's important to

00:58:10.68
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Yeah.

00:58:14.31
Maria Uzor
take the time and work when it feels right and and it feels as though a lot of what we've talked about today is kind of bubbling on the surface and it's forming the foundations of what the next album is looking like it's going to be.

00:58:30.99
Maria Uzor
I mean and that's the importance of taking time to allow ideas to develop and to take roots and to form firm foundations.

00:58:42.67
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Yeah.

00:58:43.33
Maria Uzor
So I don't kind of want to rush it, I want the ideas to just kind of like percolate and so it's coming from a place of sound foundation.

00:58:53.78
Maria Uzor
So that's what I'm working on. I'm hoping to sort of possibly get something out beginning of next year, but if it's later, then it's later, you know.

00:59:01.86
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Yeah. And something we didn't touch on was releasing DIY as opposed to releasing with a label.

00:59:08.13
Maria Uzor
Ah, right, yeah.

00:59:09.74
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
you going to be releasing this next album? I presume it's an album DIY or will you be going with a label again? And if...

00:59:17.44
Maria Uzor
I'm not sure, I'm not sure. I might do it DIY. The problem with DIY is obviously funding is really important in order for it to get enough reach in terms of radio play, playing for a plugger, PR and stuff like that. But obviously doing the DIY you get to keep all your rights, which is really the thing.

00:59:40.28
Maria Uzor
It's your baby.

00:59:41.24
Maria Uzor
All complete artistic control. And then obviously going with the label is good because often it helps with publicity that kind of stuff.

00:59:53.72
Maria Uzor
So yeah, I'm unsure at the moment.

00:59:55.65
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Mm.

00:59:56.63
Maria Uzor
I think I'll sort of like do finish the album and see what feels right for me, I think, um and take it down that

01:00:03.64
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Yeah.

01:00:04.57
Maria Uzor
And maybe, you know, if I feel like touting it around to a few labels, then I will. If I feel like self-releasing it, I'll self-release it. Who knows? But it kind of feels like we're on the precipice of so much change in the industry that even though I'm talking about this sort of like album release cycle, it's things are changing at such a rapid pace and it's kind of like the world west at the moment where anything is possible and anything can be done and who knows by the time I finish this album maybe I maybe I won't want to do albums anymore maybe I'll want to do a triple album maybe I don't know it's just it's kind of I just want to allow myself the space to

01:00:29.90
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Yeah.

01:00:45.42
Maria Uzor
do what feels right to me as an artist and also reclaim my space as an artist away from the algorithm and think about community building.

01:00:52.52
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Yeah.

01:00:56.06
Maria Uzor
That's something that I'm really interested as well because I kind of feel like there's so much isolation. and loneliness and I feel like people are just screaming out for community at the moment and yeah so I'm interested in exploring all of those like how do we get back to building community and building honest authentic creativity Yeah, so all of that is bubbling and whether I'm working on an album, whether it comes out as an album, whether it comes out as something else, who knows?

01:01:19.33
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Yeah, yeah.

01:01:27.26
Maria Uzor
We are in the Wild West and it's an exciting place to be.

01:01:28.79
girlstwiddlingkn0bs
Yeah, yeah, definitely. Well, thank you so much for joining me on the podcast, Maria. It's been fascinating listening to, yeah, and it's been great to listen to your music and also to talk about your process and all of those bigger questions that have fed into it.

01:01:36.38
Maria Uzor
Thank you, thank you, it's been great.