FEATURE: Spotlight: Maya Jane Coles

FEATURE:

Spotlight

Maya Jane Coles

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I felt that…

I needed to put Maya Jane Coles into Spotlight because her new album, Night Creature, is out on 28th October. One of House and Techno's most prized artists, it is going to be an incredible release. Before heading back and introducing you to Coles, CLASH reported news of her upcoming album recently:

“A broad, ambitious work, the album makes room for some of Maya's most daring production moments yet, and vocal performances from Julia Stone, Lie Ning, Claudia Kane and Karin Park.

As for the title, Maya Jane Coles comments: “When it comes to my music making, I’ve pretty much always been a creature of the night. My creativity tends to work at its best during those peaceful hours when my surroundings are at a standstill and I feel completely in my own world. Then on the flip side, in the club, the night can shift into some of the most energetic and ecstatic moments in time.”

“For me, 'Night Creature' interweaves those moments, crossing over dark to light, melancholic to energetic, my favourite kind of music to make. The incredible guest vocalists totally elevate my music to a new level on this record and I’ve spent more time on it than any release I’ve ever worked on so I’m extremely excited to finally be able to share it with the world and hope that you all like it as much as I do! <3 Maya x”.

There are a few interviews that I want to scatter in. Last year, beatportal provided a great introduction to Maya Jane Coles. She talked about her music, relationship with fans and rise.

“Growing up in London, Maya was raised by parents she describes as “massive music heads,” and her formative years were soundtracked by an eclectic mix of dub, classical, punk, jazz, reggae, metal, blues and soul. She learned at least six instruments growing up — guitar, piano, saxophone, double bass, drums and cello. And when she started producing at around 15 years old, Maya would raid her parents’ vinyl collection, sampling old blues and jazz drums, which became the foundations of her initial forays into music making. It was a household devoid of any commercial or conventional pop music, and Maya’s “lack of knowledge when it comes to cheesy ‘80s music says it all really,” she says with a laugh.

Maya’s school years were spent immersed in ‘90s and ‘00s hip hop and R&B. In her early teens, shows by The Pharcyde, Jay Z and Jean Grae proved instrumental in her development, as well as Mary J. Blige and Alicia Keys. “And then the raving came,” she chuckles. Parties like DMZ and FWD>> showed her a world of dark, moody dubstep, and east London warehouse parties hosted by the likes of Secretsundaze first exposed her to house and techno. Maya now lives in Shoreditch, and that’s where we meet on a rainy January afternoon. As we talk about her introduction to electronic music, she’s quick to point out that she’s aware of the benefits of growing up in London, particularly as she was finding her feet. “You’re definitely spoiled here,” she says. “Places to go, different club nights, niche pockets and sub-genres, and a scene for everything. At that time, if you lived in a remote town somewhere, it was more difficult to access what was going on in the underground.”

Her home computer came installed with a demo of FruityLoops (known now as FL Studio). In her early teens, Maya would practice for hours on end, eventually learning to record her own loops, chopping them up and re-looping sounds over one another. Maya then began teaching herself Cubase on the computers at school, recording vocals with her friends for fun. As she turned 16, she knew she was going to pursue music. She switched to Logic around this time, and has used it ever since.

Finding the balance between the methodical workings of computer technology and a mind that thinks in colourful earworms and compositional layers, proved, at times, frustrating for Maya. “The technical side wasn’t as good as the musical ideas I was coming up with,” she says. Despite moments of frustration and clashes between composition and production, Maya found comfort in listening back to her work regularly, recognising how much her abilities were improving in a short space of time. “It gave me the confidence to keep at it,” she says. “I knew I was getting better and better.” The music she makes might be electronic and made with machines, but she approaches her music like a living, breathing, instrumental composition — not least in the way she uses her own voice.

Maya’s vocals are omnipresent in her music. Sometimes it’s a recognisable vocal line, but more often than not, her voice is heavily manipulated: filters, compresses, reverb, pitching up, pitching down. She uses it like a sample, and Logic is filled with saved vocal presets of her own. “I love making instrumental music,” she says, “but adding a hint of the human voice, that vocal element, takes the instrumental to another place, and gives it character.” Maya said last year that it should be the goal of a producer to create something utterly unique, something that cannot be replicated. She has achieved this in the way she uses her voice as an instrument. “It’s a signature thing for me that I’ve developed over time”, she explains. “You couldn’t replicate it, unless you managed to get ahold of an a capella on one of my tracks.”

She models herself after powerful, nonconformist women. Artists like Björk and Peaches, for their crazy performances, concepts, and for what they stand for; or Erykah Badu, for “being such a badass style icon.” For Maya, it’s not just the music, it’s the whole package — the videos, the art direction, the overall aesthetic, and most importantly, the mentality and ethos of the artist. Looking back, she wishes she’d had a female producer she could have looked up to as she was honing her craft. “I still can’t get my head around the fact that there were so few women producing records back then,” she says.

In a world that was dominated by men telling her what to do and how to do it, Maya Jane Coles has stayed true to herself. If she could go back to the beginning and give herself one piece of advice, it would be to believe in herself — to remind herself that the endless graft and grind would be worth it. “It would have been good to have had somebody to tell me I should do it my way,” she admits. “I always felt as though I was fighting against what I was told.”

Difficult as that fight was, it ultimately led Maya where she is today. “I feel like the limits of my music are endless,” she says. “In my head I see it as this big galaxy that keeps going and going.”

Through the highs and the lows, and the moments where she thought about giving up, Maya Jane Coles refused to conform. She’s done things her own way, shining bright, like a star in her vast musical galaxy”.

There are different sides to Maya Jane Coles. As Nocturnal Sunshine, she utilises and experiments with Hip-Hop productions. She has a huge love of the genre. In November 2019, Coles released her second Nocturnal Sunshine L.P., Full Circle. Billboard spoke to her about the album at the start of last year:

“You've said that your first musical love is hip-hop. Give us your top three hip-hop albums.

Top three is difficult as that can totally change depending on my mood and depending on what kind style of hip-hop! But, right now I’d say Jean Grae, Attack of the Attacking Things, GZA & RZA, Liquid Swords and Mobb Deep's The Infamous.

How is your approach different when you're producing as Nocturnal Sunshine, if at all?

I don’t necessarily have a different approach when working under my alias, I tend to go at everything in the same way and things just come out differently when I’m in different mind states. Even if I wasn’t releasing music, I’d still be making it all the time as it’s my passion and I’m constantly making music that doesn’t even fit under any of my projects that I never end up releasing.

What do you consider the high points of your career so far?

There have been a lot of obvious milestones like being on big magazine covers, releasing albums, being in the charts, awards etc. But also lots of more personal milestones, like producing tracks for artists I used to listen to growing up as a kid, my music enabling me to buy my first home and build a studio space”.

I will bring things more up to date. Sticking with Nocturnal Sunshine, London in Stereo chatted with Maya Jane Coles in 2019 ahead of a big Sónar by Day set. It seems that having another guise allows the multi-talented producer and artist to broaden her horizon and create this flexibility:

“Can you tell me about your formative experiences of music?

Hip hop was my first love for sure. Mainly US stuff. When I was a teenager I remember seeing shows like The Pharcyde, Jean Grae and The Roots. I loved everything from old school hip hop, to the whole Memphis dirty south hip hop scene, and also all the amazing East Coast rappers — Nas, Mobb Deep, Wu Tang Clan. Then I also got into house, techno, some DnB and dubstep in my late teens. There were so many London raves I’d go to that exposed me to amazing electronic music.

Who do you think are your biggest influences musically?

Missy Elliott is one of my all time biggest inspirations. She was one of the first artists that taught me that you don’t have to play by the rules, always innovative and coming out with the freshest stuff. Timbaland’s productions were so futuristic. Supa Dupa Fly, Da Real World and Miss E… So Addictive are still classics to this day, and still sound like the future! I have a real appreciation for unconventional artists who just do their own thing and never try to conform.

You release all your music via your own label, can you talk about that release process a bit?

I’m very particular about what I release. I don’t want an A&R telling me what I should and shouldn’t put out. I want that control for myself. I started my label I/AM/ME as a platform to release all of my own projects and to have control over my own release schedules. It’s nice to be able to release what I want, when I want, and not have to answer to anybody or live up to someone else’s timelines.

What has been the most challenging aspect of your career to date?

I’d say the early years trying to make my career happen were the most difficult. It’s hard to try to not settle for a plan B. Plan A was the only way. From age 16 I knew what I wanted to do. But it wasn’t easy, and it definitely took a lot more work than people will ever know. From the outside it can easily look like things happen from out of nowhere when that really isn’t the case. Aside from that, the first few years where I toured relentlessly were hard. When it’s all new you have to take every gig that comes your way, and it’s not easy finding a balance. There are so many people you feel like you need to please. I feel like I have it great now though. I’m so happy with the current balance I’ve found between touring, studio time and my personal life. Things are pretty good!”.

I am going to finish with an interview GRAMMY conducted in April this year. They spoke with her following her Women's History Month Beatport residency the previous month:

“Maya Jane Coles is an unstoppable creative force. If being an in-demand producer and globally headlining DJ wasn't impressive enough, she is able to translate her artistry across genres and mediums with ease and undeniable skill. As Maya Jane Coles, she delivers deep, moody, pulsing house tunes. As CAYAM, she brings unrelenting techno bangers. As Nocturnal Sunshine, she channels her long-time love of hip-hop and her hometown (London) grime scene with dirty, bass-pumped collabs.

The 33-year-old Japanese-British wunderkind also has an eye for visual art, and has designed many of her album covers with trippy illustrations. While her name(s) and music are almost universally known in the global house and techno community, her beats have made a massive impact in mainstream pop.

In celebration of her epic Women's History Month Beatport residency last month, GRAMMY.com caught up with Coles to learn more about the stellar lineup she curated for it, what new music she's been cooking up, her teenage hip-hop roots and much more.

How did you approach curating the Beatport Women's History Month residency?

I actually wasn't aware that the entire residency was going to be aired during Women's History Month when I was curating the lineups, so I didn't focus only on women except for the very last stream. My initial focus was to keep things as diverse as possible.

Each week was curated under a different alias of mine, which I hadn't done before, so I found it was a cool opportunity to give listeners a better understanding of what each project is about musically. MJC, CAYAM and Nocturnal Sunshine all represent such different sides of me as an artist. It's rare for me to DJ under my aliases, so I thought it would be fun to give everyone a taste of something a bit different.

Can you tell us a bit more about the artists you chose for the "Rising Stars" livestream?

For the "Rising Stars" stream, I was purely focusing specifically on East London-based talent—all incredible DJs (and also incredible people) that I had met in East London throughout various points in the last few years. It's always nice being able to include friends when possible, especially when I have so many talented people around me.

As for your DJ sets during the residency, what sort of energy and music did you strive to bring to those?

Honestly, I personally find DJ streams quite difficult to enjoy as it takes away the most important part of DJing for me, which is the connection with the audience and reading the crowd. Spontaneity is what makes a DJ set exciting, not knowing what's coming next or how you're going to feel during a set. This is why in the last year I kept it quite minimal and only chose to do a handful of sets, the Beatport Residency being a chunk of them.

I also stayed away from any huge production/green screen stuff, and just focused on the music. That's always the important part for me. As long as it sounds amazing, that's all that matters. Most of my time goes into digging, editing, remixing the tracks I'm going to play rather than prepping for how it's going to look.

You recently dropped the hard-hitting "Pull Up" and "Ridin' Solo" with Gangsta Boo under your Nocturnal Sunshine alias. What was it like working with her and how did ya'll approach those tracks?

I actually just hit up Lola (Gangsta Boo) on Insta, as I had been thinking about getting her on a track for a while. She got back to me right away and we started talking about the collab.

"Ridin' Solo" came first—we did everything remotely, London to L.A. I think the track ended up getting done in the space of couple days which was pretty incredible considering the time difference with the back and forth. I loved the outcome so much we ended up working on a second track, "Pull Up," which afterwards my label team ended up helping get Young M.A. to also feature on.

I still have Gangsta Boo's [1998] album Enquiring Minds, which I bought when I was 16, plus loads of old Three 6 Mafia which Gangsta Boo was a part of] stuff from back then, so it was a pretty special moment having her guest on my Nocturnal Sunshine stuff. I've got more hip-hop and also U.K. grime stuff coming under the alias soon.

And then last year, as CAYAM, you gave us the club-ready Pleasure EP to rave to at home. What was the inspiration for that release?

I was really starting to miss releasing tracks like my earlier club stuff. The MJC album stuff that I've released over the last few years has evolved a lot and I've developed so much as an artist on the compositional side, but I was also missing releasing the more instrumental club-based stuff like I did back in 2007 to 2011.

The CAYAM alias was something I started anonymously in 2014 but then didn't really continue with it. Last year, I thought why not pick it up again to put out some of the unreleased club tracks that I had lying around, plus use it as an outlet for the faster paced techno stuff that I had been making. I guess the focus for the Pleasure EP was picking back up the sound from my very early releases but with more of a current edge”.

I will end there. With a new album, Night Creature, out later this month, now is a perfect time to follow the incredible Maya Jane Coles. She is one of the hardest-working artists and producers around. If you are not aware of the tremendous Coles, then make sure that you rectify that now. She is one of this country’s…