FEATURE: Spotlight: MICHELLE — Music Musings & Such

FEATURE:

Spotlight

MICHELLE

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A group I have not featured before…

PHOTO CREDIT: Daniel Dorsa

the amazing MICHELLE released the album, AFTER DINNER WE TALK DREAMS, in January. The N.Y.C.-based group have released an incredible album. I will come to a review for it at the end. Before that, there are a few interviews that I wanted to include. Before that even, here is some biography about the stunning MICHELLE:

“Born-and-bred New Yorkers, MICHELLE formed in 2018 and is comprised of Sofia D'Angelo, Julian Kaufman, Charlie Kilgore, Layla Ku, Emma Lee and Jamee Lockard. The predominantly POC and queer collective mix and match the writing and production groups amongst the six of them.

The hallmarks of MICHELLE's music—layered vocal harmonies, analog synthesizers, vibrant percussion, smoldering hooks—dominate the sonic landscape of their upcoming album, with the four female vocalists pushing the boundaries of their considerable singing talents as Charlie and Julian’s shared production explodes with fearless creativity and exploration. Despite all the tinkering elsewhere, it is important to note that the vocals remain largely untouched and appear in their organic state. Songs hop across genres, from funky R&B to bedroom slow jams to amped-up beat-heavy anthems and more. The songwriting on AFTER DINNER WE TALK DREAMS has been elevated, as there is a depth and prowess at work that makes good on the promise of the band’s early songs, something they admit was learned by reflecting and allowing room for artistic growth”.

The first interview I want to bring in is from DIY. They spoke with MICHELLE back in November 2020. One of the most interesting and appealing aspects of the group is how they represent modern-day New York. A diversity in terms of P.o.C, the L.G.B.T.Q.I.A.+ communities, in addition to the eclectic and variegated sound:

“The first time all six members of MICHELLE were in the same room, their debut album had already been released. “We didn’t meet each other until the day of our first show in the middle of November 2018,” reflects singer Layla Ku. “We were all strangers!”

Having been wished into existence earlier that year by producers Julian Kaufman and Charlie Kilgore, the collective formed as the result of a crackpot plan to conjure up a record (September 2018’s resultant ‘HEATWAVE’) that would document Big Apple life in two weeks flat. They assembled a group of singers that they separately knew - some well, others more peripherally - and set up a series of homemade recording sessions, with no more than one or two of the four MICHELLE vocalists included at any one time. Songs would often be written and recorded on the same day and, by the end of the fortnight, all of the ten tracks had been locked down.

Was it touch and go to get it finished in time? “Really, it was just barely, by the drawstrings of our ten year old sweatpants,” laughs Julian. “There was still a lot of post-production to be done afterwards.”

As a band, MICHELLE reflect the modern reality of a city like New York, bringing an eclecticism of interests, upbringings, ethnicities and sexualities together; it electrifies their music with an unconstrained, pan-genre freedom, where slick R&B, cool jazz and angular rock all jostle for supremacy. The diversity of the sound matches the diversity of the six members’ personalities: Julian, they describe as the helping hand - the guy that “brings the sauce” - and Charlie as the “mad scientist”, whereas Layla is “the commissioner”, Sofia D’Angelo “the star”, Jamee Lockard “the student of the month” and Emma Lee “the triple threat” (dancer, visual artist and singer). “If we were all given the same track to write on, I think we would all create very different songs,” says Jamee.

Recent singles ‘UNBOUND’ and ‘SUNRISE’ mark the first two glimpses into the group’s as-yet-unnamed second LP that’s currently in the “cutting down phase”. Their first original album for Transgressive (who also re-released ‘HEATWAVE’ earlier this year), the band enthuse that the production is set to be much larger this time around due to the additional gestation time for the writing process. “We had the time to craft this thing in a way we didn’t before, which will hopefully be rewarding,” says Emma”.

It is impressive that a band who had such an unusual start (in the sense they didn’t meet each other right at the root of their formation) are together now and are stronger than ever. When speaking with The Forty-Five in August 2020, they were asked about how they acquired the confidence to keep going:

“The best in sunny, summer anthems. Blending funk, dream pop and simmering jazz sounds, their debut album ‘Heatwave’ gave the collective a platform to spread messages on social justice, and a little bit of joy with musical themes highlighting the stories of young people in New York.

A predominantly queer band with Black members and members of colour, their rise has marked a renewed approach to pop, where representation is not a performative focus and visibility becomes a beautifully normalised element of their group. In anticipation for the release of their new single next month, we caught up with all six members of MICHELLE over Zoom – Julian Kaufman and Charlie Kilgore on production and vocalists Sofia D’Angelo, Jamee Lockard, Layla Ku and Emma Lee – to chat about self confidence, fundraising and their journey so far.

How did you all meet?

Jamee: So we all either knew Charlie or Julian, and this was our summer 2018 project. I knew Charlie from our freshman year of college that we’d just finished, Charlie and Layla went to high school together and Sofia and Layla met organically as part of the New York City music scene. We got together separately, pockets of us got together with Julian and Charlie, recorded the songs the day we wrote them and we didn’t actually all meet until our first concert a couple of months after we released the album!

As a band only a couple of years into your career, how do you find the self confidence to keep going?

Sofia: Interesting question. I never really thought of it in that context before because like Jamee said, we all just came together in 2018 to make a record. None of this was really supposed to happen, we weren’t expecting all of this to get to where it is now. When I left the studio… well, Julian’s apartment, after writing and recording ‘Ideal’, I didn’t think the songs we were playing together would be playing on BBC Radio 1. That was always a dream of mine for music generally, but I never expected it to happen with this. Now that we have this new platform, we want to share the fun that we have with each other, with the world, but also use the platform to empower our fans and our listeners. I think that’s where we get the confidence from – taking advantage of our social media platforms to share resources, share music that we love, share inspiration, share artists of colour that we admire, queer artists that we admire, and share the stage. That’s something that gives us all more confidence in being MICHELLE out there.

You’re a predominantly queer BIPOC band. Do you see your band as a bit like an act of resistance, considering you produce such happy music and you’re being visibly queer BIPOC?

Layla: We were recently talking about how we are such an authentic reflection of where we come from in the sense that it’s not forced and it’s not a product of “oh there’s a demand for representation of these communities, let’s put together a group that amplifies that and meets that demand”. It was actually more “these are the people who were brought into this project because of their talents and their abilities and their skills and desire to work on this together”.

We just all happened to be of very diverse backgrounds, and happened to meet that need for representation that is being pushed to the forefront and is being listened to a little bit more than it has been in the past. But I take a lot of comfort in knowing that we make this music because we want to make that music and that’s what’s come to us and what we’ve gravitated towards and created together. The people behind it and the people making it is an afterthought. What we look like isn’t the first thing we bring to the table. It’s not everything we are”.

I will end with a positive review for MICHELLE’s new album. Just before then, V MAGAZINE celebrated a group that we can celebrate and find joy in. There is plenty of evidence of this on AFTER DINNER WE TALK DREAMS. V MAGAZINE chatted with the group in September last year:

“MICHELLE is a band born of unique circumstances in this regard. All the members know each other through either Kaufman or Kilgore, who decided to make an album in 2018; in the early days, there was consideration of calling themselves GERTRUDE. Scattered across the country, the six musicians came together virtually, sharing recordings and sounds until HEATWAVE was born in September—and the first time they were all in a room together wasn’t until months later, in November 2018.

“A lot of people were part of the making of that record, and the record did pretty well,” says D’Angelo. “And then we started doing shows and getting more attention, which required us to make some sacrifices and make some hard choices and make some awesome choices and share some delicious feasts, and also just do a lot of things we’ve never done before, until eventually MICHELLE became the group that it is today with the six of us. Now we’re embarking on a tour in two weeks and releasing our second full-length album.”

While AFTER DINNER WE TALK DREAMS isn’t due until January 2022, the first single from the sophomore album, “SYNCOPATE,” dropped alongside a music video today. For MICHELLE, everything is warm and sunny; their sound is a conglomeration of influences of all six members, from Sza to Stevie Wonder to NSYNC (“nsync is julians hair influence,” joked Kilgore in the Zoom chat, before hastily adding that “it looks great dont worry”), and their visuals are a dream of New York City friendships dipped in the sweetness of summer.

The songs on the album are essentially a time lapse of what MICHELLE has been up to since 2018; not all the songs are brand new. “SYNCOPATE,” for instance, was written in November 2020, launched from a melody Kaufman woke up with in his head, a track not added until much later—the vocals led the single to what it is today, a spirited September single with whimsical, groovy vibes, lightheartedness resting behind the force of MICHELLE’s sound.

The music video fits MICHELLE’s sound entirely: Manhattan rooftops (the perfect summer hangout setting, if you’re lucky enough to have one) alternate screen time with the interior of an apartment where the group hangs out, lounging and dancing. It’s warm and intimate, much like our Zoom interview; whether you’ve been a listener to MICHELLE for years or are just being introduced to them, the presence of all six members at once feels like you’re on a group FaceTime call with friends, idly chatting and glimpsing into each other’s days.

“We had a MICHELLE manifesto going into the video,” says Lockard. “It had things like New York being our backdrop, but also the seventh member of MICHELLE. New York is a big part of the reason why the group exists and a big part of our lives, so we wanted the music video to reflect New York.”

If “SYNCOPATE” is any indication, AFTER DINNER WE TALK DREAMS is going to usher in an entirely new era of MICHELLE, emphasizing their creative maturity and growth as a collective.

“One of the biggest differences [between both albums] is that it’s going from being a fun summer project that we just kind of did and didn’t think much about to our second album, us being a band and really doing it intentionally,” says Lee. “Knowing that it’s the six of us working on this project, solidifying ourselves as a band and actually taking more than two weeks to write and record the album, and being very intentional.”

And how does this new intentionality manifest itself between HEATWAVE and ADWTD? According to Kilgore, “It’s totally different…and also very much the same.”

“A beautiful thing about MICHELLE is that because there are so many members and because the process is always shifting, you hopefully get something different, but that still feels like home,” says Lee. “Something comfortable, like ‘Oh, I know these people, and I’m excited to grow with them.’”

The band agrees that if you find one track extremely weird and another unbelievably perfect, your best friend might find them to be opposite, the weird perfect and the perfect weird. It’s an album for everybody, with something kind enough for all ears, a “galaxy that has all these little worlds in it.” But still, the band carries hopes for what might be a collective takeaway by listeners.

“Happiness,” sums up Kaufman. “I do think that as musicians, we have a duty to make people feel better about everything. In a certain way, uplifting people. I hope some of the songs make people feel uplifted and happier, because the world can be so difficult and sometimes a good song really can make you feel happier.”

D’Angelo adds on that she wants the album to feel like a comfort. “For me, whenever I put on a certain record, it feels like home and it’s something that I can always go back to,” she says. “The dream would be for this record to be that for somebody. I want this to be a record that people revisit when they want to feel safe.”

Whether upbeat or mellow, September or January, MICHELLE or GERTRUDE, one thing is certain: everything is right on the horizon for the band.

“We’re going to see an influx of the MICHELLE vibe being taken in full force to things beyond the music,” promises Kaufman. “In the past, we’ve had a really strong focus on the music and everything else was kind of in the background, but now we’re taking everything and the music and making it just as powerful”.

There have been some really positive reviews for MICHELLE’s AFTER DINNER WE TALK DREAMS. It is an amazing album that people should check out. This is what Loud and Quiet wrote when they listened to the album:

“There’s an easy kinship between Arlo Parks and New York collective MICHELLE. The labelmates share similar influences, and the award-winning British artist guested on a new version of their single ‘Sunrise’ last year.

The parallels are most obvious on the smooth beats of ‘Mess U Made’, the opening track on second album After Dinner We Talk Dreams, and in the way they write relatable relationship lyrics. “Now you’ve left I’ve no idea / Who to text when I’m feeling blue,” they mourn over slick backing on ‘Expiration Date’. By the time they reach the breezily harmonised ‘No Signal’ their phone is “off the grid” in an attempt to get “one night to myself.”

Yet while Parks makes downtempo music for the head, the predominantly queer, POC six-piece capture the cool sound of the heart and streets. Unashamedly commercial, ‘Pose’ shows their fun side with the sweetness of Janet Jackson. ‘Layla in the Rocket’, meanwhile, has the organic instrumentation and sisterly vibe of Haim.

The layered four-part vocals, which they’re at pains to point out remain untouched, illustrate their musicianship at a distinctly human scale. The breadth of their individual interests is meanwhile reflected in the way they push against genre. This can be heard in the funky bassline on ‘End of the World’, jazzy guitar on ‘Spaced Out, Phased Out’, and ’80s synths on the darker mood of ‘Looking Glass’.

There are moments that would work on the club floor but, as the title suggests, the album is mainly intended for after dinner intimacies”.

Go and follow and listen to the amazing MICHELLE. Maybe not a big name in the U.K., that will change soon enough. I hope that they get some tour dates over here very soon. Making music of the highest order, the N.Y.C.-based MICHELLE are…