I’m obsessed with reading autobiographies and biographies of people – not just musicians but just of anyone. I love to know people’s stories and how they got to where they are.
The two piece euphoria-core act from South Africa are a 'deeply affecting and beautiful band; the thumping and daydreamysqueltches, the beat dragging like distant machine gun fire cutting through televised loins, the changing rhythms, they all combine into some kind of teen sandpaper love making; sore and beautiful. Rakow sings like she’s been dragged through the city by a cancer–ridden unicorn. They’re a little island of determined angry strangeness with a hint of toilet sex... With a bleak and fragile hypnosis they mesmerize and confound. All heartbreakingly corrosive and devastatingly alluring'.
GM Did you ever learn music or play music?
Eve I had no formal musical education before I tried to enroll at Wits University in Johannesburg. You need to have a grade 7 in the instrument you wanna study at a tertiary level. I had grade zero. The entrance exam was a one page theoretical exam which I turned over and wrote an impassioned essay about how music is within us all and if they only gave me a chance I would prove their system wrong and prove that my passion for music would be my guide through this language I was yet to learn to speak. There was also a practical exam. My instrument was my voice. So I was required to sing a composition of my choice (usually a classical or jazz piece depending on where you saw yourself musically) I sang Fionna Apple paper bag. HaHa.
Thinking back on it now, I feel like holy hell I had balls, what a cheeky little witch! But it worked. I got in. They warned me it would be hell trying to catch up 7 years of training and trying to move foward with the rest. They were not wrong. It was hell. But it was the very first hell I got to choose for myself. So for me, it was bliss. That first sassy step towards doing something I had no idea how to do was a defining moment for me. Always be scared. If its not scary its not worth it.
GM What’s your favorite music?
Eve Mostly music that ends up staying with me is music that I flat out hate when I first hear it. I'll never forget the first time I heard Joanna Newsom sing I was like ' girl? You can not be serious! What is your life?' But it is special voices like that that change what it is to make music.
GM What’s the most inspiring musical instrument?
Eve The voice. If you can speak you can sing. A lot of people try to refute that statement but I believe it to be true. Everyone has a voice like no one else. That is amazing and inspiring to me.
GM Do you see yourself as creating parallel realities?Like a little world that’s parallel to the big world so that it balances the image of the world itself?
Eve I dont think I create parallel universes but I do hope my music can be a portal to these spaces. A safe space to weird out, you know?
GM What is your favourite number and why?
Eve Nine. It was the number I was born to. It is the number of the natural lightworker, those of us that work to bring light to others. This is why I make music. I make music because I have to. Because I was destined. To because I must.