Emerging from New York, Davia Schendel is what you would define as a nuanced creative, all-round musical artist with a knack for authenticity and originality. You see, Schendel is committed to exploring her artistry fully, finding new formulas and sonic stylings in the process.
Now, Davia shares her latest record, an ambivalent and hypnotising gem, ‘Poison/Antidote’. In it, the listener will be met with a cryptic saxophone, groovy drums and Schendel’s introspective and luscious vocals, balanced between singing and spoken words: we love it, quite dreamy and quirky, exactly as you would expect it from the American artist.
Intrigued by the project, we caught up with Schendel to find out more about the record and her future goals… Interview below!
Hey Davia, how is it going? some of our readers might not be familiar with your project, how would you describe yourself, in a few words?
Hello! It’s going quite well, thank you for having me. The themes I like to work through my music tend to be surrounding existentialism, nostalgia, and the creation of a persona. In terms of genre, I draw a lot of inspiration from new wave, funk, rock and dance music from the 70s, 80s and 90s.
Concept is very important to me, and my latest single, ‘Poison/Antidote’, has a whole narrative behind it. There’s a femme fatale meeting a bad boy, two sides of a coin– magnetic but repellent at the same time. Storytelling is very essential to my craft and I incorporate my arrangement approach to support the dramatic quality of it in the best way, which is where I experiment instrumentally.
Your current work is the result of a long journey; What first drew you to making music?
Thank you for acknowledging that! It has been a long journey. I started taking piano lessons at age 10, learning classical pieces by mostly Romantic composers- my favourite was Edvard Greig. But even before that I was tinkering around with a mini keyboard as a toddler and experimenting with sounds. Those are some of my earliest memories.
I then took up guitar at 15 and started to seriously sit down and write songs, learning how to work in a DAW, recording and mixing my own tracks. Then most recently, 3 years ago I taught myself how to play bass, which really changed how I approach writing songs. I always enjoyed constructing rhythm tracks and building on top of that, so bass provided that beautiful richness that I was searching for in terms of balancing out my arrangements.
If you had the opportunity to pick any artists in the world for a collaboration, who would be your first choice? (and second choice, perhaps?)
Well, I would have loved to work with Prince. I saw him perform at the Oracle Arena in 2011, so I am supremely lucky to have heard him play. I know he is in another dimension now, but I keep finding so much inspiration from him in terms of how he spanned genre and defied any expectations that were pinned on his artistry.
Presently, I would really love to collaborate with Dev Hynes (aka Blood Orange). His approach to production and mixing has always fascinated me and it would be amazing to see how he approaches building a session. Other choices would be the goddess Kate Bush–I want to see her in the studio, watch her work and I can make her tea or something, anything, ha! Same with Lana del Rey. I also would be so honoured to work with the king of style and new wave, Duran Duran. They are groove masters and very atmospheric in their approach, so I would want to see how they build their tracks.
You recently released a quirky and groovy record, ‘Poison/Antidote’. We quite like the lo-fi and organic feel to it, what was your inspiration for it, from a sonic standpoint?
I was playing around with synth sounds and found this very haunting, soft pad that had a floating quality. You can still hear it in the first five seconds of the track. And then I started building this funky drum arrangement, and added the bass line. It just got funkier as I was feeling it out, and I thought it would be amazing to lean into this stylized, hazy atmosphere with a cheeky persona.
I was picturing this setting of a TV show performance, with cigarette smoke floating about and glamorous people wafting about. I was listening to the Young Americans album by David Bowie and you can really hear it on this track, especially in my vocal delivery.
I held back from releasing the song for 2 years as I felt like it was not ready, and kept fine-tuning it, adding different drum sounds and adjusting the hi-hats so it had more of a late seventies, new wave energy akin to Clem Burke’s work in Blondie or Charlie Watts on “Miss You.”
I then was really dreaming of having some horns on the track, but I realized saxophone would be the perfect addition, and invited Phillip Greenlief back (he played on my song “Dream of 1988”) to play on the track earlier this year, which was the funky bow on the whole package. We had a lot of fun doing that session and really played with building that secondary hook that hits in the chorus.
Lyrically, what is the song exploring?
I really wanted to tell this haphazard “love” story about two people who are really not vulnerable with themselves. They are just hiding behind tough personas for the sake of ego defence. The lyrics are really more so about conquest than opening up to someone else. We have this very independent femme fatale, “Poison,” who secretly dreams of true love, but is having fun being a purveyor of pleasure and a bit of an outsider, a “zeitgeist deterrent.” And then enters this handsome Adonis-type, “Antidote,” who believes he is the best lover of all time, and can capture anyone’s heart. The song emerges when you ask the question, “What happens when these two crash into each other?” It’s a fun way to approach songwriting.
Do you feel more confident writing music alone, or within a team?
I enjoy both settings. I think solo writing can be very introspective, which is helpful when you are writing ballads or more existential lyrics. I love experimenting with synth sounds and more atmospheric tracks in a solo setting. In groups, I think everyone taps into global or universal themes a little easier, because of the collective nature. That’s why so many catchy pop choruses are born in group writing sessions right now- a chorus is a chant, almost.
Artistically speaking, what challenges have the last two years presented you with?
For one, it has been a very stressful time. I have lost a lot of loved ones in the past 3 years and I think that my mental exhaustion caused by grief made my creative outlet very limited, by my own standards. Artistically, I was asking myself the question: Do I write about this deep sadness, my own struggle or do I use my songwriting as escapism for myself?
I chose the latter as it was more emotionally sustainable for me, at least at the moment. And then what I found is I can touch on the bittersweet nature of my own experience, even in a fictional song. Finding that balance between vulnerability and playfulness has been the creative challenge, but I think it has been a wonderful, yet difficult lesson amongst the real-world challenges we have been grappling with.
What are the next steps for your project? Anything exciting on the horizon?
We are going to be releasing a music video at some point this summer, as well as a new EP which will feature brand-new songs that I have been working on. It has been a very interesting period and I am curious to see how this year develops for music and culture.
