Alexandra Drewchin is the mind behind this experimental project “that challenges the boundaries of taste and decorum” (Pitchfork). Evading purpose, genre, and a journalist’s feminist rhetoric, she displays an anarchist spirit. True to the deeply uncomfortable contradictions and clashes in her tracks, Eartheater recently featured in Chanel’s Resort 2020 show to an interesting effect. As the home-schooled child of a Soviet-era propaganda artist, Drewchin appears to want to shroud her work in mystery, but her anti-capitalist rhetoric is lightly veiled.
As an artist who spans multiple genres, do you prefer to not label the work you create, or could you name it?
I prefer not to name it.
C.L.I.T. single “sets the main theme for the record”, standing for “Curiosity Liberates Infinite Truth”. Helene Cixous writes about sexual exploration to achieve self-realization and higher knowledge. Do you believe in this?
Sure. Plus that’s how one gets good at sex, which is about sharing.
In a previous interview, you say, “We’re going to eat the patriarchy”. I’m ready! How?
I light sugar daddies on fire like Notre Dame and then eat them like crème brûlée. Nah, but for real, I think that quote from the fader interview is corny. The journalist had an agenda, a positive one, but an agenda nonetheless. I think I said that because she was prompting me to say that kind of thing so I eventually gave it to her. I guess one doesn’t eat the patriarchy by saying hype shit but by doing hype shit.
Questioning the status quo can get exhausting when society appears to be changing so slowly. What drives you?
I don’t know, I just listen to my gut.
Your counter-cultural compositions seem to ridicule mainstream music, was that your intention?
Ridicule is a harsh word. Mainstream music makes a lot of people happy. Especially in the United States, where poor people have such little help and support from the government. I respect the function of mainstream pop music for people that are over-worked and underpaid. Being able to explore and experience and even understand experimental music is a luxury.
That being said, I guess my romanticism and disassociation from monetary ambition challenges formula because I’m freaky and wanna try new things that get me off rather than get my bank account off. I don’t mind having very little money. That being said, I feel a swell coming up inside me that wants to make a very pop record soon so that I can take care of my sick dad and buy my mom nice things.
Inclined, the opening song on your latest album, Irisiri, samples a violin melody from Beauty and the Beast. Is this song a comment on mainstream presentations of romance?
No, I just really like that piece. I recorded it out of the airplane headphone jack onto my 404 sampler on my way to Los Angeles. It’s from the part of the movie where Belle is trespassing through the forbidden wing of the castle and she sees the rose floating in the crystal terrarium. One of the themes of the record is the idea of curiosity leading us to trespass. I hope to trespass into the mainstream more. That’s what it felt like when my song Concealer was selected by Chanel for their show. The lyrics of the song are, “this is your brain on lies” – I don’t think anyone listened to the lyrics because is just sounds like a cute pop song.
Can you tell me about your spirituality?
I have no idea why people think I’m so spiritual. Maybe it’s because I’m kind to people.
Fashion has a current obsession with bad taste as good taste, like Vetements’ meme-like Instagram, and testing the boundaries of what is accepted. Do you associate with this trend?
‘Good taste’ is wielded as a power so flexing on the slaves and dictators of it allows for new freedoms in personality and glitches in aesthetic elitism. But talking about these dichotomies specifically is almost useless as these bouts of ‘bravery’ or ‘commentary’ in fashion always shift the compass so quickly and are picked up and watered down by corporations the next second.
There’s a healthy number of screams in your music. What makes you the most angry?
Silly questions like this could make me angry maybe lol – things are not always what they seem.
And most happy or hopeful?
Paul Stamets, Big Klit, fasting, and exercise.
