Live music and touring have been on lockdown and fans as well as artists are going through withdrawals. We wanted to come up with something fun to help bridge that distance between fans and artists right now. What we came up with is something called The Lockdown Lowdown and it’s a Q&A session with fun questions for artists to answer. They’re not your typical interview questions, so it gives you a peek inside of the artists themselves. We’re big music nerds here at I’m Music Magazine and we love learning things like this about the artists that we love. We’re pretty sure that you’ll get a kick out of these, so we hope you’ll take the time to read them. In this installment, we sat down for a fun Q&A session with Katya Richardson.
1. How have you been doing during the pandemic and how are you spending your time?
I have been using this time to reflect and do things I normally wouldn’t have time to do. I’ve been reading a book called “ All About Love” by social activist Bell Hooks, listening to my vinyl collection, meditating, and reconnecting with friends. At first, I wasn’t very productive and had trouble focusing on creating, because of the weighing expectation that comes with having all this free time. But now I think I’ve found a good balance of being musically creative for myself, while continuing to work and score for projects.
2. Have you been working on new music?
I am very excited to share my latest release, Left From Write. This album is a cinematic, electrojazz adventure featuring noodly saxophone, glitchy beats, and looping vocals. It was originally written as part of a dance collaboration with a choreographer, lighting designer, and animator to visually and sonically reinterpret the experience of a dyslexic – hence the word-play in the title. At its core, the EP is really about the duality of dyslexia, celebrating individuality as something both alienating and liberating. These dueling ideas, or “left” and “right” perspectives, are really what drive the narrative element of the 3 musical movements. Besides that, I am starting on an ambient piano album this summer.
3. 5 albums that changed your life
Cosmogramma (2010) – Flying Lotus
Fleet Foxes (2008) – Fleet Foxes
Getz/Gilberto (1964) – João Gilberto and Stan Getz
High as Hope (2018) – Florence + the Machine
A Moon Shaped Pool (2016) – Radiohead
4. 5 artists that influenced you as a musician.
Flying Lotus
Son Lux
Alexandre Desplat
Oscar Peterson
Sergei Prokofiev
5. Your 5 favorite live albums
Roxy and Elsewhere (1974) – Frank Zappa and the Mothers
The Complete Live at the Plugged Nickel (1965) – Miles Davis
At Folsom Prison (1968) Johnny Cash
Live! At the Village Vanguard (1962) John Coltrane
Live at Fillmore West (1971) Aretha Franklin
6. Life on the road; 5 of the craziest/funniest/scariest tour stories
I’ve never been on tour, since much of my music is produced and recorded beforehand. But probably my craziest story is having my music performed in front of 18,000 people and opening for Steely Dan at the Hollywood Bowl!
7. 5 favorite movies
About Time
Singin’ in the Rain
The Favourite
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
8. Best and worst advice you ever heard.
Best advice would be that you miss 100% of the shots you don’t take and that failure is a part of success.
Worst advice has been not to pursue film music.
9. Strangest thing you ever autographed
Probably an arm or a hand.
10. If music was over today and you had to go into professional wrestling, what would your wrestling name be?
What a fun question! Maybe Kat Attack. I like cats, so it’d have to be a fun play on cat words and my name.
Download/stream ‘Left From Write’:
Connect with Katya Richardson Online
