Almost all of Oxis’ videos begin the same way. She’s alone, typically sitting on the floor of a sparsely decorated room with a microphone in hand, when the surreal, node-mapped visuals come in – rapidly moving lines and coordinates that animate her body, making the musician appear as if she was rendered by the very same laptop she’s making music on.
These digitised visuals match the 28-year-old artist’s sound, a synthetic yet organic style defined by glitchy electronic beats, breathy vocals and ocean-themed song titles that have led many fans online to dub her the frontwoman of ‘marine electronica’. “I think anything aquatic relates to my music,” the entirely self-produced artist tells Dazed. “The other day, I called self-deprecating aquatic tunes, something like that. I like seeing all the versions that people come up with.”
Based on her musical output, meanwhile, Oxis seems to never stop creating. Raised in a musical family that saw her listening to classical, rock and bossa nova music growing up, Oxis has released nine albums in the last three years – the latest being Oxis 9, released last Friday, July 17. The 10-track project builds upon those earlier chapters, staying true to the aquatic themes and intricate production she’s become known for.
Ahead of the album’s release, we caught up with the artist to chat about the origins of her water obsession, creating Oxis 9 and more.
How would you describe your musical process?
Oxis: It’s completely random, and that’s why I’m able to do it so often, because if I put any constraints over how I create, I would probably hate it. I hate the idea of any sort of box ever in life. It just makes me feel immediately suffocated. If I say I’m gonna do it [in a certain way], then it just kills it for me. So, it just has to be different every time.
Are you producing everything yourself?
Oxis: Yeah, for now I am. I just have so much fun being in my room and making beats with movies in the background. There have been a lot of flights recently for tours and long car rides, so I’ll just make things whenever I can.
Where is the weirdest place that inspiration has just struck?
Oxis: In a coffee shop around a ton of people, I would say. And maybe that’s not super weird, but it’s just funny to be in my own world, knowing that I’m making something that feels so big to me, but nobody else can hear it.
I was called Tuna growing up, like the fish, and then sometimes Salmon, it was just my identity.
Where did your love and obsession with all things aquatic come from?
Oxis: I was called Tuna growing up, like the fish, and then sometimes Salmon, it was just my identity. Sometimes I did fight it, but then it was on my report card. After I graduated high school, I didn’t want anybody to call me that. I was like, ‘I’m starting a new chapter of my life and nobody will know the old me,’ but then I just made it my entire life again.
You’re performing alone in your bedroom in a lot of your videos. Do you feel that you do your best work in isolation?
Oxis: Yes, I absolutely do. And if I have to be in an airport to finish something, as long as no one can hear, I feel okay about it.
A lot of your videos also have this really cool coding, with superimposed lines and coordinates appearing. Tell me more about these.
Oxis: I make [them] on a software called TouchDesigner, and it’s like a node-based language, something like that. I don’t even know exactly how to describe it, and I still can’t exactly grasp the whole software, but it’s so fun that with YouTube tutorials you can make absolutely anything today.
[I started by] copying certain codes and creating this thing from YouTube tutorials, and it was just the strangest thing I’d ever seen. I love it because it makes no sense, but then it can also mean whatever you want it to mean. It breaks my brain a bit.
Your song “Long Sardine” had a really big moment last year. Did that feel like a turning point for you?
Oxis: That was so nice and wild and made my head spin a bit. It just inspires me to make more music. There’s this thing called Occam’s razor, which is the idea that something simpler is always the better way to go. I want to apply that to my life as much as possible. Be it food, it can just be like a sardine and a piece of toast. Or if it’s a song, it can be just five stems. It doesn’t always have to be overcomplicated.
You’ve been pretty prolific in your output in such a short amount of time. How did creating this album feel different from some of your previous work?
Oxis: I think I was a bit more scatterbrained, because I started out with zero people listening or knowing that it even existed, because I was anonymous. It’s much more fun now, but there are so many more things to do, and so finding time to make music is a bit harder. I really have to compartmentalise and rest more. I keep creating because I love it, but then I’m tired. So it’s a whole hodgepodge of things that are going on in my brain now.
I loved one of the album’s early singles, “Grey Mullet”, which speaks about not being able to maintain control. Is control something that you think about a lot when making music?
Oxis: Control is something that I think all of us struggle with, and it’s the reason why I appreciate solitude as much as possible, because I’m very easily affected by everything. I feel wildly sensitive. Often, I feel way too sensitive just to be around people or to be in certain situations. At the end of the day, you can’t control anybody but yourself.
How do you want audiences to feel when they hear the new album?
Oxis: I don’t even wanna put any words into what they should feel. If I can keep it as open-ended as possible, and if someone wants to listen in whatever environment they want, I hope that the songs are whatever they need at that moment.
Oxis 9 is out now.
