Chantal Passamonte, known to the IDM community as WARP Records' Mira Calix, creates starkly personal, nearly-ambient soundscapes that have draw her critical praise from even Radiohead. While on tour with Plaid at the Echo Lounge in Atlanta, Russ had the chance to ask her a few questions.JIVE: I was reading in your online bio on a fan site that you used to work for Gucci? How did that come about? It would seem to me that apparently you have to have some sort of interest in fashion in order to get a job with Gucci.Mira: It's a long story, but basically I had just moved to London. I needed a job and I didn't have any work, and I happened to know somebody who knew somebody who was somehow involved with interviews and things and I got it like the week I arrived. It's just one of those things, you know? I got lucky, but it wasn't anything particularly amazing.JIVE: What started your interest in DJing, and then what caused you to move into producing? Which of the two do you spend more time on?
Mira: I spend more time producing. I've been DJing about 9 years, I think, 9 or ten years, and I got into it by accident. I used to work in a club, booking this sort of chill-out room, and there was a night when there was a collective of all-girl DJs who asked me 'can you DJ?', and I was like 'yeah, sure'. I mean, I had loads of records, but basically I had about two weeks to figure out one end of the mixer to the other. So I played and had such a great time, I played all my favorite records and people really liked it and so I kept getting more and more work. I never really set out to do it. I started producing on a borrowed drum machine, an old 606 and 202, and again just started going, and finally got some equipment. I got my first drum machine and that's all I had for quite a long time. I thought they were amazing. I kept at it. It was really about having fun. I was never thinking 'oh, I'm going to release this'. It was something I did for myself, really.JIVE: Of all the things you've produced, what track of yours would you say is your favorite, if you had to pick one?Mira: I can pick one today, but I change my mind everyday.JIVE: What is it today?Mira: Today, it's actually an unreleased track, but if I had to pick one it would be "What Are You Afraid Of?".JIVE: That track scares the crap out of me, I just want you to know. I was listening to that in my car and it was all bouncy and happy and then suddenly it sounds like you're being tied up and mutilated in hell.Mira: [laughs] As long as there's a reaction, yeah?JIVE: So how did you end up opening for Radiohead?Mira: [laughs] I don't know. I mean, it was the normal thing. I got a call from their agent, and they just asked me to play. I like them, and I got to see them every night. And it was fun, and something completely different. You're playing to massive amounts of people and they're there to see Radiohead, so to be honest you could probably just go 'boo-boo-be-doo' and they wouldn't give a shit, but it was fun.
JIVE: So this was the last tour, the one right before [2000 Radiohead release] Kid A?Mira: It was the tour leading up to that. Apparently they didn't do it here, but in Europe they had massive tents built, they took 10,000 people in this big, big, very unusual tent.JIVE: You've worked with Andrea Parker, who happens to be one of my favorite DJs despite the fact that no one in America seems to know who the hell she is. I've seen that she remixed "Skin With Me". How did that happen?Mira: Andrea and I have been friends since my first DJ gig, that first night. I went on first and she was playing quite late, and we met and just hit it off. She'd probably be my best friend; we've been close for a very long time. I really love her music, and we just get on really well as people, and she did the mix for me as a favor, really. And I like the mix a lot.JIVE: Who are your main musical influences, electronic and otherwise?Mira: My main musical influences really aren't electronic. I say this all the time and I think people think I'm dull, but my favorite band of all time is My Bloody Valentine. They've been a big influence on me not necessarily in a sonic sense, I don't try to imitate their sound, but I think of what they made me feel when I first heard [MBV's classic album] "Loveless". Just the sheer brilliance of that album, to me, has been an inspiration in how it makes you feel, as opposed to trying to recreate something. I never saw any point in that. I don't think it's about trying to copy your masters; it's about what it makes you feel. I aspire to that.JIVE: Who have you not done a collaboration with that you haven't, if you could have anyone? Other than My Bloody Valentine.Mira: I wouldn't like to collaborate with My Bloody Valentine, I'd be too in awe of them. Sometimes it's best to leave your heroes on a pedestal. I'd really like to work with Andrea, we've been trying to set it up for so long but we end up chatting. That's the bum deal of being friends, you end up all 'oh, we need to get some work done'. There's a lot of people I'd like to work with, but rather than picking out of a bag I think it should be who you have a rapport with, who you get along with well in the studio.JIVE: What one record never leaves your bag when you're DJing?Mira: Aphex Twin's remix of Saint Etienne.JIVE: I've never heard that tonight, so if you drop it tonight there'll be a kid in the front row going crazy.Mira: (laughs) Alright.JIVE: What should the listening public expect from your next album?Mira: That's actually a hard question. I don't know what they should expect, really. More of me. I mean, sonically it's familiar territory.JIVE: So it's not like you made "Kind of Blue".Mira: (laughs) Yeah, like I got into country. No, I think it's the same but different. That's really the key, because it's about exploring yourself and exploring what you're into.Interview by Russ Marshalek
