Robyn chats about new album and premieres new song “Fembot”
Pop star Robyn is ramping up the anticipation for her upcoming three-part album, first previewing new material on a Swedish TV show last week, and now she’s released a new song “Fembot” via her official website and spilled the tea to Pitchfork about everything related to her new project.
On not being pretentious:
It’s really important for me to not take this whole thing too seriously. It’s pop music, you know? It’s entertainment and at the same time it has to mean something to me. I like dealing with that balance. That’s what inspires and fascinates me about what I do. It’s a challenge to be a part of the record industry even though it’s so fucked up. I feel like making music for ten people in a secluded part of the music world is maybe not as big of a challenge.
On releasing her album in three parts:
I started thinking of alternative ways to work and make music. Everything is up in the air with the music industry at the moment and there’s no reason why you shouldn’t be able to do things differently– especially if you have your own label like me.
…these releases are not EPs. They’re albums with enough songs to make them feel like real bodies of work. They are shorter than usual, but still closer to ten songs than five.
Some songs are nice to release when they still feel fresh. Why release so many at once? It doesn’t make sense to me. And a lot of people don’t even have time to listen to albums anymore.
On doing more dance music:
I’ve been on the road for almost three years in a row and I’ve been exposed to a lot of club culture all over the world. Not only in Europe but also in America, where something is changing– you guys have festivals again and there’s a community of people that are really connecting with types of music they probably wouldn’t have been exposed to before.
I went back to a lot of things I grew up with, like Technotronic and early acid music. I like a lot of the minimal stuff that’s out now like Booka Shade and Gui Boratto, too, even though it’s a lot slicker than stuff from the 80s or the 90s. And I’ve been listening to Giorgio Moroder and early Prince records where he was doing a lot of disco-sounding music. I feel like the dance world is like the last genre to be really be exploited or commercialized in the right way. It’s really going to have its time now and not just be looked upon as kitsch.
See, it actually is possible to make dance music without the help of RedOne and David Guetta!
Now take a listen to the orgasmic urban-heavy “Fembot” below. The production sounds like it came from Britney Spears Blackout, which we all know is a very good thing. The first of Robyn’s three-part new album is due in June.
