An Intimate Look At The Stories Behind Erika Sirola’s ‘who?’ EP
Erika Sirola – Photography by Emily Steffen
Growing up in Helsinki, being inspired by art throughout childhood, and working with producers all over the US, UK, and Europe by the age of seventeen, Erika Sirola’s nomadic lifestyle paired elegantly with her dramatic yet honest approach to song storytelling showcased on her brand new EP, who?
Released earlier this month via Elektra Records, who? is an exemplary introduction in Sirola’s world of creativity. Since the release of the EP’s lead single, “End of the Day” earlier this summer, Sirola has stepped into what is just the beginning of a musical journey that is spearheaded simply by her unique, artistic expression. Heartbreak, self-discovery, and the amazement that can come from freezing in time life’s most emotionally fueled moments are seen plastered throughout the rest of her four-song collection.
“It’s been a long time coming for my first full body of work to finally come out,” Sirola says about her EP. “I chose these four songs because they each represent a different part of my life in the past – they don’t represent who I am right now. As a result, Who? tells the backstory in the form of lyrical, audio, and visual content, to further understand the ‘who’ I am now. Like many books, you get to know the history of the character first before you dive into the now, it lets you understand the process in a different light, and perhaps allows you to dive into the many layers just a little bit better.”
Informed by a global perspective and a nomadic lifestyle, Sirola’s debut EP frames the experience of self-discovery in an intriguing and unique way. Not only does the singer-songwriter’s eloquent lyricism pair perfectly with the sonic ambiance created through soft-pop instrumentals, but it also takes a leap of faith, as each song jumps through hints of electronic music and the use of sound effects of the noises that make up almost everyone’s daily life but are often overlooked. By blending all of these elements together, and using them to recount tales of heartbreak, loss, cynicism, and hope all at once, Sirola proves herself an artist in almost every way possible.
Erika Sirola opened up to Amplify Her Voice about the stories behind her new songs, which track took 12 years to develop, her love of electronic music, and exactly how she got into creating the mixed media piece that now lives as the EP’s album artwork.
Who were the artists or art you were inspired by growing up?
I've always been inspired more by specific songs or art pieces than the artists as a whole. I think that makes more sense too, artists change and express different things in different ways which result in listeners or viewers also appreciating different pieces in different ways at different times depending on what mindsets and lifestyles they're in themselves. That's what makes art and inspiration such a beautiful thing as it's ever-changing for everyone. The songs and art pieces I became rather attached to when I was younger, I see now in a very different way. But to name pivotal pieces that inspired and affected me growing up - Ray (2004) film, “Gloomy Sunday” by Billie Holiday, plenty of cinematic scores in films especially those of Disney but also the animation was inspiring to me, “Scarborough Fair/Canticle” by Simon and Garfunkle. I got particularly excited about the humanity of Van Gogh, the political impact of Banksy and the deconstruction of Picasso, lots of graffiti and 3D art that I loved duplicating as a kid, a multitude of tracks by Radiohead and Thom Yorke, Pink Floyd's album Dark Side Of The Moon, I Monster's album Neveroddoreven, “You Know Where To Find Me” by Imogen Heap, Grace by Jeff Buckley, Eyes and Eggs by Jean-Michel Basquiat among many others, lots of Salvador Dali's work, plenty of tracks by Aphex Twin, Bon Iver and Jim Morrison.
You’ve said that you feel the need to always be creating. Are you the kind of person/artist who can never relax and is always working on the next thing? If so, how would you say you find a balance between creative work and self-care.
Absolutely not, I'd say my creative work is relaxing and it gives me a sense of satisfaction and purpose to consistently keep at it. That being said, I take very long breaks at times for certain types of creativity. For example, during the first two years of the pandemic I found it very difficult to work on any music so I turned to visual art instead. Now I'm back to a nice blend of everything, but since making music for me is still very much reliant on the availability of others, it's a forced form of “balance” between working and not working.
What’s the story behind “All In My Head?”
It was written in the winter of 2017 and I had just turned 19. I was working and living in London with my songwriter friend Dayyon, who asked me to join his session with Fred Ball. This was a big deal for me as I was quite impressed with what Fred had done and still does as a producer. We recorded this song incredibly fast, it came spilling out and luckily so as I proceeded to lose my voice after recording it and didn't get it back for the rest of the writing trip. The meaning and lyrics of the song are open to interpretation and that was kind of the point of them. I'd like to think that the vagueness and confusion of the lyrics represent how vague my understanding of who I was and how confused I was about what I wanted out of life. That's what made the song rather meaningful to me, not in the sense of what was being sung, but more what was going on in my life at the time of writing it. It sat on the shelf for quite a while after writing it until I was told it would be pitched to Normani. After hearing that it made me feel strange to give it away to somebody else so I asked if I could in fact keep it for myself.
Can you talk about the use of the coffee-shop/clanging cups and other sound effects in the background of “End of the Day”? I feel the quiet chaos pairs well with the song’s softness and despair. What was the inspiration behind including those sounds in the song?
This type of organic element production was central to the who? EP and you'll find that every single track contains similar types of “sound easter eggs.” Minna Koivisto (the producer of most of the EP and most of my music in general) and I love voice recording everything we come across. I guess our brains are wired in picking up sounds everywhere we go the same way photographers look at photo ops everywhere they go. We can't help it, but it also provides great comfort knowing you've captured a memory or specific circumstance through audio files instead of visual, to me it somehow makes the event seem more real, better captured than a still photo. Though “End of the Day” was written in Stockholm, I wanted Minna to put in a voice recording I took of my go-to cafe when I lived in Berlin right before writing the song. Partially because it was a time of deep solace in my life and carried a lot of emotions that I felt the song needed. The thoughts I had in that cafe translated to the lyrics of the song. We thought it was also a nice idea to cut out the cafe chaos with a distorted 'amp error' sound on the word quiet like a thought would get cut off through the disturbance of an outside factor. It was all in an attempt to make the feelings and emotions of the track become more alive.
Most of your songs include a dramatic and elegant buildup to an electronic-fused beat drop that accompanies its most exciting parts. What about electronic music and elements inspire you the most?
Oh man, so many things! I grew deeply attached to electronic music around seventeen or eighteen upon discovering the infinite playing field of modular synths. I was also listening to lots of electronically infused music growing up, but perhaps once I really started diving deep into the pits of various electronic music genres in vinyl stores around Berlin and London, is when I knew it was more inspiring than I originally thought. I think the catalyst to wanting to incorporate those sounds into my own music was the creative excitement I felt about being able to really combine or edit anything together and manipulate as much as one would like and not quite know what it might sound like. I was tired of piano, tired of guitar, tired of my plain voice and when I saw Minna's ability to use those as mere starting points to create something entirely different, I was very inspired. She is a dream to watch playing around in her studio with all her different equipment, and perhaps her electronic production and utilization of my organic elements is what inspires me the most.
I love that you extend your creativity into different forms of art. Can you talk about what it was like to develop the mixed media artwork that we see on the EP cover?
Thank you – I can't help it! It's thanks to the pandemic really. I moved back to Helsinki from LA to be with my family which resulted in my access to creatives helping me with my artwork and other visual content for the EP a little difficult. At the time I was essentially about to release my EP independently, which made it even harder to work with or hire anybody else to make content for me. I was rather bored at home too with my sudden inability to make music properly either, so i started painting again, a lot. As a result, I kind of figured I might as well start doing all my EP visual stuff myself, since I'm also a rather nitpicky individual when it comes to the look of my own visual content. I downloaded different programs to make my own graphics, logos etc. which I got rather addicted to messing around with. As for the EP cover, at the time I had collected a huge amount of disposable cam photos which I wanted to incorporate into artwork. I was also a fan of collecting old Finnish magazines from the 50s/60s. I had just watched a documentary and read a book about Jean-Michel and the cover art is very influenced by his work. In my first attempt at the cover, I had used a bunch of old photos I found from magazines of old rockstars which I later discovered I would never be able to use due to the amount of lawsuits I'd get for using these old pics. So I actually recreated the entire thing in an identical fashion but used my own disposable pics instead.
What’s the inspiration behind the song “Souvenir”?
Well “Souvenir” is trying to move on and forget about this individual who is never there. "Bring me back a souvenir so I remember all the times you weren't here" is the most passive-aggressive statement ever ever ever. The outro clarifies that with the lyrics "I'm sorry my collection is pretty full, I've gotta make some space for my own stuff, see I'm learning to live again". The inspiration behind it essentially started from the perspective I had on how those close to me were perceiving me constantly exiting and reentering their lives. So I wrote it as a third person talking about me, however there were many other interpretations I had on the topic as well. It was very difficult maintaining relationships and close connections - new and old - because I was in a different city every few months for over 5 years. It created incredibly broken timelines for myself and my own development as an individual, but it also hurt a lot of people around me, especially those who I grew up with.
“A Little More” is actually one of my favorite new tracks released this year! Can you open up about the meaning behind it, and what your thoughts are on the effect of needing “more love for life” in order to enjoy life?
Thank you! This song was a big one - mainly because I technically wrote it over the span of 12 years. By that I mean – the pre-chorus of the song was taken from a song I wrote at 10/11 years old called "Watching Out The Window" which was essentially a piece about kid me wondering what my life was going to be like. Funny, huh? Later in 2018/2019 when living in Berlin my producer friend Gustav Nyström and I were free-flow writing and the rest of "A Little More" came pouring out. Without thinking, I accidentally sang in the pre-chorus of that old song. And that was it, the song was done and it was perfect – all the lyrics made sense. It was a very freaky feeling how it all suddenly came about and there was so much history and meaning attached to the whole piece.
Essentially, the lyrics dive in on the idea that many people live their lives too much on the safe zone, where they limit the possibilities of negative, scary things happening to them, from which they would learn and grow so much from. It plays with the message that if you had more love for life, you would appreciate the beautiful balance of ups and downs, negatives and positives, good years and bad years in life. You need to love the fact that you're alive, that you have a life that is all yours to do what you want with. The lyrics are written from the perspective of someone who never took any risks, someone who always watched from the side instead of immersing themselves into the action and later sees and understands the repercussions of those decisions. It's almost as a response to the song I wrote as a kid wondering what life I would have, this one being a life of little love for living.
What was the biggest lesson you’ve learned during the making of Who?
Patience is a virtue, truly. And when it is practiced for over 10 years it really helps develop a wonderful mindset to other things in life. To trust the process you're in regardless of the tedious passing of time. Though parts of me were so sad to wait so long to release due to various roadblocks, I knew they eventually would, and that kept me at ease. For even though I grew further away from the songs and the project and found myself finding my lane in a very different space, it never decreased the value and importance those songs have for me. I am constantly changing and evolving and I find it very pleasing to have these projects that come along the way as markers for different versions of who I was and am. As a result, it tends to not matter too much how long it takes to finish them or put them out because they exist as their own thing, separate from the artist who made them.
You mentioned that each song on the EP is almost like it was written by a different person. Today, what song would you say represents you right now in this moment, and why?
For a song that I’ve written myself, it's a piece I wrote a few weeks ago called "Many Times Together Were Many Times Alone," heavily inspired by Jeff Buckley's and Bob Dylan's style of writing. I'll be bringing it into production with Minna where I'm quite certain we'll be making most of the production with her modular synth. It represents me right now rather well as I've been doing a lot of freeflow writing which tends to tap in to a very deep and dark 'self-aware' state of mind, and the lyrics carry those heavy existential topics and tones, similar to Leonard Cohen perhaps. It's a headspace I've been in for the last year now and I find it very fulfilling. I don't plan on leaving it anytime soon.
For a song written by somebody else, I'd say “Insomnia” by my crush Caroline Polachek.