Beautiful Imperfections: KAVARI on her debut LP

KAVARI, aka Cam Winters, is fast becoming a renowned figure across the Scottish clubbing underground, as well as focal feature to a diverse array of DJs' arsenals worldwide. Having garnered support from Aphex Twin, Mura Masa, and Joy Orbison, it’s no wonder she’s begun to play consistent shows throughout the UK and Europe alongside the likes of Ethel Cain, Malibu, and Hudson Mohawke. Unrestricted in her stylistic approach, she’s penetrating a wide plethora of sub-scenes with the uniform aesthetic and musical identity that we’ve grown to know as KAVARI. 

At what point was KAVARI initially conceptualised?

It originally started when I was 13. I wanted to DJ and needed a name. But it didn't start becoming an official thing until around lockdown. That’s when I started to release music properly, as well as getting booked for shows and stuff. It's just an extension of myself. It's not like I'm not putting anything on or that it's necessarily thought out, it's more just kind of what I like amalgamated into a person. There’ve been times when I've wanted to do side projects, but I haven't committed to any yet.

Though your music is club-driven, it holds its own outside of a dancing context. Is striking this balance between functionality and home-listenability a considered intention?

Yeah, I think so. I like making both. I get really bored if I just make one genre for a long time. So after I made Suture – this really heavy club project – I was like 'the next is going to be completely drumless, ambient, noise stuff'. I also like adding samples from video games and movies. It adds a bit of a deeper dynamic rather than just using samples I've dragged in.

Despite your diverse discography, your sonic palette sounds cohesive and distinct. What are your technical processes in achieving this?

A lot of the time it’s just distorting the living hell out of things. I'll go into Ableton, find a sound that's got a good bass with clean frequencies, and just distort it to hell. I’ll normally EQ it and reduce it from there. Trash is my number one; out of all the distortion plugins I've used, it has the most crunch. But I don't really have a set method of making anything, it's more like throwing paint at a canvas, and then just reducing what I want off it. If you can’t hear it, just cut it out.

Where do you think your appreciation for texture and crunch came from?

I actually didn't notice I liked textural stuff until others pointed it out. Afterwards, I looked back at music I liked, relistening to old stuff with this new frame of mind, like, oh that's why I liked it. Like a lot of SOPHIE’s work, I always liked her sound design stuff. Same with ARCA and LORN as well. It just hits a sweet spot in my head, listening to it feels nice, and that's what I go with. I really like broken sounds and the imperfections that you get from broken machinery or when things fuck up. So when I make music, I try to add imperfections into it. I also really like snippets of nature or rain. So I think that’s impacted how I make music because I like to add the feeling or textures from those sounds into what I'm making. A lot of my ambient stuff has field recordings in it, and Attachment Style has that kind of wildlife forest ringing at the start of it.

In making music, do you have a go-to ritualistic process?

In the past, it used to be, smoke a joint and have a coffee, that was my peak performance. I’ve also realised I work well under pressure. So if I want to do a project, I’ll set a deadline, and make that immovable. I've even tweeted I'm going to release a project on this date to pressure myself to get it done by then. In that rush state, I normally make good stuff. But nowadays, I need to have lots of inspiration. I'll think about the kind of image in my head of what I want it to sound like, pick how many songs, and work through them one by one until it fleshes out into a project. Some songs I'll spend morning till night working on, going in to tweak stuff and making different versions. For others I'll bounce between songs and splice bits around, put them in another one and see if that works. I’ve made a whole mixtape, bounced it to one long audio file, and then put it into a Granulator, scanning through to use those sounds in the Suture EP.

How did the Aphex Twin support come about?

I went on Twitter and I saw someone tagged me in it. I literally just jumped out of bed and started screaming. It was crazy. Like three shows in a row, he was playing three or four of my songs per set. I was just sat there like 'oh my god'. I heard through mutual people who are friends with him, that apparently, he's a fan of the SoundCloud scene I'm in, which is really cool. So I reached out to him on SoundCloud and he messaged back like ‘Yeah, I love your music!’

Your songs have received vast support at large festivals over the last summer. Having expressed dismay towards the capitalistic nature of these shows, would you be opposed to playing them in the future?

I’d do it to fulfil my inner child a little bit, because I grew up listening to EDM, so it would be a cool bucket list thing. But I wouldn't like that to be the main thing I do. I like smaller shows. I like seeing and being in contact with people. On a stage like that, you're so far removed from the crowd. I think the biggest show I've played so far was either Ethel Cain in London at HEAVEN, or Gr1n at Colour Factory. I feel like I always have this view of life, where I really just want enough money to live comfortably. I think DJs charging insane fees is just part of that whole music industry machine, where the top are getting paid astronomical amounts, while people at the bottom are getting nothing.

With context being a significant part of your workflow, how do you approach recontextualising something where this has already been pre-defined, like a remix?

I’ll either try and reimagine it as if I’d produced it. I’ll take the skeleton of the stems, and make it into my own song almost. Or I'll have a specific idea, like make it slower, faster, or heavier to see what works best. For the daine remix, the original was already really good. daine had sent it to me before it was released to play in sets. I sped it up and was just messing about to make it heavier for my sets. I sent it back to daine and they were like ‘I want this as a remix’. With the REZZ one, I asked for the stems because I liked the original so much. I wanted to see if I could make it heavier and REZZ was like ‘sure no problem’ and let me release it.

How did the co-production on yeule’s softscars come about?

We became friends after they’d heard Healing Spring, and showed it to Mura Masa. So yeule got in contact and sent me some stems to mess with. Then we just sent it back and forward until we found the version that yeule liked the best. I think what ended up on that project was a bit of drum work and some backing vocals I did.

Can you share insight into your debut album Against The Wood, Opposed To Flesh?

I took promo inspiration from the SCP Foundation – it's like a bunch of scary stories online. It's meant to be in this fictional world where the foundation’s gathering objects and beings and writing reports on them. So I thought it'd be cool to add that little element of lore to the album. I've also got some promo posters with a QR code link to the album that I need to put up around Glasgow. I don't like doing the same thing twice. If I do one style or idea for too long, my brain just burns out, and I don't enjoy it anymore. So with this project, I feel as though it's like a bit of a 180-switch to my last, which will keep things a bit more refreshed I think. But just as with not looking to do the same thing producer-wise, I also don’t want to do the same thing artistically. In the future, I want to go more into film, or doing sound for games, and scoring stuff. I'd love to do fashion, and more physical things with my music. I've been meaning to release hoodies for the longest time, but I'm really picky, I want them well-made and hand-painted. Nowadays most people just go to some cheap website offshore, buy a bunch of T-shirts, slap a logo on it and sell it. Whereas, I'd like my merch to be like sculptures that I'm selling in different forms.

Are there any artists or projects you find inspiring at the moment?

I think the number one thing that inspires me at the moment is my love of horror. It’s something I've had my whole life, but never really connected to my music until the last two years. It’s been a massive source of inspiration for lots of my visuals as well. I have a bunch of artists I'm really inspired by like Blood of Aza; c4u4.me; E_DEATH; Nova Caine; and Punishment.

What games are you currently playing?

I haven't played video games in quite a while, but I watch a lot of playthroughs. I'm so focused on music nowadays, that in sitting down and committing to a game, especially if I haven't played it before, my brain’s too focused on music to get into it. But I've been rewatching a lot of Fable, Silent Hill, and Outlast. Also, there are some cool indie games, like Witching Hour.

Favourite method of being scared?

Getting way too high. I think a movie that’s scared me the most throughout my life is either The Visit, or Lake Mungo. But the number one of all time are the mermaids from Harry Potter.

Favourite colour?

Dark purple or dark red.

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Against The Wood, Opposed To Flesh is out now on Bandcamp