Spotlight On... Xaia Chimera

Glasgow’s Xaia Chimera is a sonic alchemist and her latest endeavour – her ambitious 30-track third album Infernal Rapture – is a synesthete’s wet dream. Marrying the sounds of both the natural and man-made world with an intense, emotive electronic style inspired by the likes of KAVARI and Blood of Aza, Chimera moulds a delicate dystopia which is sure to delight and challenge listeners in equal measure. We caught up with her ahead of the album’s release to delve deeper into her creative process and ethos.

Your sound is very tactile and textural. How do you create such vivid, tangible soundscapes?
Texture is my favourite thing in music. I feel like my mission is to marry the natural and the electronic. I don’t know why we can’t hear birds tweeting in the club? I don’t know why we can’t hear whalesong in the club? Why aren’t we hearing birds and whales in the club?!

I think it’s fun to just get your phone out and record random ambience. I’ve got recordings from churches, traffic lights, fields, and sometimes I’ll just put those in raw. You can turn anything into anything, though. The Lidl checkout could be a hi-hat if you want. That’s not my tea, but… yeah.

This album embodies an apocalyptic reckoning of sorts. Can you speak a bit about the world you are trying to create here?
Well, my albums are all connected to each other. My last album ended with the tracks Wrath of the Phoenix and I Shattered the Moon, left on the image of a charred, destroyed sky, and that’s where this album starts with Blackened Sky. Fractured Earth is in the middle and Ocean Obliterated is at the end so those are the different segments, I suppose. 

I wanted a story, as I do with all of my albums. It might sound a bit wanky, but with this album, I wanted it to feel almost like the non-linear structure of a dream. I’d say the first two thirds of the album follow quite a strict story but then things become sort of abstracted and fluid.

How does Scottish folklore or religious imagery influence your art?
Firstly, I use religious imagery because it’s cunt. But I also think it’s powerful to take imagery or ideas from societal structures that have been historically used to oppress me as a trans woman of colour and use them for my own creative expression.

I’m very inspired by Scottish folklore. Growing up, I was really into fantasy books and things like that. I also think, for someone like me, I’ve been very divorced from Scottish culture and it’s difficult to find an identity within that. Having these themes in my art is my way of claiming a space within Scottish culture and mythology. 

Image: Infernal Rapture cover art by @murphy_scoular_art

How did the features on the album come about?
For the collaboration with Huntress, I’ve always liked her DJing and my thought process at the time was, "I don’t know if she makes music but I know she can!" She had this program that had all of these old instruments, effects and drum machines in the one place, so we just blasted this song out using all of this ancient equipment on her Mac with a little Sphynx ornament sitting watching us go crazy. I asked Huntress to pick a title from a list I had that she thought would fit and she chose Resurrection, which I think works so well as it follows the track The Shape of Death and totally revitalises the sonic journey of the album. It’s clubby, it’s thuddy, it’s fab. 

Again, for Rend with Salam Kitty, I really love their DJing and I was just like, "You’re getting in the studio with me and we’re gonna cook, honey!" So we sat down and the first thing they said was that they liked bubbly, squeaky sounds. We went into Splice and searched for ‘bubbly’ and ‘squeaky’ and in the space of an hour we had pretty much finished the song. 

Can you tell us about your show Underbelly on Subcity Radio?
Basically, I contacted them because I wanted to do a show but I didn’t have an idea for what it would be. They got me in for an interview and they asked what I wanted my show to be, and on the spot I was like, "I could do something based on or influenced by different club nights in Glasgow." And they were like, "Wow, that’s such a great idea! Sometimes people come in here unprepared!" I was just like, "That could never be me!"

Also I was not getting booked, so this was also my way of showing these club nights that they should have booked me! I’ve made two albums, these people know who I am. I’ve seen white people in the same stage of their careers as me getting booked left, right and centre. Fundamentally, it is an issue of racism and transphobia. With Underbelly, I’m able to showcase nights that I believe are worth going to and worth supporting. 

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Infernal Rapture is out now; follow Xaia Chimera on Instagram @xaiachimera