Q&A: Nora Lilith’s “Flesh” is a Haunting Exploration of the Intimacy Between Mind and Body
INTERVIEW
INTERVIEW
☆ BY KIMBERLY KAPELA ☆
A DARK, INTROSPECTIVE JOURNEY OF HEALING AND SOMATIC JOY – Nora Lilith, the self-made songstress known for her entrancing DIY approach, returns with her latest single, “Flesh.” A sultry, brooding track, “Flesh” delves into the complex and intimate dialogue between the mind and body, evoking an atmosphere that is both haunting and immersive. True to her ethos, Lilith self-wrote, self-produced, and is self-releasing this evocative piece, continuing her trajectory of hands-on artistry.
“Flesh” captures a sense of deep introspection, inviting listeners into an inner world where memories and experiences are stored within our bodies. Expanding on the song’s concept, Lilith explains, “Flesh is a conversation between oneself and one's body – particularly the stories and memories embedded deep within our flesh. It explores how we navigate the world not only as our present selves but also through the rich tapestry of our life's biography.” This reflective narrative is layered over a hypnotic soundscape that melds pulsating beats with ethereal textures, enhancing the emotional weight of the song.
At the heart of “Flesh” is a striking exploration of the tension between pain and pleasure, past traumas and present healing. Lilith describes how the messages carried through our physical being can feel heavy and constricting, as they echo the imprints of our experiences. Yet, there is an underlying hope woven into the track’s narrative: the body’s potential for healing and joy.
“The capacity for deep unwinding pleasure and power is also woven into our bones, and in this exploration is the unfolding of a relationship,” Lilith says on the transformative process of connecting with one’s body. This journey involves the trials and errors of mending pain and unlocking portals of somatic joy.
The DIY producer explains her genre-less bedroom production style on “Flesh” as “a captivating exploration of texture and groove, blending fluid, liquid-like soundscapes with metallic tones and quick rhythmic double bass grooves.” The track navigates through distinct sections that experiment with various percussive swings, all while maintaining a dreamy, ethereal quality.
With “Flesh,” Lilith invites her audience to join her on this introspective journey, creating an evocative and healing musical experience that speaks to the complexities of the human condition.
LUNA: Thank you for talking to Luna. Our readers would love to get to know you and your music more. For any readers who aren’t familiar with you yet, what inspires your artistic style and sound?
NORA: I feel like a lot of my music is very introspective. It's very emotionally driven. I think I'm definitely very inspired by my own personal history, my wounds, my life experiences and my relationships and connections to people, connection to myself, connection to spirit. I try to find this balance between, or an interplay between, the dark and the light in my music. I'm striving to be playful and curious and experiment, and then also simultaneously dive into the more dark and shadowy parts of myself.
LUNA: What kind of atmosphere or emotional space do you aim to create for your listeners?
NORA: I want my music to be a container for people to be able to tap into and confront their own emotions, whatever that may be for them, like their own shadow, their own depth, and a container to help process those things and also inspire experimentation and play and weirdness. I like to make a lot of weird choices in my music, and a lot of texture also. I hope that it's a very all encompassing experience for people emotionally, sensually and intellectually.
LUNA: What is the ideal environment to experience your music? Is there a particular setting, mood, or time of day that enhances the listening experience?
NORA: I would definitely say monitors or really nice speakers are usually how I'm experiencing music in general, the better quality the listening device, obviously the experience will be a bit better. In terms of environment, I think there's an intimacy to my music, or at least when I'm creating it, it feels very intimate. I imagine people are also engaging with it intimately. Just people's own personal space, like at night, maybe as a way of just getting to know oneself.
LUNA: You just released your latest single “Flesh” which is completely DIY. What is the inspiration behind the single?
NORA: I generally don't have a very premeditated way of approaching my music. It's not like I really have a specific vision for it, or an idea of what I was doing at the moment. I just try to tune into creative inspiration and see what comes and I feel like I'm discovering it as it's happening. A lot of the times, I think in retrospect, I understand the project more than when I'm actually writing it. With “Flesh,” it took a long time to form and lyrically, it's very much about our wounds, the wounds that we all carry that are deeply ingrained in our tissue, in our flesh, and not just that, but also the wisdoms and the capacity for joy and pleasure that's really a part of our somatic experience. I was in that headspace when I was writing it. Production-wise, I was playing with a lot of different textures and grooves and rhythms.
LUNA: Can you walk us through the creative process for “Flesh?” How did the song evolve from the initial idea to the final version?
NORA: That's a good question. Every time I write a song, it's so different. “Flesh,” I started with the beat and the beginning with the bass line. That groove was really the initial element that drew me into the idea of the whole track. And it was a very weird bass line. It's not a very typical bass line. It's not easy to actually play. It's not human-like, it's very quantized and glitchy and warped. There's a very digital element to it. After that, I came up with the melodies, and then I worked on the B-section, which is like this breakdown part that actually came six months later. I had different versions for that B-section that I kept changing. I'll recycle old ideas sometimes and it takes me a while to find what I like and my lyrics actually come last. I wrote the vocal melodies first, and then I wrote the lyrics at the very end of the process of making the track.
LUNA: As a self-written, self-produced, and self-released artist, what challenges and rewards have you encountered during the production process of your work? How did this DIY approach shape the final sound of the track?
NORA: I definitely encounter a lot of challenges. I would say I’m in the stage of re-associating myself to my music and my creative process sort of differently. I've had a very difficult relationship with my creativity. I think I've maybe even identified with it too much over the course of my life, and it was a very painful space where a lot of anxieties and self criticism and doubt and things like that would come up. It definitely came up with this track. I feel like I'm always confronted by that. I'm so much closer to alchemizing those things and really prioritizing the creative exploration again and being in the fun of the moment. When I'm writing, it's oscillating between those two worlds, like taking it too seriously, wanting to prove myself too much, or wanting it to be perfect. I'm such a perfectionist, and then having to move on the other end and just accept myself as I am, accept my work as it is. Creating a space for self forgiveness. I think it makes it sound more personal. I hope it's more raw and intimate. I usually record everything at home. This time I recorded in a studio, but it was still with my favorite mic that I use at home, and I still included a lot of sounds that I recorded at home in the track. There's a lot of things that I do within my production that are not very industry standard things that one would do. I really like the exploration that it gives me.
LUNA: You mentioned that the song navigates past traumas while also uncovering portals of somatic joy. How do you balance these contrasting themes in your music?
NORA: I think my vocals are usually very dark and haunting, maybe even melancholic, sometimes melodically and lyrically also. My productions also are very dark in ways, but have sometimes brighter, more upbeat elements. I think there's so many different ways to express; lyrically, melodically and instrumentally. I'm just playing with all those different elements and trying to find a balance.
LUNA: You describe your style as genre-less. How does this fluidity influence your songwriting and production process, and what does it mean to you as an artist to defy traditional genre boundaries?
NORA: I really struggled to describe my music to people or define it. I don't really like thinking about genres. I think I just want to make what I make and it's for other people to interpret or categorize if they want to. I think it's just more authentic or true to how we live as humans. I think we're just existing and being, and categories are so externally defined and externally put on us. I think if anything, it's a bit of a rebellion and a desire to be myself without having to question what that means for other people.
LUNA: How are you feeling in this current era of your career and what does the rest of the year look like that you would like to share with Luna?
NORA: I'm feeling good. I'm excited about what the future has to hold. I'm working towards an EP right now, so I'm releasing another single in a couple of weeks, and then another one at the beginning of the next year, and then my EP comes out at the beginning of March. There's definitely quite a few more releases coming. I'm loosely planning to find a way to perform these songs live. That's still sort of up in the air, but I think that'll be an interesting way of relating to this music differently for me and expressing it differently.
