Q&A: Stella Talpo Resists the Sinking Force of Time on “QUICKSAND”
☆ BY Kristian Gonzales ☆
Photo by Kadi Jatta
MAKING A RESURGENCE AFTER MONTHS ABSORBING LITERATURE AND ART — R&B singer-songwriter Stella Talpo is rejuvenated for the impending release of her debut album, MEDUSA, in October via DeepMatter Records. Taking inspiration from a range of influences, including the eccentric electronic sounds of Gazelle Twin and the cinematic soul of Sault, along with feminist literature by Gillian M. E. Alban and Clarissa Pinkola Estés. The album challenges societal norms using mythological and primal imagery for her most intense project to date. Following the release of lead single “GOOD GIRLS,” Talpo returns with the mid-tempo cut “QUICKSAND.”
Peppered with a sparse pitter-pattering drumbeat accented with an 808 bassline, “QUICKSAND” provides a wide canvas for Talpo’s rich voice to soak through. Tackling her battles with depression and the constantly speeding passage of time, she illustrates her perspective through the imagery of sinking into sand and being pulled into the abyss. With rays of sunniness emanating from the song’s sonic atmosphere, Talpo is not easily laying down to her anxieties.
“I wanted to create a visual of hands coming out of the sand pulling me down, like being stuck in the mud but with the important angle of being forcibly pulled down by forces other than oneself, like quicksand,” Talpo explained, sharing insight on her vision of the track.
Keep reading below as Talpo connects with Luna to spill more details on her new single, her progression as an artist, and her cultural identity.
LUNA: Hi, Stella! How has 2023 been for you so far?
TALPO: Hello! It has been a pretty mad year so far — lots of highs and lows. Some of my proudest achievements to date have happened this year but weirdly I’ve also been riding a strange and unfamiliar emotional wave.
LUNA: What have been the most important experiences you’ve had in your artistic evolution since dropping your first EP back in 2016?
TALPO: Wow, that’s a great question. Writing this upcoming album is definitely up there — bringing the writing process back to where it all began, just myself and the instrument, invited in all sorts of ancient limiting beliefs and fears, but it was one of the most empowering experiences of my life. It reminded me that I have artistic autonomy and vision and I don’t have to follow any rules to create, I don’t have to prove myself or my worth — the art manifests when you release expectation and control.
It reminded me that my writing doesn’t come from me but through me, and my job is to get out of my own way. Learning how to get out of my own way, slowly and painstakingly, over the years has been a pivotal learning experience that has definitely shaped my artistic evolution since I first started. Funnily enough, getting back into acting was also a hugely important experience on this journey. It reconnected me with my body and retrained me to stop taking myself so seriously and just play.
LUNA: You spent your upbringing between your birthplace of Italy and Singapore, along with Spain and America before you moved to the UK. You’ve also previously mentioned feeling a sense of alienation and being a “third culture kid.” Did this have any impact on your perspective on conformity, both as an artist and in society?
TALPO: You know, you’d think that it might have had the impact of breaking all boundaries and limitations around conformity, but I think for me the opposite happened. You become very accustomed to having to start new, making new friends, trying to fit in, and I think that shaped me by making a very effective chameleon out of me, out of a desire to belong. But shapeshifting demands conformity by its very nature, and I think that’s a survival mechanism I’ve been trying to overcome… I think it’s wonderful for making friends and being in new environments and immersing yourself in other people’s worlds, but it makes getting to know who you are as an artist and person within society very challenging.
The hook in one of my favorite Jessie Reyez’s tracks goes, “Who am I when no one’s in the room,” and I don’t think anything could describe that feeling better. I feel if you don’t have a solid grasp of who you are once you’ve taken all your layers off for the day, it’s hard to push boundaries creatively. So a lot of my growth artistically has been dependent on my learning that it’s safe to not conform and be wildly myself, and that it can actually be fun to break a rule or two… the world won’t end.
LUNA: Since settling down in South London, what aspects of the city connect closest to your identity? One would assume that London is a place where people of no singular ethnicity or cultural background can connect and form their own type of culture or sense of belonging.
TALPO: I think you just described it perfectly. There’s no place like London in the entire world. Admittedly it’s a love-hate relationship for me. The cost of living and weather I could do without, but London’s gift is her people. I find human beings and human stories so energizing and inspiring, and this city is home to so many walks of life that it has this very unique way of bringing you to life. I often think about all the people I will never get to meet or share a meal with, the life stories I won’t be privy to, and I think it’s magical that we all, strangers to one another, cohabit in this wild, messy, concrete jungle, often times united by nothing other than the fact that we are humans with this very specific shared living experience. It’s just pretty spectacular… overwhelming, but spectacular.
LUNA: You also previously said that the sonics of instrumentation helps guide your writing process and that you want it to indicate where you are going as a person. In “QUICKSAND,” there’s a unique juxtaposition between the bubbliness of the beat and the track’s titular subject as a metaphor for depression as it relates to the passage of time. How does this single reflect how much you currently handle these anxieties?
TALPO: I wanted to make a song where the sound conflicted with the words because in many ways I experience that conflict (bubbly and melancholy) internally a lot. I have these two very opposing sides that fight for the limelight, and both feel very true and real to me and I realized — thanks to a wise friend — that songs about my “less fun” experiences don’t always have to sound as defeated as the lyrics might suggest. Because really those low lows, they’re a wave I ride — I don’t feel defeated when they ebb and flow, although this year they’ve really pulled some hard punches.
I wanted to speak to the irony of how I could feel stuck — creatively, emotionally, spiritually — and yet have this side of me that just observes that space I sit in sometimes, scoffs, “What am I like?” and then gets on with it. I think the song shows an acceptance and surrender to the experience, both of the lows and the inevitable of time passing, where I would have normally been resisting and judging and trying to control. That’s why sand seemed like the perfect leitmotif, because the harder you try to hold it in your hand, the more it slips through your fingers.
LUNA: In the music video for “QUICKSAND,” there’s an interesting visual in which you see a different version of yourself amidst the setting of a party. How did this concept connect to your perspective on the track’s message?
TALPO: The director of the video, Niamh Lynch, was incredibly astute when she listened to the track and came to me with the initial concept. She saw this inner conflict, this two-sidedness, within the sonic and lyrical juxtaposition and somehow intuited this theme of duality that I like to visit a lot in my music (“314,” “Water”). The different version of myself in the video represents the “shadow” or “darkness” that we try to hide away and don’t recognize within ourselves because it’s too scary to admit they exist. I think oftentimes people misconstrue the term “darkness” for evil or “bad” but it’s not about that — it’s about being free to be yourself without the conditioning that you’ve received telling you you’re too much or not enough.
But it’s the pushing away, the oppression of our shadows that actually leads them to eventually bubble over and run wild. The track — and much of the album, in fact — is about recognizing those sides of ourselves we shut away because society or whoever told us they were too messy, ugly, crazy, whatever, and I think the video does an amazing job at depicting the reality that our two sides are very much interrelated, and we must honor them both if we are to be fully free and act from a place of wholeness rather than reactivity (we’ll always be far more reactive if we have shame around something than if we own it and dissolve its hold on us).
LUNA: As the follow-up to your previous single “Good Girls,” how do these songs share a connection thematically while standing alone with their own messages?
TALPO: They both very much speak to the way we have hidden sides of ourselves to fit in in society and be accepted and loved. While “Good Girls” goes a little deeper on the female-identifying experience, how we’ve been conditioned to compete and compare and how that whole dynamic works to keep us small and out of touch with our innate power (although really, this is an every human experience), “QUICKSAND” demonstrates the disempowerment and stuckness that can come from not living one’s truth, the despondency that follows not listening to your gut, the autopilot, and the cycles you get sucked into involuntarily by shutting yourself off from your power and how quickly time passes when you offer yourself up that way, so quickly in fact that in a blink of an eye a decade has gone and you look around with no idea how you got here.
LUNA: What can we expect with your next project in regards to your evolution as a person and an artist?
TALPO: You can expect far fewer apologies (laughs)! As an artist, I think I really found my voice and my sound in this record (which seems to be as chaotic and non-linear as my brain). I gave Lewis (collaborator, mixer, producer) permission to be as impolite and explorative as possible. Our aim was to serve the song and not the optics, and I think that gave us so much freedom that even the songs that had us thinking, “Well, maybe this is too much” surprised us and made sense by the time they were done. As a person, I feel like I’m less focused on proving my worth and deservingness and more so on being as real and honest to myself and others as possible.
I really hope that also comes through on the record because as a vocalist I stopped trying to demonstrate what I can do from a place of insecurity, but just express myself from a place of self-acceptance (hands up in the air being like, “This is who I am — take it or leave it”) and fearlessness, which still feels incredibly uncomfortable but you know, it’s a work in progress. Singing for the sake of singing reminded me why I love it. I'm not trying to please anyone. I am just expressing my human and spiritual experience through my body and through sound… getting heady about it takes away the magic of that. I think before I was always trying to get somewhere or prove something, dog-paddling energy, whereas now I’m just being and allowing whatever comes with that to be too.
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