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Music

Kate Simko Makes Room on the Dancefloor for an Orchestra on Her New Ensemble LP

Simko gave up a normal career producing floor-fillers to challenge herself and explore new horizons.
Photo courtesy of the artists

London-based artist Kate Simko may have initially established herself as an acclaimed techno and house producer, but the last few years have seen her work shift toward a new, unexpected direction. As she discussed in her recent appearance on THUMP's Rave Curious podcast, acoustic orchestral arrangements have steadily become a major part of her work, thanks in no small part to her Masters in Composition for Screen from the Royal College of Music in London, and she's about to come out with her biggest statement in this vein yet.

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This Friday, May 6, will see the release of the debut full-length album from herself and the London Electronic Orchestra, an all-women ensemble of seven classically trained musicians, but it's streaming below today. Those craving the usual dancefloor-ready fare from Simko won't be disappointed, as it's chock full of carefully sculpted, lithely grooving beats. But they might also be delighted at the range of timbre and texture she works into the fold here, defamiliarizing what we've come to expect from a dance record.

For the occasion, the artist spoke to THUMP via email about the project to detail how it came about, how this artistic direction lead from her early work as a film composer, how Hurricane Sandy inspired her first track for electronics and orchestra, and more.

Kate Simko & London Electronic Orchestra will be out this May 6 on The Vinyl Factory.

THUMP: After establishing yourself in the dance music world, what made you want to get your Masters in Composition for Screen at the Royal College of Music?
Kate Simko: I just wanted to try something new and be challenged. I learned Pro Tools and scored my first film in my young twenties, and it's something I really loved and wanted to pursue more. Then a few years later a couple Chicago-based filmmakers approached me to score a feature-length documentary that ended up on PBS (The Atom Smashers score later released on [American imprint] Ghostly International). Through scoring that film and a couple others I realized certain limitations as a film composer because I didn't know how to write for orchestra. In The Atom Smashers I literally guessed at orchestration, playing flutes and strings on the keyboard. It was sort of an improv ode to Philip Glass without knowing the ins and outs of orchestration. That experience raised a curiosity in me, and I really wanted to be understand how different instruments blend with each other to create different sounds and textures.

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Also, to be honest, I felt a bit trapped living in Chicago and was looking for an 'out.' I felt like I'd hit the ceiling of creativity for me personally after living there most of my life. Things got better when I met Tevo Howard and we started making music, but still I wasn't fully challenged or inspired in my day-to-day environment. So learning to write for orchestra and score films was a new chapter in more than one way. I looked into programs in New York and LA too, but the RCM was the most open-minded. The head of the department is a great German composer who has come to see me play at fabric. It was the perfect fit, and one of the best decisions of my life.

What initially drew you to doing an album of mostly dance music with orchestral arrangements?
It might sound unlikely but honesty it just happened. The first song I wrote for electronics and orchestra was "Tilted." This was scored to a tilt shift film of aerial shots of New York City. It was Fall 2012, and Hurricane Sandy was hitting the city hard. I didn't feel homesick per say, but my heart went out to the people there. And so I wrote "Tilted" inspired by the spirit of New York, and just sort of jammed out orchestral parts against the beats in the background. A couple days later I recorded it with our LEO harpist Valeria Kurbatova and bassist Nina Harries. Something just clicked. I realized that these instruments were fair game to be used instead of synths and from there it sort of became an obsession. I booked as many recording sessions as possible at the student rates. I sat with the players and tried new things and really tried to get to know their instruments, and how they could work against each other and electronics.

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The next impetus was Spring 2013: I was booked to create forty minutes of original music at The National Gallery. This is a serious art museum in central London, and they'd never had electronic music performed there. The ensemble was harp, violin, and bass (same as "Tilted"). After that, I started experimenting with more instruments, and we had our first LEO booking in Fall 2013. They asked me to write a new piece, so I wrote "Shikoku." There were 15 people there. That's how it started.

Would you say this continues an impulse present in your past work or starts off on a brand new trajectory?
LEO is definitely an impulse off my past work. Two of the tracks on the album were previous songs of mine that I reworked to include strings and harp ("Cairo" and "Stara"). "One Time Game," a track Jamie Jones and I made together last year, originally didn't have any strings. I made a new version for an LEO live show at LEAF festival in London, and sent Jamie the video. He agreed it added a new dimension so I recorded the strings and they became a part of the song.

You mentioned that the spontaneity of DJing translated directly to your work here with the London Electronic Orchestra. Could you explain how?
DJing, and dance music culture in general, has taught me a lot about living in the moment and the physicality of hearing frequencies in music on the dancefloor. The feeling you get at a club when everyone is tuned into the music and hanging on every note just can't be beat. I think it's what draws us back as partygoers, party throwers, and DJs. That magic, or spontaneity, is something I've aimed to channel into LEO. I write for the instruments thinking of texture, and how that would translate to a live setting.

Where can we see London Electronic Orchestra perform in the upcoming months?
Next up is our album release party in London next Thursday, May 12th at The Pickle Factory. We've got Citizenn on board, as well as Gabriel Prokofiev's Nonclassical collective, and then we have upcoming shows in Cannes at Midem and July at Le Poisson Rouge in NYC.

London-based artist Kate Simko may have initially established herself as an acclaimed techno and house producer, but the last few years have seen her work shift toward a new, unexpected direction. As she discussed in her recent appearance on THUMP's Rave Curious podcast, acoustic orchestral arrangements have steadily become a major part of her work, thanks in no small part to her Masters in Composition for Screen from the Royal College of Music in London, and she's about to come out with her biggest statement in this vein yet.

This Friday, May 6, will see the release of the debut full-length album from herself and the London Electronic Orchestra, an all-women ensemble of seven classically trained musicians, but it's streaming below today. Those craving the usual dancefloor-ready fare from Simko won't be disappointed, as it's chock full of carefully sculpted, lithely grooving beats. But they might also be delighted at the range of timbre and texture she works into the fold here, defamiliarizing what we've come to expect from a dance record.

For the occasion, the artist spoke to THUMP via email about the project to detail how it came about, how this artistic direction lead from her early work as a film composer, how Hurricane Sandy inspired her first track for electronics and orchestra, and more.

Kate Simko & London Electronic Orchestra will be out this May 6 on The Vinyl Factory.

THUMP: After establishing yourself in the dance music world, what made you want to get your Masters in Composition for Screen at the Royal College of Music?
Kate Simko: I just wanted to try something new and be challenged. I learned Pro Tools and scored my first film in my young twenties, and it's something I really loved and wanted to pursue more. Then a few years later a couple Chicago-based filmmakers approached me to score a feature-length documentary that ended up on PBS (The Atom Smashers score later released on [American imprint] Ghostly International). Through scoring that film and a couple others I realized certain limitations as a film composer because I didn't know how to write for orchestra. In The Atom Smashers I literally guessed at orchestration, playing flutes and strings on the keyboard. It was sort of an improv ode to Philip Glass without knowing the ins and outs of orchestration. That experience raised a curiosity in me, and I really wanted to be understand how different instruments blend with each other to create different sounds and textures.

Also, to be honest, I felt a bit trapped living in Chicago and was looking for an 'out.' I felt like I'd hit the ceiling of creativity for me personally after living there most of my life. Things got better when I met Tevo Howard and we started making music, but still I wasn't fully challenged or inspired in my day-to-day environment. So learning to write for orchestra and score films was a new chapter in more than one way. I looked into programs in New York and LA too, but the RCM was the most open-minded. The head of the department is a great German composer who has come to see me play at fabric. It was the perfect fit, and one of the best decisions of my life.

What initially drew you to doing an album of mostly dance music with orchestral arrangements?
It might sound unlikely but honesty it just happened. The first song I wrote for electronics and orchestra was "Tilted." This was scored to a tilt shift film of aerial shots of New York City. It was Fall 2012, and Hurricane Sandy was hitting the city hard. I didn't feel homesick per say, but my heart went out to the people there. And so I wrote "Tilted" inspired by the spirit of New York, and just sort of jammed out orchestral parts against the beats in the background. A couple days later I recorded it with our LEO harpist Valeria Kurbatova and bassist Nina Harries. Something just clicked. I realized that these instruments were fair game to be used instead of synths and from there it sort of became an obsession. I booked as many recording sessions as possible at the student rates. I sat with the players and tried new things and really tried to get to know their instruments, and how they could work against each other and electronics.

The next impetus was Spring 2013: I was booked to create forty minutes of original music at The National Gallery. This is a serious art museum in central London, and they'd never had electronic music performed there. The ensemble was harp, violin, and bass (same as "Tilted"). After that, I started experimenting with more instruments, and we had our first LEO booking in Fall 2013. They asked me to write a new piece, so I wrote "Shikoku." There were 15 people there. That's how it started.

Would you say this continues an impulse present in your past work or starts off on a brand new trajectory?
LEO is definitely an impulse off my past work. Two of the tracks on the album were previous songs of mine that I reworked to include strings and harp ("Cairo" and "Stara"). "One Time Game," a track Jamie Jones and I made together last year, originally didn't have any strings. I made a new version for an LEO live show at LEAF festival in London, and sent Jamie the video. He agreed it added a new dimension so I recorded the strings and they became a part of the song.

You mentioned that the spontaneity of DJing translated directly to your work here with the London Electronic Orchestra. Could you explain how?
DJing, and dance music culture in general, has taught me a lot about living in the moment and the physicality of hearing frequencies in music on the dancefloor. The feeling you get at a club when everyone is tuned into the music and hanging on every note just can't be beat. I think it's what draws us back as partygoers, party throwers, and DJs. That magic, or spontaneity, is something I've aimed to channel into LEO. I write for the instruments thinking of texture, and how that would translate to a live setting.

Where can we see London Electronic Orchestra perform in the upcoming months?
Next up is our album release party in London next Thursday, May 12th at The Pickle Factory. We've got Citizenn on board, as well as Gabriel Prokofiev's Nonclassical collective, and then we have upcoming shows in Cannes at Midem and July at Le Poisson Rouge in NYC.

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