Olga Bell: 'I'm like all Radiohead fans - paranoid, cynical, but want to let go'

Olga Bell interview on Randomness, Radiohead, love, fans and Russia

Photo: Press

Russian-born before moving to America, trained in classical musical but now aching to rush the dancefloor, anchored by her heritage but obsessed by constant evolution and the thrill of the new, Olga Bell consists of many contradictions - but there's the thread of her personality that runs through all that she does, binding her work with a very raw, human and organic appeal.

Off the back off her staggering third album Tempo and on the eve of her UK tour, we sat down for a chat with Bell to talk overcoming 'the chaos of her late 20s', leaving her feelings exposed, her Russian background, love, beating writer's block, her need to 'get physical', and what it really means to 'truly' love Radiohead...

It's a lot more physical than your previous records Край (Krai). What inspired that?

"I just wanted to make a dance record. I watched Paris Is Burning then I realised I missed listening to 90s house and dance music. When I think about that music, my whole system just goes back to how I was listening to those old pop hits when I was a kid. Anything Goes by C+C Music Factory was top of the charts back in like 1994, so I wanted to research the origins of all that from the late 80s and early 90s. I guess that's when Paris Is Burning was made, with that scene starting in Detroit then moving across to London with this huge Byzantine off-shoot of branches and genres and it's so rich."

I read somewhere you said that this was a record for the body first, and the mind second?

"I think so. I mean I guess when you put out anything you have to think of little sentence-long ways of summing it up, but yeah - Krai was a lot more of a heady project where I did a lot of research as well. With this one, I wanted to study and practice dance music."

Lyrically, what would you say you are dealing with on Temppo?

"First of all, the themes that I always do. It's all over the place, but maybe just to be reductive, just the themes of a person raised on Radiohead! Paranoia, cynicism, solipsism, and just letting go. Very classic dance-y tropes about letting yourself go, turning yourself over to the music, allowing yourself to be stupid and not be so uptight.

"'ATA' is based on this Frank O'Hara poem, A True Account Of Talking To The Sun On Fire Island, and 'ATA' stands for 'a true account. The poem is about the author having a conversation with the son, and my interpretation is a message to artists to just do your job like it was any other job. The sun always rises regardless of anything else that's going on. It's very important to remember that, for any creative person you can get so egocentric thinking 'you must make a hit, you must become Beethoven or FKA Twigs or something'. No, you shouldn't think about any of that stuff - you should just do your job."

But have you ever suffered from writer's block?

"No, not yet - I'm just going to knock on some wood. I try to always be doing a lot of different things, for better or for worse.

Nick Cave once said that 'writer's block is just a sustained lack of confidence in what you do...

"Ooh! That's a great quote. I would agree with that. Writer's block again is like putting too much of your ego into this and you can't move forward. You aren't going to make gold nuggets every day, that's why you have to write every day. 90% of life is just cotidian, boring and shitty. Maybe that's very pessimistic and Russian of me to say. Life wouldn't be dynamic if it was all amazing. It has to go up and down. Of course there are tonnes of moment when I'm frustrated with myself, but I think the Incitation EP that I released last fall was my dip to the bottom of the wall. Feeling like nothing you do will ever be successful or get noticed, and those kind of terms really paralyse you. That's why I just wanted to go to a club and move and think about kinetic energy in music. It's been really good."

You talked about that EP dealing with 'the chaos of your late 20s'. Do you think the bridge between that and this album was cathartic in any way?

"Yeah, absolutely. It's hard to sing those songs because I was in such a low place. Now I think this album is much more confident. As much as I work really earnestly and as hard as I can to connect to people, it's really important to have perspective and not take yourself too seriously. It's really hard as an artist to disconnect yourself from what you do. My name is on it, my face is on it. You need to remember that you're still a human, not just some numbers on Spotify. If you start to think about that, it's really depressing."

So are you 'more yourself' on this record, or is this a different character?

"I think it's just a different part of me. Krai was an exploration of my Russian roots and this desire to write and sing in a really specific style, Tempo is just a different world. I'm still me, I've just re-arranged the environment."

Having shown so much ground on just a few records, do you think your fans have grown to know and expect anything of you, or has the constant shift kept you aloof?

"They probably have no idea! Expect the unexpected. That could be both a good and bad thing as a fan. I personally really love it when an artist I love does something really whacky and leftfield. It can be frustrating for some people who just want more of the same with record after record of a certain vibe. I couldn't do that, even if I wanted to. I want to learn with every project and to grow.

That's the great thing about Radiohead - they essentially reduce themselves to rubble to become a new band entirely on each record...

"Yeah, me too - and people give them shit about it. Just imagine if they'd done 20 years of 'Creep', that would be horrible. Even 20 years of OK Computer, although some people would be fine with that. I really like Hail To The Thief. I'd go into a gladiator ring with anyone who doesn't."

Me too, but it's strange. There isn't a bad song on Hail To The Thief, but I think it's a great record hidden inside a mess of a record. If it was streamlined a little, it would be perfect - but I can' name a single track I'd want removing, which is frustrating...

"Whaaat? 'Myxamotosis', 'The Gloaming', it's all so good. Maybe it's because the only time in my life that I've seen them was on the Hail To The Thief tour, so it's very dreamy. They're my favourite band in the world. It's so funny. Every Radiohead fan thinks they're 'the one', so people can say what they want but it's me - I'm the biggest Radiohead fan. I've liked them since I was 10-years-old. One day Thom Yorke is going to look me in the eye and say 'you understand my music more than anyone else'. "

But if your shifting shapes so often, do you find people often get the wrong idea about you entirely?

"Hmm, that's a good question. I think the greatest misconception about me is that I'm 'avant-garde'. I'm not weird or left-field. I've always just made the kind of music that I want to make, but if you're really nerdy about it, there's nothing with like, particularly strange time signatures. My music is tonal, my time signatures are even and it's funny that people would think of my as avante-garde. I guess I feel kind of placeless, which is good. Too weird to be poppy but too poppy to be really weird. I'm in between worlds.

Do you think that people might just assume that of you because of your classical background?

"I guess so, but even if you think about classical music, most of what people play in conservatories when they're students isn't that avant-garde either. A Beethoven sonata is complicated but it's all things that are just deeply woven into the fabric of Western music. I try not to think too much about what people think of me."

How do you think your classical background has effected the way that you write and experience pop music?

"Well, it definitely has. It's what has programmed my brain from the time I was seven until I was 21 - as a serious classical pianist. There's a lot that it gave me, mainly making me incredibly attentive to detail and nuance. Just the ability to finally study a phrase or a small group of notes or the voicing of a chord. You take a score from 300 years ago then interpret it to the best of your ability, make it your own, then perform it - making it fresh and new again. It makes you really good and trying to make your way through another person's thoughts. It makes you more empathetic. But one thing I'm trying to work on caring less about what people think, when you're a good that's your teacher or whatever. As a child, I was never encouraged to have a punk spirit - you just try to excel in this heirachy."

Is it that more considered approach to music that made you first fall in love with people like Radiohead and Bjork?

"It's just so rich, there's so much there for you to bite off. I also listen to a tonne of hip-hop. If there's a really good MC or a really good track, it's like the same bite of food for two and a half minutes so it just has to be awesome. I just really geek out on music."

What else are you listening to at the moment?

"I haven't listened to the new Radiohead album yet because I feel like I've been really busy preparing for this tour and the album, so you end up not listening to very much. I like being two steps behind the conversation, so I listened to the new Rihanna and Beyonce records like a month after they came out. Maybe I just like to wait for the first initial wave of chatter to pass before I dive in to something. I listen to tracks obsessively too. When 'Panda' by Desiigner came out, it really blew up a few months later but I must have listened to that like 45 times in a row. His delivery was so interesting. I just went down this 'Panda' rabbit hole like a lot of people did, that's why it was the No.1 song in America.

"Lady Leshurr - she's really funny, and she went over the 'Panda' beat too. I really want to make beats for her."

What are your favourite, classic records that you always return to?

"Aphex Twin, all the time. Syro was only recent but I listen to it all the time still. I listen to the early James Blake EPs a lot. Dummy by Portishead, I listened to that a lot while making my record. I really want to go to Bristol. I'll go there soon. I want to do what every other touring musician complains about and do a really extensive tour of the UK, where I play in every little town, hear every regional accent and hang out with all the pub-owners."