MAYa and Tolga Baklacioglu 'Home' from the LP 'KINA' on VENT 2019

in kaput-magazine Danielle de Picciotto: Where were you born Maya? MAYa Hardinge: I was conceived in a caravan and born in Cambridge England. How did it come about that you moved to NYC? I first came to NY when I wanted to travel around South America and New York was suggested to me as a closer place to visit and make money for the trip. Originally I was going to go to Amsterdam. I fell in love with NY and stayed a year and a half. When I returned to England I had a boyfriend from NY, so I would visit as often as possible. A few years later I decided I wanted to move there permanently and applied to emigrate. You work in the fields of music and film. Would you say you are more of a visual or audio person? I’m not sure if I can chose… I’ve been obsessed with music since I was very little and obsessed with visuals and style since then too, I’m still playing dress up! But I would say I would have a hard time living without music. I have music on all day. Different formats in different rooms. Are you an autodidact? Definitely. Still learning! You have a radio program in which you feature mainly women – how did that come about? Yes, it’s exclusively women, as in either a female artist or always female vocals. I kind of got obsessed with the obscure records that came out in the post-punk period before my time – 1981 being a favorite year – and started a Facebook page just posting obscure records by girls. There were so many bands forming then, all trying something new, experimenting with very limited means and this DIY aesthetic, and for the first time ever many of them were women, some maybe only releasing one 7 inch. So it kind of expanded from there. Through a friend I got a radio show and started playing rare tracks and mixing it up with what women in underground and experimental music are doing now, I am constantly doing research on female led music from all over the world. The idea being that no girl will disappear into obscurity. The name comes from the A.C Maria’s Lp “One of our girls has gone missing”, an LP that was released on Mute in 89. She collaborated with the band Wire. But only had one solo LP and then kind of disappeared. I actually met her recently and she’s happy to be missing. Who are your favorite female musicians at the moment? I love what Hiro Kone, Faten Kanaan are doing currently and the voices of Nico and Catherine Ribeiro forever! Do you mainly like electronic music? I like a lot of different music and definitely love unusual female voices. I do tend to be attracted to electronic music but I find it interesting when mixed with acoustic elements too. You have just released an album together with Tolga Baklacioglu. How did this come about? Tolga Baklacioglu lives in Eskisehir in Turkey and runs the only vinyl label from their called Vent. He contacted me via Social Media after coming across my music and videos online and asked to collaborate. We’ve actually still not met and have been communicating remotely for almost two years. The videos you have released are beautiful and really unique. Do you do all of the styling yourself? Do you produce and direct your videos? I have worked a lot with film director Sebastian Mlynarski and if he had time would do all my videos with him. He's super creative and always moving forward and trying new ideas. He directed and shot the latest video. The video’s we’ve worked on together have always just been us two so we share ideas of what to shoot as we go. I also released two EP’s where I made a video for each track all with different artist friends / directors. Sebastian and I did one video that artist Raul de Nieves is in, which features his work of amazing costumes and shoes. But usually I come up with the style. I collaborated on another video with musician / filmmaker Alice Cohen that was stop animation and I suggested themes and color palettes and then helped her cut out all the little animations. I feel lucky to have so many amazing creative friends around me here, and I like collaborating.