How Silver Dawn Makes Vulnerability Hit Like a Dancefloor Anthem
Punk Head: Hyperpop and electroclash are both known for exaggeration. What makes those sounds the right language for talking about real emotions?
Silver Dawn: Lyrically there’s an acceptance of blurting out subversive thoughts and feelings, unfiltered and rude like punk, and musically there’s a punkish chaotic minimalism too. Its a bit too in your face for the mainstream, shocking and honest in a good way. That’s why when I hear Charlie XCX and Billie Eilish’s “Guess” on mainstream radio, I can’t believe it got through. In the midst of the confrontation of taboos, the emotions are real because they are unbeautified.
Punk Head: The track is said to feel both nostalgic and futuristic. What are the sounds or eras you keep finding yourself drawn back to?
Silver Dawn: Avant-garde and progressive music is timeless really. Thelonious Monk, free jazz, art rock like The Velvet Underground, prog rock, Krautrock, post punk, electro, grunge, hardcore, jungle, Electroclash, hyperpop - anything experimental takes something familiar and fuses it in an unfamiliar way.
Punk Head: A lot of contemporary pop music deals with connection through technology. How much of One and Only (Just For Now) is a reflection on digital life versus face-to-face relationships?
Silver Dawn: The subtext is loosely about curated lives and projection making real life flesh and blood connection fleeting and harder to navigate- just a glance of eye contact or a clash of hands before being swept along. But it is also singing the praises of getting out. After all the lock downs during the pandemic I’ve developed a huge appreciation of live events and big crowds.
Punk Head: Genre labels can be useful, but they can also become limiting. When you combine indie dance, hyperpop, electroclash, and avant-pop, are you consciously building a new identity or simply following instinct?
Silver Dawn: It is about following instinct. The only purpose of genre labels is to help to explain what you are doing and what you can be put alongside, for listening convenience. Creative expression doesn’t have genre. Although, for fun, you might consciously experiment with trying to, say, create a drum and bass track using only Irish folk instruments and inadvertently birth something completely new, I find genres a bit of a nightmare at the point of creation..I like too many sounds to stick faithfully to any one thing.
Punk Head: There is an interesting contrast between the physical energy of dance music and the private nature of emotional vulnerability. How do you balance making people move while also asking them to feel?
Silver Dawn: I find when I am dancing, I don’t necessarily think about the lyrics, but then something like Strong by Romy and Fred Again, her vocal and the lyric just work together to cut deep in, right in the moment, and you’re dancing with unexpected soul-deep feelings. On the other hand, Peaches singing ‘Fuck The Pain Away’ has the comical shock factor, but it is still saying something very vulnerable and deep about human beings trying to escape from emotional pain, which lingers long after you’ve been singing along. You just need to create what feels right at the time.
