“I very quickly realized that there are just so many moving parts about the film industry and it’s not about just one person having a creative idea and being like, ‘let me make this and then share it with the world.’ I realized I wanted to have more creative control over something and have something that really felt like it was mine. So when it came to music it just felt really naturally worked because I’ve learned a lot from that world and now I’m able to pour that into my artist project.”
Ask electronic music producer, Nostalgix, about her music, and she prefaces her answer with a thoughtful description of her pursuit of film in school.
“I took acting lessons for awhile. I wanted to be a director – I would write stories and create short films, I would act in them, I would get my friends to record them, I would edit them, and I would share them with everybody.”
Born in Iran and having resided in Canada since age 7, Nostalgix explored different facets of the film industry, but eventually felt that many projects lack a sense of individual creative control. Inspired by her musical tastes that ranged from Persian singers like Googoosh and Arash to the pop singers like Christina Aguilera and Missy Elliott that streamed onto MTV in her grandparents’ Iranian home, Nostalgix took her background in film and applied it to creating music.
“All my life I had just believed music was something that wasn’t meant for me. It just felt so far away, and I didn’t realize that you could just learn and create it.”
In Canada during her final year of high school she was introduced to electronic music shows and instantly fell for the energy of the performances.
“I was listening to dance music all the time! Traveling around the world to go to festivals.”
Her first year of college, she began DJing, performing at the clubs around Vancouver, but always having an eye on pushing the boundaries.
“I’d played all the venues that I’d wanted to in my hometown, and from there I decided I want this to feel more meaningful – I wanted to play music that people were excited to see and yell the words to. I decided I wanted to go all in on music production!”
Over that time, the high energy house producer has been prolific in putting out music, headlining national tours, and taking the stage at events like Las Vegas’ EDC, Ohio’s Lost Lands, New York’s Electric Zoo, as well as a host of other largescale festivals. While initially collaborating with hip hop artists, she developed as a vocalist, which has further elevated her sound.
“I was working with a couple rappers because I feel like there’s so much swag and just having a certain energy to it. But at a certain point, I kinda got tired of waiting around for other people to send me vocals. I wanted to get my music out, I wanna do more, so I thought, I’ll try freestyling myself on this beat and see how that goes.”
She found that her friends’ response to her vocals were well received, and ultimately gave her the ability to better shape her music.
In addition to the visual aesthetics that help shape the final sound of the music she releases, Nostalgix also cites her changing environments – often due to a packed touring schedule – as a large influence upon her music.
“I think for me I just very much embrace what I’m going through in the moment, and making music in a very natural place of just how I’m feeling. I think since I’ve started writing my own vocals and having a bigger hand in just writing everything in my own songs, I feel like it’s made me be able to express myself in a different way, where I’m able to take the things that are happening to me in a day to day basis and put that into my music.”
While she discusses the times of intensity being the moments that best inspire her music creation, Nostalgix is also very much of the mentality of being present and fully shaping her perspective on her place within the given environment.
“For me, I constantly remind myself to just keep falling in love with the travel, and keep falling in love with all the little things in between and just romanticizing your life because I feel like it’s really easy to just go to an airport and be like, ‘damn, I’m at an airport by myself again’, and I feel like that’s not fun. I feel like changing your mindset about it it makes that experience pretty damn fun,” she laughs.
“I feel like I’ve always been into mindset so I feel like im always trying to better myself. Or just better the way I see the world.”
And much like her creative visual background being applied to the music she creates and her performances in live settings, Nostalgix also uses this sense of presence and upending of negative or lackluster situations to flow into music that she creates to uplift others.
“Say if im going through something really difficult, that’s the time that I’m like, okay I’m very inspired to write something right now. I feel like in those moments it just flows really naturally. I mean whether I’m really happy or really sad, I feel like there’s just different records that I can make through that and I feel like that keeps me moving a lot.”
Nostalgix performs at Tahoe Live at Palisades Tahoe the weekend of December 15th -16th.
Tickets and more information available at Tahoe Live.
