Who is Emélie Nicolai?
Someone who is interested in many things, but who can also enjoy doing nothing at all. The real me is very hard to describe, because I haven’t discovered everything about her yet. I often think I am an enumeration of complete opposites. So lets just say I am who you are experiencing right now.
What did you wanted to become when you were a kid?
A butterfly.
When did music became a part in your life?
When I was a little girl, I sometimes climbed up a table in a crowded bar, and started to sing a song. It made those loud, drunk men very quiet.
Can you introduce Psy’Aviah to us?
Psy’Aviah combines different styles like EBM, goth, rock, punk, industrial, new wave, electro, pop ect. Always with an open mind, and a hint of darkness.
Since our last album, “Entertainment Industries”, we are signed to Alfa Matrix, which gives us the opportunity to work with lots of interesting bands.
Not that long ago you released the CD “Entertainment Industries”, how are the reactions to it?
There are many enthusiastic reactions, since “Entertainment Industries” has more raw beats and heavy noise than the previous album, “Creationism”, which was more rock and poppy.
Every genre has its fans, and some people miss the sound of “Creationism”. But we are working hard on a new album, “Eclectric”, and I believe many people will appreciated this one.
For me personally, the making of “Entertainment Industries” could have taken a bit longer because I would have liked to work on some more details. The procedure for the new album is a bit different. We’ve learnt a lot in a short time, and we are going to try to do as much as we can ourselves. Yves knows better than anyone else what he’s doing, and for a second opinion we have Geert de Wilde (from IC 434 and Pangea). You don’t need more than these two musical geniuses to make Psy’Aviah sound great.
And, as always, I also do the album artwork and such.
Overall, the rock-influence comes even more from Kristof, our guitarist, then from me, although I also try to let Yves and Kristof come into contact with the industrial-rave and dark-electro hits I hear at parties. But unfortunately they don’t really like that too much. Still, the three of us are constantly listening to all kinds of genres. We have our phases.
That’s why it’s so difficult to say what is typically me, but I guess you can say I kinda have a thing for the extremes…
We don’t make music for a so called typecasted audience. We just create what we like, and if others can enjoy it too, that’s great.
It’s true that lots of people like it more simple, they want pure electro, pure rock, pure EBM, … But we like it a bit more challenging. That’s the kind of people we want do approach and attract. So if it comes down to a more select but more advised audience, all the better.
One doesn’t exist without the other, I’m afraid. For me music is a form of art, and the entertainment industry is a handy tool to make sure that not only my neighbors know that I’m making music.
You have to decide for yourself where you draw the line, and I think I’ve managed that. When in doubt, just look around and learn from the people that don’t know their own boundaries, that’ll wake you up.
I once played some drums and guitar, but now I play the synthesizer, mainly the Korg MS 2000.
Yes, I played and sang for XMH for short period of time. It was fascinating to be outside my own country. We are so well behaved in Belgium. At first sight lots of things look identical, maybe just a little bit more extravagant than at home. But after a while you notice that the atmosphere is different. I’m actually half Dutch, but performing or visiting relatives are two very different things. But the Dutch scene, no matter how strange and different, is still very cool. The more often I can hang around there, the better!
I wasn’t a part of XMH for very long, since both groups got very busy. XMH needed me on stage a lot, while Psy’Aviah wanted me in the studio for the upcoming album. So it became impossible for me to divide my time between those two projects. Eventually I chose to quit XMH and fully focus on Psy’Aviah again.
Meanwhile I have some new side-projects, but everybody knows that Psy’Aviah comes first. If things get too hectic I put the other projects on hold, and that’s ok.
Together with Kristof De Clerck (Psy’Aviah’s guitarist) and three other friends, we form the melodical-experimental soft-rock band Toque. Also, I’ve become a part of Men vs Machine, a side-project of Bart & Ben of Propulsion. So I have a lot to keep myself busy nowadays.
Besides The Netherlands? Anywhere, of course. I want to get to know every location. As long as everybody’s open minded, everything will be alright.
Fantastic! It was still kinda early when we got on, and yet there were already lots of people. They where all very enthusiastic, so I was relieved. I was afraid that we wouldn’t be dark or hard enough for the Gothic Festival, but it all worked out. We’ve got a lot of good feedback, and I was very happy to hear that because I didn’t know how people would respond to us at such an event.
I rehearse, a lot! I’m very afraid of forgetting my lyrics, which would stress me out so I wouldn’t be able to focus on the performance, and I wouldn’t have any fun doing the show. So I just try to convince myself that I know all the lyrics, which is not easy, convincing myself.
At home I have a broken mic and an old mic-stand, and with a lot of imagination I put myself on stage with a huge audience in front of me… after which I instantly forget my lyrics.
Actually I have a Master in advertising, but design was indeed a part of my education. Design isn’t always easy, sometimes it comes naturally and sometimes it seems to be completely against you. I’ve got this weird love-hate affair with design. At the moment I’m working on the artwork for the new album, and I can tell you that design and I are going through some interesting times.
“Moments” is a poem written by the American spoken word artist Suzi Q. Smith. Yves and I were very impressed by her texts, and asked her if we could borrow some, including her voice, to try and make songs out of them. “Moments” is what’s left from that experiment.
The lyrics tell a story about how suffocating love can be, even when you finally have the strength to pull yourself away from someone who is obviously not right for you. Even then there can be a voice within you, screaming to get back, although you know that’s the most absurd thing to do. It’s the effect of attract and reject, the love and the hate, the withdrawal of the addiction to love. I immediately recognized this sort of torn up confusion, and tried to capture it in a creative and visual way.
Lyrics, visuals and imagination are complimentary to each other, and that’s why it just makes no sense that this video was banned from YouTube. There is nothing strange or wrong to see.
Somebody (probably some bored teenager) must have flagged the video as being inappropriate, after which YouTube banned it, without even checking why, or giving us a warning, or suggesting some kind of age-limit.
Meanwhile, a couple of fans have uploaded the video again, and this time nothing happened, so the problem obviously wasn’t the content.
Not my words, but I think they are beautiful, and they relate to me.
“All we have to decide, is what to do with the time that is given to us”.
I think some will recognize it.