By Katie Li
February 24th 2026

Severance, for most, sits somewhere between a corporate thought experiment and some dystopian fantasy; for Quiet Light, musical moniker of Riya Mahesh, it’s a daily practice. By day, she moves through the sterile corridors of hospital wards as a medical student, navigating fluorescent lighting and regularly confronting the verges of death. By night—or whatever liminal hour her shifts relinquishes her—she retreats into ambient electropop, sculpting gauzy synths and unmistakably intimate vocals that serendipitously oscillate between hushed subtlety and full-throated candor. Yet, in true Severance fashion (or that of Hannah Montana, which she’s quicker to lean into), memory contamination is virtually all but preordained. While Mahesh can barely quantify the bleedthroughs herself, the overlap of her hospital and musical worlds obey the same rule: arenas of pain and suffering, yet healing and reprieve.

THIS IS A PREVIEW FROM OUR PHYSICAL MAGAZINE EXCLUSIVE. Get your copy here to read the full editorial now!

Read my full conversation with Quiet Light below.

……………………………………………………………………………..

You were just in New York for Fashion Week and are here a lot. You come every month from Boston to record and play shows. Do you notice any differences from  the Austin and Dallas scenes you've been a part of?

Yeah, it's definitely a little bit confusing. I moved from Boston back to Austin six months ago. So what I used to do in Boston is, I would come up to New York basically every other weekend. And, then now, since I'm in Austin, it's a little bit harder to get to New York. So, I basically go for a whole week when I go. But I've just been going a lot recently because I've been working on visuals for the album and just doing other things around that.

But I would say that with the New York scene, I've always kind of felt that I got indoctrinated into the New York scene. When I was in Boston because there wasn't really that type of music happening in Boston. I remember opening for Chanel Beads in Boston. And then with pretty much everything after that, people just associated me with them. Then, I got introduced to all of the New York people starting with Nina Protocol.

I think that it's interesting because Quiet Light morphed from, maybe, being more of like an indie-pop project while living in Austin. Everyone that I knew there was in a band and that morphed into being more of an ambient pop project once I moved to the East Coast. I realized that I could play shows without a band essentially.

I feel like that’s the pipeline with a lot of people who liked indie music back in their high school eras. That's like all I would listen to and, now, it's that crazy ambient or electronic stuff.

Yeah, it's the Frankie Cosmos to the ML Buch pipeline.

Exactly. So you just moved back to Austin and I know you were in med school in Boston and you’re in your third year right now?

Yeah, I basically took a year off between my third and fourth year of school essentially. 

Are you locking more in your music half right now?

I've really been focusing ever since the deal got signed. I've been really just trying to focus as much as I can on music for as long as I can. I mean, it's definitely hard. I think that you just really have to do as much as you can in the amount of time that you can. That’s kind of how I've been thinking about music, but this album is really special to me. And I knew that, if I wanted to be able to tour it and do all the things I needed to do for it, I needed to take some time to really just focus on that. And I've just been in school for so long that I figured I deserved a break anyway.

Well deserved. It’s very cool seeing there's a lot more artists that find this middle ground between their school career and their artistry. I recently met a furry DJ who was in the midst applying to law school.

That's crazy. What's her name?

Doecaine! I feel like you’d know her.

Yeah, actually I did. I met Doecaine. 

No way! But it's really cool seeing this increasing duality with musicians. And… I don't know if you've seen Severance at all, [a Dystopian show where you can choose to have your work and personal life memories completely separate], but does that severance exist for you? 

Yes, I definitely relate to severance in the concept of leaving the hospital and then just severing that off. But I think I always try to use Hannah Montana maybe as a better analogy. Just because I feel like there are some times where both parts of my life kind of converge and do help each other. I do feel like people traditionally think of medicine as something that's very sterile, very cold, and hard. It's a lot of death and things like that. But I think that I've met a lot of people that are just very beautiful people and are very interested in all sorts of things in the hospital.

And I do think that while it is a place of suffering, it's also a place of healing. And I think that that's kind of very similar to the way that music is. But yeah, I've definitely been taking some time off from all of that stuff to really just give myself the chance to focus on music, which is exciting. I think it's a good place to be right now. 

Totally. Do you ever feel like you revisit those hospital experiences while writing your music? How do you feel like it intersects with your music?

I've always thought about the way that I make music as there's something inside of me that I've been trying to express. And I think that, while I do have a very methodical process to it, a lot of the times the things that I'm writing about are just things that are happening in my life. I don't think they necessarily come from the workplace, but who's to say that it's not influenced by that, but there are definitely songs about the hospital on the album, for sure.

So going back to where you grew up, you're back in Austin, but you grew up in Coppell, Texas right? 

Cop-pELL. People always say that. It's so funny.

Cop-pELL. The fancy way. But, there's a trend I’ve seen in artists I've talked to that grew up in the suburbs too, whether that's sparking some urge to rebel or to look elsewhere for inspiration like the Internet. But how do you think your hometown has influenced your music?

It's so interesting because I think that maybe people see me and they see an indie person who's alternative, and think I must have hated growing up in Dallas and I must have hated growing up in the suburbs… but honestly I loved it.  When I graduated high school, I genuinely thought that I peaked in high school, which is a really scary thought. I was really normie in high school. I was my high school prom queen. I was super interested in all of that stuff.

And I really thought that my high school felt very teen drama-esque and I really love that part. But then I think I graduated and then I had already done the whole thing of trying to be normie, trying to be popular, trying to do all that stuff. And I think I just made a complete 180 and just wanted to completely change in college, just for shits and giggles, I guess. It kind of stopped becoming a bit and just became more real.

But I think in high school, I was so focused on being so normie and, in college, I was focused on being so alternative and, now, I've hit a middle ground where I'm just like: I do like wearing Uggs and going to Starbucks, but I also enjoy listening to this type of music. So, I do think especially now with all of the million Tik Tok aesthetics and stuff, it's so easy to characterize yourself as having a certain aesthetic. But I think now I just sort of am trying to live my truth.

Yeah, for real. I feel like the suburbs sometimes gets too much hate.

The suburbs are definitely boring and I don't want to go back to the suburbs, of course. That would be bad. But when I was there, it was like, I don't know, I just have really fond memories. But I think a lot of that is down to my parents and my family. I think I got really lucky in the way that my parents raised us because I remember just having a lot of freedom as a child. Not necessarily like four years old roaming the streets, it wasn't like that. But I do think that my parents really did encourage my brother and I to just dream and that nothing was impossible. They really instilled that value in us that we could really do whatever we wanted to. So it made growing up in the suburbs feel a lot less constricting because I knew that it wouldn't always be like this. I knew that it was going to end.

That's awesome. Shout out to your parents then.

Shout out my parents.

You said you were, key word, trying to be like a normie and have that high school experience. So did you feel a certain pressure to conform to whatever suburban standards there was?

Totally. No, I totally played the game. I can't sit here and pretend like I didn't try to. But I think it's good to have done that then because I see these people now still just acting like it's high school at these random New York parties. And I don't know, I’ve been there, done that. So I feel just way more like I don't need to be invited to these things. I mean it is nice sometimes, but I definitely grew out of my clout chaser mentality from high school.

Going into how accessible learning to make music is nowadays too, it's really cool to see you're classically trained, both vocally and on the piano. I read you even once thought you'd be doing opera forever and going to Julliard as your end all, be all. How do you think that classical training manifests in your sound now? Whether that's your technique or your mindset or something else?

I think that, going back to my parents, probably the best thing that my parents did for me is forcing me to play piano and not letting me quit. I think that no kid, unless you're Beethoven or something, enjoys playing piano when they're 4 or 5, because it's just so hard and almost inaccessible at that age. But it's a kind of discipline. I went through a series of incredibly intense Russian and Chinese piano teachers. And that kind of striving for perfection in classical music, striving for playing everything on tempo to the best of your abilities, and having proper technique has affected even my own music that's mostly computer-based, it's allowed me to really just focus on being precise.

It’s also helped me in being creative and having ideas that are out of the box but rooted in the fundamentals of classical music. The truth is everything that anyone makes in music is based upon something else and you're not going to make anything that's completely uninspired by something else. Everything's been done. So, it's a matter of drawing from your own personal influences to create a new sound. And I think drawing from the modern things that I like with the traditional classical stuff has really allowed me to make something that feels like orchestral, but also rooted in modern day synths and ambient sounds. I'm so grateful for that because, music theory you can learn at any age, but the older that I get, the more that I'm able to hone in on it, which is a great skill.

Totally. You’ve also talked about your opera ad libs in your older music. You were in a Renaissance choir which you used to take into a lot of your fashion and aesthetics. But it feels less overt in your more recent music. Would you say those influences are making a reappearance at all on the new album or still more in the background?

It's definitely making a reappearance on the newer stuff, but I think that it's transformed into something more unique. It's a recurring motif that you'll notice in the new record. I love opera ad libs and so many people are doing it so great. Caroline Polachek, [FKA] Twigs, all these great artists. I think that it's awesome opera is so present in modern day pop music, so it’s definitely making a comeback. I don't think it was really there in Pure Hearts or Going Nowhere as much.

So excited to hear it! That goes perfectly into my next question, your vast array of references and influences—there’s Aphex Twin Skirts, Sofia Coppola films, even your name is directly pulled from the National song. Let’s do a kind of Pitchfork style, ‘Music that Made You’ type thing, divided into your school eras instead of years. What’d you listen to in elementary and middle school?

That sounds fun. Elementary and middle school was definitely like Disney-esque stuff. I really loved Hillary Duff, was definitely listening to a lot of Britney. I love those first two Taylor Swift records, of course. I definitely was listening to a lot of country music on the radio as well. Carrie Underwood, Tim McGraw, all that stuff. And there was classical music as well. I did this thing called music UIL. I don't know if you know what that is.

I don't think so. What is it?

It's insane. I remember I went to this other school when I was in fifth grade for this competition, and they would play 30 seconds of a classical piece and you’d have to write down the composer and the piece. So, I was prepping for that.

That's so crazy at that young of an age, too. 

Yeah, it's crazy. It's like the spelling bee for music. 

Did you ever win? 

I did pretty well. I don't think I ever got first place, but I think I placed most years. And it was crazy ‘cause they'd give you a CD with all the songs that could possibly be played. I would just listen to those CDs all the time. I mean it is cool. Maybe I was a cool kid.

You definitely were. That's so niche. Moving into high school, you’ve kind of alluded earlier to an indie rock vibe. What were some of your influences back then?

I definitely found out about Alex G in high school. Frankie Cosmos and that early Clairo stuff, I remember I would listen to all the time. Definitely the indie rock and bedroom poppy stuff that was going around that time. Was Men I Trust then? I think I was listening to them a lot. Alvvays. I was a really big Alvvays fan.

Alvvays is such a deep cut, I really love them.

Yeah, I remember I just got Spotify or something and Always was one of the first bands I listened to on Spotify. I was like, "This is so good.” I remember I was listening to “Dreams Tonite” in my car and my friends were like "what is this?” I was like, “let me put you on!”

Definitely a favorite. I think they were huge for me too. They are such perfect driving music, I swear I’ve lived that exact same story with “Dreams Tonite.” That whole album was really crazy, every song was a hit. Do you like their newer work, too? It's a little different, but I still like it.

Yeah, but I think that those first two albums will always have a very special place in my heart. There were also some cringier choices. I was also listening to a lot of bad indie pop like LANY. I was listening to a lot of LANY and I was listening to the 1975 so much. I have to admit, so much.

The Tumblr era. That’s a rite of passage.

I was in love with Matt Healy. It was really bad.

No shame in that though. The 1975 was my favorite, too. I feel everyone's favorite Tumblr-era band says a lot about them. I loved Matty too but he’s definitely starting to make it hard to keep defending them…

Yeah, I'm just not like a stan anymore. I remember that me and my younger brother took my parents to a 1975 concert because we were too young to go ourselves.

Did you put your brother on to a lot of music? 

Yeah, he's kind of funny. He's like a guy, but I remember when he was a baby. He was really young. He was in fourth grade. I was like driving him home from school or something and I'm like, "What are you listening to?" And he's like, "I don't think you've ever heard of him." And I'm like, "Who is it?" He goes, "Kendrick Lamar." I was like, I know Kendrick Lamar…

He thought he ate. That's so cute. Okay, let’s move into college and medical school. What have you been listening to there? 

In college, I was a big college radio kid. I was really involved in college radio. And it was good because my radio station KVRX had a rule where you could only play artists that had less than 250,000 monthly listeners on Spotify. So, it was really good because it would just force me to find new things. So I remember I was a really big Jockstrap fan. Black Country, New Road when they still had Isaac Wood in the band. What else? Yeah, I was listening to Black Midi, I was one of those people. Wednesday, MJ Lenderman. MJ Lenderman, “You Have Bought Yourself a Boat.” That album. I think I was listening to old stuff too, Fleetwood Mac and all.

I think that was it for college. Med school, I remember I basically only listened to Salem and Lana. I think Pure Hearts is the greatest example of that because it just feels just both of them together. I listened to Lana in middle school and I kind of had fallen out of it, but in recent years, I've just become so obsessed with her. She's been probably the person I listen to the most. And then other than her, I've been listening to a lot of 2000's music honestly. Gwen Stefani, more Britney, Shaniah Twain, just like all those strong pop vocalists. I'm really loving that kind of stuff right now. I think somewhere in there, I really got into Grimes, probably college, and that was definitely the basis for me starting to produce my own stuff. 

Very cool. I love Grimes as well, she’s controversial now too but I’ll always defend her. 

Yeah, huge huge inspiration, especially Visions.

I was going to bring up your cover of Salem’s “Starfall.” It's funny—every artist I talk to or write about, I somehow mention Salem at least once.

That's so funny.

So it’s so cool that you did that cover. It’s such a tough song to do justice and it was great. You mentioned Pure Hearts as well, where I definitely hear that Salem influence. It was especially “Aurora” with its trap drums and there was that one kind of gliding synth on it that almost sounded almost more like the lead from “Starfall” more than your actual cover did.

It was definitely inspired by them. Jack [Donoghue of Salem] listened to Starfall because Dean from my label manages them and he sent him the song and he said this song is “tiny, but mighty.”

That's a unique compliment. He definitely approved. Insane he saw it. 

No, I love him. He's amazing. He can do no wrong. He's the perfect man.

It's funny you mention him and Lana specifically too. I don't know if you're anti-Ethel Cain at all, but when I listened to Pure Hearts the first time, it reminded me of Golden Age-era Ethel as well. 

It's so hard because she is kind of in between Lana and Salem. Honestly, it’s so hard for me. I do think Ethel Cain makes great music. It's just so hard with all of the Lana-Ethel beef because I have to take Lana's side. She is the blueprint and, Ethel, didn't Ethel date Jack or something? Lana too, so I have to defend Lana, my god.

Yeah, I think that's what the beef is over. But, I promise I mean it as the highest compliment! Today, there's such a big culture of remixing, reworking, covering 2010s era music especially. Do you have any other tracks you plan to cover in the future? Was that one kind of a spur of the moment, one-off type thing? 

That one was definitely a spur-of-the-moment, one-off type thing. That “Starfall” cover was kind of the beginning of Pure Hearts. Like me realizing that I wanted to just make a whole record that was like that, but my own thing. I just loved that song so much and was like, “I need to cover this.” I've really been wanting to record more covers but I think the issue with covers is, if you're going to do a cover, you have to offer something that's very different from the original version. There's no point in covering a song that sounds exactly the same as the original. So, I definitely am going to do a lot of thinking before I cover another song. It would have to be a song that was as meaningful to me as “Starfall.”

Totally makes sense, can't wait to see what you pick next. A big part of your signature sound is using voice memos, which is always so nostalgic. Especially the ones with kids’ voices. Those always bring me back to “Florida Project” for some reason, even though that movie is sad.

That's cool. That's good to know!

You started doing that really early in your music career, how did that habit come to be? And where do you pull them from? 

People hate when anyone talks about Frank Ocean, but I'm gonna do it. I remember listening to Blonde in high school and, then, not really touching it again for a few years. Not because I didn't like it but I just wasn't listening to it for some reason. And then my college boyfriend was so into Blonde. He would just have it on all the time. And I remember just being captivated by the voice memo parts of Blonde, especially “Facebook Story.” I love that one. And I think that it's a combination of voice memos and bringing in pieces from real life mixed in dreamy song production is really what life is all about. Songs can be such intense forms of escapism, but a lot of the time when you're listening to a song and you're having a conversation while the song is playing at a party or something—I think voice memos help me make the songs feel more real and ground them in reality. So, I've always been really attracted to that prospect. 

A lot of the memos I use are really emotional. They're voice memos from ex-boyfriends, my parents, my grandparents, my brother, close friends, and people sharing things that are kind of sensitive. But I try to clip the parts of the voice memos that they would be okay with me sharing and keep those in the song to just ground myself in this idea of Quiet Light is a solo project. But really, it's influenced by just about all the people in my life. 

It's especially in that first album, I Love You Because You're In Love With The World, there’s a lot of home videos that my dad took. There's one from the first time that my family had taken a vacation to Europe and my dad's on the top of the London Eye saying something into a video recorder with interesting facts about Europe. That song is just talking about the London Eye and Big Ben. It's like, you can't recreate those moments, you're only going to be that age for a certain period of time. But putting that voice memo in the song helped me to immortalize that moment and kind of live it again at this age. So, there are a lot of voice memos on this new record, but definitely less than I think people were expecting me to use. But, all the ones that I picked are really, really intentional.

They definitely add so much intimacy to your music, especially with how mundane some of them are. I got a sneak peek into your upcoming album and there was one on Bagel Bites.

Yes, Bagel Bites and Uncrustables. 

Yeah, that was so cute because I know in that song, there was another kid’s voice memo that set the stage before. Did you have them just record it or something?

Yes, it's the kid that my friend babysits. It's him talking about trains or something. My friends are pretty good about that stuff. Sometimes, they send me voice memos without me asking for it and they're just like, “you would like this,” and it's usually something really good. So, I'd say maybe 75% of the voice memos I record, and 25% my friends send me.

That's so awesome. I remember there was a certain time where I'd record myself going to parties and it would always be so funny to look back on.

That's awesome. That's a great thing to do. I remember I was having this really intense conversation with this French guy and I loved his accent at this party where we went up to the roof and I recorded him. I put it at the end of “Love90” and so, if you record something interesting at a party, you couldn't ask for anything better. That's perfect for a song. 

The French accent always hits. “Love90” was one of the only on Going Nowhere with memos and it feels like the shift of where you started going a little bit sparser with using them. Do you find yourself going back to more voice memos in the upcoming album for any specific reason? 

It's supposed to be a continuation of Blue Angel Sparkling Silver One, which has the most voice memos, but it has less voice memos than Blue Angel One. I think I will probably use fewer voice memos after this project just because—I love it, it's great, and I'm not saying that I wouldn't go back to using it—any musical technique, sometimes you just feel like you've maxed out on it and you want to try something else.

For sure. I feel another kind of evolution I've seen in your music was kind of this back and forth between more dreamier vocals—more in the background with heavy reverb—and vocals that are clearer, much more at the forefront. It feels like your new album bridges the two. How active is your decision in going between these two vocal styles? Is there a certain headspace you have to be in for either? 

Yeah, I think that most of the time when I go into the song, I know whether or not it's going to be a more ambient or a more vocal forward track, but sometimes I'll start something off as being a vocal-forward track and, then, it won't work for whatever reason. And then I fuck around with the vocals and make them more ambient. “You Know That I've Stayed” is one of my favorite songs that I've ever made. And it started off being a vocal-centered track, but then I just thought that the vocals sounded too stale so I just chopped them up and made that track. So I do think that, when I open the computer, I'm kind of surrendering control in a lot of ways. 

You can have this thought process of being like, “okay. Today, I'm just going to make a Shaniah Twain song.” But if you really are true to yourself in that process, you're going to just make something that sounds completely different than Shaniah Twain if you really do listen to yourself and figure out exactly what makes the most sense for you and your sound. So that's been something that's been amazing with Quiet Light, just  this sort of acceptance that it's the wild west sometimes. When you're starting, you can have an idea but that idea may morph into something completely different and that's beautiful. It doesn't have to be exactly what it started out being,

For sure, I love how serendipitous music always ends up being. You’ve said in another interview that you don't like to repeat yourself between albums, which is definitely not an exaggeration. When I went from Pure Hearts to Going Nowhere, I was "Wow, duality." But, of course, this upcoming album is a direct sequel to that 2023 album. What would you say compelled you to revisit that ethos of the first album? And how do you see the two connected or as a continuous story?

A lot of people don't know this but Blue Angel Sparkling Silver was the name of a side project that I had and put out a bunch of albums. But people started liking that side project more than Quiet Light, which was weird. So I was like, “how am I going to do this? Am I just going to quit Quiet Light?” But then I was like, “no.” So then I removed everything off of Spotify for Blue Angel Sparkling Silver and then I got it mastered professionally and put out an album called Blue Angel Sparkling Silver. So the whole basis of Blue Angel was to be this escape and free space for me outside of Quiet Light, because I viewed Quiet Light in my head as something that had to be very traditional pop songwriting for some reason. But, obviously, it's morphed into something completely different than that.

But I found that when I was making Going Nowhere and Pure Hearts, I was just missing that freedom that I felt with Blue Angel, which is not really a concept album. It's just kind of like a bunch of random ideas that somehow work. I always hate the idea of randomness in music, but for some reason when I do it in Blue Angel, I actually enjoy it. I think it's really a slice of life kind of album in a way versus my other albums. Pure Hearts paints a very specific picture for you, this imagery like wolves and hearts with blood on them, very gothic imagery almost. And then, every time I think of Blue Angel, I always just think about something in between David Lynch and “the Virgin Suicides” and  the dreamlike state of everyday life. It's not necessarily romanticizing your life, but it's looking for beauty in the mundane, I think. And so I have never liked a concept enough to revisit it, but that is what happened here because I feel like I’ve gotten better at production now and could just make that album better. Everybody always says when they're making something that “this is the best thing that they've made” but I really do genuinely believe that this is the most amount of time I've ever spent on making anything musically and for that reason I think it's probably the most special thing that I've made so far. 

For sure, it feels like a magnum opus for sure. There's definitely a track there with everyone. How would you describe your sound to someone without having to force genre labels, whether that's a feeling, mood, or experience? 

I always try to describe it to people as very dream-like ambient pop. It is ambient music in a lot of ways, but also there are drums and lots of changes that, sometimes, maybe don't fall into the lane of ambient music. I feel like it really allows you to dissociate to the album, which I think is a very ambient aspect.  Yeah, I guess I would say dream like ambient. 

Totally see that. And with that, you mentioned David Lynch earlier. With the Berlin music video, I can definitely see kind of that Lynch-esque dreamlike influence especially with the random green screen scenes throughout. How has it been filming music videos in general? 

My whole life, I've been sort of averse to making music videos because I felt like all the music videos that I had tried to make before were more DIY and were just hard for me to communicate what I wanted to do. I've always felt that a bad video detracts more from a song than a good video adds to it. But with this project I put out, it took me five albums to figure out what I wanted to do with the music video and now I finally know.

Rich Smith did the Berlin video and he just did just such a good job. It feels homemade in some ways and very professional in other ways, but it's in a domestic space, in this apartment; but within the apartment, there's something happening here, which is a very Lynchian aspect. I always think about the Twin Peaks house where Laura Palmer lives and that scene where there's a horse in the living room that suddenly appears. That's kind of how I feel about the whole album in general. You're doing mundane tasks around your house and, all of a sudden, your house turns into this dreamy, liminal space, and I think that’s just beautiful .Sharleen [Chidiac] from Voyeur styled me and did the movement and it was just so fun working with both of them and it was just a great experience. 

For sure. I love the styling and even just the camera you guys used. Anything with that VHS grainy quality I love.

Yeah. Totally. we were going for that 90s vibe. Handheld camcorders are just so fun. There are some scenes where Rich is just moving the camera in all these crazy directions and it's the same shot. He did a phenomenal job. I'm really excited for that to come out next week.

Do you have any other music videos planned for this album, now that you’re finally starting to enjoy them?

Yes, they're going to be two more for sure. And maybe if those do well… there will be three more. We'll see.

Are they already filmed? 

We're in the process. But we filmed two of them and, then, the last one I'm going to film this month in LA which will be fun.

Awesome. Have you ever played out in LA, actually?

I opened for Erica de Casier in LA last October, opened for Slow Pulp in September, and then I opened for Fine in October. I’d never played a show in LA and then, in the span of two months, I played three shows in LA which was like “whoa.” But I love LA. I mean I think eventually I'd love to move there. I really think that I would do well with no winter.

I have this vision for myself where I would love to get to a point in my career where I could produce and write for other people. And I've always been attracted to the idea of being kind of the type of person who's kind of working with Justin Bieber vibes.

You can save him. Please do.

I think Dijon already saved him..

Thank god. With collaborating with other artists, so far your most recent track, “Dealerz” is your only one with features beyond people helping with production. Is your decision to mostly stay solo intentional? Any other dream collaborations besides JB?

My thought with collaboration was that it'll just naturally happen once I reach a certain point in my career. I felt like it was too early to ask the people that I wanted to collaborate with, but now I think that it's more possible to do it. I am just trying to find the right song to do it. There are no collaborations really with other artists on this record, but I did have some friends play on the record. 

For dream collaborations, I would love to produce for Addison Rae for sure. I think that would be really fun. I love her secret weapons, those two Swedish girls. They're just so talented. In that vein, I would love to work with Tate McCrae, not to sing on it but to help produce or help her write. I think that's always been more of a goal for me, to work with pop people. I've always had this idea that if I produced a Gracie Abrams album, that'd be cool. When I was younger, I always wanted to be in a band with Clairo. So, I haven't given up on that. One day we're gonna start our own Smerz. I've never even met her before, but I feel like it's totally possible for some reason. So any of those pop divas, I would love. I think pop music's the best that it's been in a long time right now. It's really impressive how it's bounced back, because I feel like when we were growing up like pop music was bad.

For sure, there's always something so comforting about pop music. Everyone is hungry for it again.

I feel like I didn't pay attention to pop music until literally two years ago and now I feel listen to a lot of pop music. Way more than people would expect. Also Madonna, I never listened to Madonna that intensely but I’ve been listening to Ray of Light probably every day. It's such a good record. Back to collaborations though, people that are less famous… Loukeman, Did you listen to that Loukeman, A$AP Rocky song with the Clairo sample?

I haven't. But that sounds pretty insane. What’s it called?

It's so good. “Don't Be Dumb / Trip Baby” is the name of the song. I love A$AP Rocky, but that might be one of my favorite ASAP tracks.

Which Clairo song does it sample?

It's “Sinking” by Clairo. I feel like if I wanted to collaborate with someone, I'd want it to be someone more different than my sound, I guess. I loved when Jessica Pratt and A$AP Rocky worked together, that's the kind of vibe I wanna get on.

Honestly I think your music could sound really good with a rapper.

We've been thinking about sending out just stems and a sample pack from the Blue Angel record to just a bunch of rappers and see who picks it up. It's kind of my dream to be like Imogen Heap and how she got sampled by every single rapper on Earth. That's kind of a goal of mine to have a song like “Love90” or something sampled to the point you're like, “I don't want to hear this song anymore. It's been sampled too much.”

Last question: beyond the next album release, what do you think is next for you, whether that's a tour or yet another new genre you want to try out in a future project?

I think that would be a cool experiment for me to do something that's a little bit more traditional universal pop. Erica De Casier is a great example of this. She has a lot of ambient influences, but her vocals are always the most important part of the music. And that's very inspiring to me that she doesn't hide behind reverb and all that. That's what I've been thinking about music-wise. I'm going to Sweden for two weeks to start working on my next record, which is really exciting. And then I am gonna go on tour for sure.