Photos by CELLAYVPHOTOGRAPHY.
One of the things that I noted at the last show that I went to is that, yeah, it’s kinda true. People don’t really show up for the opening acts sometimes. As by the time the openers were done, well, opening, the club was a bit more packed when the final act showed their face than before. Shame on them as they missed a rather fun act. That being Riconnaissance. When I first featured the act in their live review, I described them something to the effect of an ADHD-Goth-Space-Barbie. Someone not afraid to be themselves on stage and someone who continued to enlighten the crowd by joining it for the rest of the show. Their finale was amazing and the song even made it onto our Industrial Workouts for Industrial People Spotify Playlist. In any event I reached out, they got back to me, and we have a new edition of INTRODUCING.
Give us a brief about your band. Who are you and what do you do?
Hiiiieeee! I’m RICONNAISSANCE! I’m a queer laptop warrior popstar from another planet trying to understand human emotions better through the power of music! I use Ableton and MaxMSP to make almost everything myself, down to my own synths and samples. My discography is sonically all over the place, so I get a little stopped up when people ask me to describe my trashy party electro nonsense. I tend to refer to my music as ‘experimental genre-bending pop,’ but I’m still working on a yummier elevator pitch.
I also book DIY shows in New Jersey and New York with Friendship School and have a free improv band called DOLPHINHEAVENPARADISEFOREVER that you are actually a member of also and where were you at boyband practice last week?
When did you first launch the project and how has it come along since?
In 8th grade, I was Miss Hannigan in Annie. Sweating under stage lights, cakey makeup, and the first wig I ever bought. I belted my last lament of little girls. Then- the applause began. I felt more at home and grounded than I had in my whole 14 years. High school sucked, and pushed me away from the stage. I focused on my other creative passions, and I was 96% certain I was going to be a tattoo artist until I was 21.
I had next to no musical knowledge, but when it came time for me to do my college senior project in 2022, I was compelled to attempt the Hannah Montana dreams of my youth. At the time, I thought, ‘I’ll probably never get a chance to do something like this again, I just NEED to make music right now!’ So I wrote, produced, and recorded the demos that became my first album. I knew what I was making was a little ‘freaky’ for the DIY scenes I had been running in, I didn’t want to rely on other people booking me to get on stage, and I was tired of seeing the same 5 punk / hardcore bands on every bill; so I started booking my own underground shows at the Meatlocker in Montclair with my best friend. 3 years later, I’ve upgraded from Garageband on my phone to Ableton, I’m recording in a real studio, and working with other artists I adore. My booking group, Friendship School, has grown the most beautiful, accepting, and endlessly loving community full of outcasts who come together to dance to bills full of unique performers that deviate from the standard hardcore underground scene.
What bands and artists influenced you the most and why?
2000’s trashy pop baddies like KE$HA and early Lady Gaga are some of my most obvious influences on my sound and stage sets. Myspace era scene bands like Millionaires and Brokencyde for the iconic DGAF attitude and more sound reference. My Chemical Romance’s storytelling and lyricism is also huge. It might come as a surprise, but KPop is one of my favorite genres of music, NCT127’s ‘neo’ sound is something I really love and try to bring to my music, and SEVENTEEN’s self production and work ethic is so admirable. The KPop industry is also a fascinating model I would love Friendship School and the artists we book to borrow from, obviously in a more ethical way.
More than anyone, my friends in the scene are my biggest inspirations- constantly experimenting and breaking boundaries. Posterboy2000 and Giant Enemy Cancer Cult were some of the first people to make me believe that it was possible to make my own way in the music world. And there are so many incredibly skilled musicians in the scene! We’ve got a Friendship School Playlist you can find a bunch of the awesome artists we’ve worked with!
If you could pick a single song from your discography to explain your music, which song would you pick and why?
‘The Gweasy Strangler’ 110%. That song took less than 24 hours to go from conception to master. I got this nasty voice message in my Instagram DMs from some rando, and it was so hilarious to me. I put the messages in my DAW and the song flowed out of me. No loops, no samples, just me and my MIDI keyboard. I finally had enough skills that I became an unblocked vessel for the music that already existed in my soul. The point of the song is the ultimate point of Riconnaissance- ‘I can do whatever I want.’ And so can anyone who claims that reality.
What is your most recent release and what is it about?
‘AROUND THE CORNER’ dropped at the end of August! But wait…TH3R3’S M0R3! With your listen of my newest release, not only do you get a crazy experimental bimbosynth single to shake your butt and yearn for that hottie across the club you don’t know to – you get 10 freaky instrumental tracks to give your life the autistic soundtrack it deserves!
I wrote this horny modular bop about wanting a baddie with the unfortunate caveat of a time crunch. Playing shows in different cities, going on tour, on vacation, you meet so many fascinating, creative, and SEXY people that you meet, but these connections have such speedy deadlines! So you wanna yell at these people like, ‘HEY HELLO I’M HERE IS THIS HAPPENING PLEASE?!?!” but the sexual zeitgeist right now so obnoxiously prioritizes nonchalance, and I’m FED UP WITH IT!
I had this song finished and it didn’t fit with any of the other full songs I’ve been working on, but I don’t love just dropping a single. I have this ever-growing collection of random beats I would use as interludes in my sets, and people kept asking me to release the snippets they heard at my shows. I curated the ones I felt like best informed the single I dropped / what direction I’m headed in musically, and threw in some real experimental noise tracks I felt told their own stories. I released them under the single purely because I had never seen anyone drop a project formatted like that before and I wanted to do something different rather than do separate releases!
Take us through your creative process. How do you compose a song from start to finish? Where do the ideas come from?
Since my formal education is in studio art, I tend to look at creating audio and visual things analogously. I know it’s ‘wrong,’ but I tend to start with lyrics. I view the lyrics as the ‘sketch’ or ‘bones’ of the song, the big picture of the story I need to tell. I view the drums like ‘linework’ of the piece, giving me boundaries to color inside of. The ‘color palette’ is the key, the ‘highlights’ are the melody, ‘shadows’ are the bass, the ‘brushes’ are the sounds and instruments I use, and the whole track gets ‘rendered’ with mastering.
I get inspiration from whatever’s going on around me – my emotional state, the news, something funny my friend said, a weird sound I heard in the wild I whipped my phone out to record, characters from media I love – inspiration is an infinite resource and is all around me.
What’s your current favorite song, band, or album within your scene? And vice versa, what do you enjoy the most that’s completely opposite of what you make?
In MY scene, I gotta give a huge shoutout to Eric Raven’s new EP ‘Sisyphus in Distress.’ You might think I’m biased because Raven is a long time collaborator of mine and I want you to listen to our collaboration when it comes out… but TRUST MEEEE! The song writing is TOP TIER, and this is such a great blend of the synth heavy gothy sound from their first album and the Warped Tour type hardcore that gets crowds HYPED UP. I think this EP is clarifying them coming into their own unique sound in the biggest way they have so far.
As far as surprises, Ricky Bascom’s new album ‘TrapRockN’Blues’ is my actual album of the year. This guy is crazy. It’s an obscenely complex genreblasting 2 disc spectacular. He spent almost 2 years creating a beautiful standalone audio collage playing instruments and laying down vocals for himself to RESAMPLE into comprehensive beats for a full album. He moved away from the rap he’s blown up for, spent all his money on singing lessons, and poured his whole heart and soul into every track in a way that balances vulnerability and hilarity perfectly.
What is on the horizon for your project? Upcoming gigs, tours, merch, videos, etc. Name it, link it, show it off.
Halloween season is in full swing, so shows are constant! I’ll be at Trans Pecos in NYC on the 25th, doing a VERY special collab performance with Eric Raven for Friendship School’s annual mischief night celebration at the Meatlocker in Montclair, NJ on October 30, and DOLPHINHEAVENPARADISEFOREVER will be at Club Andromeda in Nyack, NY on Halloween Night! I’m going on a mini tour with my friends in Squelch the first weekend of November, hitting up Connecticut and Massachusetts!
As far as music, I’m finally doing an official release for what was a CD exclusive, ‘What Wouldn’t Jimmy Buffet Do?’ This was the second song I ever wrote, and I’m working with the iconic Ricky Bascom to revamp her to my more skillful era! I’ve got a sad EP I’m working on, and some very saucy collaborations with my beloved Eric Raven and OIOIOIO on the way too! So follow @ri.connaissance, @friendship.school.ent, and @dolphinheavenparadiseforever on Instagram to keep your eyes and ears peeled for more everything, I’m always around the corner.
