IN CONVERSATION WITH OCTOBER AND THE EYES
interview by MARIE-PAULINE CESARI
October and The Eyes is the genre-blurring New Zealand-born, London-based artist. Describing her sound as “collage-rock” — a patchwork of lo-fi textures, analog synths, post-punk grit, and bossa nova shadows — she crafts tracks that feel both nostalgic and future-facing. Known for her experimental production style and magnetic presence, October has sold out every headline show to date and toured with Yves Tumor, The Horrors, and Iceage. Equally entrenched in the fashion world, she’s collaborated with the likes of KNWLS, Raf Simons, Chanel Beauty, and Ann Demeulemeester, further cementing her status as one of London’s most compelling underground figures.
What does “Collage-Rock” mean to you, in the simplest terms?
Well, it’s a great excuse to explain how inconsistent and haphazard I tend to be, isn’t it? But in seriousness, it really just summarises a kind of ethos I have when approaching music-making, rather than a specific genre I’m trying to carve out. It’s the way I sample my own crappy home demos and Frankenstein them with hi-fi studio records, or layer vintage drum machines with acoustic ones, recording with both my inbuilt laptop microphone and expensive condenser mics. It also reflects the varying genres I tend to pull from and squeeze into singular projects. It’s always a bit all over the place, but somehow ends up sounding singularly “me.” It’s not to say it’s a particularly original approach, because it certainly isn’t — it just helps me focus my output into something a little more defined, since my creative process is chaotic and messy at the best of times.
Do you feel pressure to define your sound, or is the mess part of it?
By titling it my own genre, I’ve allowed myself to be let off the hook, haha. I love controlled chaos. Nothing turns me off more than the glossy sheen of perfection. I always embrace the mess.
What’s the weirdest sound or sample you’ve used in a track?
On my upcoming EP, we recorded an electric drill through a guitar pickup and ran it through some guitar FX pedals. Sounds mad. We also recorded some drums with a microphone placed at the end of a vacuum cleaner pipe.
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Do you write with visuals in mind, or is it all about sound?
Visuals are always pretty secondary to me. I prefer to let the music inform the videos and imagery rather than the other way around. People always seem surprised when I tell them I’m not a hugely visual person — I certainly know what I like, and I love the process of creating visuals for myself. But I get way more of a kick closing my eyes and listening to a great album than watching a movie.
What’s one piece of gear you’re obsessed with right now?
A little while back I bought a Yamaha RX-5 drum machine from Japan. Lots of industrial bands in the ’90s used it, like Skinny Puppy and Trent Reznor. It’s super tactile and lets you manipulate the inbuilt sample sounds via pitch and envelopes. It’s got this bizarre “data” knob on it which allows you to bitcrush the samples, leading to some really weird and industrial sounds. It also has individual outputs for every single sample on the machine (kick, snare, tom, etc.), so you can run them separately through different effects, which is pretty wild. I feel like I’m still learning the thing, so it’s an endless wellspring of entertainment for me at the moment. I’ve used this drum machine a lot throughout my upcoming EP.
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How did growing up in New Zealand shape your sound?
Without sounding like a brat, I was pretty bored. I wasn’t distracted by the stimulating chaos of a big city — I grew up in a small, sleepy rural town surrounded by hills and vineyards. I spent all of my spare time at the piano or teaching myself how to make beats on GarageBand. I was always peering through the internet’s portal into unknown worlds and discovering music and lifestyles I could have never found in my hometown alone. I remember coming across Crystal Castles and Death Grips for the first time on Tumblr and thinking, “What the fuck is this?” It blew my mind. If it weren’t for that underlying sense of malaise, I might not have been so hungry to discover the weirder corners of contemporary music or learn to be a self-sufficient producer, which of course has naturally shaped a specific sound for me. Having said that, I do have to give a lot of credit to my parents for fostering a musical environment for my brothers and me. I was raised on classical music from a very young age thanks to my mother, who is a piano teacher — she’d play Chopin, Rachmaninov, or Debussy to me after kindergarten while I played, and would often quiz me, age 3, on what time signature I could hear, whether it was a major or minor key, or what instruments I could pick out in an orchestra piece. So I’ve always been a bit of a music nerd, really.
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What changed when you moved to London?
By the time I decided to move to London, I was kind of bored of being a solo artist. I wanted to grow my project to involve more musical contributors, which led me to starting October and The Eyes. I’m okay with saying that my creative ideas sometimes only go so far before I need more proficient musicians to flesh them out. I’m kind of a terrible instrumentalist. But I’m a good arranger and producer, so it’s a total kick when what you’ve heard in your head is brought to life by someone who actually knows what the fuck they’re doing with a guitar. I also love seeing how my band interprets my ideas into new ones entirely, and being open to whatever unexpected sounds emerge.
What’s something you picked up touring with Yves Tumor or Iceage?
To embrace the chaos and not take yourself too seriously. They’re too fun to be around and don’t really ever seem terribly phased by anything. As a friend once told me, going on tour is a form of self-flagellation. It’s expensive and exhausting, so you might as well try and see the humour in it all. Have a laugh!
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Is fashion part of your music, or a separate world?
“Fashion” isn’t really this distinct concept or world separated from who I am as a person and musician. I’ve always appreciated good design. I like looking good, and I like good-looking things! Dressing is a form of tribal signalling whether you realise it or not. How you choose to dress already tells me a lot about who you are, what you value, and what kind of things you’re into. I’m not even really that interested in expensive designer clothes. I don’t come from wealth, and I always shopped at second-hand stores as a teenager because I valued individuality rather than shopping on the high street. I wasn’t interested in conforming to whatever the proscribed norm was. The fashion industry is indeed filled with a lot of vapid bullshit, for sure. For me, the part I’m drawn to is the design and artistry itself, as well as the creative process behind the clothing. The rest of it is hot air.
What draws you to a designer: vibe, aesthetic, or something else? Who’s your favourite right now?
A good designer in my eyes is a world-builder. It goes beyond the clothes — it’s almost fantasy. I want to buy into a lifestyle. Who are the kind of people who wear these clothes? What kind of lives do they lead? And does that align with the kind of person I see myself as? It goes without saying that I love Ann Demeulemeester — it’s bohemian, poetic, whimsical, and dark. Milk of Lime is another up-and-coming brand I’m super impressed by. And Alex Sobrón is a jewellery designer whose pieces I’d kill to be buried in.
TEAM CREDITS:
talent OCTOBER AND THE EYES
photography YAËL TEMMINCK
makeup IRINA CAJVANEANU at Caren Agency using Lisa Eldridge Beauty
editor TIMOTEJ LETONJA
interview MARIE-PAULINE CESARI