Inês Malheiro is a Porto, Portugal based musician/producer with a unique style and direction crafted through her instrumentals, field recordings and vocal uses. Ahead of her performance at Measkusma festival, which we will be in attendance, we asked Inês Malheiro a few questions about her production processes, how language plays a role in her music, performing live and who she is looking forward to at Meakasma this year.

Your voice and the way you manipulate it, using it as the main point in your production is intriguing. What is it about people voices/vocals made you want to use yours in this way? 

I really enjoy singing. My mom used to sing lullabies to me and I loved singing as a kid. When I started listening to bands, I would always learn the lyrics and try to sing everything. So using my voice is just something I really enjoy, that gives me a lot of pleasure. When I discovered Logic and Ableton Live, I realized I could cut and paste my voice and that just opened a portal of possibilities. I like to play and see where voices can go as if they were plasticine.  

Language plays a significant part in your music, how do you decide on what language to express yourself in and how? 

I like to translate cheesy feelings or sensations. I started writing music with cheesy love letters which I would then try to translate into something I thought wasn’t as obvious. But I think nowadays is more about writing sentences and feelings that come to my mind during the day and when I’m creating I try to develop those ideas and play with the sound of words. I also like to collect sentences that I read or hear, and then reflect on their meaning, why do I like some words, what do they rhyme with, what image comes to my mind when I listen to that word. Lyrics give me a structure to think about the possibilities of a music narrative. That’s why usually I write the lyrics first, so they can inform the energy the music will have.

You use a sense of distance in sounds like in the track ‘By’, what draws you this particular sound and how do you go about creating it? 

“By” is a moment of a song that I played live with a band when I was at university. My friend Rui was in the audience and he was recorded the concert with his phone in his pocket. That moment was a kind of suspension in that song, the drums and bass would stop and I would sing it alone with trumpet, saxophone and trombone. It felt like a breath.

I really enjoy this type of audios that happen organically and recordings that happen outside of the studio, because whenever I listen to this I think about Rui and his pocket. And I feel the audios have more emotional information outside the studio. They will catch what the weather was like, the people that are around that don’t know that something is recording, a laugh, a random story, someone sneezing. 

Run us through your live set and how you translate your studio work unto a live performance?

Right now, I’ve been experimenting new things live, as I’m working on new material. I like that live performances are different from the studio approach.

When I’m working on studio, I create without thinking about the practicality of it. I have fun with the endless possibilities of the DAW. 

When playing live, I’m not a fan of the ‘playing stems’ approach. I prefer to sing and play everything, even if that means it won’t be as well played as it would be with a backing track. I also love that songs don’t have the same form and ‘life’ as they do on the record. I like the fragility and unexpected twists, adding more silences, coming up with new ideas during the performance, and feeling that the music can change and evolve.

What are some of your influence outside of music? 

Dogs, social and psychological dynamics, playing with words and text, collaborating with my friends such as my beautiful friend Sancha Meca Castro and my grandmother’s energy. 

You are performing at Meakusma soon, who are some artists on the line up that you wish to see or have seen perform before? 

The line up is infinite and I haven’t check it properly! But I’ve seen Nuno Loureiro, Etienne Nillesen, Radio Hito and Upsammy and I want to see all of them again. I’m curious about Oi les ox, Jessica Ekomane & Audiorack and John T Gast.

Meaksusma runs from Thursday the 29th of August to Spetember 1st with Inês Malheiro performing at Heuboden stage at 1pm on the Friday.

Information on tickets, event information and programming here