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My friend, Clara Tang, is a musically talented chick who hails from Connecticut. She samples pop vocals and mixes dreamy beats to create chill electronic music you can cruise late nights to. Under the moniker SleepyHaze, her tunes have been making waves.
When did you start making tracks?
I started making music midway through junior year of high school – so two years ago. My brother made music, so he had me download software awhile ago. Basically, I got super depressed and I couldn’t play violin anymore. So then I started making electronic music to fill the void – the creative void – that I had. So at that point I didn’t really listen to electronic music. I was in a huge indie phase, but I had just started listening to Tokimonsta and Flume. They are kind of younger. Especially Tokimonsta; she’s a Korean female producer and I thought that was really cool. You don’t see many female producers lately. It made me realize that I could do that too. Those were the first two that kicked off everything else, and then I started to get into more electronic stuff.
Who or what do you sample from the most?
Honestly, I just have a folder on my computer of random vocal stems that I find on the internet. Most of them are pop songs. I’ll just kind of shove it into a song until one of them works, and then usually I’ll put a bunch of effects and then make it seem like – you usually can’t tell what I’m sampling. I like that about it. I try to blur the words a little bit so you can’t really tell what they are saying. I’ve sampled One Direction, Rihanna, Miley Cyrus, and stuff like that.
What is the best set that you have experienced that you want to pay yourself?
Favorite set that I’ve ever seen was my first show here, in Chicago! It was the Soulection show. I saw AbJo, Stefan, and Joe Kay. The sets were really – they start off a little bit more chill and vibey and they got really – not hype but more trappy and future-bass. I really like that and it kept you dancing for a full four hours. I think that if I ever were to play a live show it would be – I don’t know. My music is too slow, I think, for a live show. I’d probably do more of a DJ set and I’d want it to be that kind of vibe.
How did you come about with the name SleepyHaze?
It’s so lame! SleepyHaze… I was tired as hell, so I took a shower at 5 p.m. and was feeling all groggy. Then, mid-shower, I thought of the name and realized it was totally my sound.
What is the ideal scenario you would want your songs to be played during?
Well a lot of it is inspired by night driving, so that would probably be a good situation. Or like a montagey, lo-fi indie film type thing – I could see my music being played on top of that. Teen angst type, I guess.
If you are, like most of us, feeling that teen angst because of recent political events, take a good hour to relax with SleepyHaze’s recent release, WeakNights, on blast. A chill, downtempo feel is what you will get from this electronic piece. Inspired by thinking too much late into those dead nights that you just drift, the album’s ambient soothing is what SleepyHaze stands for.
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