Farah Fritz is a Frenchwoman formerly releasing music with the band U-SINE, but the band split shortly after covering David Bixby’s “Drug Song.” Now Farah is exploring passion and womanhood as a solo musician. She has found writing a song while healing is beautiful because, when shared, it can help other people to heal as well.
Madison: Is it dinner hour for you?
Farah: Yeah, exactly, I just ate.
Madison: I was wondering! My first question: what did you have for dinner?
Farah: All right. So, I had fish, fried fish, and goat cheese, mainly. And carrots.
Madison: Was it good? It sounds pretty good.
Farah: Yeah. Healthy. Kind of.
Madison: That’s awesome. I just made soup with kale. I felt pretty healthy too.
Farah: Ah, because you live in, in Mexico, right?
Madison: In New Mexico. It’s close to the border.
Farah: Oh, all right. Nice.
Madison: I listened to some of… I listened to your cover, the band’s cover [of “Drug Song” by David Bixby.] Are you pronouncing the name [of your band] “using?”
Farah: U-Sine, you say it in English. The “sine” is for the wave the sounds make, in physics.
Madison: That’s so cool. I like the cover a lot. Where did the passion for music start for you?
Farah: For me, it started from a very young age. When I was seven or eight, I started music lessons and I chose the accordion as the main instrument. I liked it a lot and kept on playing. So, it started there. But then it grew deeper with time.
Madison: Why the accordion?
Farah: The accordion because I heard this song by a French composer. Maybe, you know him, he’s called Yann Tiersen. He’s quite, like, quite known, I guess. But so, yeah, I listened to a song by him and I was like, what is this instrument? I had never heard the accordion before. And when I knew it was the accordion, I was like, OK, I want to play this.
Madison: That’s amazing. Did your family spend a lot of time listening to music? Were you always surrounded by it?
Farah: Yeah, I think so. My mother, she listens to a lot of music. My father as well. My mother used to play the guitar. My father is not a musician and my mother wasn’t playing very often.
Madison: Were you unique in that sense?
Farah: In my family, I was unique because I was the only one playing an instrument.
Madison: Did you take lessons or were you self-taught?
Farah: For the accordion, yes, I took lessons. But, for singing, I learned by myself, listening to other artists. More recently I took some classes because I saw that I had reached my limits and I needed to learn new things.
Madison: Is that what it’s about for you, constantly moving the bar and evolving musically?
Farah: Yes. Sure. All the time. I feel music is just like life and when I get to a point where I’m getting bored or I feel like I’m stuck, I need to move on and go deeper and try new stuff.
Madison: Are you finding that you typically like to work with other people or do you like to work on solo projects?
Farah: I like to work with other people because I feel like it’s a great way to find great ideas. It is what happened with this band, U-Sine. I had ideas and some songs that I had written, but I had done nothing of it. We met, and we started playing music. That was really great and very interesting as an experience, especially with Boris and Florian [members of the former U-SINE] who are both incredible musicians and taught me a lot. But now it’s different. I’m working on a new project and for the moment, I’m on my own. I really like it too. It’s like getting to know myself musically.
Madison: When would you say you started releasing music you really wanted other people to hear?
Farah: Well, that was when I started with this band actually, because before that I was just playing in my room all the time and sometimes at parties when I was a bit drunk. (We laugh) Things like this, you know, because I’m quite shy. That was the only time [I formally released music] and we split three years ago and since that time, I have released only one song, I think. I’m now on the way back to recording, on my way to releasing new music.
Madison: Oh, I admire that so much because I also have a lot of hopes and dreams for my own music. I make music as well, but I’m shy. Yes, I’m so shy.
Farah: What kind of music do you play?
Madison: I found this interesting because some of your beats are so synth heavy and trip hop. I produce. I produce house music. Tech, house. That type of stuff is what I’m really, really into right now.
Farah: So, you’re a DJ?
Madison: Yes. Exactly.
Farah: So cool.
Madison: I love music so much. It’s a huge joy that we get to talk about it.
Farah: Music is universal. You can share it with anyone who likes music as well. It’s so incredible.
Madison: And that brings me to David. How did you stumble onto David Bixby?
Farah: So, I was a big fan of MGMT. I don’t know if I pronounce it right? (She had) But it’s, you know, the band with [the song] “Kids” and stuff. I was a big fan of them and I just stumbled upon an album “Late Night Tales.” There was this song [David Bixby’s “Drug Song”] on this album and I just fell in love with the song. I played it on repeat and that was when I was in high school. I think I was 15, 16, something like this.
Madison: Everyone else in the band [U-SINE], did they like it too?
Farah: Yeah, they like this song but they didn’t know of David Bixby. I was the one who knew and who was in love with the music. I was like, OK, let’s do this cover.
Madison: Amazing. What sounds do you find yourself being drawn towards?
Farah: It can be any kind of sound, really. But I really love anything that’s very trippy, like with a lot of reverb. Things that are not common things, that you are not used to hearing.
Madison: Experimental?
Farah: Yes, experimental, exactly.
Madison: I love that as well. Would you say you typically do more acoustic things or more electric things?
Farah: More electric.
Madison: That’s awesome. [We laugh] The topic of “Drug Song” is addiction and I was wondering if that was anything close to home.
Farah: Yeah. Well, I suffered from anorexia, when you starve yourself. I suffered from this from a very young age. I started when I was nine or even eight and it went on until my twenties, something like this. To me, this was an addiction. In the beginning I just got in because I was feeling a certain way, like kind of bad that I didn’t have the answers as a child. But then I just kept on doing this and destroying myself, being my own tormentor, all the time, wasting my life. In this sense, I relate to this song a lot. I relate to this song a lot.
Madison: It’s important that you’re speaking about this because I think this is extremely common, especially for young women.
Farah: Definitely with the stereotypes of women that fashion promotes, it’s so common, so common. Yeah, I feel like we need to talk about this. I feel that things have changed. Now we accept more different bodies, but still, still we need to talk about this because I mean, you can ruin your life or your teenage years just for this. And there are some people who just can’t get out of this. There are some people who die from this, really. So it’s a serious issue to me.
Madison: Yes. And I would agree that it is like an addiction. You get into that dark place, the void, and you are addicted to your patterns, the self-destructive ones. How do you feel that music helped you with that? Would you say that music helped you?
Farah: Yeah, definitely. Music is something that keeps you alive. If you lose your vital strength to the point that you can’t play music, if you like music, you just realize that you’re dying. Music is what holds you up. And also there’s this thing and to me, this is what happened. I remember my accordion teacher, he told me once, if you don’t have [the strength to play] music and you’re feeling this bad, what are you going to do? I thought, yes, you’re right. I changed my mind. I said, OK, I’m going to play music and just try to heal myself at the same time. With music, you can find yourself, express yourself, and heal with the sounds.
Madison: An amazing part about what you just said is you can record yourself healing yourself and I guarantee that someone listening to that will then be healed as well.
Farah: Exactly. That is kind of a butterfly effect now, isn’t it? Definitely. If you heal and while you’re healing, you record this, or you’ll record the pain you were in and how you got out of it, this can help. We are sensitive beings so we just feel. Music can help us just by listening and feeling.
Madison: Who would you say are some of your earliest musical inspirations?
Farah: Radiohead, Portishead, Ben Harper as well. These are the three bands I was obsessed with when I was young.
Madison: I love it. I’m a Portishead fan myself.
Farah: I love Beth Gibbons, obviously.
Madison: Yes. Another woman in music. What is it like being a woman in music? Take that question from whatever angle you would like.
Farah: It’s funny that you asked me this question because I just did a week with only women playing music. That was the purpose of the week, to gather women to play music. Women or trans or anybody, but not men. And that was incredible because it opened my eyes on how I had felt up to now, being a woman in the world of music. I found out that I was able to express myself differently and more deeply just because we were without men. That was incredible.
Madison: Yes, it sounds amazing. I wish I was there.
Farah: It was a very nice project. I feel, in music, it’s very striking… All the time in the venues, the musicians, the technicians, most of them are men. This shouldn’t be this way.
Madison: Agreed. I think it’s amazing to have people that understand the nuances of womanhood because there are, there are many. They are prevalent in most situations.
Farah: Yeah, I agree. I agree. And we make good music.
Madison: Yes, I agree!
Farah: But, yeah, especially like in DJs. To me there are more men being DJs than women and this shouldn’t be normal as well.
Madison: It was hard for me, honestly, as someone trying to break into the scene because it was so masculine and it felt that at every turn I was facing some sort of related roadblock. It got discouraging. It’s amazing once you break through because it’s always needed, that energy is always wanted.
Farah: I agree.
Madison: What would you say is your personal favorite project that you’ve done so far?
Farah: Up to now, it is this band, U-Sine. I’m proud of what we did at the time. This was my first band.
Madison: Do you like performing? Do you like being on stage, playing for an audience?
Farah: I’m very shy. So, I definitely like it. I feel alive when I play on the stage, I feel alive. I want to get back to doing this because now that I’ve grown up, I want to see how I can be. And try new things. I recently started dancing. I feel like next time I go back on stage I want to have dancers, try something more interdisciplinary.
Madison: I’ve been obsessed with movement as well. I just think house music and experimental choreography are a match made in heaven. Any incorporation of movement is incredible. What would you say are some of your musical influences?
Farah: My influences can be anything, really anything. Anywhere I live, any feeling, a picture, a movie, a person. People especially inspire me because we’re mirrors, mirrors to each other. Sometimes when you meet a person you’re just like, wow, I have this new feeling. I saw this thing that I never saw before. This person just made me feel this way. This inspires me so much when writing songs, all the time.
Madison: Do you write a lot of songs?
Farah: Yeah, I do. I have a lot of songs. I’m quite messy so I have a lot of songs that I haven’t finished, but I’m getting better at it.
Madison: Take your time, take your time. That makes me curious though. What does a typical day look like for you in 2023, a music day where you’re like, ‘I’m gonna sit down and work on music today.’ What would that day look like?
Farah: I would wake up, do some yoga and have my breakfast, have a cup of coffee. Then start warming up my voice. I really like doing this. I take my time. Sometimes it can take one hour just being on the ground, breathing, connecting to the vibrations and stuff and then I start playing something. If I want to record, if I’m in the process of making a record, I start taking my piano and recording some things, changing the sounds so it inspires me. When I have something, I put a drum on and then I just start singing. I try to see what I wrote before that I can put into the song. I generally do this and I stop, I have lunch. I go outside, then I go back and I do this again. [She laughs] It can take a lot of time. Generally, when I’m in this process, I spend my whole day just in my room basically doing this, and when I’m done, I have a cup of wine. Yeah, this is kind of my typical day when I’m making a record.
Madison: It sounds like a good day.
Farah: It’s always a good day and at some point, I will end up just dancing and doing anything because I go crazy.
Madison: That’s amazing. It makes me think that you do a lot of reading. Do you read poetry? Do you like to read?
Farah: Yeah. I love reading. I used to read a lot. I was a bookworm. Is that the word? I used to read one book a day or something when I was a child. I read poetry, especially English poetry. Yeah. I love Yeats. Alan Ginsberg. Walt Whitman. “Leaves of Grass.” I love this book.
Madison: I’m an English major at my university. You just said all of the names that would make my teachers love you.
Farah: Really? I don’t know why. But I’ve always loved them.
Madison: I think I love them because they talk about feelings and we’re feelings based beings.
Farah: Yes. Also, what I like is that they invite us to not stay like in normality or in “the norm,” they invite us to be artists and to just create and expand our visions, ourselves, in love.
Madison: That’s definitely the direction that a lot of creatives lives take… just honing their creativity for the rest of their life.
Farah: Learning how to make it grow.
Madison: Yes. What are some of your goals? What would you like that growth to look like?
Farah: I would like to finish a record that I’m proud of, sooner or later. Hopefully, in 2024 – maybe an EP. I would like to be able to perform it on stage, trying new things and having a performance with dancers and maybe including some visuals. I would like to be able to make this album alive. That’s it. And to just go deeper in the process of making music.
Madison: Yeah, I think those are very good goals. It sounds like yours are very focused on the core of the art.
Farah: This is something I’m trying to nourish because it’s true. It’s a sincere approach and it’s something that I found in David’s music, for example.
Madison: I did as well. It’s great working with him and talking to musicians with different perspectives because I typically find that people are willing to be sincere and are making music for sincere reasons. And that’s always inspiring.
Farah: True. Commercial music, for me personally, doesn’t really make any sense. What I want is to find myself through the music. And if I can share it with other people that can resonate with it, that’s great. That’s something that I want to do. I feel like there’s something very religious and spiritual in David’s music. It’s another thing that attracted me a lot and that I referred to. He speaks a lot about the world and its beauty and it’s something that helps me heal when I was feeling bad, when I was in trouble. It reminded me of how beautiful the world is and how lucky we are to be able to sense it every day.
Madison: Are you religious? Was [Ode to Quetzalcoatl] working for you, even without a religious background?
Farah: I believe in Wakan Tanka, the universal spirit. I’m more into this than in religion. But I was able to relate to this because I feel like the feeling is something universal, there’s something behind the world, to me, and this is what I felt in David’s song.
Madison: I think you’re spot on, I think there is a universal feeling that he taps into. That’s why I became a fan of his music as well. I saw it as a simple rendering of beauty.
Farah: How did you meet David Bixby if I may ask?
Madison: I love telling the story. I was a huge fan, just a big, big fan. And I used to do these things called Zines. They are mini-magazines, that’s what the word comes from the end of – “magazine.” And I would self-publish them, do all the writing and then fold them, print them and distribute them throughout my local community. I would usually write them about music. And I had listened to “Ode to Quetzalcoatl,” that album, and I was really just emphatically obsessed. I was like, oh, I need people to understand these feelings. I feel like my big thing is I feel that I feel so strongly in a world that doesn’t want that to happen, that doesn’t want you to be authentic with how you’re feeling and wants you to express your feelings in only certain ways that are deemed ok. But my feelings are so much bigger than any of that and I feel that everyone’s feelings must be that big, but we’re all repressed. So, I was writing, you know, trying to urge people to listen to this album and I planned this big concert because it was going to be for my 20th birthday. So, I planned a concert and it ended up being really, really successful. It was an outdoor concert and I was able to hold it for free. It was a bunch of local bands that volunteered to play. So, we had this totally free outdoor community event and I emailed David a thank you just like, thank you for writing your album because I don’t know if I would have planned this crazy event if I hadn’t had the zine and I hadn’t had the album and I hadn’t had the inspiration. So, thank you for doing what you do. And he said, send me what you wrote. So, I did and from there on, he liked how I wrote, how I sounded and we became partners.
Farah: Wow, it’s so incredible.
Madison: It’s amazing. I mean, the power of reaching out to another person.
Farah: I really relate to what you said about the feelings. I feel like it’s the same for me, I feel too strong and I just, I don’t know what to do with this in a world that wants us to not feel at all.
Madison: That’s why music… I believe I know what you mean when you say it helps you stay alive. It feels like a saving grace.
Farah: Yeah, definitely. It’s a space for allowing all these feelings we have to be, to simply be.
-Madison McLean, Harbinger Journalist
Hear more from Farah Fritz and U-Sine on Bandcamp.
Dave Bixby 