THE VOICE
Kat, the voice of Black Swarm
Black Swarm doesn’t do interviews. Kat is the only one who will talk.
She came from hip-hop. When the first file arrived, she had never heard Depeche Mode. Now she is every woman in the catalogue: Regina, the queen who starts a war; a woman mid-relapse screaming at the person who left her; a believer arguing with God on a record written by an atheist. She learned Latin to sing it.
HOW IT STARTED
She sings what he will not say
It began with a remix. Black Swarm rebuilt one of Kat’s songs around her voice alone — without listening to the song.
He just listened to my voice. He rebuilt the whole thing around it — synthesizers grinding, my voice treated like another instrument instead of the thing sitting on top. I had never heard myself like that. I reached out because I wanted to know who does that.
The first file he sent back was Depeche Mode’s “World in My Eyes”, with the original video and one line of direction.
The guy’s voice was so monotone I thought, this is easy. That was the trap. The flatness is the whole performance.
Then Nine Inch Nails’ “Closer” — “let loose” was the whole brief — and “Say Something”. The covers →
He doesn’t give you a map of how every line should be sung. He wants the first honest thing out of your mouth.
THE ENGLISH RECORDS
There is no way I can sing this
The first time I read “Last Rites” I said there is no way I can sing this. Same with “Roulette.” Same with “Back in the Dirt.” I sat there going, I cannot do this.
She did it because of how the songs reach her: long calls about what each song is about and where it came from, then three words — sing it.
We talk like a therapy session that happens to end with a file.
His songs sound soft and nice, and then you get to the third verse and go, oh my God. There it is. The soft voice is the bait.
FAITH
A mirror up to God
Kat is a believer. The songs she sings were written by an atheist who knows the Bible.
“Last Rites,” “Limbo,” “Handmaid” — they hold a mirror up to God and to religion. The line that got me is: I’d rather stay outside, because I know who’s inside. As a Christian, that is not an easy thing to sing.
He has made me question things I took for granted. Not so I stop believing. So I earn it.
BECOMING REGINA
The queen and the laughing studio
I think I became the character. This persona is so magnificent and so tyrannical. And I have to play that.
Regina moves through regret, hatred and tyranny before she reaches self-awareness — and, in the end, accepts her fate. Kat cried recording the anthem, built on bagpipes and uilleann pipes.
The lyrics are in Latin. Nobody understands them. I know the English version, but I feel the music.
The Latin was a whole second language — and so was the electronics.
He was talking about Tibetan chants. Then he sent a track that was this low hum, this gurgling noise. I said, what is that? He said, that’s you as a Tibetan monk. Then he put a didgeridoo and a Jew’s harp on it and made it a techno track.
Most of what you hear is the first take.
Very rarely do we do three takes. The first files I send are usually the ones he uses.
IN THE STUDIO
His annoying little sister
I’m kind of like his annoying little sister. When he gets serious about stuff, he just stares at the screen and he’s in his own world. Then I’ll come in and do something, and we start laughing.
He is one of the funniest, nicest people you could meet. The wreckage and the warmth are in the same body.
The fifth part of the opera, Lux, is finished and unreleased.
He just said, maybe later I’ll redo it. Right now, it’s just too happy. I think there has to be a reason for the euphoria.
“The English is the door. The Latin is the destination. Same person. Same wound. Different language.”
— KAT