We sat down with alt-pop powerhouse and synesthete I’MMORTAL to chat about music, music production and more. She dropped her second single, ‘Supervillain’, on October 30, 2024 via her own imprint, Immortality. I’MMORTAL is a New York and London-based music producer, vocalist, visual artist, and creative director. This track was produced by I’MMORTAL herself, with additional drum programming by Duanna. I’MMORTAL launched herself into the digital sphere in August 2023 with the release of her debut tech-house single, ‘Versace Spaceship’. Despite being relatively new to the music scene, I’MMORTAL has seen a steady incline in streams, monthly listeners, and hundreds of organic playlist placements, with her first two singles garnering 50K streams across platforms. These singles and ‘KILLED U IN A DREAM’ are accompanied by tripped-out psychedelic music videos. With a sound influenced by Sevdaliza, Britney Spears, Lady GaGa, Lana Del Rey, Bjork, SOPHIE and many other femme avant-pop luminaries, her sound is sure to be enjoyed by fans of those artists and Alison Wonderland, Zhu, Deadmau5, Pastel Ghost and Billie Eilish.
Tell us about you, how long have you been producing music? What inspired you to start?
Hello Made in Shoreditch :) I’m I’MMORTAL, and I am an audio-visual artist. I’ve been producing music for around four years now. I’ve always been an avid electronic music listener, and I was inspired to start producing after attending a very special rave a few years ago. The visuals and lasers were paired so well with the music that it inspired me to become a music producer who equally values my visuals. I like to treat my tracks and my visuals as a unit. I love the world-building and limitless possibilities that can come out of combining different visual art forms with tracks that are sound-design-oriented. My upcoming videos experiment with combining intricate set designs with projection mapping, animation, and VFX.
The music industry is super competitive these days, was there a moment in your life that you wanted to give up on music? How did you manage to stay focused and achieve what you want?
I’m still pretty new, so thankfully there has not been anything industry or competition-related that made me want to give up on music. I come from mainly a visual art and theater background, so it took me some time to build up confidence in my music production skills. There were definitely moments when I felt so frustrated by the music production learning curve that I almost gave up before I even started releasing music. I’ve been learning to be patient with the process, and that with practice, I will be able to better reflect what I hear in my head in my tracks. I am able to stay focused because I simply love making music, and I love working on trippy videos. Every project feels like discovering and building an exciting new world.
How would you describe your creative processes? Who writes the lyrics to the songs? Are the music and lyrics written in conjunction, or separately?
For my songs, I usually start with a hook that serves as a foundation, and then produce and write the rest of the track around the hook. I always seem to get haunted by a catchy lyrical hook for a couple months before I actually sit down and produce the rest of the track. I also love a good bassline, so the bassline is usually the first production element that comes out. I write my own lyrics, and always in conjunction with the production. It’s funny because I also tend to see the visuals for the song before and while creating the song, so oftentimes I’ll even bounce back and forth between working on the music and the video as well. It’s all connected.
Where did the inspiration come from?
The inspiration behind Supervillain came from my nostalgia for the campy pop music of the early 2000s and 2010s. I started listening to Britney Spears and Lady Gaga again out of childhood nostalgia and fell back in love with the dark synths, electronic basslines, and unconstrained lyrics. Supervillain is a campy brainchild between these pop influences and my love for electronic dance music. Also, I love Dracula and have always wanted to interpolate the Dracula theme song in a track.
The inspiration for Supervillain’s upcoming music video came from Coraline, Godzilla, and Ultraman.
What’s your favorite track from the upcoming album and what other bands/artists are you listening to right now?
I’ve been listening to Britney Spears’ ‘Blackout’ on repeat for the past two years. It’s easily my favorite album. The intricate sound design, the captivatingly dark atmosphere, and the overall sonic landscapes are so addicting. I’ve also been diving into Rezz’s new album Can You See Me? I love anything Rezz touches.
What’s next for you?
I will be releasing Supervillain’s music video soon. My amazing video team and I crafted five miniature models, infusing the video with a whimsical, campy Coraline/Nightmare Before Christmas–inspired atmosphere. We are passionate about world-building and decided to combine the art of miniature and CGI to conjure up a distinctive reality of its own.
I will also be releasing a very special single on June 7th titled KILLED U IN MY DREAM. The track delves into a more vulnerable side of I’MMORTAL and encapsulates the theme of rebirth. I spent two years delicately weaving this track together with my collaborators, and it has taught me so much about the creative process. It is very different from what I usually make, and I am incredibly proud of what my collaborators and I have achieved together. I am so excited to share it with the world.
