INTERVIEW: B O K E H on new single 'Options': "it was a little bit of advice to myself: 'you can do this, wake up and know that you've got opportunities.’"

By Jett Tattersall

South African born, New Zealand raised and Berlin based B O K E H (real name Chloë Lewer) started her career as an actor. She fell into music at age 22 after moving to Berlin and started playing the ukulele and singing on the streets to make extra cash. After performing for several years with the band Charity Children, in 2017 she released her debut solo EP Don’t Leave The Fire and has now released the new single ‘Options’, for which Lewer not only wrote and produced but also directed the music video. With a unique sound merging electronica, pop and 1980s vibes Lewer is developing a reputation as the next big thing in music. We recently sat down with her to find out more.

First up I want to talk to you about 'Options' - what a track! You've got buttery beats, synth waves, anthem chants and one hell of a video directed by you. How are things with you now that it's released?
I feel super, super good. It's funny you know I've released a few things over the years and there's always this feeling of fear just before you release something. And I didn’t have that with ‘Options’, it felt like this is really something that I am genuinely really proud of. I was really happy and proud of the team that was involved on the video production side and also on the song production side and I was just really relieved to finally get it out. It always takes so long to get things out into the world so it feels good to have it out there.

Let’s talk about the production of the track itself. You've got this prologue with these time lapsing footfalls and scratching and reverse wing beats and then the synth is injected along with that thick buttery beat. And then that voice of yours as the chorus breaks and then all hell breaks loose musically. There is so much ferocity in your voice and the lyrics, where did this song come from?
Good question. Music for me always comes from a very, very personal place. That's always the root of it all, where it always starts. But with this one I actually wrote in on a songwriting camp in Tuscany in the mountains with some friends. I do quite a lot of songwriting for other artists as well and I'm usually writing for other artists so I don't take the songs. I'd spent a week in Tuscany and we'd been drinking a lot of wine in this lovely place which was hosting us and I was exceptionally hung over and miserable and there were options and I said ‘No, I don't want to do anything else’ and it kind of just came out. Then I was like 'This song is mine and I need to take it, I can't give this one away'. Because I give away a lot of babies. I was sort of at a point in my life where I was feeling pretty stuck. I wasn’t really feeling like I was living the life I wanted to be living in many ways. The relationship I was in, the way I was living my life and the things I haven't explored yet that I wanted to and needed to explore. So it was like a little bit of advice to myself, a little bit of a ‘you can do this, come on, wake up and know that you've got more opportunities.’ I then took the song back with me to Berlin and my producer friend Wouter Rentema and said I wanted to make it an audio-visual project. So I was really making the video and the production of the song hand in hand

You mentioned that you write for other people. Can I ask you how is the creative process or your mindset different when you are creating for someone else and do you ever find it difficult to give away a song that you've written?
To be honest it's a lot easier to write for other people than it is for myself. You know that old predicament that I'm sure everyone has there's a lot more expectation - self-expectation I think in my case - when it comes to creating your own stuff. You're just way more fucking self-critical. And you know creativity is sort of about being free and really expressing yourself and I sometimes find it very easy just to let go of any expectations when I'm writing for other people. And for me to find that with my own music it's definitely possible but it's a lot harder because the stakes are a lot higher. You're opening yourself up and you're exposing yourself so that’s a challenge. But I really enjoy both. At the beginning of the year I did three months of doing sessions every day and writing a couple of songs each day for other artists and two songs of lyrics in a day is a lot so I've definitely given away a lot of lyrics and I wish I hadn't.

With 'Options' you wrote, you co-produced and you directed the video and you said that when you are doing it for yourself there's so much more anxiety and I wanted to know how important is it for you to see things all the way through with your own music like that?
I'm quite a control freak, so it’s quite important! I like to be involved in everything that has my name on it and I have a lot of different interests. I come from an acting background, that's what I studied and in my early twenties I worked as an actress in New Zealand and then I've lived in Berlin for 8 years and while I've been here I’ve done film and music. Being a musician is just one of the things that I try to do. So for me, yes I'm a bit of a control freak but I'm also just really interested in those things and that's also what I have experience in as well. So that's why I do it. It's a luxury to be able to make your own art. I spent a lot of time making stuff for other people and the only reason or the only time I ever get to make something for myself is if I manage to find some creative funding. For 'Options' I got some funding from a NZ organisation called NZ On Air. That's the only reason I can do it, a lot of people don't understand how much money it takes to actually produce a song or produce a video and for me it's very important that the people I work with are compensated for their time and are not being ripped off from working with me. Because I am constantly being ripped off by others!

Do you think there is a downside at all to having that much creative control or do you think that other artists suffer because they don’t get involved?
I think I have the ability to let go when I need to all that being said. Creatively I’ve got my fingers in all these different puddings, but when I'm working with other people it's very important to me that their ideas are also expressed and that we work as a team. With the video for instance, I really worked hand in hand with the choreographer to get on the same page and find the movement for the character in the video and likewise with the lead actor and dancer and with music production or the mixing or the mastering. I work with people that I respect and part of respecting other people is giving them the freedom to have the ability to express themselves. It’s more about choosing wisely the people that you want to work with. For me, I spent a lot of my earlier days in music, and especially in acting, working with people who weren't respectful of that. It's very important when you're working in a creative industry to choose your colleagues like you choose your friends. I work with so many people who are just full of such shit and you know you believe in so much false hope that it can kind of break you. And I kind of got to an age when I realised you really can't believe anything anymore unless it's on paper in front of you. I started my own label and manage myself, I'm self published and with that it means I can then choose the people I want to help me do what I want to do.

I want to talk to you about your sound. What are the sounds, books, places or just elements that inspire you? What is that creative drive?
I work with a friend of mine Wouter Rentema, he’s a Dutch producer and he lives in Berlin and we’ve worked together for many years. He has a studio in an old coin factory. It’s got bullet holes all down the sides of the building and there is a whole bunch of toys in there the two of us just get in there. He’s got a lot of modular stuff, a lot of analogue stuff and we sort of noodle around everything. I love analogue. I love modular stuff. Being in Berlin really gets you into electronic music. I didn’t think I would become that person and for the first five years I lived in Berlin I was a street musician in an indie folk band with my ex and we lived in a hippie bubble and I never went to a club in Berlin. And when that band went into hiatus and the relationship dissolved I discovered Berlin clubbing. Going out and having a good time and I then discovered electronic music. Since then I’ve become super passionate about it. You’re just so spoiled for choice here in Berlin, there’s amazing sound systems and there’s so many amazing electronic artists here just doing phenomenal work. So that’s a huge inspiration for me.

Do you feel like you’re cheating on yourself? You go to something you adamantly refused you’d never do and bam! You fall in love.
I just thought I would never have an interest in it. This is going to sound very Berlin snobbery but my experience of electronic music before moving to Berlin was so shit. Just really really boring and it just didn’t appeal to me. Then I got to Berlin and I realised there’s actually all these different genres within this big genre. And there’s so much cool stuff going on. I’m very picky with the electronic music that I listen to, I am still a melody junkie, so I have to have melodies and interesting stuff going on within the beats. I really love mixing the world of organic instruments with electronic sounds. That’s sort of the world my music comes from, B O K E H’s always been 80s inspired anyway, but you know what isn’t these days?!

There’s beautiful beautiful juxtapositions in your music it’s absolutely gorgeous. So well done for dipping your toe into that glove you never thought you would. I wanted to ask you now about your thoughts on sexism in the music industry and what do you feel is probably the most challenging part about being a female solo artist?
It’s a very, very big question. It’s definitely something that exists for sure. About 99% of the people that I’ve worked with in my musical career have been male. I’ve definitely been subjected to a lot of…umm… opinions over the years. At the beginning of my career I didn’t really know what to do with those opinions, I think I believed them a lot and then over the years as I’ve grown I’ve found my own voice and know how to stand up for myself. We’re so indoctrinated to believe certain stereotypes just from having grown up with them and they’re just in us. Sometimes I’ve left studios or writing sessions and have this really sickening feeling and think ‘Why do I feel uncomfortable right now?’ That’s because in that moment I maybe didn’t stand up for myself. I had this one writing session - I think I maybe started to hit record on my phone at one point because it was so ridiculous - and there were these guys and they were like ‘can you pretend that you’re a 14-year-old girl who’s in love with this older guy and will give him anything that he wants even if she doesn’t want it?’ And it might’ve been a bit of a language barrier, fair enough. But I literally repeated it back to them as they said it and said ‘Do you actually know what you’ve just said? You can’t say that!’ Shit like that happens for sure. I think the biggest thing when you’re a woman and making music, is that you’re a novelty. You’re seen as a novelty and with that comes really great things and with that comes really shit things because there’s a lot of expectation on you. There’s a lot more expectation put on female artists than there is on male artists because there’s less of them and there’s a lot more competition between women because they’re both trying to fight for the same role which I don’t understand.

Before we go: Chloë ‘Bokeh’ Lewer - what a hook. Where did the name come from?
It’s actually a term used in photography and film. It’s when something is purposely rendered out of focus. It comes from a Japanese word which means haze or mental haze or blur. It also means idiot, which I super like. So in photography when you take a picture at night maybe of a traffic light, and it comes up with these little dots of light or when you squeeze your eyelids together in a moving car and they blur or makes these sort of circles - that’s bokeh. It came to me on a video shoot of the last song that I made with my last band, I was also directing and producing the video. At that point I knew that a lot of things were ending for me in my life and I was feeling in this kind of mental haze and this mental blur. I just super loved the word. It’s pronounced Bo-Keh. And it’s all in capitals and it has spaces in between so it’s impossible for anyone to find me!

I think it sounds wonderful but I love that you can see the pitfalls in it as well. Now we’ve got ‘Options’ out into the world, what is up next for B O K E H?
With B O K E H I’m going to spend the (northern) winter writing some new songs and then hopefully early next year I’m going to work on another audiovisual project for the single and a video for B O K E H. And then hopefully I’ll work on some audiovisual live show as well. Other than that I’m also working right now on an album with my old band. We’re doing like a comeback record, a 14 track album, so for the next two weeks I’m finishing that which will also be out next year. So there’s quite a few big things going on.

‘Options’ is out now on Gloomstone Records through Ditto Music. You can download it on iTunes or stream on Spotify or Apple Music.

To keep up with all things B O K E H you can follow her on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.