Mirror Fears

(Slideshow) - Westword

"Mirror Fears offered an impressive break into live production. After pulling a full setup on stage, she built entire beats before our eyes and got everyone in the room grooving along." - 303 Magazine

Pretty recently, I saw Solypsis play a show in Ann Arbor with a few touring artists and Watabou. At first I had no clue it was actually the Solypsis I thought it was (the one who started Digital Vomit and co-founded Couch Fort Records, and has associations with V/Vm and Goulburn Poultry Fanciers Society) because he was mistakenly billed as Solypsis Solypsis. His set was hard noisy glitchy industrial techno, and it slayed. This tape features Solypsis and fellow Denver artist Mirror Fears remixing each others’ tracks, and it is also pretty remarkable. It has its distorted beat-heavy moments, and it’s somewhat glitchy/static-y, but it’s clearly not anything approaching noise or breakcore or gabber (usually). There’s captured sounds and isolated voices, there’s louder tracks with more technoid rhythms, and there’s a few calmer, drifty pieces. There’s moments of harsh wreckage, like “First Period Gangsta Diametrics”. “Barbarella’s Hyperactive Intestines” captures a bit of loopy ’90s Millsian techno and adds lots of frayed static and a few bursts of crashing drums. “Endless Fuschia Balloon” seems like an obvious Boards of Canada homage/parody title, but the track ends up merging a stoned, jazzy drum loop with some pretty unsettling sliding synths and it ends up being uneasier than expected. Not sure if the tape’s still available but the audio is on Bandcamp. - The Answer is in the Beat

AXS: Are you a Denver native? If not, where are you from originally?
Kate Warner: Yes, I am from the Northside!!

AXS: What inspired you to start playing music?
Kate: Probably all of the different kinds of music I grew up listening to. My parents listened to Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, and were pretty big folkies, although sometimes my dad would put on Black Sabbath or AC/DC. My 5 siblings all had varying tastes like P.I.L., Nick Cave, The Pixes, R.E.M., Talking Heads, The Sugarcubes, Tom Waits, Primus, Dead Milkmen, Billie Holiday, Charles Mingus, Tricky, Portishead, and Angelo Badalamenti soundtracks...that was the stuff I was listening to when I was really little. So I was hearing a bunch of different and sometimes really weird stuff for a kid, which I am grateful for. We didn't like the house to be silent so there was always something playing. I think the constant flow of different sounds probably affected my brain or stewed in me like a pot. I would sing Bjork-ish Cocteau Twins-ish things to myself and think, “Huh, am I writing music right now?” No, no I wasn't, but it got me thinking I could try...

AXS: How long have you been performing?
Kate: As Mirror Fears, for about 4 years off and on.

AXS: Where was your first show in Denver, and what was the experience like? Who else did you play with at the show?
Kate: It was a Titwrench surfacing show, which is a new and upcoming artist event that Sarah Slater still throws every so often. It showcases new talent and there are usually a couple seasoned or touring performers too. This one was at Dikeou Collection which is a gallery space a few floors up in a building downtown on California. I think they mostly have art and workshops there now, but at the time there were some really cool installations, two giant inflatable bunnies, and they hosted music. Sarah asked me to play, which was, to me, insane, because I had no idea what I was doing and it ended up being kind of a train-wreck of microphone feedback, but I still had a good time. My mind was pretty boggled by the fact that I was on the same bill as Sauna, Fairchildren, and Annah Anti-Palindrome, who were all really nice people for starters. Sauna played awesome surf garage rock and were a pretty big deal at the time (and soon to become an even bigger deal). Fairchildren, this ridiculously talented supergroup made up of Julie Davis, Joseph Pope, James Han and Patrick Meese played gorgeous gossimery folkish stuff; I think they are off doing Land Lines and Bluebook these days (among a ton of other projects I'm sure). Annah Anti-Palindrome I was really excited to see but had no idea what to expect. She looped unconventional instruments like a blood pressure cuff, scissors, and an egg. She also looped vocals, beatboxed, and read aloud random thoughts written down by the crowd. Beautiful heartwenching stuff that was also really playful sometimes. Oh and she asked for the (super loud) air pumps on the giant inflatable bunnies to be turned off so we could hear her better. That was cool.

AXS: Have any Denver musicians inspired you?
Kate: There's way too many, so I'll try to be specific with a few. Doctype was probably the most inspiring for me as a newbie producer in his positivity, productivity, and passion for sound. I'm inspired by productive people (who make awesome music) like Morlox, Kid Mask, Alphabets, Man Mantis, Snubluck, Tamed Animals, Tommy Metz, Thug Entrancer and lots of others who have put out so much work on their own but have a ton of different projects sometimes too. To me that's crazy because I could barely handle two projects at once much less be as prolific as a lot of these people. Church Fire is inspiring in how much they bring to every performance, even when they are playing eight times a month, and are musically helping me in some ways think about where I want my sound to go. Cop Circles is an amazing musician and performer, and always makes you either feel like partying, or a little uncomfortable, or both. I hope he weirds people out across the country. Curta is sonically a treat and doesn't GAF about where it's supposed to fit genre-wise. Hideous Men and Iuengliss I probably play the loudest in my car, their music just rules so hard!! Sterile Garden, Time, Nighttimeschoolbus, Sister Grotto, Pythian Whispers, The Inactivists, Dangerous Nonsense, Champion, French Kettle Station, Bollywood Life, ugh, there are way too many.

AXS: What inspired your 2014 EP, RE//THINK?
Kate: I was mad. It's like my emo EP. Lot's of me being flabbergasted at how awful people are to each other, I think, inspired it, because I didn't know what else to do but write some songs. I was reading about Sweden's (pretty cool) laws on prostitution, and after that some terrible stuff about sex trafficking and rights of sex workers in Thailand, which, combined with my own ideas on sex positivity caused “Break” to happen. “Dear Sir” I wrote after I watched La Femme Nikita again and thought about how great it would feel to take out some evil CEOs but that I ultimately could never do it. “The Hour” came partially from Henry Miller's essay The Hour Of Man, and from all of the laws forcing homeless people out of parks. Just thinking about the mistreatment and distrust of homeless people in general. The idea for “WP” came mostly from a segment of Jon Stewart's Daily Show called Race/Off, when his parting words were about how exhausting it must be living with racism directed towards you every single day. As a white girl I still don't know how I feel about that song. It's like, white people shouldn't be speaking up at a time like this! But I'm just saying white people need to except that privilege exists! But that's obvious! But apparently it's not! I dunno.

AXS: What was the writing and record processes like for RE//THINK?
Kate: I guess the word "disjointed" comes to mind. I was performing “The Hour” and “Break” well before I had anything recorded for them. This isn't always the case; sometimes I like to sit down and produce something thoroughly before I perform it, so when I went to record those two I started at the very beginning but with a distinct idea of how the song "should" go in my head. They both still changed a lot after I recorded them. “Dear Sir” started as an experiment trying out Reason 6 and I ended up liking it, so I think that one is a little VST and post-effect heavy, at least for me. I tried to get HBO to let me use a True Detective sample on that one but no dice. The first sample in “WP” was me and my family all trying to get wine glasses to "sing". I like the dissonance of it. I was angry but like I said, not feeling ok about speaking in a voice that wasn't mine, so I hid some more violent lyrics in morse code. I was using three different programs on two different computers to record and produce it, and ended up "remastering it" later when I got back from tour with a program called Wavemod.

AXS: What projects are you currently working on?
Kate: I am working on a Snake Rattle Rattle Snake remix right now and a collaboration with Kid Mask. I'm playing every so often with some cool musicians I respect a lot but not planning anything huge for now. I'm trying out some new analog synths with the goal of helping my workflow, learning, and writing process. July and August I am taking a break from shows to write a full-length to release in September. I hope to continue writing music on some level with the band I have been with called Talk All Night, over long distance, after the other members move to California.

AXS: What else are you involved in locally?
Kate: I make coffee and work at Rocketspace. Rocketspace is a really cool place to have in town because it offers hourly practice rooms for bands. You can get loud as hell in there, play late, and it's pretty cheap. I help keep the place in order and I work for a badass Kate Innes, who I met at Girl's Rock Denver. GRD is a non-profit week-long camp that teaches music and lots of other skills to girls and young women, and I think we've had trans and queer campers too. I've been volunteering for the past few years with a bunch of other really amazing Denver people and am so grateful to be able to take part in it. My family is too big for this interview, and this life really, so let's just call them THE BORG and leave it at that. I put shows together for touring bands and friend's bands sometimes but that's just what you do in Denver.

AXS: Do you have a goal in mind for the sound the you produce? Are there certain influences or themes that you try to inject into your own music?
Kate: At the moment my sound seems to be in a state of flux. I am letting it go where it wants. I've always wanted to make dark, heavy, pretty, interesting music. I feel like it will always hopefully be those things in some respect. With the current intentional changes to my setup, the bands I have been listening to lately, and my current state of mind, I think it's going towards an even more beat-driven, sample-heavy, glitchy, driving sort of industrial music but with more of an ambient melodic quality, with less thinly-veiled or obvious lyrics. Dream-pop industrial or something. But I am getting into more visceral, growly ways of singing that should give it more dynamic when paired or layered with the way I've been singing.

AXS: For someone who has never seen or heard you, what would you tell them to entice them to watch your set?
Kate: Come and have some fun! I don't know how to "entice" people. I guess I ask them if they like The Knife, and if they say "yes", I say, "Well it’s not really like that at all but you might like it."

AXS: What would your ideal live show look like? Where would it take place? Any particular time of year? Would a specific band/musician share the bill with or open for you?
Kate: Well, since I can just go crazy with this one, why not a mini-festival opening for Grouper, Lorna Dune, HEALTH, Grimes, JD Sampson, EMA, St. Vincent, Bjork, Múm, and Cibo Matto? In the desert. Outside of Albuquerque. Or someplace I've never been to but always felt drawn to like Iceland. Or hell, underwater in a big dome people have to be submarined to, if we're just dreaming here. There would be no alchohol for sale but a strict BYOB/clean up after yourself rule. Lots of visuals, maybe thrown by Vidkidz or 75ohms, in a tent with a dance party and an arepa truck, a ramen truck, a curry truck, and a pierogi truck.

AXS: What shows are you looking forward to over the next few months?
Kate: I'm excited for Chicharra (three of the most amazing badass ladies you'll ever meet, in this project all playing bass), Hideous Men, Church Fire, and Of Earth and Sun at Syntax. All my faves. I'm really stoked about my shows with CUBE, Aja Vision, Thug Entrancer, and L.A. Zwicky at Dryer Plug on June 4th, the Inactivists BBQ show at Tennyson’s Tap on the 7th, with Miss Moist, Scorpion Warrior and Morlox at Hyperspace June 12th, with Human Traffic, Snakeoids, Church Fire and Kid Mask on the 18th at Rhino, and a women in electronic music showcase at the Walnut Room on the 25th. I'm going to be sad to miss the Milk Blossoms at Black Shirt Brewing on the 13th, as well as Blow Pony on the 20th at The Compound. But I am going to play a show and see the Black Angels on my birthday that night at the WMS so that should be fun.

AXS: What do you enjoy most about Denver’s music scene, and why?
Kate: I like how it's never felt competitive in a bad way here, how people try to rally around touring bands, get them shows and be generous, spend more time hustling and working and playing instead of hating and talking crap, and we have some of the best DIY venues anywhere. I like that you can find safe stuff if you want, but weird music is lurking around every corner. - Alli Andress: AXS

Kate Warner, who performs as Mirror Fears and will play at Dryer Plug Studios this Thursday, June 4, honed her skills playing keyboards and singing in the rock band Talk All Night. She brought a moodily ethereal element to the group’s densely melodic songs, and something about her vocals cut through the music, giving it a riveting emotional undercurrent. Warner also worked on solo electronic music that drew on influences similar to those of Talk All Night, such as Múm and Ladytron, and the result was haunting, dark, ambient pop songs that get under your skin. It was music capable of soothing an angsty part of your psyche that you may not have noticed was quietly grinding away in a forgotten part of your mind. Over the past three years, Warner has refined her methods and her songwriting to such a degree that her compositions now have a sonic richness reminiscent of a modernized Organisation-period Orchestral Maneuvers in the Dark. - Tom Murphy: Westword

The project of Denver native Kate Warner, Mirror Fears taps into a brooding and wickedly smart strain of dark pop on the new EP Re//Think. With lines like, “Too late to break these chains of duality,” Mirror Fears ventures into territory blazed by Swedish duo The Knife, posing some heady ideas in the guise of gloomy dance production and displaced beats. - Matthew Stieb: San Antonio Chronicle

Mirror Fears started as a solo project for Kate Warner, keyboard/synth player and co-vocalist of indie rock band Talk All Night, but it quickly grew into her main musical focus when Talk All Night more or less dissolved. Since starting Mirror Fears in 2011, Warner became more and more involved in Denver’s experimental music scene and, as the manager of an hourly practice facility, is an accomplished producer and go-to gear repair person. She’s a sound engineer for Denver’s underground, and works with Girls Rock Denver and Titwrench Fest. Her own beat-driven compositions have both pop accessibility and serious emotional heft. Warner has honed her soundscaping and songcraft so deeply that when she sings, you can practically hear the hard work and heartache that went into the music. - Bandcamp