R. Missing is New York-based vocalist Sharon Shy and musician Toppy’s enigmatic music project. ‘Unsummering’, the first release under their new moniker, expands on The Ropes’ previous palette of Morrissey tinged lyrics and darkwave. The debut mini-album manages to be even more isolated lyrically than their famously nihilistic previous work, fully embracing complete detachment. Musically, fraught guitar and synth textures paint an image of an unstable world, held together only by tightly quantized electronic drum beats.
FACTS:
1: Train chimes are nice.
2: I wait for a 24-hour morning.
3: I don’t know anyone who knows anything about automatic writing.
QUESTIONS:
1. What is the biggest inspiration for your music?
Ennui, farawayness, compossibility.
2. How and when did you get into making music?
In a high-rise in another city, at 5:00 A.M. or earlier.
3. What are 5 of your favourite albums of all time?
Select five of the slower yé-yé records from a very, very long time ago.
4. What do you associate with Berlin?
Pitch-dark steps on Emser Straße. City parks with vague goals.
5. What’s your favourite place in your town?
I don’t get to have a town. I don’t want to have a town. I don’t want to have a favorite place.
6. If there was no music in the world, what would you do instead?
Walk endlessly, but I’ll do that anyway.
7. What was the last record/music you bought?
I don’t recall, but it should have been ‘A Million Roses’ by Alla Pugacheva.
8. Who would you most like to collaborate with?
The ones who know compossibility (maybe).
9. What was your best gig (as performer or spectator)?
I’m afraid I don’t have an answer to either question.
10. How important is technology to your creative process?
If I call it a creative process: not very.
11. Do you have siblings and how do they feel about your career/art?
I don’t know others or their feelings.
Photo © R. Missing
