Halina Rice is a London-based electronic musician and AV artist renowned for her vivid and eclectic style, using multiple effects and sampling to create original and unique sounds. Uniting elements of ambient, experimental and dance music, her sound ranges from evocative soundscapes to beat-driven tracks.
Releasing her debut album ‘REDUX’ in 2017 to critical acclaim, her music has been described as “sublime and infectious” by Electronic Sound magazine and as a “world of fragmentary beauty” by Clash, and on the 30th September, she is set to release her sophomore album ‘ELISION’, via Injazero Records.
A key component of Rice’s work is the creation of immersive experiences and she works with partner L-Acoustics to deliver performances in spatial audio. Rice has consistently strived to create immersive AV environments in which to envelop her listeners, with her sold out live shows being described as “part rave, part art-happening.”
Halina Rice is set to play at the inaugural ASCENSIONS on Friday, 2nd September 2022. ASCENSIONS is a series of transformative fully immersive environments blending sound, light and church architecture, in partnership with Start.Bahn. Fusing experimental ambient and post-rave aesthetics, the work is presented in L-ISA Hyperreal Sound – a technology by L-Acoustics allowing for multi-dimensional sound experiences. In addition, an ambient hybrid live set comes from UK techno producer Benjamin Damage. The programme is accompanied by a site-specific light show designed by Andreas Babenko & Christoph Schneider.
FACTS
1. “I have always been far more interested in sound than technique, and how sounds work together, how they can be layered. I think electronic music… allowed us to create music in a way that hadn’t really been possible before. It created a new kind of musician.” Gary Numan
2. People who are currently alive represent about 7% of the total number of people who have ever lived.
3. ”Life’s what you make it “ Talk Talk
QUESTIONS
1. What is the biggest inspiration for your music?
Listening to other people’s music is probably the biggest inspiration for me – I really enjoy seeing artists play live particularly if there is an element of theatre. I recently saw Hatis Noit perform in a church in London – she is a Japanese singer who performs with just vocal looping and it was thrilling.
2. How and when did you get into making music?
There was a piano in our house growing up and it seemed endlessly fascinating. I learned classically but would play tunes from the radio by ear and learn how they were structured A few years ago I started producing with Ableton Live and it coincided with a growing interest in making electronic music listening to artists like Jon Hopkins, Rival Consoles, Lorn and Moderat.
3. What are 5 of your favourite albums of all time?
Les Mysteres Des Voix Bulgaires – Bulgarian State Television Female Vocal Choir
Oneohtrix Point Never – R Plus Seven
SPIME.IM – Exaland
Kanye West – Yeezus
Stravinsky – The Rite of Spring (Leonard Bernstein, London Symphony Orchestra)
4. What do you associate with Berlin?
In 2017 I won a sampling contest run by Ableton and my prize was a weekend at their Loop Conference held at Funkhaus. It was one of the most uplifting and moving experiences of my life – I went on my own and met so many amazing people there and saw artists that have been deeply influential to what I do now.
5. What’s your favourite place in your town?
I live in London – although I’m from Nottingham originally. I love that I still feel like a stranger here – there’s so much I don’t know and everything is shifting and changing all the time. I like that it changes and there’s still more to discover.
6. If there was no music in the world, what would you do instead?
I’d like to write. I love the stories of Ray Bradbury which are kind of science fiction but sometimes just like hazy dreams – it would be great to be able to create something similar.
7. What was the last record/music you bought?
I bought a whole load of tracks for a mix I put together recently – Clark’s remix of Mitski ‘Love Me More’, Alex Banks ‘A Way Out’ and an Irene Dresel remix of Nathan Fake’s Vectra were a few – plus a few artists from the -OUS label like Noemi Buchi, SPIME.IM and Feldermelder.
8. Who would you most like to collaborate with?
I don’t tend to collaborate, but maybe with someone who had a voice like Jeff Buckley.
9. What was your best gig (as performer or spectator)?
I put on my first fully immersive show – hiring a 360 L-Acoustics immersive sound system plus full lightshow and projections. It looked amazing and has been the springboard / prototype for the shows since then.
10. How important is technology to your creative process?
My work is about uniting music, art and tech – for my key shows I work as a partner of L-Acoustics using their L-ISA software to create immersive sound. I also incorporate mixed reality visuals into the projections and the lightshow is all bespoke programmed and run out of my Ableton Live music production software using a wireless system. It’s pretty technical, but at the end of the day the vision is for the audience not to perceive that but just to have an experience that takes them out of their day to day.
11. Do you have siblings and how do they feel about your career/art?
Setting has a huge impact on performance. I try to choose venues where I can stamp the feel of the show on the venue rather than the other way round. I use lighting, audio and plenty of haze to invite the audience into an experience that has been described as “part rave, part art-happening”.
