Hard tobelieve that Let’s Turn It Into Sound is Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith’s ninth album… Where does the time go? As ever, a new album from Kaitlyn is a fresh journey into her sonic world, and her latest is no exception with its rich palette of pulsing Buchla tones, intense, flickering beats and joyously manipulated vocals that see Smith pushing her own envelope further with each new collection of songs. FM caught up with Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith in her LA studio, taking a break from the process of preparing for her forthcoming live shows, to talk shop and get some insight into the machinations of her workflow and everinnovative studio experiments.
Is it true that you were given your first ever modular by a neighbour who had it sitting in his garage?
[laughs] “I still think about how special that experience was… Not really knowing anything about modular synthesisers because I didn’t study that in school, I studied sound engineering. Then to have a neighbour come to my place with a Buchla and say ‘explore this’ opened up my whole world. I Googled it and only then realised what a big deal it was.”
Your sound engineering background must’ve been handy with the technicalities of the modular environment?
“Yeah, I think it’s definitely helped with pathway thinking and understanding
