Quiet Light makes dreamy, atmospheric pop that draws on the country and folk of her native Texas as much as on electronic and dance music. On her latest album, Blue Angel Sparkling Silver 2, those strands meet across a run of hazy soundscapes and more upbeat tracks.
The singer, songwriter and producer – real name Riya Mahesh – plays her first London headline show at Oslo in Hackney next month.
Her music has been called “dream pop” and “Lynchian”, and she is happy with both labels. “I am very inspired by David Lynch’s movies and the TV show Twin Peaks,” she says. “I like how everything feels very dreamy but it’s simultaneously rooted in reality. I try to make music that feels like that.”
Mahesh trained in piano from a young age and applied to Juilliard, and she is now combining a music career with a medical degree. But she is wary of the idea that the two feed into each other. “The older I get, the more unsure I am that they do,” she says. “Since I was young I’ve always had these parallel interests and I’ve just continued to feed each one separately. The discipline from an academic pursuit like medicine definitely carries into my artistic endeavours as well, but it’s different.”
Compared with her earlier EPs, the new album swings between atmospheric moments such as ‘New Dream’ and faster electronic tracks like ‘New Girls’. That shift, she says, happened naturally. “I’ve always loved dance music and I love going to the club to dance.” She recalls hearing Erika de Casier’s most recent release described as “post-club music”, and says that is what she was aiming for with ‘New Girls’ – “the type of song you put on after a night out, at 2am... or 4am.”
Mahesh once described herself as an “insanely Texan girl”, and her roots remain central as her audience grows in the UK and beyond. “You can take the girl out of Texas but you can’t take the Texas out of the girl,” she says. “Country and folk music and especially Americana aesthetics will always be important to me and an underlying fabric of the Quiet Light sound.”
Her lyrics read almost like diary entries, dwelling on memory and unrequited feeling. Asked how much comes from life, she puts it at “80 per cent real, 20 per cent imagined”.
Even after signing to True Panther, she still writes and produces her own work, and she guards that process as more people get involved. “Most of my initial ideas come from spending a lot of time alone,” she says. “Only after I fully understand how the idea is going to take shape do I bring collaborators in. There’s always an exception to that rule, though. I just try to trust my gut.”
She has played London before as a support act, and the November date closes her current tour. “I’m excited to close out the tour in London. I think it’ll be a really great show,” she says. “London was my favourite show on my last tour, so I’m just excited to relive that high.”
Quiet Light will perform at Oslo Hackney on 11 November. The show is currently sold out but for more information about other upcoming gigs, visit quietlightforever.com.
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