‘Souls have no gender but feed on the same flame’ - Serena Butler Interview

Serena Butler is a virtual illusion and fe/male reality at the same time. Referring to the artist as ‘they’ rather than he/she, Butler is the epitome of an electronic producer whose music is a discourse of human sexuality, gender identity, and the art of living without labels – in every sense of the word.

From seductive techno rolling into ethereal electronic melodies, Butler explores all aspects of the gritty underground realm to make their own imprint in the world of leftfield music.

A debut release on Marco Shuttle's Eerie label introduced us to Butler’s take on sonic seduction. Sharing their billings with the likes of Lakker, Acronym and Pär Grindvik, Butler has risen through the ranks by consistently mixing the weirdest of the weird, between knuckling down in the studio and continuing their exploration of pulsating beats.

We caught up with Butler to delve further into the mind of such a mysterious artist to discuss the journey of their upcoming Bene Tleilax label, and the trials and tribulations involved. Amongst other things, we unearthed their digital netherworld, human osmosis, an understanding of the phrase ‘gender’, and once off nocturnal epiphanies with Autechre and Drexciya deep in the Tyrrhenian Sea…

The upcoming release of ‘From The Cloud To Our Bodies’ marks the launch of your new label, Bene Tleilax. Tell us about the themes the label will focus on?

Bene Tleilax is more than a label for us. It's a sentient cell, an agglomeration of bodies and neutral minds, composed of me and my sisters Rudi, Katlin and Sophia. Our focal points are many and branched in a multitude of topics, but all of them gravitate around indispensable visions, macro arguments about gender politics, transhumanism, biohacking as an act of positive freedom (in particular cloning, cybernetic grafts, gender-fluid osmosis) and all those issues regarding the combined evolution between humans and machines. And of course, all described above transduced into electronic music.

A handful of MOTZ readers are running independent labels in a variety of cities worldwide. What challenges did you come across launching such a project? Do you have any advice for sound creators who want to start their own label?

The most interesting challenge, and of course the first one that came up, was to find a distribution that would enhance our efforts and hopes. I would say it was easy and painless, but it was not. There were different doors that we felt banged in the face (some have never really opened up) for the most trivial reasons. In a moment of sharp despair, however, there was a shiver in the dark, and a final door opened. Lobster Theremin decided to distribute us, and from that moment onwards everything was smooth. So my advice to anyone who intends to sculpt their own vision and produce their own (or other) music is very simple: never give up. For no reason must you allow market logics to fade your flame. If it's not today, it will be tomorrow. Distribution, promo, artworks, pressing, digital versions - everything can be fixed if you maintain a constructive attitude. And zero compromises, of any kind.

The artwork on your records includes a variety of strange, other worldly characters with a strong emphasis on Anime figures. What draws you to these images? Are they related to the sounds you create?

The digital netherworld is a legendary multiverse where to live. In this non-dimension I can be a multitude of beings, of any age/sex/gender/flesh/metal, like an endless cascade of souls trapped in a single mortal body. Animes don't mirror the reality of human physical proportions but image an existential reflection that each of us possesses unconsciously, the ability to draw ourselves freely without prescribed rules and dogmas. These images where I recognise and I see myself, both those drawn by my sis Rudi and those sampled around the GRID, are deeply interwoven with my music, at a level of synesthesia that I could not fully explain. Many sounds I commonly use are literally interpolated with these images’ CODE, through data-bending. Pads, noises, glitches, shadows and many more elements in my soundscapes are the result of this process. Among many others.

‘S>H/E was never born, S>H/E besides in a male host even if is gender-abolitionist’. We would like to know more about your self-definition on Resident Advisor - what does it mean?

My conception of gender in human forms is quite complicated theoretically, but very basic regarding primordial feelings. Even if you can obviously identify me as a male outside my flesh, within my core the question is very different. I base my entire existence on a neutral conception of feelings, which manifest and belong to all existing human categories. Male, fe|male, queer: I feel all these genotypes at the same time, every time, because is what we are, human beings with slight genetic differences but WE share the same prototype, and NO gender should be requested in this century to be considered equal among others (IMHO). Souls has no gender but feed on the same flame.

Have you ever experienced a feeling of being limited when using a binary pronoun? If so, how have you rejected this?

I have already unintentionally responded in the previous question. Reality is too complex and varied to be encapsulated in a binary conception. Flesh and pixels now coexist in a single unicum, thanks to the GRID and the digital netherworld. I never felt limited in expressing what I am for the simple fact that I cannot feel the human life as “binary”. It's not so easy to describe an ancestral feeling like this for me, but if you can accept yourself as a neutral vector of positive freedom the concept of “binary” will become obsolete instantly.

What’s your studio set up like at the moment?

I've a variety of hardware synthesizers (no modulars) which are the building blocks in my electroacoustic chain. Roland Alpha Juno 2 (my swiss knife), Yamaha DX21, Korg MS20, Polysix and an Elektron Analog 4. Add a drum synth (Analog Rytm), an Octatrack and a stone age black MacBook and you have the complete portrait. I also have other things but I don't like gear-geek wantlists. I don't have a GAS syndrome. Yet.

Tell us about the first time you were gripped by the power of techno? Perhaps you have a distinct memory when you realised you had to make your life revolve around music production and DJing?

I've a special moment to remember about my first psychophysical contact with electronic music (not strictly techno related). I was 16, during a night boat trip to Sardinia in the middle of the Tyrrhenian Sea. At that time I listened almost exclusively to hard rock and metal, I was a guitarist and the best of the electronics I was dealing with were my pedal effects. But for mysterious reasons the only music I had with me that night were two CDs (yes cds, I didn't have an MP3 player but only a battery-powered CD player) that my girlfriend gave me before my departure. These two albums were Incunabula by Autechre and Neptune’s Lair by Drexciya. All my friends slept, so I decided to go and sit on the deck listening to these CDs watching the stars. It was a matter of a moment and it lasted all night until dawn: from the first tracks (Eggshell, Basscadet, Andreaen Sand Dunes, Surface Terrestrial Colonisation) I seemed to be dragged into an abyss of light, where thousands of butterflies made my stomach more like a roller-coaster than a digestive organ. I instantly understood that I had to know everything about these new sounds storming in my head, and I knew unconsciously that my life had changed in some way that I still didn't understand. From there to techno (from Detroit of course) the pace was short. And with the years grew in me the desire to share with others my new and growing vision through some extremely rude DJ sets. Then my first phase with synths and tapes came, and the rest is history.

With spine tingling names like ‘Your Past. Your Future. Your Very Light’ and ‘Brane New World, Thas Has Such Creatures In It’, there seems to be an out of body feeling behind these titles on the EP. Have you ever experienced such a feeling in real life?

I am very happy that my titles evoke these feelings in others but for me the affair is much clearer and less dreamlike. My titles are born from various non-musical works that come from my well of inspiration. Mainly old books, papers (Xenofeminism, Donna Haraway, Cyborg’s Manifesto etc.) and videogames. And since I don't use any kind of substance, I have never experienced altered states of consciousness. Sorry!

It’s been a year since your last release on Eerie records. What have been the highlights, (both personally and musically) for you over the last 12 months?

Surely the decision to create my personal musical output with my sisters and playing in marvellous places around the globe (my favourite night was in Stuttgart this

June). But the best is yet to come, and this is only the beginning.

Coming up on November 18th, you’re playing at Black Dance Festival in Colombia with the likes of Pär Grindvik and Samuel L Session & more. What are you looking forward to the most about your debut on South American soil?

I'm sorry if in this case my replies look a bit critical and discounted, I'm sure many other musicians more imaginative than me have beautiful and articulated responses but for me it's much more visceral: feel osmosis and merging with the humans there during the ritual of dance. I will do my best to make this happen, I promise.

Finally, what’s been the most debauched scene you’ve witnessed whilst on the road - on the dance floor or elsewhere?

Having a sense of morality very different from what is commonly considered debauched, many strange scenes appear to me perfectly normal. Sure, I've seen a multiple orgy with a curious giant sex toy in latex during the past CTM festival in a notorious Berlin club, but I found this very spontaneous more than weird. Pleasure is not a crime, in every form and moment...except when it becomes violence of course.

‘From The Cloud To Our Bodies’ will be released tomorrow to mark the launch of Bene Tleilax. Keep an ear out for Serena's upcoming creation on Doka's Konstrukt label on November 3rd.

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