Hotel lobby poetry

Parisonline met felicita in Berlin, at the Moxy Hotel where frat house meets alp cabin. felicita is the multidisciplinary artist and performer, twisting sound and words on the label record PC Music who has redrawn the map of electronic hyperpop. While waiting for the mysterious producer and DJ, the legendary swedish raper Sebbe Staxx is streaming from the speakers in the lobby. Apparently the barman loves old swedish rap. Coming straight from the soundcheck at Berghain, felicita orders green tea and reads us an unfinished poem, changing the title last minute.

Why did you choose this text?

I was really obsessed with this queen Jadwiga of Poland. From my mom's side of the family I was taught a lot about Polish history and this queen was my grandma's favourite. I’ve always loved her name and the fact that you don’t need to be Polish to be able to read it. So I wanted to use this text and her name to make an electro pop song called Jadwiga. Without making any more references to her, like I’m creating a new Jadwiga.

What inspires your writing?

I think the initial feeling of creating something new and exciting for yourself. Language and words itself can be a fun material. I’m not deeply autobiographical, it’s usually third person and storytelling

even though my feelings might come through from a character or a scene.

How did you come up with the title Spalarkle for your latest album?

Finishing this album, I would go to the park and write lists of words that I think expressed the album. Like sparkle, light, shimmer. I was rearranging these words to create new ones, taking sparkle and shimmer to create spimmer. So throughout this kind of language game came Spalarkle. For me it’s a word that expresses lightness.

What's your approach to text?

I was always a frustrated artist as a language student, so my favourite writers were the super experimental ones. When I was finishing my studies I did a series of essays of blind translations. I would take a text of Goethe for example even though I’ve never studied german. And I would translate it blindly, trying to amuse myself. It was a rebellion against my strict studies.

You’ve said that language is insufficient, why ?

Since I come from a background of studying it, there was this kind of exhaustion with language and communicating at a certain point. But it’s a shame to me to abandon language just because I’m tired of learning it. It would be nice to find a way of not having that block. Now that you’re asking me I dont think I’m super clear on my relationship to text. It’s probably something I should have a clearer attitude to in some ways.

How do you write lyrics, despite this exhaustion ?

If I can twist the words into new forms that are as existing as new sounds then it's something I would work with. But if it’s language as we know it, it often feels boring to me. I don’t wanna be so down on language but I guess I always wanna push it into something that’s exciting and unknown to me. With electronic music in our generation we are so lucky with the technology to create new crazy sounds. So I want language to be on that level too and if it can’t be I’ll just get rid of it.

Text: Julia Eklund Photo: Tova Olsson