feminism in the record

When I started to make Volta, I wanted to make a record that was about people finding the roots of everything in the world. For me, that meant going down into the roots as a female, and taking the stand in 2008. It’s funny, but it was the first time for me to take the idea of being a woman on. Not like it was when I started becoming a woman when I was 13, 14, but about me taking the pulse the second time around.

When I was a teenager, I tried not to be put in the girl/boy box. I just tried to step outside it, and I did that by being creative. But sometimes, you need to be less divine like that and more human. Like a flawed human, accepting you have to address all these bits that make you up. Volta was very much for me when I walked into that flawed human thing : where I dared to be wrong. Saying, yeah ! Yeah ! This is how I feel !

Vespertine and Medulla were made in this perfect bubble of domestic bliss. I was in love with a new person, then I had a baby daughter, then I was at home working then feeding, working then feeding. I was happy. But you can’t do that on and on and on, so after those records, I really wanted to make a record I found exciting for me alone, for myself. You know, it’s the same way that you don’t go to same restaurant every night for 20 years. It’s fun to go to new ones, to keep you on your toes.

But this record also had a lot to do with having a little girl. I was seeing the world through her eyes, hearing her asking me questions, trying to find answers. Because it’s different bringing up a girl rather than a boy. And the time between having Sindri [her 21-year-old son] and my daughter... in that time, things have gone a bit backwards for women, and I wanted to address that."

TheLipster.com, April 7 2008