Music
Alice Glass on how she and Floria Sigismondi brought The Doll House to life
We caught up with the Canadian electro-pop singer to talk about her collaboration with Floria Sigismondi “The Doll House,” what horror movies she’s been watching lately and her upcoming music.
If you've ever seen Alice Glass in concert, then you know she's one of the most thrilling performers of her generation, shrieking and blitzing across stages worldwide with the force of a small hurricane. For her appearance at this year's Red Bull Music Festival Toronto, the former Crystal Castles frontwoman wanted to create a live show that mirrored her cathartic, call to arms songs, including those on the singer's 2017 self-titled debut solo EP. To achieve her vision, she teamed up with Floria Sigismondi, the prolific Italian-Canadian director behind music videos for Marilyn Manson, David Bowie, Rihanna, Perfume Genius and many others, who previously worked with Glass on the surrealist, polychromatic visual for "Without Love." Dubbed "The Doll House," the show design features a troupe of wigged dancers, kaleidoscopic projections, and the singer and her backing band like you've never seen them before. Ahead of the performance, we spoke to Glass from her home in Los Angeles about how they came up with the concept for the show, what fans can expect from her new music, and more.
Tell us about how you and Floria Sigismondi came up with the show concept for “The Doll House.”
Floria is awesome to work with because she’s a visionary, but she also wants to start with a concept from the artist directly. For this one, I wanted to play off the idea of women being disposable. That's the theme for this show. I've never really done a performance on this scale before.
Floria Sigismondi transformed The Fermenting Cellar into a dreamlike world
© Maria Jose Govea
She also directed your “Without Love” video, were you super familiar with her work previous to that?
I was definitely a huge fan of hers, even when I was a kid without even knowing it was her work.
I think when you’re a kid and you watch music videos, it just seems like this magical thing, and you don’t really think about all the production that goes into it. Those early [Marilyn] Manson videos that she did had a huge effect on me being obsessed with MuchMusic, but also being at Catholic school at the time. We did a photoshoot where me and Frances Bean [Cobain] are like spooky sisters so that was technically the first thing we did together.
It’s been just over a year since you released your debut EP. Has your relationship with the songs changed in any way since you’ve been performing them live?
It was really cathartic for me at that point. It was kind of the first time that I put out music where I was specifically talking about my own experiences, and not being afraid to directly say how I felt rather than making things a little more confusing. At the time I was almost—not afraid of the response to it—but I think I had imagined something in my head about putting myself out there, and it just kind of opened the floodgates to the record that I’m almost finished right now.
You’ve been playing a lot of new songs in your shows this year, is the next release going to be a full-length album or another EP?
It’s going to be a full-length. It’s fun to play these songs that we’ve been working on in the basement, some of them over a year, it’s cool to see them take on a life of their own and judge crowd responses. We did some new ones on an Australian tour as well and we’re going to be adding songs nobody else has heard before at the show.
Alice debuted new music and played a handful of Crystal Castles hits
© Maria Jose Govea
Are there any different themes or topics you’re addressing in the new material that you feel you haven’t addressed before or is it a continuation of the EP?
It’s definitely a continuation on those things. I think dealing with trauma isn’t necessarily linear when it comes to recovery. There are some days when I just have so much incredible anger, and then there are other days where I feel the experiences have made me stronger. I think all of those are important.
I was checking out your “BUBBLEGOTH” playlist and I noticed there’s a lot of rappers on it. You’ve got Abra, Tommy Genesis, Lil Peep and other GOTHBOICLIQUE members. What drew you to those artists and would you ever do collaborations more in that lane?
Yeah, definitely. I’ve been friends with Tommy for a little bit and I recently met Abra through the guys in GOTHBOICLIQUE. I think it’s a really exciting time in music and I have been doing collabs with some new people. Being around other people and seeing how they work is really inspiring to me as a songwriter.
I know you’re a huge horror movie fan, you named a tour after [1973 film] Lady Snowblood, have you watched anything good lately?
Recently I’ve been going through [Dario] Argento movies, but there’s some amazing Korean and Asian horror films that have stuck with me, The Red Shoes and a billion more female-fronted movies. I’m always a little bit more interested in completely new stories instead of all the remakes.
Is there anything else you want to add about the upcoming show or what’s next for you?
This show is representing hours of hard work and it has been put together by an amazing team, the main people creating the show have been women. I’ve never done anything like this before and I want it to represent the direction I’m going in with future shows.
When was the last time you saw an artist or band’s live show that really impressed you visually?
I remember watching the Lil Peep show last September at the Echoplex and they had an elaborate setup that looked kind of like a dirty bedroom or hotel room. I thought it was really fitting and cool.