Chosen By Monk
My latest choice sees us kicking off the new week with alt/electro-rockers PVRIS once again pushing the boundaries as they encourage us to ‘Burn The Witch’ in this collaboration with Canadian rapper Tommy Genesis and experimental DJ/producer/vocalist Alice Longyu-Gao as well as the track’s co-writer, Kanner.
The culture curators are a lethal combo with the sinister new track, which sees PVRIS founder and frontwoman Lyndsey Gunnulfsen’s signature production flair elevated to new extremes.
Historically, men have feared and persecuted women’s power and magic, but, propelled by unstoppable punk, political, and raucous energy, the song is a testament to each artist’s unique creative vision and the power of female collaboration, says Gunnulfsen.
Speaking of the collaboration with Genesis and Lyung-Goa, Gunnelfsent added:
I’ve been a huge fan of both Tommy and Alice for quite a while so it was an absolute dream to not only have them on a track together but to also get to be crafting the production around their parts.
‘Burn The Witch’ marks Gunnulfsen’s first fully self-produced release, a feat she has been working towards over PVRIS’s entire decade-long career. n addition to featuring a handpicked curation of genre-bending female artists, the project initiative continued structurally, with hiring female writers, mixing engineers and mastering engineers part of the music from start to finish. For Gunnulfsen, this pledge encompasses all female, female-identifying, trans, and non-binary musicians, as she elaborated:
At its core, I just wanted to make a fun project full of some bad bitches in music that I love and create a space where we can express whatever we want and get to experiment sonically. I didn’t want to be overly precious about it, I just want to have fun and free flow!
But this has a deeper intention at its core, as Gunnulfsen reflected on her experiences of a decade in the industry:
It should be noted that while there are already so many iconic and incredible female producers, writers, engineers etc. out there (I’m no trailblazer here), but there is nowhere near the amount that there should be. This isn’t even something to debate, go look at the statistics.
I think I’ve truly been in hundreds of writing/producing sessions at this point in my career and I can recall less than 20 of those that were with female writers and around ten that were with female producers. From labels and publishers to management, there is so little advocacy to get artists into rooms with women in general. It’s even rarer to see the same advocacy towards connecting and putting only women in a room together, especially without it being made into a commodity, “special event” or task to check off. These collaborations should be happening organically regardless of who is watching.
I don’t really understand what everyone is so scared of? That we’ll all have too much fun together? It’s all I’ve experienced in this chapter (of working almost exclusively with women); just pure fun. I feel like a kid again and this is the least stressed I’ve felt making music and I really hope I can be a small part in helping to facilitate those same feelings outward for the other artists I’m bringing onto this project and working with in general. I don’t want this to be the only “volume” of this project, there’s too many bad bitches in all music making roles out there to cover in just one release like this. This is something I’d love to continue and grow in.