Tag: Alice Ivy

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Rising Aussie Electro Pop Artist Alice Ivy Teams Up with Imbi the girl and BOI on a Feminist Anthem

Annika Schmarsel is a Melbourne-based singer/songwriter, electronic music producer and electronic music artist, best known as rising Aussie electro pop sensation Alice Ivy. Schmarsel is the daughter of West German immigrants, who settled in Geelong, Australia in the late 80s — and interestingly enough, the rising Aussie electro pop artist can trace the origins of her music career back to a trip her family took to the ancestral homeland when she was 12: during that trip her grandmother taught her some guitar chords and her uncle taught her how to play Deep Purple’s “Smoke on the Water.” 

As a high schooler, Schmarsel was a member of a 25 member soul big band and a musical project by the name of The Sweethearts. In 2014, Schmarsel relocated to Melbourne to study for a music industry degre, and was introduced to the music software, Ableton. She also learnt about influential electronic producers. including J. Dilla. 

In early 2015, Schmarsel released her debut single as Alice Ivy, “Charlie.” And over the next handful of months, Schmarsel released a handful of attention-grabbing singles, the which helped Geelong-born, Melbourne-based singer/songwriter, electronic music producer and electronic music artist win 2016’s Triple J Unearthed’s Listen Out competition. Building upon a growing national profile, Scharmsel release her full-length debut I’m Dreaming to critical applause in her native Australia and elsewhere. 

Schmarsel’s highly-anticipated Alice Ivy sophomore effort, Don’t Sleep is slated for a July 17, 2020 release through Last Gang Entertainment, and the album finds the rising Aussie producer cementing a reputation for simultaneously being a producer and tastemaker, who has proven to be equally adept at uncovering new dimensions to the sound and approach of established, household names and for helping to break new talent — in particular, female and non-binary producers and pop artists. The album finds her collaborating with a who’s who of up-and-coming Aussie talent, including Thelma Plum, Ecca Vandal, Ngaiire, Safia’s Benjamin Joseph, Odette, Bertie Blackman and Imbi the girl among others. 

Interestingly, Don’t Sleep’s second and latest single, is the swaggering album title track “Don’t Sleep,” which finds Scharmsel teaming up with Imbi the girl and BOI. Sonically, the track is a perfect taste of what the listener should expect from the album: a slick synthesis of dub, trap and alt pop, centered around shimmering synth arpeggios, atmospheric electronics, tweeter and woofer rocking beats, reggae riddims, a soaring hook, tons of irie vibes and a decidedly feminist, girls and non-binary people to the front spirit.

“‘Don’t Sleep’ is one of those songs that came out of nowhere! Imbi, Boi and I were in the studio on the last day of a songwriting camp (shoutout Ricochet!) and at the start of the session we were all feeling pretty burnt out,” Alice Ivy explains. “But something special happened between us and I think it had a lot to do with how inspired we were feeling after a week at an all-female/non-binary camp. We came up with a super powerful song and it’s definitely one of my favourite collabs I’ve ever been a part of. The lyric, ‘Our bodies are ours so keep your hands away’  hits me every time I hear it.”

Directed by May Tusler, the recently released video for “Don’t Sleep” follows Schmarsel, Imbi and BOI dancing and rocking out to the song, while a collective of young Junior Motocross riders race and tear shit up. “It’s an empowering song… so obviously I had to recruit a bunch of junior motocross riders to tear it up in the video!” Schmarsel explains. 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

With the release of her first two singles “Touch” and “Almost Here,” which both amassed over 900,000 streams on Spotify, the Melbourne, Australia-based singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and producer Annika Schmarsel, quickly exploded into the national scene with her solo recording project Alice Ivy. Adding to a growing profile, Schmarsel played Australia’s festival circuit, including sets at Strawberry Fields, Paradise, Queenscliff, Listen Out and NYE on The Hill, BIGSOUND and went on two national, headlining tours before a series of dates in Singapore and the States.

Slated for a February 9, 2018 release through Last Gang Records, Schmarsel’s forthcoming, full-length debut I’m Dreaming was written, recorded and self-produced in her home studio and features the up-and-coming Australian producer and pop artist collaborating with the likes of Georgia Van Etten, Cazeaux O.S.L.O. and Tim De Cotta, RaRa, E˄ST and Charlie Threads and ARIA Award-winning singer/songwriter Bertie Blackman, among others.  Interestingly, I’m Dreaming‘s latest single “Chasing Stars,” a collaboration featuring Bertie Blackman can trace its origins to when Schmarsel met Blackman while they were both opening for Urthboy, and they quickly bonded over a mutual appreciation of each other’s work. As the story goes, Schmarsel reached out to Blackman with a slickly produced instrumental track that featured shimmering and soaring synths, trippy blasts of horns and thumping beats that that reminded (and gave) Blackman the sensation of flying. And although Schmarsel typically takes the reins of the entire creative process, she let her collaborator take the lead lyrically; in fact, Blackman’s tender and aching vocals add a yearning quality to the endeavor, with the ARIA Award-winning artist’s lyrics reaching for something that’s just beyond her grasp.

“’Chasing Stars’ is one of my favorite moments on the album,” Schmarsel explains in press notes. “Being given the opportunity to work with Bertie was a dream come true for me. The dynamics of the instrumentation are the perfect fit to the strong and sometimes fragile moments of Bertie’s vocals on the song, which are so rich with emotion and meaning. Bertie and I started writing it over email, however the finished song came together in a couple of hours in the Joyride’s studio above a pub in suburban Sydney. The vocal tracking only took three hours; however, the instrumentation is what took the longest. I’ve hung onto this song in demo form for about a year and a half now. Lyrically, ‘Chasing Stars’ is about Lincoln Beachey, the first man to do a loop to loop in an airplane. The music has many layers which depict the endless landscape of the sky.”