Becky Sui Zhen takes world building seriously. Under the nom-de-plume Sui Zhen, she makes music that's pure idiosyncratic, electronic pop full of quirk and charm. However, her vision extends beyond the tunes and into the realm of dynamically colorful sets and costuming along with adopting different personas to inhabit and portray with each release. Following two EPs, she released her album Secretly Susan earlier this year, in which she channels a woman by the name of Susan in song and in image.

We got to chat with Becky about the visual element of her releases, the Melbourne music scene, her recent residency in Japan and what's the best thing about pop music.

Hometown: Sydney, Australia

Homebase: Melbourne, Australia

Your visuals are super iconic. How important is the visual element to you? How much do they matter in comparison to music?

The visual element is important to me as part of my own process — it's another outlet I utilize to explore my concepts. I've always loved film and photography, these visual components help to set the scene for my music to exist, and to flesh out the world I'm creating. I think music should stand alone, but it's nice to have visual and a story for people who want to delve deeper into the world.

What other bands do you feel have had a good visual component? How so?

The project, Palmbomen II (Beats in Space) is a wonderful example of how simpatico visuals and music can be. They play out like beautiful short stories, they enhance the musical experience and add a visceral element to the moods already present in the music.
King Gizzard and the Lizzard Wizard (Melbourne based band) are also incredible. Their videos give us a glimpse into their minds and how they see the music playing out in three dimensions, it's just as fantastical & psychedelic as it sounds. I think that strong visual components extend beyond the real, into the abstract world of the artist.

Who are you favorite artists and what attracts you to their work?

It's really hard to pick of favourites, I'm attracted to music, films, books, stories... A lot of music I've enjoyed lately I've discovered through Sanpo Disco mixes so I listen to it without a visual attached, just vibing on the groove and feeling. Favourite song I've been working on a cover of is 'Who Knows What Love Is' by Strawberry Switchblade. Recently I've been refreshing my sci-fi knowledge, re-reading JG Ballard and Douglas Coupland short fiction. Visually, I've been obsessed with Caroline Polachek's style, particular her stage pants she wore on tour to Australia just last week. But two things that have really engaged me recently are the TV series WestWorld and Black Mirror as tales of the near future, the San Junipero episode was a great surprise. I think that is wonderful artistry.

What's your songwriting process like? How does a song take shape and what's the typical timeline?
 
Recently I spent a month in Hokkaido, Japan on an artist residency with the goal to write material for my next Sui Zhen album. On those days, since I was there with the sole purpose to write music I tried to write a new song each day – at least get a basic structure, rhythm/drum pattern, synth/guitar melody and mood down. Sometimes I'd get on a roll and make more than one demo. Other times, when it was clear I wasn't going to make any more chill bangers that day and when I'd eaten all the snacks and drunk all the Blendy coffee I could handle, I'd take a day trip and listen back to demos to get fresh perspective on them. I think it's a really integral part of my process to listen back to demos whilst in transit. Planes, trains, trams, cars, buses, sometimes when riding a bike... listening whilst participating in the world helps me to understand where to take things when I'm feeling stuck. From there it can take any amount of time to re-arrange the track. Live performance of the songs usually helps to understand what will work, so ideally, if that can happen before final recording the song might have one last chance to improve upon itself. I didn't do that at all with the last record, it was all done in the realm of my own internal performance – but then sometimes, that can also allow ideas to stay weird and unjustified.

Who did you grow up listening to and what impact did those records have on you?

I listened to a lot of mainstream 90s pop, grunge and rock. I went to under 18s raves and listened to terrible techno and psy-trance. I found solace in the soundtracks of wildlife documentaries for their use of 'world instruments'. Ace of Base 'Sign' was the first cassette I ever owned. I still like that track, so I bought it on vinyl a couple of years ago and DJ a dub remix of it occasionally when I need a guaranteed crowd-pleaser.