How much do you give to your art?
Pop musician presh on how queer self-discovery manifests in art.
Cultural Learnings is an editorial platform for discussions on contemporary culture, curated by Sai Villafuerte. You can support it by subscribing to this newsletter, sharing it with your friends, emailing your thoughts, or answering this survey. Cultural Learnings is on Manila Community Radio every Wednesday, 17:00 - 18:00 GMT+8. You can access the radio archive here.
Found in an art book shop.
One of the central visions of Cultural Learnings is the idea that there’s always a cultural reason for something to exist. People can go on and on about one thing forever and, normally, with good reason – no matter how niche or mainstream.
It’s this very intellect presh brings which struck me during our interview. Based in Manila, Philippines (In fact, she’s my neighbour), presh decorates her time writing lyrics, playing the guitar, and making melodies on her MIDI keyboard. She has a meticulous approach to pop music which bleeds into the mix she has in store for the radio show, throwing any criticism that pop music is too formulaic or generic out the window. presh is a great example of why music always exists for a cultural reason, being steeped in the experience of reckoning with her identity.
Below is an inspiring conversation I had with her, so enjoy. Tomorrow (Wednesday), presh is taking over my weekly slot on Manila Community Radio with some unreleased tracks from her upcoming EP. I hope you can tune in!
What do you do, Presh?
I produce music, make songs, and write lyrics. I'm very particular about how I want my music to sound. I’m a bit of a perfectionist.
What’s your creative process like?
When I’m playing the guitar, I create the chords and melody at the same time. It’s more visceral because I can feel the instrument in my hands. When I’m producing a track, I find a cool sound and get stuck in that. I pour everything into producing around that idea, only then I’ll add the lyrics and melody. I’m finishing off an EP, which is taking a while because it’s completely self-funded. Recently, my duo partner, Carla, who’s in England right now, and I have been sending each other lyrics and melodies and giving each other feedback.
How has the pandemic impacted your creativity?
Before the pandemic, my set-up with my partner at home was very different. She'd go off to work and I'd be home alone, which gave me the space to make mistakes. That’s one thing I'm trying to get over: learning how to make music while someone is in the room. I also do freelance vocalist work on Fiverr. At first, when she was in the room, I wouldn’t sing properly. When people see my work that's too raw or unprocessed, I get embarrassed. I’m getting better at it because I have to. Once I started getting over that, I started learning how to get over doing personal projects. The Fiverr stuff is for a client and I can hide behind that. Making music for myself is more challenging.
Something I’ve observed with a lot of artists is that they’ll often put something out despite the odds stacked against them. Why do you feel this EP needs to come out now, despite the struggles of your perfectionist personality or the lack of funding to complete it within a comfortable amount of time?
It’s been too long for comfort. These songs have existed for years. I just have so many things I want to put out. That's it. It's been a hot fucking minute. I need it out.
What music are you making for this EP? And what music do you make generally?
The sound for the EP is dreamy electronic pop, but I like experimenting. I would say I make pop music mixed with whatever I’m interested in at a given time, whether that’s alternative music or psytrance.
Who are your influences?
I love how Carly Rae Jepsen makes the sound of the ‘80s more modern. I also like how Glass Animals create atmosphere. For example, ZABA had this forest swampy vibe and they really came through with it. These are sounds I’ve always been interested in. Discovering these artists makes me feel seen as an artist by paving a way to understand new techniques. It's like, oh, I wish I made that, or I already had that in my head. I just didn't know how to express it yet.
I want to talk about how your queer identity informs your creativity. What do you identify as and what does that mean to you?
Honestly, that's a hard question because I don't know. Maybe I just don't like putting words into my identity – that’s where I find most comfort in. But I think I’m pansexual and non-binary. Pansexual is where gender doesn't really factor into who you are attracted to. I'd say I'm non-binary because I don't really care if someone sees me as a man or woman. I can be both, I can be none.
How did you arrive to that realization?
When I was young, I thought I was straight, then I thought I was asexual. Eventually, I realized I liked people not because of their gender, but because of certain qualities. It just so happens that a lot of these qualities are found in women because, personally, I'm attracted to femininity. Not a lot of boys are expressive of that. When I learned I was attracted to femininity, first and foremost, I was like, okay, maybe gender doesn't really matter. People are people if they express a certain thing. That’s what I'm attracted to.
How does this view on your identity inform your creativity?
When I write lyrics about romance, a lot of it is about yearning or a sense that I want something that I can’t have. I was raised in a Christian household, so I wasn’t allowed to like women. In my music, I would put in “you” instead of “he” or “she”, which I still carry over. How I relate with men and women is also very different. I know a lot of queer women would agree with me when I say: When you like a girl, it’s like “Oh my god, shit!” But when you like a guy, it’s like, “Okay … impress me.” I think because I have this attitude towards women, the music I write is the way it is.
What are the challenges of being a queer musician?
I think it’s about the platform. You see a lot of straight men in the gig scene. If you go to bars, it's just a lot of males. Good for them. I'm not saying you should stop that just because you're a straight man. But it's more uncommon to see a woman front lining without being sexualised and it's even more uncommon to see a whole band of girls. Then you make them queer? The representation dwindles. I didn't even have a queer artist to look up to when I was young.
Why do you think that is?
I just think people in the Philippines weren’t ready for it. I wanted to see queers playing the sax or the guitar when I was a kid. Slowly, we're giving queer artists a platform, but [growing up] was hard. Having someone to look up to would've helped me understand my sexuality and accept that I was different sooner.
What is something you wish more people understood about the queer community?
Being queer is not just about sex! People often hypersexualise the LGBT community. They’re like, “Oh, what do you guys do in the bedroom?” Well, what do straight people do in the bedroom? We're human too. We sleep, lie down, text. We make each other food and do chores. Sure, we’re talking about sexuality and who we want to fuck, but people delve into the fucking way too deeply. We need rights, man! Every privilege a married straight couple has, like owning land or signing our partner’s hospital papers – we don't have that. [The Philippines] isn’t ready for it yet. Maybe someday. We have to fight for it.
I also think there’s so much queer artists can offer because of our perspective, because we’ve been oppressed. I'm trying not to romanticise it because a lot of our lives are really sucky. But for some, the suffering creates really beautiful art. If you stop choosing to be blind, you can see how our experience paints a different shade of colour.
You can follow presh on Instagram, Twitter, and Spotify (presh, Rosa en Solana).
presh gives three Cultural Learnings of her own. Makata is an old-timey Tagalog word for “poet,” which the Filipino band Munimuni uses to describes their flavour of “makata” pop music. She-Ra and the Princesses of Power tackles mental health and trauma in a way children can understand, which is great. Similarly, she believes in the brilliant sex education in Sex Education.
Barclay, a frequent reader of Cultural Learnings, recommends “What Happened to Queer Happiness?” by Kevin Brazil on Granta. It’s his favourite piece on queerness from the last year.
The last two shows from this month’s Pride Month programme is finally available for playback. Here’s my “Queer Cinema” special and coates’ takeover of Manila Community Radio last week.
A profile I wrote of Diana Campbell Betancourt, chief curator of the Dhaka Art Summit, one of the most visited exhibitions in the world, was published on L’Officiel Philippines’ Summer print issue. You can read the piece here.
I’ve worked very closely with Marco Brambilla (director of Demolition Man) this past year and a half on his monumental new video work Heaven’s Gate, which is exhibiting in Pérez Art Museum Miami this Thursday, 17 June, until early 2022. If you’re in town, please go see it! Heaven’s Gate is his fourth installment of his video art series Megaplex.
Here’s American Psycho as an R&B song:
