Bass Coast Festival’s creative manager, Robbie Slade, calls Natasha Kmeto “Portland’s bass queen”. Quite fittingly, as her set was nothing less than royal. The Pirate Radio Stage’s courtyard is where she unleashed her soul, causing those present to surrender, rejoice, dance and hold each other.
So Natasha, you just finished your set, what’s your plan for the festival?
You know, when I actually get a chance to hang and do my thing, I just like to see musical acts and dance. It’s awesome to be outdoors in the elements, I feel like people let go a little more in the woods. People don’t have cell service, they get to disconnect and be in the music. I just like to join in that.
Basscoast actually does have cell service this year.
hahahah. I’m American so it costs me a lot of money. So I just turned my phone off.
Good call *wink* So, how did you link up with Basscoast?
Andrea is friends with mutual friends in Portland. We started talking and things came to fruition last year, they booked me. This year we did the remix contest and I started touring more in the Canadian market, so it just made sense.
About the remix contest. I’m wondering why give out Prideless, Idiot Proof and Deeply?
They were the most vocal forward and most easily adaptable into a remix. I wanted to hear what everyone would do with those.
And apart from the Basscoast EP selection are there any other submissions I should try and get from Andrea?
Ryan Connolly(?) did one of my favorites, it’s kinda trippy and glitchy. He did some really cool re-harmonization and sampling of my vocals. And my homie from Portland Graintable I felt like did a really good job with his… I might be biased, because he’s a Portland producer, but I thought his was really good too.
For those who don’t know, these tracks are all off you’re LP Crisis. I’d like to know, what was the biggest inspiration within you to write Crisis?
I had a lot of personal revolutions, I got a lot more honest with myself and I decided to make the most honest music that I could. Before that I was hiding behind using technique and non-genuine things like vague lyrics. Once I got to Crisis, it was like, I’m just going to say what I mean and just go for it. I plan on continuing that with the new record that’s coming out next year. I feel like I finally found my stride. It’s good.
So you’ve recently, in the past year, dialed-in your sound to this current vibe. I’m curious as to what that means, what was the process for you?
The main driver is definitely the emotional honesty, but when I set out to make Crisis, I picked a very limited sonic pallet. It was the first time I limited myself to a certain amount of sounds to create with and I think it shaped a more cohesive body of work. That, opposed to where I would just do whatever, because you know with electronic music you have so many sounds and samples at your disposal and if you don’t narrow it down it can get a little hodge-podge. I wanted to stick to a sonic pallet without making it overly genre based.
totally, and on that note, how do you describe your sound, like with what keywords? And how does that affect the marketing of it?
I just say electronic RnB. My next record is going to be a bit more forward songwriting, I guess it’s going to be a little bit more pop—not that it’s pop, because it’s not.
But it will be POPular.
Hopefully! Hahah. I just tell people I produce beats and sing over them. I try not to catalogue into any sort of genre.
That probably helps in today’s market. You know, using those keywords will inevitably narrow the field for everyone.
Exactly, then if you commit to a genre it could be out next year. I don’t really subscribe to the genre thing, although it does make some things easier, I think in the long run it’s better to break free of over-categorization. Just be open to things, don’t put them in a box.
Soulful photo’s thanks to: zipporahlomax
