Sui Zhen: Sleepless at SXSW

LP: So I'm here at South by Southwest, you're here, a bunch of people are here, artists, business people. Everybody's clamoring to get on panels or get in showcases basically to perform for free in the hopes of exposure or attention. Meanwhile, badges are a thousand dollars. Somebody's making money from everybody else's free labor because there's this hope that everyone will get noticed.

I try not to be cynical about it, but it's heartbreaking, especially when I see artists and young artists who just don't get noticed. They have something to say and they want to be heard and they will do anything because that's what an artist wants, is to connect with audience and this place promises audience.

Sui Zhen: Well, that's it, right? As long as you're participating in this system, you're subscribing to these capitalist values that time has a monetary value - your time in exchange for some kind of monetary value. And that's it. I guess it's like, you'll never be free as long as we're accepting money for our time or our services or our art from the roots and the dirtiness of where that money comes from.

When you were just talking, I was thinking about monopolies. When there becomes a monopoly, when South by Southwest gets so big that it has a monopoly, then these other ticketing companies, they have a monopoly and then they buy out everything else. You're trying to make a decision - what's the better ethical way to get to the event, Lyft or Uber? Then you realize that Uber has bought Lyft and you're just like, what does it all mean? It's all a facade. Essentially, the same people are collecting the money at the end of the day, where you get it from.

LP: And there's fewer and fewer of them.

Sui Zhen: There's fewer and fewer. So in terms of our ethical choices, I don't know. I just see them as a means to conversation like this, like what we're having right now. This is what I wanted to have. This is actually why I came here.

I wasn't aware of the kind of weapons industry alliances that South By had when I applied. I had a really difficult run of life. I've had parent loss and child loss in my last five years. So I'm coming from a perspective of getting back into a musical practice that can hopefully sustain some part of my lifestyle. With a young family now too - I have a second child - I'm coming back into the music industry and I wanted to touch down in South By to connect with American culture more broadly, American music industry culture, and also to see what conversations were happening with regards to Palestinian solidarity and how they might contrast or complement some of the experiences I've had in so-called Australia and within the arts and cultural community there, which has also become very divisive because of people tracing back where money comes from.

I hadn't really got a true sense of that within the music industry, whereas in the arts and cultural sector in so-called Australia, there's been very clear paths towards money that is linked to illegal settlements in the West Bank. That's a clear path, so people have received funding for their art practice for many years and they're in that junction of, okay, how do I proceed now?

The music industry has always been up against these huge conglomerates and corporations like Spotify, streaming services. There's nothing new about our need to resist. There's nothing new about it. The alliances - I think it's important to be really aware of it, but there always needs to be nuance and solidarity. Resistance looks different for everyone from their own points of privilege.

We talked off mic about class being a huge factor. I think right now I was really impressed at the airport to see quite a lot of people unloading musical equipment that looks to be from, at least from appearances, different countries. I looked at their tags and like, "Oh, cool. This is like, there's a lot of people coming."

What is their experience of this call to suddenly boycott when they would have potentially had to fund from multiple sources to even get to America to begin with, to navigate visa situations with lawyers, lawyer fees, all these fees? You're asking them to sacrifice a lot in that moment and I think it's a very - I'm looking at the divisiveness I've seen on the internet, online, on the online discourse anyway, and seeing that it really hasn't taken into account the very different situations, scenarios, or privileges that each person who has worked hard to come to South By has gotten through to then land here and to be shamed for not joining this boycott, which has seemed to kind of just bubble over in the last few weeks.

LP: It's interesting as well because I've been getting a lot of texts from people saying, "What's it like this year? Are there tons of artists dropping out?" I don't really perceive that here. But I think because we're inside the bubble, the message is controlled more. Whereas when I look in Apple News, I see all these headlines in Pitchfork or whatever it is about how artists are dropping out left and right, but I don't see it here. It's really strange.

Sui Zhen: This is a really important point to make - it's not just a media narrative that's being pushed out right now that the impact of this boycott is larger than it is for whatever reasons. Because on the ground, I actually was really stunned and disheartened by the lack of visible-

LP: No protesters, there's no signs.

Sui Zhen: There's no signs. And I was like, "Yeah, there's no signs." I've been trying to craft a post for a good forty-eight hours about what I want to say. But my perspective is shifting, which is that I don't like to just blindly jump onto any kind of movement before I've hit the community, the local community on the ground and reached out to the different organizations who are kind of involved in solidarity actions in Austin. I'm trying to understand what their call is and there was an exchange I had which seemed to be, "Use your platform to raise awareness for this and to put pressure from within," and I was like, "Okay, well that's something I can do."

Then I'm hearing online, "These many bands are pulled out." Then I go to the convention center and I see people holding signs for all these different brands that are offering free something, but no "Free Palestine." And I'm like, "Isn't that a reason to be that voice here?" I know there's a lot of conjecture about the possible change that you can do from within the system, but this is not one of those things - I haven't experienced yet being silenced by South By for even for being able to use the platform.

I've seen someone do a show online. They were wearing a keffiyeh and using their platform. I thought that was a positive thing. If South By was taking the approach to silence artists, well, that's a very different - that's different.

LP: Did you see the statement they released last night?

Sui Zhen: The one that was circulated on Pitchfork, I saw.

LP: Yeah, the one that people have been pretty outraged because my perception was they were seventy percent of the way there. And then the defense of the Defense Department was interesting because it was factually true, but it didn't need to be said in that context.

Sui Zhen: I one hundred percent agree. The factually true point - so I actually, in this post that I have not yet posted, I quoted that line that you're talking about, about the defense industry. And then I wanted to contrast it to a page from a book by a Melbourne-based Jewish author who has taken an anti-Zionist stance on this issue. He's written a book called The Palestine Laboratory and his name is Antony Loewenstein.

LP: We'll link to it from the show notes.

Sui Zhen: Yeah. And so people might want to read more about what these companies are actually involved in. Use this moment of becoming aware of the weapons industry and their sponsorship of South By to then go, "Oh, okay. Who are these companies? What are they responsible for?" Learn about the actual weapons. It is overwhelming to actually sit with the information. So I think, as you said, it's a true comment, what South By put out - new technologies are being created.

LP: Thank you for the internet, U.S. Defense Department, but please stop what you're doing.

Sui Zhen: Exactly. It's crazy. Yeah, in so-called Australia, it's our tax dollars, and same for Americans - our tax dollars are funding a lot of this, so there's not a clear path to completely remove yourself from a system that is predicated on what we're all here and living in relative comfort.

LP: I'm sorry we're spending so much time on it, but it's fascinating, and to have somebody to engage with on it has actually been helpful for me, because I haven't really known that - I haven't really been able to talk about it. It's been a weird topic.

So I spent a couple of days thinking, I just feel bad. And I didn't come to South By to feel this way. Now that's terribly narcissistic of a reaction. But I guess when I unpack that, what I really mean is, if you had said to me two months ago, "The U.S. Army and a lot of defense contractors are going to be sponsoring showcases at South By," I guess I wouldn't have been surprised in this day and age, but I never would have expected - it never occurred to me to think this is something that's going to happen. I'm so surprised by it, but I'm not. The cynical side of me obviously isn't, or the realist side, but it just seems unnecessary. I understand it's a weird time to try to make a business work and I guess it's expensive to do all this in a society like America where there isn't a lot of funding for arts and support and things like that, but I don't know. It's just not the conversation that should be going on this week. This should be a celebration of art and science and film - that's why we came here, I think.

Sui Zhen: Yeah, I think so. The other thing is there's been a lot of debate and protest in our academic sector in Australia, because there are heaps of universities that accept a lot of funding from different arms manufacturers.

LP: To fund research or degree programs?

Sui Zhen: Yes, exactly. So there's like Lockheed Martin who have been a big company that is involved with the University of Melbourne. I have friends who are at certain levels of study in this, one of the top universities in Australia. So how far do you take that approach?

LP: And how does that manifest in their day-to-day? Are they aware? Do they have to see branding?

Sui Zhen: Yes, exactly. So I think - I don't know, because I'm all for the BDS movement, but I just think from what I've learned, divestment is also - pressuring from within to have divestment from the arms manufacturers as an outcome is also a very valid form of action.

So then from the university sector it's like pressuring the universities to divest. Obviously universities are so wrapped up and had money stripped from the public funding, all this kind of stuff, so it's not a clear path from within either. A lot of the university sector in Australia - you look around and it's just a money-making machine for taking money from international students, depriving the local - it's all like this kind of big unveiling.

The webs of trying to detangle yourself from these nefarious kinds of companies - it's a life's work. The other thing I was talking to another friend about, who's a musician, American LA-based musician, before coming to South By - he was like, "Why do you think there's such a different response to the movement in Melbourne than there is for him in LA? What are some of the things that might be playing into this?" I think one of them is again, privilege - not for all Australians, but a lot of Australians have benefit of Medicare. These services, obviously, it's completely imperfect and it leaves a lot of people out of the system and there's a lot of loopholes and all this kind of stuff, particularly for people who have different illnesses that are not clearly recognized or all this kind of stuff.

But for the large part, there is a public health system. There is also governmental funding, again, equally flawed, for when you're out of periods of work or there's artists who can apply for funding from the government to get support for things like this, for attending South By. There are certainly people that are going to these actions who are without privilege, but then there are certainly people that have security back home somewhere, whether they have multi-generational family, they have family that they can rely upon, that the pressure of rent isn't so bad that they have to be at their job instead of attending a protest.

There's all these privileges that even enable people to protest. And then there's also sheer desperation from another part of Palestinian community, Arab community, who have family members who need it emotionally just to show up at the protest and forget whatever work situation they're doing. It is the most urgent and important thing.

But there's certainly a lot of people who are attending because they go, "Oh, yeah, I can take this risk in my life. It's not going to - it's not going to disrupt my lifestyle so much. I've got some savings there. I can miss this week of work or whatever."

LP: Even if I get arrested, I'm not going to get thrown into prison.

Sui Zhen: A hundred percent, because I'm white-passing, so I'm not going to be targeted, racially profiled. So there's all these things that I think people have to be really conscious of. Yeah, solidarity is going to look different for everybody. So what, coming back to the average day-to-day for people living in America, isn't it interesting that so much money is spent on arms industry and not on addressing homelessness or these huge issues?

LP: And we've known that for generations. We've known that for generations.

Sui Zhen: So it's like, why are we fighting each other is basically my endpoint. Why are we attacking the people? It's always the system. And I think that when I see people spending energy just attacking an artist who made this "Free Palestine" shirt because they decided to do their official showcases and then getting fully attacked by other people who are in the movement - I was like, "Okay, this is a lot of energy being spent on the wrong person." That person claiming that they're hurting the boycott movement - not really, they're trying to be complementary to the boycott movement.

LP: In America, it's the biggest problem. I don't know how it translates outside of this country, but in America, that is the problem with the American left, is that there are purity tests and infighting, whereas if we watch what happened on the right, if we just go back to when the other president was elected, how many people were interviewed that said, "Yeah, we don't like him. We don't like the way he treats women. We don't like the language he uses. We don't like he's a bully. We don't like this and this, but he's going to get us more of what we want. So he's our guy." We don't do that on the left. It's always, "We're not getting enough. So we're not going to support that person." And now we have these existential, societal-

Sui Zhen: Yeah, it's the same, it's the same in Australian democracy as well. The infighting takes up all the energy and capacity. Maybe for some advocates and lobbyists outside of the political system. For example, I'll give one example. I follow a group that are called the Black People's Union, and they're a First Nations union. They're a First Nations union within so-called Australia. And recently, to paint some context, there was a referendum to have recognition of a voice to Parliament of our First Nations.

LP: Sure, like an advocacy group.

Sui Zhen: Yeah, that's right. It's completely imperfect and there was a yes campaign, suspiciously endorsed by the Labor government, centre-left government. And then there were these no campaigns, some were just downright racist no campaigns, some were just ignorant no campaigns. And then some were coming from First Nations communities as well. And I think there was a lot of confusion, there just wasn't general traction and the referendum failed. People were very crushed by this kind of reflection of what is actually true of the society, that it's racist, that people cannot fully grapple with the ongoing struggle of First Nations communities in all of their diversity across the lands of so-called Australia.

These communities are not united in this moment. The very fact that there was an expectation to demonstrated the one view of Indigenous Australian not being this diverse group of many different nations and cultures.

LP: Speaking with one voice.

Sui Zhen: Exactly, speaking with one voice. So then when you read from the statement about why no from Black People's Union who are operating outside of the political system, it was really important that there is no compromise from people within that position. But political parties are different, you know what I mean? They operate differently. So I think to what you're saying - unification is important within these parties and within, I think, to shift the pendulum, whatever the analogy is.

So where I think for some people there should be no compromise in their values, of course, and to educate others that have the benefit of listening from people's experience, lived experience - it's different when you're working within systems.

LP: There's a certain pragmatism that unfortunately is called for.

Sui Zhen: Yes.

LP: Yeah.

Sui Zhen: Unfortunately.

LP: Outside of all of this - music. So, the world aside- (laughter)

Sui Zhen: Exactly! (laughter)

LP: Honestly, I intended to start this conversation with, "How has your South by Southwest experience been professionally?" and "Have you seen any good music?" And now it feels like a fairly trite question. It also is important because again, we're here to see and be seen.

Sui Zhen: Well, okay. So my artist name is my Chinese Malaysian name, Sui Zhen. And I came here to want to practice being more authentic to my artistry. I think it's a simple aspiration. It could lead to deeper connection and hopefully more long-lasting audience members, I guess. So one example, I used to always anglicize my Chinese name and make it easier for people to say - used to say "Soo-ee Chen" and "Soo E Chan" and make it very easy to pronounce, which I came up with that approach in discussion with my grandpa, who's since passed on.

But now I'm more embracing my cultural identity. And particularly since my mom has passed away, feeling more of an urgency to need to do that. And so I'm coming in and I'm practicing being an artist who's confident in that. So saying "Sui Zhen," more Chinese pronunciation, imperfect. Still coming in with my music, which is largely responding to moments where I've had devastation of loss of loved ones.

And so I create a lot of music about grief and processing that grief and trauma. And in that, creating a space for people to come into that musical experience and connect with their own, whatever it is, their own grief. Using music back to what I think it is so great for outside of what we were saying, this kind of transactional people wanting to compete and get to the top of whatever that mountain is in music.

I just wanted to come here and connect with people who enjoy music for this purpose, for healing or for just connection with others. So far, I haven't yet played my shows. They're on the fourteenth of March. I've got two official shows as well. I haven't hustled for unofficial shows because I'm on an ESTA visa, can't do that on my ESTA visa, and particularly I'm traveling with my partner and my toddler.

This time I'm trying to do South By to see what it's like as a family and to see - is it an accepting space for a young family? Can touring be an accepting space for a young family? Because for me to continue being a musician and to sustain a musical lifestyle and to generate some kind of income from that, I need to be able to integrate my family life into it.

So this was a kind of test for that too. And so far, I haven't really seen many toddlers around, but I did take Ziggy, my son, to the green room space and he was very entertained. There was lots of warmth for him being there. And I think this could be a place that is more receptive. They certainly have the funding to make it more welcoming. I think that's something that I would like.

LP: They could certainly have the, the army, uh, daycare center. It's never too young to start the indoctrination. (laughter)

Have you ever read any of Brandi Carlile's writings about trying to do exactly what you were saying? As she got a little bit older and finally figured out how to have a family, she didn't want to be the type of artist that would go away for three months at a time. So she just said, "We're taking the circus on the road with us and we'll figure it out."

Put in an infrastructure and maybe it means there's less money made or whatever it means, but she just said, "I'm not giving up my family and I'm not giving up my art and damn it, I'm going to figure it out."

Sui Zhen: I haven't read, but I will, I'll definitely take note. And I love reading about other people who have yeah, been true to their values in that way of family and also their artistic practice. And I thought that South By would be a good place to test the ground because it's like the showcases, it's not like there's a huge - there's no fee, a huge fee riding on them. It's like, people would just come if they know about it, if they can find out about it amongst all the noise of South By Southwest.

I have very little expectations, so it was just something I thought would be a good experience to kind of see how my family fit in. There's lots of opportunities to check out other free events and stuff like that might be happening in the daytime. And then at night with my partner here and stuff, I'd be available to go and attend things myself.

So I didn't do that last night because I was trying to craft a damn post about what this whole - what that means, my manifesto, which just turned into too big a thing. I was like, "I think this is more than just a caption now," but it turned into slides and then I was like, "Just bring it back to something simple so I can just start spruiking my shows."

I think it's just really good to travel as an artist without the pressure of touring too, and to get to know communities. I think so much of touring is just in and out of places. So this is another thing. I love coming to a place and being here for at least a week and then trying to find other communities that I might actually - finding where the record store is or finding where the independent bookstores and all these kinds of stuff where the counterculture exists so that you can actually authentically connect with the communities rather than just this in and out.

LP: Eating breakfast at the hotel or a local fast food restaurant on your way to the next city.

Sui Zhen: Yeah, yeah.

LP: There's this quote from - it's a little bit dated now, but an interview I read a long time ago with Jerry Garcia, the Grateful Dead, and he said, "We play in three places: San Francisco, which is home, New York, and everywhere else." And at the time, you know, I laughed. I thought with the benefit of age and travel myself like that - it's tragic.

Sui Zhen: Yeah.

LP: The amount of time they spent on the road, it speaks to so many things - being in a bubble, not being able to go out because maybe you're going to get idolized by fans and harassed or not feeling like you could go out because you're worried about that or whatever it is. But that seems like - that seems like an awful life.

Sui Zhen: Yeah, it does. Coming back to that point of monopolies, it's like - I've been trying to think about this in the context of South By. This is something I thought about, which is, I think a productive thought to have whilst being here is that what are we all actually doing?

There's a lot of self-interest involved in coming to South By because you're trying to build your audience or your platform or something like that. But I think that we should be thinking of how to keep the music and art experience diverse, allowing space for lots of different voices and not just these, again, this monopoly approach where this one main - not fall into celebrity culture within music.

How can one person speak for all experiences in their songwriting? I think like smaller, more sustainable export and touring of artists should be thought about and discussed in terms of how can you make that viable in your practice to just go to a region for a while, get to know the region, make work that responds to that region or connect or collaborate within that region, and then come back, process it, do stuff in your own home country.

But we send people on these massive tours to kind of just-

LP: Bad for the environment. Bad for the environment. Bad for them.

Sui Zhen: Bad for them. Totally divorce them from their community. And their relevance within their community, because I'd be interested in discussions around that. And I saw that there were some panels - I've gotten lost in the schedule. When was that thing that I was going to see? Yeah, but there were, I think those kinds of approaches speaking to that Grateful Dead quote, I think would be really worthy of discussion at all. It all ties in.

So what I was going to tie that back to is of learning from different ancient indigenous cultures and taking only what you can give back. I think that could be applied to yourself as well - not trying to do something that is ultimately setting you up for a cycle of just unsustainable red-lining in your own capacity existence. I'd like to hear more stories about people who've been striving for that kind of better balance.

LP: Don't live in constant exhaustion.

Sui Zhen: Yeah.

LP: It's interesting, about ten or twelve years ago, a friend of mine who is in artist management - she was working with, and I believe still works with, a lot of developing younger artists. And she had a very similar idea to what you're articulating. She wanted to find a way to take an artist - I believe the artist was based on the West Coast, I don't remember, but that's not the relevant point.

And she wanted to send them to Chicago for a month. And they were fairly unknown artists at that point, but she said, "Let's just go find every bar that books small bands in Chicago and just have them play all the time. And maybe rent a flat or an Airbnb somewhere where they could set up as a base, that's like a house in a neighborhood, not in a hotel somewhere, where they can live together and write and just go be somewhere for a month. And live in the city, and maybe by the second or third week, they'll start to meet other artists in the community from being the support act for local bands, and just go try that as an experiment."

Sui Zhen: Yeah, yeah.

LP: And the real barrier to that was just funding, really. But she had made some really interesting strides because there were opportunities for - here there were opportunities for - there's always brands that want to be affiliated with music, and she was like, "This could be a really interesting story for a project, soda company or whatever." It never came to fruition, but it's stuck with me for so long. It's just a fascinating idea, similar to what you're saying. And if you could do that around the country, you could really build meaningful connection with the community and with an audience, and if you left with five hundred fans, that would be an accomplishment.

Sui Zhen: Yeah, definitely. And if those fans were truly connected to your work and really create a space in their life to let it in, I think that's really important.

I also, the other thing I was going to say is I've always supported my musical practice by having a quote, "regular job," because I haven't really wanted to corrupt my practice out of making decisions purely based on that money survival thing.

LP: That's so interesting. I'm sorry to interrupt you, but that's interesting because when I was exploring your work, I was thinking this music, this art is not made with a commercial intention. And I wanted to find a way to ask you that question, which was, in fact, it seems to be getting further away from a pop sensibility.

Sui Zhen: The thirteen-minute song that I just released? (laughter)

LP: Well, here's the thing about that. And I - this is incredibly shallow and I'm going to ask you to forgive me. You know, when I knew I was going to be here for a few days, I reached out to a bunch of publicists and people that we work with. And I said, "I'm going to be in Austin. If you have artists there, let me know." The person who connected us sent me four artists and the description of you, it said, "who's about to release a thirteen-minute epic." And I was like, "Oh, I mean, that's the artist I want to talk to." And then I listened to it.

I mean, I sort of like atmospheric music, but it does - it really doesn't - it deserves, because if you listen to "Sleepless," there's these tremendous moments of - there's the spoken word section, but then there's also pop elements in the context of this thirteen-minute epic. It's really remarkable. It's a remarkable piece.

Sui Zhen: Oh yeah, exactly. To your point, yeah, do not have any commercial imperative, but I also know that authenticity is the ultimate connection point for people on the other end.

LP: Especially for longevity.

Sui Zhen: For longevity. And I think you can have all of those things that are incredibly marketable, but if they're not coming from an authentic point of expression, their capacity for longevity within someone's life...

In saying that though, something that was really confronting to me was - I don't know how, this feels like a tangent, but it's somehow connected. So I was talking about the movement before, the solidarity for Palestine movement in Melbourne. Basically, Taylor Swift came to town and there was so much visibility, right?

LP: Mayhem.

Sui Zhen: Yeah. Mayhem. Three nights apparently produced over a hundred million dollars for whomever is on her massive team - whoever's making money off Taylor Swift. I'm sure a lot of people are, a lot riding on that going well. One of my friends, they're a librarian actually, and they're also a musician and they're also Jewish, and they really - I think they're also a Swiftie.

And they were conflicted and they made this beautiful banner that was like a "Swifties for Palestine" banner and they wanted to go up and go with compassion and have a presence in the queues knowing that there are a lot of very young, young people, particularly young women, young girls, children at these concerts accompanied by their parents who have really gotten some kind of empowering message from Taylor.

So there's this kind of difficulty in how to navigate, because ultimately I'm very anti-celebrity culture in what it actually does. That's my stance. So they asked me if I wanted to be involved in this action. I just cannot - I cannot put that value aside to come, but I will support you. I will share your event. I'll share your "Fifties for Palestine." But I guess, yeah, there's something that there's something that is authentic within the community, this celebrity's message that connects with a lot of young people. I think that the criticism was that the platform of some of these celebrities is huge and they could be using it to spread very important messages and their position is neutrality always.

So in that sense, I don't see that in the same thing that we're talking about, this artistry, this music. It's not sitting within the same kind of space. But people who-

LP: I feel a lot of compassion for her because in America, the pressure on Taylor Swift is to activate her audience for President Biden. That's a narrative here, that she should be doing that.

Sui Zhen: That is so intense. Imagine that.

LP: Well, and to your point, a big part of her brand here has been deliberate neutrality. And I'm saying all this - it's all her prerogative. I'm just relating to the story. So now the question is, she's the biggest artist of the moment on the planet in terms of commercial reach and visibility.

I think the question for her is, does she believe she's at the top or is there further to go? Because if she believes she can be bigger, there's tremendous downside for her in one version of that story to using her voice to pick a side.

Sui Zhen: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

LP: I don't agree with that, but I understand that mental construct or that view of the world. If she's at the top, she should go for broke and mobilize her army.

Sui Zhen: Yeah, yeah. Exactly, exactly, exactly. So on that though, what is the top and is it infinite?

LP: That's right. What is the top?

Sui Zhen: What is the top? Because like coming to that back to learning from indigenous culture is only taking what you need. I'm sorry, but having millions and millions of dollars or some people that you walk past people in Austin on the streets who are confronted by this free shit - sorry, there's free-

LP: No, you, please, be your authentic, vulgar self. (laughter)

Sui Zhen: Free, some weird specific soda that doesn't really need to exist on the one hand, and you've got this person who's an unhomed person with various foods being spread out in their camp on the street. How does that work with someone then being making hundreds of millions? How much money do you actually need in this system?

And I think that around the time of all this happening, Beyoncé released a country album and I was like, "Why is this the most urgent, important message that this pop star can do right now in this moment?" It all reads so jarringly. And it speaks to me from a different place. It's like, I don't see that as music. I don't see that as that. That is just like, it's something else. It doesn't exist in the same realm.

So coming back to "Sleepless," I only make stuff when I have something to say and I have something to say when I've lived through something that I feel like could be something that is a universal thing. Grief, death, loss - that's universal. That's a big thing. Those are the big topics that everyone will need to confront at various times in their life. So I think they serve different purposes, don't they? But yeah, I just do think - what is the top and what are people chasing?

I feel so lucky even that I had traumatic experiences and then I had a community around to... My community raised funds for me to get mental health support, where our governmental system doesn't recognize grief as something that would warrant treatment.

And I feel like grief and trauma is one of the prominent issues that put people in vulnerable places and throw them into even more vulnerable places, make other decisions that might land them in trouble, in very precarious circumstances. So I think that the community came together and that whole mutual aid concept has really benefited me.

I felt incredibly privileged. I feel privileged to be here, to take an international flight, to share my personal story at a time when so many people cannot share their stories or are getting silenced for sharing their story. I'm so happy that I got to release "Sleepless" and that people like yourself are listening to it.

That's my success moment. You know, like, "Oh, someone listened to it, connected and was like, 'Oh, you pick up on the pop sensibilities.'" I have to say that one of the references - I don't know how it sits in the American audience, but as a teenager, I really connected with Jane's Addiction and I don't know how they're perceived now as a band.

LP: Well, I mean, it's mixed because they, they're now a nostalgia band. They didn't continue to be vital.

Sui Zhen: They stopped, right? And so they didn't keep going until - although they did tour fairly recently, but they didn't.

LP: They don't make music. They don't make new music. They're a Greatest Hits band, which is fine. They're entitled to earn a living, but it's like, there was a moment in America where they were revered.

Sui Zhen: Yeah. And Perry Farrell had something to do - he created Lollapalooza.

LP: Yeah.

Sui Zhen: So I don't know how I connect in with that, but I guess it was more like when you listen to music in your formative years and it just shapes your whole identity.

LP: All that aside, those are great records. That's a great- I mean, yeah.

Sui Zhen: And it's the expanse of that - I've embodied that in "Sleepless" in terms of the call to kind of (sings a melody).

LP: Your reference to Can blew my mind. Oh yeah. I was like, "Oh okay."

Sui Zhen: The drumming, because so Can's like a band and also this Krautrock - again, all these things that they're all connected aren't they? Like what Krautrock emerging from post-Nazi Germany kind of thing - it all connects in this moment.

LP: And the way it goes to Detroit and then the black community picks it up and we get hip hop influence and techno.

Sui Zhen: See what I mean about-

LP: I have to diverge for one second. And so the first time I saw Kraftwerk in concert was in Detroit. I went to Detroit to see them and it was like all the old heads were there.

Sui Zhen: I got to see Kraftwerk - it was some gross festival thing, only a festival that could afford to bring a band and the full staging of Kraftwerk. I don't know what it was, but I remember just being like, "Oh yeah, okay, so this is clearly what inspired so many people and shaped the course of-"

LP: And you go back and listen to the records and you're like, "When was this made?" It's really hard to appreciate because we're so out of context with it, what it must have been like in the mid-late '70s for those records to come out. It's stunning.

Sui Zhen: Yeah. Now that we're talking about influences, another influence for me, in terms of American culture, because obviously we absorb a lot of culture in Australia, we live in the shadow of America - when I discovered Laurie Anderson, and that's the spoken word kind of references to me. And still Laurie Anderson continues to inspire me.

That big festival I talked off mic - I was talking about Hobart as a town that has been radically transformed by something not dissimilar to what South by Southwest is in Austin, like by this Dark Mofo festival, by MONA Museum. It's totally changed the landscape of that southernmost island of so-called Australia.

But Laurie Anderson traveled down there and performed, did her show - I forget the title - relating to the fact that all of her possessions and Lou Reed's and her archives were flooded out. And she created a show about it, which has a lot of spoken word. It's got some of her response to that, playing the viola or violin. And there was also some audiovisual stuff going on too, but as an authentic response to this huge life event was so moving for the audience, so captivating and humanizing.

Yeah, what would you do if all your sentimental items were destroyed? Very relevant again for this moment when we're reflecting on the global situation of people having their homes and personal possessions destroyed. Anyway, Laurie Anderson's work for me has been a constant kind of going back to.

I think when you make authentic work like that, it's like a resource for many decades. You know, I go back to her work and I find something different in what she's said or a simple phrase in her lyrics and stuff. It's kind of interesting because I worked on "Sleepless" over a number of years during these big life events.

And so there was probably time for me to put those influences in and stitch them together. I've called it like a tapestry of a lot of my influences because it did feel like I was tending to it. And then I'm like, "Move on," and people were like, "We're not going to release that." I'm like, "It's not really about the release of it for me. It's more about me working on this piece. I don't even know what it's going to become."

But then when I was before in the lead-up to coming here for South By, I just had this instinct that I want to put this out. I want to - this is what I want to talk about. This is what I want to talk... And again, we've been talking about why do people come to South By?

For me, it's one of those opportunities, I guess, where there is space for conversation around music outside of the tour schedule. We're just going, hammering it out - "Here's my show!" No chance to debrief or hear what the actual response to it was, and then you go to the next city and do that. Some people might come here because they're trying to get a booking agent or get this or get that.

Those for me would be added benefits to being here - that would be great to have more support on my team. But ultimately, I'll find that support somehow if I really want it. This is more about me doing a show and saying, "What did you think about that? I don't know. How does it make you feel? Do you think I should keep having that AV in there or is that too much?"

You know, like just - I want to ask practical questions. I like that about showcasing is that you can try things and just see what songs, cram them all in in a set and see what people actually come away remembering. I have a perception of how to put together a show, but I'm always interested to hear how people receive it.

LP: Are you alone on stage for these shows this week?

Sui Zhen: For these ones I am. I normally have a band, but sometimes I actually prefer solo, especially when I'm experimenting. Okay, so "Sleepless" with the band has gone for twenty-five minutes live before and it's not very well suited for a showcase.

LP: I don't know about that. I saw a show last night-

Sui Zhen: Oh yeah?

LP: Do you know this band, Mong Tong?

Sui Zhen: Oh, I think I've heard of that band, yeah. Where are they from?

LP: Taiwan.

Sui Zhen: Yeah. That's the other thing, there's a lot of interesting international acts.

LP: The international houses this year have been the highlight. And they were billed as a Taiwanese psychedelic - and then I was like, "Yeah, yeah, okay, I'm in." But it was so much more than that. I mean, basically, really ambient. Towards the end of their set, there was more structure to the songs, but it was two people, one with a guitar, one with a bass, each with a very Kraftwerk-like workstation in front of them, and then between the two of them rolling drum pads.

Sui Zhen: Oh, yeah.

LP: And when they come out, they put full blindfolds on their faces.

Sui Zhen: Oh, wow.

LP: And pull them down so you - there's definitely - they're not cheating. And they perform the blindfolded piece. I'm not sure what's necessary. It gives it a little bit of like, "Wow, aren't they virtuosic?" The music is really - it reminded me a lot of "Sleepless." It was layered and very hard to tell what was improvised versus what was composed, which I very much like - that mystery.

Sui Zhen: Me too. And I feel like a lot of the music I'm making lately is always somewhat partially improvised. Again, coming to that point that we're talking about touring, doing the - rolling out the same show, it almost becomes like that performance.

I think there is totally space for performance and for performing to a script. Theater is an example of that, when you've got a really well-packaged and really well-designed show with all the beats and the pacing and the tension and release. But I think with music, there's so much avenue for responding to a vibe and a present moment for a specific group of people who have come to watch you in that space and giving something to them. Because most musicians have that skill to improvise. They can use it, but they get in this mode of "do this, do this, this will work" or "this hits work."

LP: On this podcast, it's always fun to talk to classical musicians or people who moved from being classically trained into a world of improvisation because they were trained to not improvise and to basically unlearn the ability to improvise. And it's so fascinating to hear them talk about that journey.

Sui Zhen: And I actually love - I'm not classically trained, but there were periods in lockdown where I used the many available tools to teach myself Bach pieces and find a connection to learning how to play a piece and how differently you can play one piece.

LP: That's why people still attack that canon - it's not done being interpreted.

Sui Zhen: There's so much to get from these pieces as well that you can take away and just sit on for a long time. So I think that whole process - again, it feels like a very different part of the brain that is being activated when you're reinterpreting from a score and making sure you hit it all, get all the pacing and the nuance of those pieces true to how they were composed.

But then I think for experimental musicians or musicians who are kind of operating outside of that, I feel like there's so much exciting stuff to do when you just open yourself up, yeah, respond to the energy in the room. And I'm seeing more artists do that. I feel like there's more of an openness and receptiveness.

LP: I agree. There's a youth movement around improvisational music, a lot of electro-acoustic things happening in Europe. I have a lot of artists on here who are from Germany or Switzerland who are coming out of the academy, mixing jazz with beat-driven or electronic-driven music. In America there's certainly a jazz resurgence amongst young people, I think, initially driven through hip hop, but now young kids that are coming up making improvised music. It's very exciting.

Sui Zhen: Yeah, super exciting.

LP: I didn't get to almost any of my questions. We had such a wonderful discussion and I'm going to get kicked out of this room.

Sui Zhen: Oh yeah, sure.

LP: So, I don't know. I hope to talk to you again someday.

Sui Zhen: I'm always there.

LP: It's been wonderful talking to you.

Sui Zhen: Thank you. No worries.