Interview with Lipstick Music

Freshly from the studio shelf, Lipstick Music is a brand new project from Lili Molli Shina and Dj Kit (previously 1⁄3 of PC Music’s Planet 1999). With heavy basslines and glamorous vocals, almost making you wish you missed your ex, the duo’s sound is simultaneously nostalgic and futuristic.

Preceding their show with EQ on 21st of May, we talked with Alex and Lili about the future, getting vulnerable, and yearning scored by synthesisers.

Gosia: Describe the ultimate Liptick Music listening experience. 

Lili: Dancing weirdly in front of your mirror while listening to weird sexy music.

Alex: Driving on the highway at night with a great sound system and no one else on the road 

Power remains in simple things, we try to make it universal.

G: Departing from Planet 1999, which was a successful and recognisable project, what do you hope to bring in with Lipstick Music that you weren’t able to do with the previous project? 

Alex: I don’t compare the two projects, Lipstick Music represents what feels true to me now.

Courtesy of Lipstick Music

G: One of my favourite things about your music is the dissonance between heavily synthesised sounds and emotional, very human lyrics. How are you trying to make people feel, and what role does attachment play in this?

Lili: I think the sound has to be minimalist and controlled so I can have the free way to say such raw stuff. Power remains in simple things, we try to make it universal.

I think being intimate is the realest thing you can do in life and choosing to do it through electronic music makes it louder for everyone to hear. 

G: Your music feels both intimate and highly stylised. How much of the sexuality in your work is genuine, and to what extent is it part of a constructed persona? 

Lili: We truly believe music is a world where we can feel ourselves, be free and unapologetic in other ways, love is what feeds us, and love is sex.

Alex: It’s 100% genuine, Lipstick Music is an amplified version of us.

G: Do you ever worry that framing intimacy through a polished, electronic sound risks turning it into something consumable rather than something real? 

Lili: I think being intimate is the realest thing you can do in life and choosing to do it through electronic music makes it louder for everyone to hear. 

Photo by Renée Paule

G: When you’re releasing something this early, do you feel more freedom or more pressure to define yourselves before people do it for you? 

Lili: We live day by day like this, not only with music, when we feel something or create something it has to go out into the world so that we can keep going further. That’s why me and Alex work so good together, trust yourself.

Alex: More freedom as releasing music gives us an instant reflection of our music and helps us define how to express ourselves.

G: Your artist description hints at a “not so innocent, yet honest future”. What would you hate people to assume about Lipstick Music based on your first releases?

Lili: For my part i think i’m still growing and exploring the world of music and performance, it’s never something where i see an end goal, it’s a journey and i think people can trust us for the future with no problem, our first releases are the first part of a big journey.

Alex: It’s only the beginning.

Catch Lipstick Music alongside EQ on the 21st of May.