Feathers Love 'Battlestar Galactica' and Sound Like a Female Depeche Mode

Meet Feathers. They make the kind of glacial synth pop that’s both doomy and strangely uplifting; rumbling bass and inky beats juxtaposed with gauzy, super-femme harmonies. If you’re into Depeche Mode—who they opened for at SXSW—you’ll dig their debut album If All Now Here (out May 28 on Nyx). Two years ago Anastasia Dimou ditched New York for Austin, Texas, rallying together a bunch of cool girls whose musical family tree has many branches, including Destiny Montague (Midnight Masses, Carl Sagan, Shock Cinema), bassist Alex Gehring (Ringo Deathstarr), Courtney Voss (Missions), and Kathleen Carmichael. Their first show was in Kathleen’s kitchen and their second was entertaining a sold out crowd playing with Washed Out. We grabbed Anastasia, backstage at the Music Hall of Williamsburg, while on a recent tour with Little Boots and AVAN LAVA, to discuss style, the influence of space on creation and Battlestar Galactica.

Noisey: What made you leave NY for Austin?
Anastasia Dimou: I needed inspiration, like a change. I was super into the goth scene, that weird records scene, and then there was my friends and boys—it was a lot of things. I just felt like I needed a change in environment to change the music. I also felt very claustrophobic because I was living in a really small space. So I broke out and moved to Austin. I love New York and I always come back, but it was good for me to go there to create. It's a little bit more expansive, I'm singing out instead of in.

So your stuff before was more gothy?
It was just a little more brooding, sonically it was more claustrophobic too. It's opened up a bit since. I think your space does influence what comes out.

Was it your express desire to work with all girls?
It wasn't pre-meditated but I know I work well with women in general. I like their voices and I wanted harmonies. We communicate really well and it's a different dynamic entirely. It's super fun.

Feathers just before opening for Depeche Mode.

How do you pack for tours?
This time we all threw our bags together, so we’re just borrowing from each other. It's kind of been a more casual tour—mostly t-shirts—but you can move more and it feels a little more swaggery when you're dressed down too. It's really strange how it affects your mood onstage, but it does.

Now you’ve had some distance from the record, have you noticed any prevalent lyrical themes emerging?
It's somewhat introspective, but also expansive, there's a little bit of mysticism too, I think. And a little bit of just wanting to break out. I wrote “Leaves Start Trembling” with Battlestar Galactica in mind. I had a marathon session of watching it late at night. I'd be crying by myself watching these episodes, like, "Give me another!" It was like this weird drug. It's really well done. And I love sci-fi and things that tackle sci-fi issues, like the future and ethics and stuff. There's also a theme of reclaiming yourself on the record.

What were you reclaiming yourself from?
I think it was about being empowered by being by yourself. There's a desert theme too. So there was a lot of imagining being by yourself, but feeling really good about being by yourself. I started writing the record when I was in New York, but I was envisaging Marfa lights, the desert, and being out there. It was an empowering feeling rather than a lonely feeling.

Björk being Björk.

Can you remember the first artist you looked up to style-wise?
Björk. I remember watching an unplugged clip and she was wearing a little neon yellow dress and she had her full eyebrows. It was kind of simple, but it was perfect for her. I thought, “God if I can just find that dress, I could just be that right now." I actually found a highlighter yellow dress in a thrift store, but I'm not ready to wear it yet. It's pretty amazing. It will bounce light off of it really well. But it's also everything Bjork's done visually: she tells so much of the story with what she's wearing. She's always beautiful, but it's not just for the sake of beauty, it's beauty for the story.

What's the most personal song on the album?
Good question, no one's asked me that yet. I'm really proud of “Believe.” It's just about the feeling of love and the lyrics are like, "There's nothing I want/ There's nothing I fear/ And all the things I can't see make me believe." It’s really simple and big and depending on how we play it, I feel like it can fill the room.

What do you miss most about New York?
I really miss the food. I don't miss the subway and I don't miss pushing my way through things, but I miss the people, actually, and the sarcasm. In Texas the people are really nice and I'm always afraid I'm gonna insult someone if I say something and they don’t get it.

When SXSW rolls into Austin are you like, "Get me out of here!"
I love it, actually, at the beginning anyway, because all my friends come into town. Austin's kind of sleepy the rest of the time. You go to the bars, you see your friends, you sit outside on picnic tables, and you have drinks. It's awesome, but you want all the style to come into town, and you want all your other friends too.

Do you miss the fashion in New York?
I miss some fashion in New York, but I have to say that Austin is pretty good. There's definitely bad fashion, for sure, but there is a pocket of people who keep it pretty good. A lot of it's vintage, but it's not like kitschy vintage. There's also some cool people doing some cool stuff, and there's a lot of transient people coming from New York and LA all the time, so the style is really good. Nobody slacks on it. It's not like people are wearing flip-flops all the time. People get dressed up.

Chelsea Wolfe in Sisters of the Black Moon. What do they wear?
Have you ever heard of Sisters of the Black Moon? They're a group of girls who sell vintage online. It's a little bit gothy, but it's a got a little bit of Texas to it too, there's something rugged to it. They make their own clothes and they also find these amazing pieces. Mariqueen Maandig Reznor from How To Destroy Angels, (and Trent Reznor's wife), wore one of their dresses and added some sleeves to it and she looked really stunning onstage. It worked really well with the lights. She's a friend and I did a remix of her stuff with my old band. Chelsea Wolfe was dressed by them too. They're just a bunch of girls who know what they're doing. There's something in the water there. Everyone looks really tall and can wear a sack and it looks great.

Mariqueen Maandig Reznor in Sisters of the Black Moon. How do you feel onstage?
It's where I feel really comfortable. I think it's harder to speak in front of people and it's harder to do one-on-one conversation. When you're performing, you know what you're doing, it's your song and you're going to tell them what your song is, you know? I like it.

Kim would like to run away to the desert. Right now. Help her find a way by communicating via Twitter - @theKTB. Style Stage is an ongoing partnership between Noisey & Garnier Fructis celebrating music, hair, and style.