CREEP: "We're Glad Witch House is Dead "

Photo Credit: Pablo Tapia-Plá & Lee O'Conner

Lauren Flax and Lauren Dillard are CREEP, a dark electronic outfit making intense, piano-and-strings laden trip-hop. Vocals come in the form of booming proclamations and haunting whispers of untamed female sexuality, expressed through breathy female collaborations on almost every track. They've worked with soulful vocalists such as Romy Madley Croft of The xx, Lou Rhodes, Nina Sky, Holly Miranda, Catherine Pockson of Alpines and, representing classic trip-hop, Tricky. All their songs concern night time, sex, and desire. They sound euphoric when your limbs are entwined with someone else's and worthy of a cry in the shower when you're alone.

I spoke to the Brooklyn-based duo about their new record Echoes, how they've evolved as artists since its conception, the death of witch house and Jessica King's long brown hair.

Noisey: “Days” came out in 2010, so Echoes has been a long time in the making. What's taken you up to this point?

Dillard: That's a long time! We were bouncing back and forth between here and Europe, writing on the road, then stationed in Berlin for a bit, writing there. We mixed the record here in New York with Chris Coady.

Flax: There's been a lot of waiting. If we could have put this record out a faster it would have happened, but a lot of other things have to fall into place for the record to come out.

How do you build up your instrumentals?

Dillard: Usually Flax will start on a song, then I will chime in and we bounce the music back and forth, finishing it up together in the studio. Sometimes we work in the studio, side by side. It depends on where we are.

How do your collaborations work, how did you choose people and approach them?

Dillard: It mostly happened organically. We knew most of the people, we're friends with everybody that was on the album with the exception of Tricky and Lou Rhodes. We would write songs and somebody who would be good for it would pop in our minds, and we’d reach out to them.

Alpines and Romy are based in London, how did you record together?

Flax: We did it every which way possible. With Alpines, Lou and Tricky, we did it long distance. Sia recorded in LA and we edited and mixed it up in London and New York. But with Romy, she just came by my house when she was in town touring and recorded in my bedroom. Some places we went into studios.

How are the lyrics decided upon? At what point do you share responsibilities with collaborators?

Dillard: We leave it up to the vocalists' interpretations a lot. It's nice to have a fresh take on the songs that we've written. Romy wrote the lyrics to Days on the tour bus.

The lyrics "My nights are turning into days" are pretty indicative of the somnambulism of touring. Have you guys been influenced by being on the road?

Flax: I think for both of us, Berlin is very special. We have a lot of people we call family there, like Planningtorock, Anika, Olof from The Knife, Black Cracker, and Ena Lion. They constantly inspire us. It's a good place to be and I feel creative there.

The lyrics to your songs can be pretty sexual, and there’s a whole range of female sexual expression on the record, along with lots of heavy breathing. It makes me want to have sex with girls. Was there a deliberate decision to make the album sexy?

Flax: No, it just kind of oozes out of us. I definitely gravitate towards the more timeless songs, like “Portishead”. Growing up, I liked music that, if I were depressed, I would feel it more, or if I were in love I would feel more and I hope we can portray that a bit with our record.

Who are your influences on this album? Who do you look to as inspirations?

Flax: It's the people I'm around every day.

Dillard: Yeah I'd say ditto. Planningtorock is a really inspiring individual.

Flax: It doesn't need to be musicians, just people in general.

Dillard: I'd say that I'm more inspired by art and film a lot of the time more than music.

What type of films?

Dillard: Terrence Malik is a huge inspiration, there's a whole crew of new photographers cropping up. I've been working a lot with Petra Collins who is incredible. A lot of new artists like Ryan McGinley and Sandy Kim that are bridging the gap between art, music, film and fashion.

How do you bring that monochrome aesthetic of your videos to your live show?

Dillard: We have videos that run throughout the entire show. We've collaborated with Warren Fischer, Thalia Mavros, and Ellen Frances, and our visuals are basically our lead singer and backing track.

Are you pleased to see the demise of the term “witch house” and to have come out of the rubble of that?

Flax: It's a term that seems to have died. Which is good but there's always gonna be more of that coming.

How would you self-define?

Dillard: Electronic. Dark electronic music. It's so hard to describe things like music and art.

Flax: I would say trip hop. Dillard had an interesting conversation with Lou Rhodes…

Dillard: Lou Rhodes HATED the word trip hop. She said: "I feel you with the witch house thing. I hated being called trip hop as well. It goes away"

Flax: Although trip hop didn't go away! But I think witch house did.

Finally, you've got a song called Jessica King. Who is she?

Dillard: Google “Jessica King brown hair” and leave it up to your own interpretation

Ok…

Flax: Yeah, once you see the video you'll find a lot of inspiration

Dillard: It'll make sense to you. I don't want to give you too many clues about that.

I find their parody of a viral video where a woman tosses her hair around. In the black and white clip, Lauren Flax grins as she whirls her curly mop about. The original video, entitled: "Jessica King tossing her gorgeous hair in slow motion" has since been removed from the internet, for whatever reason.

So it still remains a bit of a mystery.

Follow Sophie on Twitter: @SophWilkinson