“I take my power back,” says the Oakville native, whose new album Girl With No Face is almost entirely self-produced.
by Nick Krewen
Special to the Star
With Girl With No Face, Allie Hughes — known to the music word as Allie X — is taking back the reins.
Not that the Oakville native was necessarily relinquishing a lot of control with her previous two albums of immaculate pop perfection — 2017’s CollXtion II or 2020’s Cape God, or even the numerous EPs that have come before or in between — but she felt it was time to invest in her most valuable asset: herself.
Which is why Girl With No Face, recorded in analogue, is almost entirely self-produced and took a while to come to fruition.
“For me, this is an album about liberation and really trying something that I’d never tried before: trusting my own instincts, trusting that I could do something that came completely from me,” said Hughes, who performs Saturday at the Opera House.
“I had never made a whole record before. I’d been on a couch in the back of the room saying, ‘Hey, move this around or make this sound like this.’ But when you’re actually the one on the computer by yourself …, it’s a very steep learning curve.”
There were other delays, including a hospitalization to deal with an autoimmune disease that kept her out of commission for six months but, in the end, X marked her musical spots with the same traits present in every Allie X project: an insanely ingenious knack for infectious melodies, cunning lyrics and an almost supernatural pop sensibility, as well as topical themes of anonymity and identity that speak to the disenfranchised among us, well represented in such songs as “Weird World,” “Off With Her Tits” and “Black Eye.”
“There are certain groups of people in communities that I relate to and there’s a lot of ones that I don’t and, just like anyone else, I do my best to make it through this crazy life, protect myself and try to remain as authentic as I can,” she said from her L.A. dwelling. “To sum it up, this album was a chance for me to really let what’s weird and unique about me be seen and be heard in a way that maybe it hadn’t before. And that felt both vulnerable and very liberating.”
Girl With No Face is much more danceable and a bit of a synth-pop throwback to the early ‘80s, with throbbing bass lines and electronic drums.
“It’s just kind of what I was listening to,” Hughes said. “I got really into early ‘80s post-punk and new wave, goth music, a lot of New Order, Yazoo and Depeche Mode. I also found that producing it myself, it was much easier to program. ”
Even though she was largely isolated through this project, she wasn’t totally alone: Justin Meldal-Johnsen, whose numerous roles over the years have included stints as a touring musician with Nine Inch Nails, Beck and St. Vincent, to name a few, has his fingerprints all over Girl With No Face.
“Oh my God: he brought a wealth of talent and knowledge,” Hughes said. “First of all, I wanted to work with someone who loved the music that I was referencing as much as I did. I know a lot of great producers, but not a lot that are into that kind of music.
“Justin Meldal-Johnsen is basically like a library of information, especially about the deep cuts of that time.”
He also, being quite the collector of musical instruments, supplemented Hughes’ existing gear “because I can only afford so much and had started building my studio for the first time on this record.”
“And if that wasn’t enough, he’s also one of the best bass players ever and a great guitarist as well … I couldn’t have found a better person. I’m also lucky that I got to work with him.”
Although her music hasn’t quite caught on commercially with the mainstream crowd, Allie X has retained a healthy and faithful following of 920,000 monthly Spotify listeners. While she waits for the rest of the world to catch up, she’s taking steps to consolidate her future after 10 years of business dealings in Los Angeles.
When she first arrived in L.A. on the back of a Canadian Film Centre Slaight Music Residency, Hughes quickly landed a publishing deal and later a record deal, forging creative relationships with artists like Australian-South African singer and actor Troye Sivan (she co-wrote half of his 2015 million-selling Blue Neighbourhood album and co-authored “Louder Than Bombs” for South Korean superstar boy band BTS with him), and learning that the music business can be both competitive and frustrating.
“Competitive I was always prepared for,” she said. “I would say ‘demoralizing ‘is the part that’s been very difficult. It’s dehumanizing and demoralizing, the standard way that the music industry works. And whether you’re me — a fierce little indie artist — or you are Taylor Swift, every artist is going to agree with that. It doesn’t matter how much money or fame you’ve got, (the) process of going through the music industry … it’s quite painful. That’s something that I hope will change because a lot of it is unnecessary.”
So she’s finding another way to navigate professionally.
“I take my power back,” Hughes said. “That’s what I’ve been working on doing. I manage to get out of all my contracts now. I self-manage and I self-fund as well. So I’m very aware now of what the bottom line is. I’m not going into debt anymore, because ultimately taking an advance and signing a deal is going into debt and taking a loan.
“It is a huge challenge to go against all the standard ways of doing things and you get a lot of raised eyebrows, but that’s what works for me. And I hope to make an example of another, alternate way of doing things, because I really think there is another way of doing all this that could make a medium-sized career like mine quite comfortable and sustainable — as opposed to waiting to have a big radio hit so that they can finally take the five per cent of their of their income that’s coming in and that five per cent will be enough to buy them a house.
“But what if you’re taking 70 per cent of your medium-sized income, you know? How do you navigate that? Education: you learn what’s really going on, you read your contracts, you look at your statements.”
She’s happy to return to Toronto, where she has fond memories.
“I remember community,” she reminisced. “I remember really awesome nights and the afternoons in Trinity Bellwoods Park or at the Dakota, when I used to play with Dwayne Gretzky. I remember being really broke, but not really very stressed. I sort of just made it work every month. I used to teach voice lessons at this place that’s since closed, but it was this really awesome place called the Toronto Institute for the Enjoyment of Music.
“I think back to that now and it was a really innocent time. I think I’ve become a lot tougher and a lot more hardened by my experience out here. And I miss having that sort of music for music’s sake vibe that doesn’t exist here in L.A.”