Lotic.

26 Apr

Notes From The Underground.

Lotic used to make difficult music. Music designed to make people dance and, at the same time, stop them in their tracks. ‘Grating and heavy’ music, Lotic calls it. Her debut EP More Than Friends, 2015 mixtapes Agitations and Heterocetera, and the Janus Collective nights she co-founded in her adopted home of Berlin were all exercises in barbed provocation. ‘I mean, I was a feisty motherfucker!’ laughs the 32-year-old. ‘I wanted people to feel annoyed and confused because that was how I was feeling.’

Today, Lotic – real name J’Kerian Morgan – feels different. She is in love and happy. ‘I’m in a place now where I’ve got all my frustrations out,’ she says down the phone, pacing a local park in the city’s Mitte district. ‘I’m where I always wanted to be. It’s been a struggle but I’m like, “You made it, girl!”’ This upbeat version of Lotic is having a direct impact on the new music she’s making: ‘It’s softer, a lot lighter than anything I’ve done before and with way more vocals.’ The plan is to release the record this autumn, but first she’s got to finish it. Lockdown robbed her of the recording studio she’d been using, and ‘now it’s back to how I did things in the beginning: on my bed with my headphones’.

Houston, Texas is her original home. She might have left in 2011 and is in no rush to return but, she says, ‘I’m very much a Texas girl’. She still has the accent. ‘I made gumbo for Christmas,’ she adds, as if to prove her point. Is that a Texan dish? ‘No, it’s more of a Louisiana thing, but in Houston we have a lot of Creole culture, especially after Katrina.’ Her pivotal music moment came while watching the marching band at school: ‘I think about it all the time – I must have been in fifth grade. It was so loud; I remember the energy I felt. I was like, “That’s what I want to do!” I always secretly wanted to be a drummer.’ She started playing alto saxophone aged 12, then wanted to be a composer, then a vocalist, before enrolling at the University of Texas in Austin to study music theory. There was never much support at home for her chosen career. ‘It wasn’t until I started touring the world with DJing that my mother was like, “OK, this is useful.”’

It was her eviscerating style of DJing that piqued the interest of Björk. The otherworldly Icelander enlisted Lotic to work on two remixes from her Vulnicura album and to open for her 2015 Berlin concert. ‘I love that white lady,’ says Lotic. ‘To have recognition from such a legend was a nice ego stroke.’ Next came her 2018 debut album: a fully loaded barrage seared with emotion and vulnerability, Power showcased Lotic as an artist in total creative control. But behind the scenes, things were very different. Lotic was homeless and at the start of her medical transition. ‘There was a lot going on,’ she says. ‘I was in therapy all the next year doing the work that I needed to do. Now I feel centred.’

I’m reminded of the definition of the word Lotic: inhabiting rapidly moving water. ‘Yes, it’s become more significant over time,’ she says. ‘When I was 19 I just Googled words associated with water and it came up. I thought, OK, this sounds like a good name and one that will represent me for a long time. I’m glad I found it at such a young age. I’ve really grown into it.’

Inevitably, conversation turns to the current hiatus. While it’s been tough ‘financially and spiritually’ not being able to tour, and all she wants is ‘to do any kind of live show’, the enforced break was needed. ‘I’ve been touring non-stop since 2012 so it’s been a kind of long vacation for me,’ she laughs. ‘I’ve had nothing but time to reflect, and I feel grateful, even for the shitty times.’ Besides, she’s excited about what’s next, and not just her coming album.

‘Everyone says your twenties are just a mess and your thirties are really fab. Well, I’m ready for the fabulosity, because my twenties were a real mess. Apparently women’s sexual energy peaks at 38, so… I’m looking forward to that!’