Leftfield pop singer Hill has an airy vocal style that’ll leave you dizzy, so it’s fitting that her debut single “Experience” opens with the sound of a NASA rocket launching. The Los Angeles musician directed the space-age video for the song herself, prompting Kanye West’s G.O.O.D. Music label to snap her up. “A lot of my music right now is about the genesis or the creation of a person,” she says. Bouncing around a studio on Melrose Ave, she has the fizzy energy that won her a place dancing backup on West’s Yeezus tour. But it’s “Experience” that should open a door to a whole new universe soundtracked by Hill’s future-pop: and her debut album, which she’s currently hard at work on, should feature similarly spacious beats and loftily sung aural oddities. “I feel like everything is brand new,” she says of her experience as a pop star-in-waiting. “I have to constantly remind myself that this is reality.”
What was your defining pop culture moment of 2014?
Kacy Hill: FKA twigs on Jimmy Fallon. For me, that was all the proof we need to know that pop culture is hungry for different sounds.
What’s your favourite song of 2014?
Kacy Hill: “Time” by Jungle. So sweet and groovy.
How do you think that style and pop culture will change in 2015?
Kacy Hill: I think honest music and intention is beginning to read better than overly marketed, packaged pop. Obviously, we’re always going to have both, but I think we’re in a special time where we see the little guys in the game make the rules. 2015 is all about letting the underground dictate mainstream culture.
In 15 words, sum up what we can expect from you in 2015.
Kacy Hill: Music that feels good and creates movement in redefining pop and its interaction with fashion.
What new skill did you learn this year?
Kacy Hill: How to write music in a studio. Until this summer, I had written all my music on the kitchen table and was terrified of studios.
Who’s an unsung cultural hero that you discovered this year?
Kacy Hill: More of a revisit/rediscovery, but Laurie Anderson. I feel like she’s still influencing so much of the music coming out now.
Who should have been at number one on the Dazed 100?
Kacy Hill: Seinabo Sey. What she’s doing is the epitome of how pop music should feel.
Twitter: @kacyhill | Instagram: @thekacy
Jumper by rag & bone, hair and make-up Erin Walters
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