Primarily inspired by surgeries stemming from a serious HPV diagnostic, the producer’s new EP unpacks shame and embraces exchange and survival
Text and interview by Pedro Paulo Furlan
Photography by Thomas Lambertz
19h, São Paulo / 23h, Düsseldorf. After aligning our time zones, I sit down with singer, songwriter and producer Andras_2020 to talk about their newest EP “Blowhole”, released on the start of October. The artist, born in Salvador, Brazil, lives in Germany nowadays and joins their cultures to create a sound that blooms in the intersection between Brazilian culture, experimental electronic music and pop music.
“Scratched up, distorted, grand, joined at the hip to real pop music references”, that’s how Andras describes the sound of “Blowhole”. Made up of six tracks, the EP is a journey into the artist, that uses their creativity to explore their own queerness, their desire for experimentation - and one of the hardest moments of their life.
The truth is, in part, “Blowhole” is inspired by a series of anal surgeries that Andras had to go through, they tell me, because of the HPV virus. Because of that, the creation process was also a moment to face the shame around their sexuality head on, and, in a way, “romanticize the anus”, with this artform.
“[The project] Had a clear relation with a lot of shame and a really visceral pain, so, making music was the only thing that kept me wanting to live”.
Developing a sound that was, at the same time, beautiful but voracious and visceral, Andras sees “Blowhole” as an experimental project that allowed them to unite their sonic research to other people’s - creating the EP in full. Behind everything. The producer was inspired by their own experience, their queerness and even by the nature of whales and dolphins, transforming everything into a “big metaphor”.
“The process of understanding myself as a musician”
Photography by Thomas Lambertz
In love with music since childhood, Andras tells me about their first birthday parties, where they already played the part of a DJ: curating and selecting, one by one, the CDs that would play at their parties, themed around discos and clubs.
“My mom would work all month, all year, to rent lights and a sound system, and then I’d be the DJ, with my CD’s - huge CD collections that I spent the whole year collecting”.
Even with all that, it took a long time for them to fall in love with music production, instead, Andras dedicated themselves completely to dance. After starting to dance at 7, the artist invested all they could to this art form, that led them to move to Germany in 2016, and it’s something that remains with them even now, in their live shows.
Four years after their migration to Düsseldorf, Andras decided to start producing music, reigniting their childhood passion. In 2020, in the middle of the COVID pandemic, the artist started to make their first steps in music production, learning how to operate different softwares and adapt all their musical influences into the style of music, they were looking to create.
Andras_2020, their stage name, also tells me that something that helped them really find the courage to morph into a musical artist was their connection with a big figure of electronic music, the Venezuelan producer Arca. Being a part of Arca’s fan channel on Discord, during the time the producer was active in the social media, Andras got to interact with her a couple of times and receive inspiration for their first productions.
Photography by Thomas Lambertz
This discord channel led to the creation of the project “Mutant Mixtape”, that united a bunch of different tracks from the artist’s fans, encouraged by Arca herself to put out the mixtape, and that selected Andras first track “Cuerpo Temperamental” to be a part of the project. Some time later, Arca played one of their tracks, “Harps for A”, in one of her sets in Ibiza, a track created specifically for the Venezuelan.
“In all seriousness, it’s a great incentive, every time I think about quitting, I remember that Arca already played one of my tracks”.
“I was born to do this”
In 2021, Andras - while still learning how to produce - released their first EP “Cuerpo Temperamental”, in which they explored their own gender identity. “The title is a play on words, aligning an emotional adjective to the body”, the artist explains, adding that, in this way, they symbolized the moment that they went through as a non-binary person, including asking themselves if they wanted to transition on not.
“It was a time for trying to understand if I really wanted to transition, and talk about that desire in an abstract and confusing way, which was exactly what I was feeling”.
Their first EP led Andras to their first tour, where they presented to the public and themselves, a new version of the artist. Singing, dancing and DJing, all in the same show, Andras describes their performances as sensorial experiences for the audience. But it took a lot to get to this point.
Photography by Thomas Lambertz
“I think what lacked in my confidence was me really acknowledging that I make music and people are there to listen, and I’m there to sing”, they tell me, about their process of self acceptance: “I think we create these ideas that to be something, we need a lot more than just being that thing”.
“But, besides all that, I was born to do this”, says Andras, explaining that it was, in part, their performances that encouraged them to release a new EP, “Blowhole” - that and the natural want to tell their own experiences through the project’s six tracks.
The process of the surgeries to stop the HPV virus, and in that way stop the virus from becoming a cancer, was something really traumatic for Andras, and, as soon as the process was done, they felt the need to externalize the feeling.
“The surgeries were to remove a high risk HPV, and, besides that, I had a cancer stage zero, which means, it’s not yet cancer, but it can become, if we didn’t treat it, and anal dysplasia”, tells the artist, saying that the treatment from the doctors and the lack of consciousness in their own community trapped them in a cycle of shame and guilt, that was only broken by this creative moment.
“My case was really severe, I had to have three surgeries, and every time we did it, it grew back, and, that kinda took over my life, I stopped for seven months”.
During this process, the artist, that knew themselves as a dancer, was forced to stay still, having to get to know themselves in other ways. So, they turned to music production, walking the line between a sound that was armed with beauty and happiness, but also possessed a lot of violence.
With this almost savage perspective, Andras also inserted their study on whales and dolphins in the “Blowhole” metaphor, using these animal’s blowholes as part of the message that they were creating, one of exchange and survival.
“Everything, all my surgeries, the whales, my rest time, everything became a metaphor for the sound, for my life, for what I was doing at that moment”.
“I feel, more and more, that Brazil is gigantic”
Photography by Thomas Lambertz
After two years of production until the release of “Blowhole”, Andras_2020 prides themselves on the project as a whole, but already sees themselves in another moment in life, ready to turn to new experiments. “Sonically speaking, I’m already a few steps in front of it”, the producer tells me, making it clear that this new moment will bring a new Andras.
But what exactly is this new Andras? Not even they know. Talking to me, Andras tells me about their inspiration, coming from trans “hyperpop” artists, like SOPHIE and Galen Tipton, pointing out their abilities of constructing and pilling up diverse textures and still experimenting with their sounds.
With all that, the artist also thinks about how she can fit their Brazilian identity in their art, with the desire to bring references to their culture, even as an immigrant. Describing their connection to the underground scene in Brazil, Andras talks about the friendships they have with artists from their original country, but also points out how the distance affects their vision of the Brazilian space.
Stills from 'Wings' directed by Kurt Heuvens
“It’s something I’ve been trying, since 2022, when I did my first tour, to bring my performance to Brazil. But I feel, more and more, that Brazil is gigantic”.
Bringing up this new POV and their own childhood into consideration, Andras points out their desire to bring other aspects of Brazilian culture, besides funk, that is going through a renaissance in Europe, to European audiences.
“I’m from Salvador, I didn’t grow up listening to funk, so, I’m always questioning what that means, what this Brazilian identity means, and in which ways it can appear”, tells me Andras, finishing up with an observation for herself.