photo by Kylie Coutts

Trixie Whitley doesn’t belong to just one scene. She has the vocal dexterity of an R&B legend and the self-described fearlessness of a “punk.” In a past life, she served as the 11-year-old resident DJ at the Belgium Museum of Modern Art. Now, at 32, she maintains a hereditary connection to the blues and singer/songwriter worlds thanks to her father Chris Whitley, who died in 2005. And, with her third solo LP, Lacuna, she enlisted the help of co-producer Little Shalimar, best known for his work with hip-hop duo Run the Jewels, to help add another genre to her résumé—slinky, hypnotic electro-soul.

The pairing made sense musically for both collaborators—pushing the producer into a more organic, melodic space and allowing Whitley to explore the textured beats and booming synths of “machine music.” More crucially, the duo clicked on a “philosophical” level.

“I’ve always considered myself kinda punk—and many of these rappers are punk, going against the system,” Whitley says. “That’s a spirit I’ve always identified with. But something I always missed in actual punk music, as much as I identify with it, is a sense of groove and sexiness and sensuality. That’s why it felt natural for me to work with a hip-hop producer who is fundamentally a punk. It has that anger and angst but also a sexiness, and I love to think about those two elements coexisting.”

Their collaboration began through a mutual friend, drummer Chris Vatalaro, who recommended putting them in touch after Whitley marveled at Run the Jewels’ “fresh- sounding” production during a van ride. “We got together, and it was like running into an old friend,” she says. “But, at the same time, it was really exciting because, back in my early twenties, when I was working with Daniel Lanois [in the band Black Dub], we would talk about aspects of hip-hop production that are fascinating. I’ve been spoiled with the musicians I’ve played with— they’re these heavyweight musos coming from the jazz scene, like [drummer] Brian Blade. But they often don’t have the production skills or understand how to use machine music in a musical way. For a long time, I was very intentionally looking for a collaborator who had both of those skills. And Little Shalimar is the first person who’s crossed my path who has had them.”

Instead of jumping into the studio with her producer and searching for a style—the sort of open-minded approach she adopted for her last record, 2016’s Porta Bohemica—Whitley handed her new friend a three-page “manifesto.” It was a highly specific synopsis documenting what kind of album she wanted to make, divided into sections that laid out sonic references, lyrical themes and even personnel ideas.

“It was everything,” she says with a laugh. “There was one section: ‘What are the keywords on a more emotional aspect that I want to communicate?’ I wanted there to be moments of violence because that’s what is going on in this world. I also needed it to have moments of total vulnerability, eroticism and sexiness. I was thinking about the passing of Prince and Bowie and how charged these people were. I needed my own language to flourish that way. And then there were the sonic and instrumentation references—there are a lot of samples on the record, like ancient Japanese music. Little Shalimar said, ‘Great, I love that shit!’ I’ve been collecting samples of weird field recordings for the last 15 years, and I’ve been waiting for an opportunity to use those.’”

Whitley, dealing with the challenges of new motherhood, was forced to shift her creative process. Instead of “staying up all night, waiting for the muse,” she took a more regimented approach—working with Little Shalimar during banker’s hours, Monday through Friday, in two three-week sessions.

Using the framework of her synopsis, the puzzle pieces quickly fell into place—from the spooky atmospherics of “Long Time Coming” to the funky “Dandy” (a meditation on “populist” politics featuring jazzy contributions from one of her neighbors, veteran Antibalas saxophonist and touring Arcade Fire member Stuart Bogie).

“I didn’t feel remotely qualified to write about such a heavy thing,” she says of the latter track. “I stressed myself out, and I didn’t write a single word for the tune until an hour before we tracked vocals. I was exercising the stream of consciousness. The night before, I was like, ‘How am I gonna do this?’ I forced myself to go asleep and set my alarm for 5 a.m., and then penned out my very first thoughts.

“I had a bunch of pages with random words and sentences,” she says, underscoring her inspiration from Beat poets and freestyle rappers. “And then I went into the studio a few hours later and started spitting it out.”

Lacuna’s connective tissue, Whitley notes, is the concept of “polarizing elements”—a fitting image for a musician who has built a career out of colliding sonic worlds.

“I refuse to think in this binary way of black and white, left and right,” she says. “What’s far more interesting are elements that exist in between. There’s actually a unifying nuance to violence and vulnerability. When I became a new mom, I was like, ‘Fuck, I’m angry at the world!’ I didn’t want anger to be my only mode of operation, but I think it’s important to look at this anger and see where it comes from. When I break it down, I get really sad and vulnerable, and that’s what the whole record is about: trying to observe where this middle ground can be.”

This article originally appears in the July/August 2019 issue of Relix. For more features, interviews, album reviews and more, subscribe here.