Start Listening To: sugarglaze
Blending sugary sparkle with raw honesty, sugarglaze talks duality, DIY visuals and the bittersweet power of wishing.
South East London artist sugarglaze makes music that moves between dreamlike sweetness and something more unsettled underneath. Her latest single ‘wishing’ is a shimmering, affirmative track with a pulse of vulnerability, pairing playful production with lyrics that hold more weight the closer you listen. A visual artist as well as a musician, she approaches sound and image as inseparable, weaving her own artwork and animations into each release. We caught up with her to talk about the wishing megamix album, her love of layered meaning, and why the act of wishing still matters.
For those unfamiliar with your music, can you tell us who you are, where you’re from and about the music you make?
hi!! my name is sugarglaze! i also go by cait, or lilac (which is tied to my visual art/internet existence @glitterylilac). i grew up in south east london and my mum is malaysian chinese. the central line was my gateway to the city when i was younger so i guess that’s my favourite underground line? (*ˊ w ˋ*) i make music with a focus on the lyrics; which is often chaotic, melancholic, energetic, and dreamy - sometimes all at once! words and writing in music is very important to me~
“Wishing” feels dreamy but also laced with something sharper underneath - what was the first spark that led you to write this track?
in april i was sitting around thinking about how i have a lot of big dreams & i always find myself wishing for the future, for the present, for the past~ i wanted to make something with a positive (but encompassing) energy that was fun and dancey, with a “softly rose-tinted, but disconnected from reality” vibe - a bit like an affirmative rave bop that shimmers gently. i wanted the writing to remain true to my feelings. feelings which persist with an underlying unsteadiness that I just really really want to try my best to keep on going despite!
You’ve described the idea of sugarglaze as a kind of duality - sweetness that hides something messier underneath. How does that concept run through your music?
i like being playful with themes and words - the duality of their literal meanings. i also like the idea of making cute but very chaotic music because it seems like it shouldn’t go together but it does! undertones are important to me and i feel like most of the things i make have layered meanings - even if that isn’t always picked up. at this point i feel i can’t help but be drawn to sugary sounds and equally can’t help but bleed out the messiness, both lyrically and thematically, so i guess it runs through in that way!
How was the track produced?
‘wishing’ was produced on FL studio using a lot of chopped up vocals and samples! I had lots of fun pitching and playing around with double & half tempo samples. one of the foundational samples is an altered version of a sample i also use in an (unreleased) track called ‘biscuit tin’ that begins with “i want a puppy! i want a cat! I want a bunny!-” which were lyrics i wrote at a time i was going crazy doomscrolling with my partner online, night after night, looking at adopting a pet! i felt that sample melted perfectly, in a silly and serious way, with the sound and sentiment i wanted for ‘wishing’ too!
You make all your own artwork and visuals - how closely do sound and image come together for you in a project like wishing megamix?
sound + image r strongly interlinked for me. with wishing megamix the audio and visual sides go back and forth- like the writing for a song will help me figure out how to visualise the artwork, or drawing artwork for the songs will help me figure out what i want to write about.
i think people know me more as a visual artist but music has always been the thing which has emotionally connected to me the most. when i did fine art in school, i started getting more interested in narrative story, and the way images are presented in video games and comic books. i think that’s what led me to study animation - which is the perfect connection between the two mediums!
What kind of story or emotional journey are you building with the wishing megamix album?
wishing megamix will be an extension of my ep ‘wish upon a star’, which i released exactly a year before ‘wishing’! the album will have a swirling starry mixture of different genres~ to me, wishing megamix is like a bridge across lots of different parts of myself- in the past, the present, and the future. like, even if all the parts don’t fit together perfectly, they are all still parts of me.
for a few years it feels like my musical journey has been on hold and i think it’s quite fitting that the sentiment my heart really wants to express - after that quietness - is a lot of wishing!
The track has this delicate, sparkling atmosphere, but the lyrics feel emotionally raw. Do you consciously contrast soft production with deeper themes?
it’s conscious in the sense that i actively choose both- but i choose them because that’s just what i happen to feel like when i’m producing the track, and inevitably what ends up being created! i admire this kind of dissonance in a lot of the music i listen to so it is definitely something i want to explore more!
You're part of a wave of artists blending kawaii aesthetics with alternative pop and hyperpop. Do you feel connected to that scene, or do you see yourself floating outside of it?
i think i’ve always just felt like i’m in the background with everything that’s going on in the world - but i know a part of me has always wanted to be at the forefront of something special. it’s a contradiction which i think prevails through my life and existence as a whole, i guess it’s a bit of a “tsundere” perspective! like i’ll always relate to the ‘other’ more than the ‘whole’ and yet we all just want to connect and belong in this crazy irony of ‘hardcore acceptance’ and ‘popular outsider’ sounds and aesthetics.
What draws you to artists like Erika de Casier, Cowgirl Clue, and Hannah Diamond? Are there shared traits you admire or things you want to push further?
i’d love to create more fun and dancey sounds, and keep exploring the lines between sincerity, and playfulness - which is a thread I think is shared across all of those artists. hannah diamond’s music, for example, captures a bright and endearing “dream-chaser, girl-pop” vibe. her track ‘every night’ captures a pining wrapped in sweetness which feels so lovely, and bubbly, but also so sad. erika de casier’s music also treads a line between sincerity and a kind of “tongue-in-cheek wry smile”, and her vibe is just, so effortlessly class!
i’d also like to push the connection with the “kawaii” visual and narrative- and build out something more tangible while also developing my technical skills. cowgirl clue’s ethereal-electro-fairy music and visual vibe is something which has inspired me since ‘icebreaker’. i definitely want to make more visuals that are intertwined with the music.
As a visual artist, what’s your approach to creating artwork that reflects your music without just illustrating it?
it’s actually quite funny because i feel like i have been very direct and literal with my illustrations for the songs on this project so far! character art and expression is really important to me. so far i’ve drawn a lot of the artwork for the project with the character’s eyes closed - which i find ironic as i love drawing detailed eyes very much in my other art! i found it conveys a kinda more demure/solemn mood, which is true to my sentiments - the idea of feeling more hidden, disconnected, and/or protected from the world at large.
You said sugar can sparkle or scratch, soothe or rot - what parts of yourself are you exploring or confronting in this project?
“sugar” is a way of presenting something in a more digestible way. like the feeling i get when when i put together an outfit and it matches the aesthetic i want to project - like it matches what i really want to be. it feels like sparkling, soothing - almost like therapy. on the other hand, “sugar” can also be scratchy - feeling like i can be “too much” sometimes, and how i am scared to be “too much” when i’m “myself” - whatever that means. i feel other parts of myself rot away when i try to make “myself” someone else.
to me there’s also a duality - if i feel like im sparkling, maybe a knock on effect of that could be someone else feeling bad, scratchy, and rotten. it’s a kind of irrational fear that’s also just inevitable. making music that’s a little hopeful is like a love letter to a sense of wonder i lost a long time ago. as far back as i can remember, music has always been something i made to soothe myself, so I hope I can be a sweetness for myself and for others too.
How’s the music video for “wishing” coming along? Can you give us any clues about the concept or visual mood?
the concept for the video is all about people’s wishes and dreams, so i want a dreamy, colourful, bedroom d.i.y. kinda feel with a “i made it because i love it” kinda earnestness. it will take a few more months to finish with everything else going on in my life!
also there’s an open call for submissions to be included in the video, so if anyone wants to submit any text/visual for the video check out my instagram! <3
You mentioned being a serial people pleaser - does making music feel like a way to reclaim control?
ruminating on it now, i think it does feel a bit like that. music has always been the only medium which has allowed me to express, communicate, and comfort myself in a way i cannot describe. i even genuinely relate to all the silly “music saved my life” memes - like truly from the bottom of my heart, and with every fibre of my being! it’s ironic because i really do want people to like what im making - but at the same time, even if they don’t, it means something to me!
What do you love right now?
i love the glow of the sun and the shadows it leaves behind as it sets. the feeling of connecting with others. finding a song, or visual, or story that describes something so personal to you that your body aches like you’ve been gut-punched... in terms of music? currently my emo heart has been in love with the album “goodnight hypnopomp” by stomach book.
What do you hate right now?
i hate it when you have misunderstandings with people that are completely avoidable. i hate not speaking when i want to, not being able to convey what i want to say. i also hate it when my nail polish goes all gloopy but for some reason i still use it (╥﹏╥)
Name an album you’re still listening to from when you were younger and why it’s still important to you?
“it’s a wonderful life” by sparklehorse is such a unique album, their music has a distorted, haunting, eerie, and an alien-like softness that whispers into your brain and disconnects you from the earthly plane. their tenderness and fantastically heavy writing is something i love dearly. i still have the album on cd at my mum’s house, which someone very important to me at the time gave to me.
What do you hope someone takes away from listening to “wishing” for the first time?
i hope they see that there’s something special about the act of wishing - our will to persevere, achieve, and look past the reality of the moment we exist in now. to search for something else - something that could have been, something that was, something that they feel is or was forever away. maybe we should just accept ourselves or maybe we can keep on wishing - and that’s okay too. if anyone does listen to the track - thank you for listening, it means the world to me <3
