Isaac Dunbar Takes Our Pop Quiz
office gave Isaac an impromptu pop quiz where there are no wrong answers... except, of course, the wrong ones.
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office gave Isaac an impromptu pop quiz where there are no wrong answers... except, of course, the wrong ones.
Now that the singles are curated together — can you share more about the story your EP is telling?
Savage Ballet explores romance as a radical act of protest in the face of a dystopian, apocalyptic future. There's something grotesque yet necessary in allowing love to consume you as a final act while the world burns — a kind of poetic defiance. The record is a meditation on a bittersweet, almost violent collision between desire and destruction, beauty and survival.
What was your most savage moment?
At 17, I worked at a record store, where my boss was sexually harassing me. One night after a shift I held him up with 911 dialed. He emptied $7,000 from the tills into my purse, and I left in a cab. When I got home, I threw the cash onto my bed and made snow angels in it. Never heard from him again.
How does travel and living in different parts of the world inform your sound?
I’m addicted to change. It dismantles routine, breaking down the habitual thinking and comfort zones that can trap creativity. Being exposed to different perspectives introduces new modalities, transforming the creative process from an echo chamber of your own thoughts into a laboratory for experimentation. That disruption is essential for artistic growth — it's where real innovation happens.
If this album was a score to a film, who would be cast, and what films come to mind?
The film doesn't exist yet — maybe a surreal sci-fi romance thriller set in the Middle East. The Cell comes to mind. I wish I could’ve scored it — that film is my religion.
How do your practices of sound design and music creation interact?
I feel they’re in constant dialogue, like a duet. Melody is an emotional language that conveys mood, while sound design is tactile language that sets the physical environment. Together, they build an immersive ecosystem of sound, space, and metaphor.
What are three songs from your sex playlist?
I don’t have a sex playlist — the moans are the symphony. Although, I once had sex to Jon Hassell’s "Last Night the Moon Came Dropping Its Clothes in the Street", and it felt like we were detectives having an affair in the middle of a crime scene. Kind of demented but hot.
If this EP is found as an artifact in the future, what do you hope people will learn?
Evil is boring, but love is an act of heroic genius.
What are you craving right now?
A Free Palestine.
Does art have to mean anything?
Artists are the antennae of the world. They reflect the times, consciously or subconsciously, so I believe meaning is always encoded — even if not immediately apparent.
What was the last thing you manifested?
Love.
What new sounds are resonating with you after this project, and what do you feel called to create next?
I’m still drawn to trip-hop, but evolving it — more feathers, tendrils, glitches, and curveballs. I’d like to see how far I can push that sound into unexpected realms.
How do you incorporate new technology into your creative process?
I’ve started using AI facial recognition for movement tracking to map sound in 360-degree environments. I’m also in talks with an AR startup to explore immersive, interactive ways to experience music.
Can you share some of your thoughts on sound as a healing art?
I’ve been diving into the quantum physics of sound, cymatics, and solfeggio frequencies for three years now. It’s a dense but fertile area, with the potential to solve some major mysteries. For instance, Stanford research shows that solfeggio frequencies might regenerate cardiac tissue. The universe began with sound — the Big Bang — so it makes sense that sound has the power to create and regenerate cells and matter. I’m developing an installation to explore this concept further.
The visuals for this album feel timeless. How was the process of creating the music related to the visual representation of your concept?
Thank you! I wanted to craft a trip hop album with a future-facing metallic sheen. The process was more or less intuitive. Songs typically start very chaotic and then are refined. There’s so much aesthetic tonality in the music — I wanted the visuals to leave room for the listener’s projection. The white backgrounds and minimal compositions allow that freedom. I think that when complexity and intention are presented in divisively simple ways, it feels timeless. You and Neva Wireko were instrumental collaborators in that process.
Beach or desert?
Desert oasis. Lençóis Maranhenses in Brazil and Tozeur in Tunisia are my dreamscapes.
What’s your favorite indulgence?
Being underestimated. And lychees.
What do you collect?
Silver jewelry, guitar pedals — I love running synths through them — and perfumes. I’m addicted to anything with cardamom.
How do you manifest?
I treat manifestations like a to-do list, rather than nebulous dreams.
If your house was on fire and your pets, family, and important documents were all safe, what would you save?
Nothing. Call insurance — let’s go shopping.
In Waves dares you to dance. It oozes PMA and at the same time makes you question where Jamie xx’s head was while he made these tracks. What does it mean to be inspired? What experiences move us to create and from what place? Bottling up happiness is seemingly much harder than showing our scars. For Jamie xx, duality is key and as he enters this next chapter in his career, he finds himself begging the question, what happens when you don’t have to choose?
Lindsey Okubo— You played a killer show for the opening of The Floor in Brooklyn in July! Naturally you started the residency in your home of London but since bringing it to other cities, New York being your first next stop, I can only imagine how it must feel to actualize your dream of having your own space, your own club.
Jamie xx— I mean, it's been amazing, it’s been better than I dreamed of. I guess I was a little naive before it was all happening about what it means to have your own space and play there every night but being able to meet all these younger DJs that are killing it along with the older legends, some people I know, some people I don’t — it’s all been very inspiring, but it's also been very exhausting.
I can only imagine! That being said, the state of being inspired for an artist often ebbs and flows, even if they’re still making work, and I’m wondering how you keep that sense of inspiration alive and how it’s changed? We don’t realize how rare those moments are and cultivating them becomes more of an outlook than anything.
You always have to put yourself out of your comfort zone, really, at least that's what I find. I'm very happy making music on my own and being in my studio alone and that gets me to a certain point, but I always have to push myself and push the limits of what I'm comfortable with. Every time I think something's finished, I always have it in my head that it could be better, which is not the most satisfying way to live but I think it's also the best way to make good art.
In the past when you were making music with The xx, people used words like “brooding” to describe the music. Creating from a place of pain or sadness is often said to be easiest because you’ve already been pushed to the edge and ironically or not, it’s sometimes harder to be inspired by joy and to capture that feeling – but dance music seemingly does that. The new album radiates such positive energy, is it reflective of your lived experiences as of late?
I mean, I try not to overthink it. When I'm making music, the best stuff comes out when I'm in a very free space mentally. I'm letting mistakes happen, doing whatever's going on and just being in a bit of a flow state. Whenever I've thought too much about the music that I'm making or gonna make, it doesn't end up being very interesting. There's a certain emotion or feeling that I get when I am making something that I love and I think that translates into the music and vice versa. I find it very hard to put my finger on it but I think that's part of the joy of it as well. It's the searching for those moments that then become the piece of music in the end.
Your music has always been quite abstract and as a result, it resonates on a bit more of an emotional level which makes me think of what you’re saying about being in a flow state, having that sense of freedom. In words, what does it feel like?
It just feels like time slows down while simultaneously going extremely quickly, I lose days in that state. Sometimes it's great and you feel very happy at the end of the day and others you've made something that sounds insane because you've been in this wormhole of being creative and are unable to zoom out. Either way, it's amazing to be able to just do that and sit for a day, to make music and be creative and follow these weird trains of thought.
Absolutely and between now and 2015 when the last album came out, inevitably so much has happened, changed. For you I can imagine that maturing has meant finding your own voice? The music seems more assured and in the past you’ve said you weren’t keen on playing your own stuff on stage but that feels different? Can you speak to the in-between, then and now?
Just like anyone going from being 25 to being 35, you have massive changes or growth. You become more confident in yourself, you know what you like and what you don't and how to live your life in a way that is sustainable for you. So for me, all those things bled into being able to make music and in a more balanced way and better way and I guess that seeped into the album.
It's interesting when you say the word sustainable. I’ve been mulling the word over a lot recently and feel like it’s really the key to having a long and fulfilling career. These ideas of success and fulfillment as they pertain to our careers are actually very different and I’m wondering what sustainability means for you creatively and as an artist?
Well, I think one of the things I've realized over the last 10 years is that I'm so grateful to be able to do this; and to be able to be at this level where I can play really big shows, people know my music and I get to travel around the world but I can also play really small shows like The Floor, and connect with people in that way. I can also just walk around the street and nobody knows who I am and have perfectly normal time. I'm not really striving for anything bigger than that. I just hope that I get to keep doing what I'm doing in a similar way for as long as possible, as long as people want to hear it. I'm just very happy with where I am.
Right, that duality is important so you don’t feel stuck in one mode of operating. That being said, I know everyone's been talking about The xx getting back together, an event that kind of lends its hand to that same idea. You’ve all been able to preserve your relationships and make your own paths. The idea of “going back” to something comes with a lot of yearning but very rarely are we truly able to, what’s the emotional toll of that?
It was about all of us going out, doing our own thing so we could make something new and fresh. By being able to bring in new ideas after having put ourselves in different scenarios, the next album can be better and we can enjoy it more because it's more of a challenge. It’s tricky because when we come back together, we are further apart as human beings as well as musically and it's going to take more to make music that we all love again together. I've really enjoyed just hanging out with them again and jamming. We've made lots of things, some better than others and we all are in quite different headspaces about the music that we're making but I think that was the point of it and we're just at the beginning.
When you say, making it “better,” how are you guys personally defining that? To what extent does the music have to reflect growth or the experiences that you now have under your belt?
It's really hard to say because we haven't really even properly begun the hard work of making an album. For me, it means a better process of working, better living. I've been surprised by how much I'm enjoying the back and forth of working with them and how unprecious I am about anything. I'm very excited that any music that we make could be for the band at the moment and it can sound like anything. They may not necessarily feel the same way, but at least that's my idea of it at the moment.
Right and the bit about being unprecious, that must feel good. The world is such a different place today from when you guys started out in the early aughts and I feel like with social media, this idea of putting anything out there can feel so contrived at times or subconsciously inhibited by self-censorship.
Yeah I think having done this for a long time, it's just really nice to not feel like that all the time but I'm sure it will come in moments, you can't get away from that. If you want something to be good, you have to have those moments but I'm very glad that I get to sort of zoom out now and see how nice it can be and look forward to getting into the nitty gritty of the process.
When you say being able to zoom out, do you feel like that's kind of just something that perspective essentially comes with time or how do you think you got to that point? Because the world of dance music has really changed, we’ve seen DJs reach a new level of pop stardom and cliche and going out is about escaping, hedonism, lack of accountability. Yet, with your music and The Floor, you’re striving for a sense of presence. On the “breather” track, you’ve got some meditative voiceovers and it’s interesting to ask that of the audience.
Yeah, I think it's exactly that. It’s definitely changed over the years and some of the stuff that I struggled with over the making of this album was related to how it's changed. Thinking about what influence my first solo album had on dance music to where the scene is at now makes me realize how scenes grow differently than how they used to when I was a kid. In the end, I just had to sort of put blinders on and do exactly what I wanted to do, regardless of everything else because it was really messing with my head. The Floor is the antithesis to the giant stadium shows with everyone with their phones out. It's a small 300 capacity room. It's too dark for you to want to have your phone out and that's my favorite kind of thing to go to. I also try not to be too negative about it and there's a lot of people who connect with the music that I connect with now. Some of the more emotionally driven dance music nowadays feels a bit forced to me, as if it's not really coming from the heart but I also think there's enough space in the world for everybody to make and play whatever they want to.
Totally and thinking about cities as scenes, how was the energy in New York versus in London?
The energy was amazing. Even from night to night, the energy was totally different every night in both London and in New York. I love that about spaces, they transform every night.
It reminds me of something you said in a past interview – that dance music has the potential to be more radical than anything else – it’s unfixed. Hearing that now, where’s your head at?
It comes down to a basic instinct, not to get too serious or earnest about it, but humans have always been communicating through dance, there was always a need for it. Before an abundance of dance floors, it was a church and before that, people were banging wooden sticks in caves and dancing around to that. It’s how we've excised our demons since before we could speak in that way, it's always going to be around, you can do anything with it, it has endless possibilities because of that.
Endless possibilities meaning an infinite number of ways to find connection? You’ve used that word “connection” quite a bit, when do you feel most connected?
I felt that on Thursday night when Francois was playing in New York. I just had an hours long chat with him before his set and we were talking about similar things to what we've been talking about – the state of dance music, the different ways in which it goes and how he's experienced that since the start of his career, which was a lot longer than mine, and we have very similar feelings about all of that. Going to the dance floor to then watch him play and to see the room come together and be uplifted by his set, it was just a beautiful thing. It was very invigorating and super inspiring. I felt that connection more than I had on the other nights, even though the other nights were amazing, there was testament to the fact that you can get that good by doing it for that long and he’s done it for 50ish years.
That’s sustainability right there. I don't know if you struggle with this at all but I think there’s something to balancing how you perceive yourself, as an individual and/or as an artist. How far away are those terms in degrees of separation, if at all?
I think I'm constantly trying to figure it out. I'm trying to be as grounded as possible and I think that the answer to being like that is to not really think of yourself as an artist or it being any different from having any other job. Over the last few years, I've enjoyed treating it like a job, going into the studio no matter what, even if it wasn't working, trying to do a nine to five while giving myself the freedom to stay up for two days, if it's going well. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t but there are very few other professions where you get to have that workflow and it’s not to be taken for granted. I definitely don't walk around thinking of myself as an artist the whole time.
That’s interesting, you’re kind of chasing that flow state, feeling that connection while having to come back down and live in the sometimes mundane reality of things. That being said, music has kind of taken you around the globe throughout your youth and into your adult years, but I feel like home is something that also seems to be very important to you. What does home mean to you?
I think it's just the simple things it represents like having a routine, getting to see my favorite people, going to my favorite park – the things you start to take for granted. If I'm in one place for too long, I used to get restless but I'm really starting to cherish all of these little things again. It's all the stuff outside of music, really, that home represents and I think my perspective on it has changed slightly. I used to miss home a lot, I used to make music based on that feeling and now I think music is this totally international thing. I love traveling for music, getting to be in all these places and see the world and healers of new music and home is kind of a sanctuary away from that.
So why this band, and why now? What has resonated so deeply? As I learned, julie's three members — Alexandria Elizabeth (vocals and bass), Keyan Pourzand (vocals and guitar), and Dillon Lee (drums) — control nearly every aspect of their creative vision. Though all in their early 20s, they boast an impressive range of skills. A glance at their side projects and Tumblrs reveals their diverse artistic interests, spanning collage work, graphic design, poetry, architecture, and more. During our conversation, julie explained how they maintain full control over their albums — from crafting the sonic palette to making the album art, choosing collaborators, and directing their own videos. It’s a crash course in authentic creation, blending music history and the avant-garde with virality and mainstream success. Read my full interview with them below.
office— What is the last dream you remember vividly that stuck with you?
Alexandria Elizabeth— Gosh. I wrote this down. It was on tour. Okay, so I threw a party at my mom's house — my childhood house. A lot of people came, and it was really crazy. The house got destroyed, and the entire back wall was blown off. When my mom came home, she wasn’t mad, but she was really matter-of-fact. She said, "Bro, don’t throw parties here because you always end up blowing off the back wall." And I was like, "What the heck?" It was so strange because I blacked out between the party ending and my mom arriving. I wasn’t super guilty, though, because she wasn’t upset, just... practical about it.
Do you guys think dreams have unconscious meaning?
Dillon Lee— I think they definitely do.
AE— I was just reading Carl Jung on dreams during this tour.
DL— I keep having these recurring stress dreams where we're setting up for a show, but it takes forever to set up my drums, and the crowd is just waiting there. It’s so slow, and everything is delayed. I also get bug stress dreams, where oversized bugs are chasing me. It's pretty gross.
How did you guys all meet?
DL— Keyan and I went to high school together. We became friends through a mutual connection, and we started playing music together in my kitchen, just messing around. We both had similar interests in music. Then we met Alex.
AE— I saw Dillon around the Orange County scene. He dressed really sick and stood out. We had mutual friends, and he played in one of my friend's bands for a while. I didn’t know about Keyan until Dillon DM'd me like, "Wanna be in my band?" I was like, "Okay." I met Keyan when I came to his house, and he helped me get my bass out of the car. I remember thinking, "Oh, they’re so cool."
How have you grown as friends and as a band in the past couple of years?
Keyan Pourzand— It went from best friends to family. We’re like siblings.
AE— We're all really annoying all the time.
KZ— For better and for worse. We'll argue with each other like crazy. And then we'll make up five hours later.
DL— Sometimes it means nothing because it's just arguing with your sister.
Do you guys fight about stupid shit, or like “Oh, I don't think we should put that much reverb on this.”
DL— Stupid shit. And then also, well, that's [reverb] also kind of stupid shit.
AE— I remember at the boxing ring before we played we really got into it about Dillon's drum kit and whether it should be five inches forward or back. And for some reason we were really pissed. We were all fighting.
KZ— I was like, bro, why'd you do that? I put the amps back there for reason.
DL— And I was like, whatever.
AE— And then I was mediating it.
When it comes to your stage presence, is it planned, does it come naturally?
AE— Mostly natural.
DL— We definitely do talk about performing on stage and try to be intentional with it. It's not like it's choreographed when we play the show, all of that's in the moment, but we do think about how we set up the amps on stage and such.
As artists, how much do you want to communicate with the audience? I've seen performers that don't say a thing to the audience, and then others that are yappers. They're doing crowd work. It's like standup for them.
AE— It's not in me. I can't work a crowd in a comedic way. I can sing though.
Do you improvise on stage?
AE— We'll extend certain songs or in between the songs we'll do these interludes and play off each other's noise. We’re pretty much making soundscapes.
DL— Most of the improvisation comes from in-between the songs when we have samplers playing. And then just trying to play with whatever we're hearing mixed with our instruments in a very minimalist way.
Dillon, have you always drawn, and when did you start?
DL— I've been drawing since I was three or four years old. When my mom was my age, she went to art school and she would always have her drawings hanging up. Originally that's what I wanted to do as a career at first because my mom got me the Gorillaz's Demon Days CD and I thought those characters were so sick. I wanted to make people's album covers for a living.
When did you first doodle the character in the cover art?
DL— When I created the first Macy drawing, I was in my English class in high school and wasn't doing it intentionally. I didn't think, This is going to be for my band.
AE— Our friend was always like, Bro, she's so fire.
DL— In a vague sense, this girl seemed like a highly appropriate representation for what I wanted to communicate at the time. Eventually we used it for a lot of art when we first started putting out music and then it became pretty seamless.
Do your other disciplines and artistic mediums, like your architecture studies, influence your song structure?
KZ— A lot of what you're taught in architecture school is balance in structure; how to carefully craft the composition of what you're creating.
AE— In art design and music theory in general, which is what I was formally educated in, a big thing is the idea of a repeating thematic element that recurs throughout a piece of work. We talk about that when designing buildings, but it’s also very common in music, like when there's a certain melody or theme that keeps coming back.
KZ— That's how you make a song!
I noticed that the song structures on the new record are really varied.
DL— Yeah, that was intentional. I think it's interesting when I listen to certain music and the song structure feels like this rollercoaster, but it also doesn't feel like it's just getting away from you or falling apart. I like when it's done in a good way, and it goes to a lot of different places, but still feels congealed into this singular thing. We wanted to play with that.
Let's talk about "Feminine Adornment". It's one of the only ones on the record that’s just Alex singing. What does the title represent?
AE— The title was an excerpt. I was reading Anti-Oedipus by [Giles] Deleuze. It was a random quote that I really liked — it was actually the full title before. Throughout my life, I’ve played with masculinity and androgyny in my fashion and how I portray myself. But recently, I went through a phase where I was drawn back to femininity after a year of avoiding makeup or anything feminine. Doing those things brought me a sense of peace. It wasn’t about trying to achieve femininity but about self-soothing. I found myself reaching for feminine textiles, sewing, creating things, makeup — those processes became comforting. I wish I could find the full quote.
It'd be cool if you did the Fiona Apple thing and made the title a giant poem.
AE— I would love that vibe.
You've mentioned that image branding and music hold equal importance for you. Do you think this ever detracts from the music and artistry itself? And does it affect your creative process?
KZ— No, it just takes longer for us. That's why our timeline—besides the fact that we were in architecture school — takes so long. We're making music and art simultaneously, putting equal effort into both.
Do you think about how to package and present it before, during, or after creating the music?
KZ— During.
DL— Yeah, definitely during. Like Keyan said, that’s part of why it takes so long. Everything is really thought through. Perception, image branding, all of that is important. We don't want to be misrepresented.
Would you ever hand the reins off to a director, filmmaker, or artist, or do you want to control every aspect of your image?
KZ— We try to maintain as much control as possible, but sometimes we work with others because we don't...
AE— ...have the bandwidth to do everything ourselves.
DL— There are a few photographers, videographers, and creatives we connect with, where we understand each other.
Keyan, you've mentioned you started playing music as a stress relief. Now that the band is scaling up and becoming your job, do you worry it might become a source of stress?
KZ— That's funny. It has been a source of stress for four years now. It's strange, honestly. I started playing guitar to relieve stress, but now it's part of the stress, but that doesn't stop me from playing guitar to relieve that same stress. It's a cycle. I'll get stressed, start playing guitar to relax, but then I'll shift into writing, which stresses me out, so I put the guitar down, and then later pick it back up to release stress again. It's very weird.
Do you find that stress relief shifts into other mediums where there's less pressure, like side projects that don’t have as big of a spotlight?
KZ— Yeah, definitely. I spend a lot of time working with electronics and making weird little sculptures out of scrap metal and odd things like that. I do a lot of graphic design too, and we all work on the band's artwork together. I’m always on the computer with Photoshop, working on album covers or posters. It's all about shifting gears whenever I can, so I'm not constantly freaking out.
Touring with famous people sounds stressful.
AE— Power outage, amp on fire.
Wait, what happened?
KZ— We were playing our last show with Faye Webster, and midway through a song, people started raising their arms. I was confused, thinking, "Why is everyone’s hands up?" Then I turned around, and my amp was on fire. I was like, "Oh, okay."
AE— That was pretty alarming. But fun. Then we were like, "Okay, I guess we should play the song now."
DL— We put out the fire and just kept playing. It was actually pretty fun. Then, the other day in Boulder, Colorado, just before we were about to start, the power went out. We were all in the green room, and at first, it was funny. Then it became, "Oh no, what if we can’t play?" because the line outside wrapped around the corner.
KZ— People camped out for three hours. Only a few left, which was shocking and really sweet to see.
AE— They were just about to refund everyone.
DL— The venue staff came in and said, "Okay, guys, we’re probably going to call it quits. The power won’t come back in time." We were accepting defeat and started packing up.
KZ— I was literally packing my suitcase.
DL— Then the lights came back on, and we had to switch from packing up to getting ready to play the show.
KZ— It turned out to be an amazing show. Super packed with a lot of moshing. It was wild.
AE— It really touched my heart that the people of Boulder, Colorado stuck around for us.