Fireside Chat

Mira Calix

Warp, London

Chantal Passamonte, otherwise known as Warp Records' Mira Calix, creates starkly personal, nearly-ambient soundscapes that have garnered her much critical praise from the likes of Radiohead amongst various others. A promoter, DJ and formerly a publicist at the label, Mira Calix was signed to her own Warp contract in 1996 to record abstract atmospheric harmonies that rely on a wide variety of sound sources, organic or otherwise. Born and raised in South Africa, she moved to London in the early '90s and began working at the 'Ambient Soho' store on Berwick Street, while DJing and throwing parties with her flatmate, Solid Steel mixer Strictly Kev. She recorded a single ('Llanga') and an EP ('Pin Skeeling') before making her full-length debut with 2000's 'One On One'. Four albums later there's still no stopping her. She has also been commissioned to write installation pieces, compositions, film soundtracks and documentaries and composed Elephant and Castle, an opera for the Aldeburgh Festival in Suffolk. Mira stops to catch her breath and we take the opportunity to join her and find out what it is about the fusion of electronics, organic matter and classical instruments that makes her tick.