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Oct 21, 2026
Carmen Villain: Music Is A Cracked Mirror
Carmen Villain (born Carmen Maria Hillestad) first emerged musically in 2010s London, branching out from her modelling career with an edgy strain of dream pop. Now based in Oslo, the Norwegian-Mexican producer has steered into hazier instrumental terrain. Her 2019 album Both Lines Will Be Blue is jaunty and baroque while 2022’s Only Love From Now On dabbles in molten jazz. She has been remixed by Gigi Masin, Actress, and Biosphere. A staple of the international circuit, bookings have taken her from Dekmantel in the Netherlands to MUTEK in Montréal to Dripping and Making Time in the United States.
Memoria, Villain’s latest, is titled after the 2021 film by Apichatpong Weerasethakul. In the spirit of the Thai director, it is meditative and sparse. Negative space and weighty sub bass create an etched quality. Flute, trumpet, and clarinet swirl, smudged into warm pad offering a whispery companion to 2024’s frigid Nutrition EP; while both harken vintage Chain Reaction and Rhythm & Sound.
We recently caught up with Villain to discuss reminiscence, gear, and how switching to Ableton revamped her approach to music-making.
Can you talk to me about the making of Memoria?
I wanted to investigate dub rhythms and bass, to get into abstraction. And I didn’t want melodies to be overdubbed. I wanted it to be done the other way around. I booked a day at Rainbow Studio here in Oslo, which is the ECM label’s favorite studio. It is very fancy and has a lot of history in the walls. I brought in Johanna Orellana, who has played flute on several of my previous releases, and Eivind Lønning, who I hadn’t worked with before, but had wanted to for a while. It’s crazy what he does with his trumpet. I recorded a bit of clarinet. I recorded different segments improvised by them, giving prompts or having them suggest stuff. I took that material into my studio and started working with it. I did not want their performances to be based off of something that I had already produced and given them. It was almost like overdubbing rhythmic parts.
That was how it started. Most of it was inside Ableton, in the box with a bit of outboard stuff from my studio. Super simple – experimenting with sounds was the premise.
What outboard gear did you use? What is your studio setup like?
It is very simple. I usually run through a Bastl Thyme pedal. It is this tape emulator / time stretch thing. I use the Tasty Chips GR-1 granulator. It’s really fun. I have this tiny pedal from Boss — like a phaser, but not quite. It doesn’t follow the regular phasing ways, it almost sounds doubled. It is a really amazing vintage pedal that I bought when I was doing guitar stuff ages ago. It was those three that I ended up using on the album.
I also have, on my table, the Eventide Space Reverb, which is beautiful sounding. I don’t want to overdo it too much, because I use a lot of VSTs.
Are there any plugins you find yourself gravitating towards, either native to Ableton or external?
The standard Reverb is my go to for the last couple records. I also love the Granulator.
I switched to Ableton specifically for Granulator. I was using a different granular plugin before and was, like, “This is exactly what I need for my music to be what I want it to be.”
It’s incredible, such a powerful tool — perfect for what I do.
"It’s also a perfect tool to investigate samples. Even if I don’t end up using it, it’s a really interesting way to re-represent something that I already have."
The EQ Eight, I use on everything. The Saturator is on the mixing. I use Roar quite a lot, on, like, 80 percent of the tracks. I use the Saturator and Simpler plugins quite a lot. Also, Corpus, the mallet-y resonator. It can give some really interesting textures. I like experimenting with it. I don’t use it all the time, but every now and then I’ll bring it in to see if it can do something percussive.
I got the GRM Tools bundle. They are a bunch of amazing, powerful tools. It is incredible. Within that, I use SpaceGrain quite a lot. I use the Comb Filter. I use Evolution. An important part of being able to finish a record was them releasing Atelier. It’s an amazing modular tool with a really nice sounding oscillating device, sampler, comb filter, time stretch, and echo. There’s all these LFOs and envelopes you can put on them. It’s an incredibly powerful tool.
Carmen Villain at Inner_Spaces at Auditorio San Fedele in Milan
So you don’t really use a lot of hardware synths, other than the GR-1?
I have the (Roland) SH-101. I have a (KORG) MS-20 Mini. I didn’t use them on this album. When I program drums, I use Opal and Dyad by Fors. They sound great. Most of the kick samples are heavily processed, but a lot of them are my own kick sounds that I’ve produced over the years. Most of it is within Ableton.
I love the Ableton synths.
For me, it’s what I do with it. I like to process things so much that the original is not even recognizable. You don’t need expensive synths. I think it’s crazy what you can do just within Ableton.
Back in the old days, you’d use Cakewalk to transcribe MIDI to songs by the likes of Moby and Skinny Puppy. Was that because you wanted to recreate their music or was it simply a route into learning production?
It’s the material you use that’s key.
"One thing I like about working with woodwinds is that there’s so much interesting material inherent in the way they are played — breath or clicking. It creates this incredible basis to work from."
That’s why I’m drawn to them.
What drew you to Ableton? What has kept you hooked?
I used to work in a different DAW. Except for one track, I fully switched to Ableton before I made Only Love From Now On. Mainly, I just needed a solution to do live shows. It took me away from the A to B grid. The tools are more geared toward sound experimentation. I might do Session View to try some shit out. While producing, I’m in Arrangement View. It suits me really well. It’s a faster, more immediate way to try stuff out.
If you look at my older projects, they used to have many more tracks. I would create all the mini gestures by hand. It was more of a patchwork. They happen more naturally within the processing of Ableton. I’m happy I had that journey, experiencing composition in that way. My music has also changed quite a bit.
Can you talk about the influence of dub on Memoria?
I’ve had dub influences from the beginning. I’ve always been drawn to bass and slightly off kilter rhythms. It’s not a new thing, but I wanted to go into it in a more focused way. I wanted to abstract it, instead of making straight dub techno. Of course, there’s elements of that because it uses electronic manipulation. My Nutrition EP is more of a straight dub beats world. So much good music comes from that seed. It's a massive umbrella.
The UK bass music influence is more surprising. Are there ways you feel that it shines through Memoria?
When I was a kid, I listened to a lot of Roots Manuva. Run Come Save Me was my favorite. I listened to it a few months ago and I was, like, “Woah, this makes so much sense.” It’s really interesting bass playing. My record is not a UK bass album, but it’s definitely bass music. I wanted to try bass music in my own way. I love a physical sub. I wanted it to be really physical. That’s where the similarities are. You could listen to an early dubstep track on a massive sound system and feel it. It plays a lot with blank space.
Download Carmen Villain’s free Ableton Live Project
*Requires Live 12 Suite, Granulator II, PitchLoop89
Cinema was a big influence on Memoria, right?
I wouldn’t say cinema as a whole, but I do love watching movies. I try to read books and fill my mind with stuff in the world that isn’t just dark news and social media. It’s a responsibility we have for ourselves, to remember that there’s a lot of amazing things being made.
One movie that inspired me is Memoria by Apichatpong Weerasethakul, which the record is basically named after. He really connected sounds with themes of memory and time and universal empathy. It made me think about so many interesting things. I don’t know if it’s baked into the sound directly, but it has the themes I was seeking out while I was making the record. He’s a bloody genius, his movies are incredible.
Are there any themes or feelings that impact Memoria?
Our lives greatly impact the music we make. Everything gets soaked up and unconsciously processed into what you do. It’s an output. I have some sketchy periods where I don’t remember anything at all. I’ve always been very interested in how memory makes us who we are. I’ve thought about these things my whole life, but more as I get older. Time is going faster.
How can we make things better? It’s crazy that it’s radical to have hope. We all need to have more empathy for our world and surroundings. How do we do that in everyday life with the people close to us, or even people we don’t know? What does it mean to be a human these days?
It’s interesting how, in instrumental music, meaning is often assigned in hindsight.
You might learn things about yourself by seeing the result of what you’ve been doing. I don’t know if it’s a mirror. Maybe it’s a cracked mirror.