radionotes podcast episodes

LÂLKA

by | Oct 30, 2022 | episodes | 0 comments

LÂLKA

LÂLKA creates glitch pop, a high energy futuristic sound.

As well is seeking to use the world of Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs for short) to further the distribution and experience of the music.

While visiting Adelaide, South Australia and hours before their BIGSOUND performance LÂLKA joined radionotes for this chat…

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IMAGE CREDIT: Stoo Morton

Performing at OzAsia Festival, Friday 4th November 2022 FREE in the Lucky Dumpling Market.

SHOW NOTES: LÂLKA

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In The Box / Discoveries:

Feature Guest: LÂLKA

Next Feature Guest: Gracie Jean on Romance Is Bad

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CREDITS

Theme/Music: Martin Kennedy and All India Radio   

Web-design/tech: Steve Davis

Voice: Tammy Weller  

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TRANSCRIPT

First version provided by REV – check to audio before quoting wider

John Murch:
LÂLKA, welcome to radionotes.

LÂLKA:
Hello.

John Murch:
Finally, eight years later we get a chance to talk about your music.

LÂLKA:
Has it been eight years since we’ve been communicating online and just sending emails to each other?

John Murch:
Doing stuff. Yeah.

LÂLKA:
Wow.

John Murch:
What was that first taste of music that you got?

LÂLKA:
I think as a child I was always obsessed with music and entertainment value. Most kids would probably watch cartoons, but I was obsessed with watching commercials, like ads on TVs, and obsessed with anything that had performance in it. So whether it was a variety musical show or MTV, that kind of thing. I was always obsessed about that growing up. And then I wanted music lessons, because I wanted to be a pop star that I saw on TV and I think that was where it started. So really organic. It wasn’t like anything was pushed onto me, it was just something I was drawn to even from a very young age.

John Murch:
You mentioned TV commercials, so I’m wondering whether or not the visual element also played a part at that early stage.

LÂLKA:
Absolutely. I think most people probably get annoyed at ads, but I find that it’s fascinating, because it’s like they have what, 20 seconds to tell a story. That’s pretty cool. It was just attention grabbing and then you get the audio aspect where ads are, they’re hook you in even from a sound level, not just visually.

John Murch:
Got such a short time for that information in a commercial to be shared as well. Is there correlations with your music as well? I would think there is, but…

LÂLKA:
I’m not sure. Obviously I think I do have a short attention span and I was reading somewhere that the average attention span now is eight seconds long. Maybe it’s not that I’m trying to do it deliberately, but it’s because I get bored personally, so I do change things up.
It’s like when I think about how I DJ, when I DJ sets, I have very quick transitions and I play a song and then before you know it, I’ve transitioned to next songs and some maybe trans DJs, they would have this really long, they’ll play out a song or play a track for a really long time whereas I would get bored and I’ll be like, Okay, time to switch it up. Time to switch it up. And I think that’s possibly, because my own attention span is pretty quick and I tend to be quite an impatient person when it comes to things.

John Murch:
Back to the younger years, the violin is very much part of your musical repertoire. I’m not sure if it’s just the violin.

LÂLKA:
No, I always make this joke that I’m that typical Asian kid who did piano and violin. All Asian kids would either do piano and cello, or piano and something. So yeah, I was piano and violin.

John Murch:
But you still do it.

LÂLKA:
I don’t play the stuff I used to play when I was a student. I just have stopped enjoying that. Just see the violin now as like, oh, here’s this thing that’s just been sitting around my home. Oh, I could put it in this production, or this track that I’m producing. And it’s more like, oh, here’s something in my arsal. Love producing music, but I don’t love playing the violin. It’s just something that’s there.

John Murch:
Play much of a part in the musical education that has now formed the sounds that you’re doing?

LÂLKA:
It’s funny that when I get asked that about my training and my background as a classical musician, which is how I started my career and did everything, I don’t consciously draw on that, but surely there’s got to be some influence and some way that playing the violin, playing the piano has informed the way my brain processes music, or the way my brain approaches writing music. But it’s not something that I consciously draw upon and it’s probably something I take for granted as well. I think sometimes when I talk to people about music and then I’ll just mention something off the cuff. Yeah, that’s in the key of whatever and then it modulates to this and then I just assume everyone would know that. But then I come to realise that maybe not everyone knows what I’m talking about and I just take for granted that that’s common knowledge.

John Murch:
When did club music become part of your DNA?

LÂLKA:
That’s a really cool question actually. When I was much younger, I think when people turn 18, the stereotype is, Oh, they go clubbing straight away. And I think because I was so shy, it wasn’t until I started playing music myself and then started making friends who were making music who then played club shows, that I started to go to club shows and found that I loved it.
It’s funny, because I’ve been dragged to clubs before by acquaintances, and they just haven’t been the right clubs for me. They didn’t play the right music that I enjoyed. The crowd wasn’t what I enjoyed. So I had this perception of clubbing being this vapid thing that people I didn’t connect with do. But once I found the right types of clubs to go to, played the right music, I think it just meant so much more to me and I really, really started to enjoy it.

John Murch:
How empowering is it now to be that person making the sound for said clubs?

LÂLKA:
Yeah, I reckon it’s the best. I love going to clubs supporting my friends when they’re playing music that I love, but I love it even more when I’m behind the decks.

John Murch:
In less than a day you will be at BIGSOUND and would’ve happened by the time this chat is heard, but tomorrow in the time of record you’re going to BIGSOUND.

LÂLKA:
Yeah.

John Murch:
It was 9:50 at La La Land, which seems appropriate considering your name.

LÂLKA:
I’m going to turn La La Land into LÂLKA Land.

John Murch:
And then you come back in November to be one of the stars of the OzAsia Festival and that is a free show as well. So there’s no excuse for punters not to get along at 7:30 PM on the 4th of November.

LÂLKA:
I hear there’s fantastic food there too.

John Murch:
It’s outstanding. What are you taking to BIGSOUND? What’s the BIGSOUND vision?

LÂLKA:
So I’m going to be showcasing my new unreleased music that I’ve never done before. It’s funny, because I played BIGSOUND in 2019. It was good, but the amount of pressure I put on myself to somehow achieve something out of it, I felt like it was going to be, I don’t know, career changing and life changing. And the reason I bring up 2019 and now is because it’s now I’m so much more relaxed about it. I am not expecting my entire life to change. I think the narrative that’s often put out is, Oh, these bands, they play at BIGSOUND and then they went on to be international stars and they signed a record deal of the back of BIGSOUND. But the thing is, all these things that happen are part of a bigger journey and BIGSOUND was only one piece of the jigsaw.

John Murch:
It’s volume though as well. There’s so many people, you got to have a success story somewhere in there.

LÂLKA:
Yes, exactly. Yeah. But now I’m just a lot more relaxed about it. I’m excited about it, but I’m not putting that pressure on myself to, I don’t know, sign a massive deal. I think I’m going in more with the perspective of, this is what I’m working on and if people want to come on board and support me, and I’m talking about industry people who see value in what I do and see how I can give value to them, because at the end of the day, it’s an industry, it’s a business. People are there to make money off my talent. So I approach it more in that business perspective of people are there to make money off my talent, and my product that I’m selling is my music and who I am as an artist.
So if I’m not the right fit for them, that’s totally okay and they might not be the right fit for me. It’s like there’s nothing I love more in world than performing live. So to be able to do that and know that there are people in the industry who are going to be there and for me to be able to do something I absolutely love, I’m just stoked to be able to do that.

John Murch:
What are you bringing, because it sounds like it is a new sound?

LÂLKA:
There’ll be visuals. They just add so much more to a live show. In terms of gear, I will be singing, I’ll be playing violin. I’ve got a MIDI keyboard where I play some melodic lines on the keyboard. There’s also trigger pads where I trigger samples, my fingers. I’ve got a role in SPD where I play some drum solos or trigger some samples.
Originally I had ordered new instrument called the Erae Touch, it’s currently stuck in customs. I’ll definitely have it by the time I play OzAsia. So I’m pretty excited about that new piece of gear, just because it opens up so much more to what I can do visually. It’s also a really interesting looking piece of gear. Everyone’s seen a MIDI keyboard, but the Erae Touch is pretty new and I’m just nerding out about it.
And at BIGSOUND I will be playing a half hour set. I describe my half hour set as it’s literally 30 minutes of cardio for me. It’s got highs and high points and some mellow points, but it’s super energetic. And one thing I’ve found is that I actually had to be really fit to be able to play live, even for a half hour set. You’d think, oh, half an hour isn’t long, but the amount of energy I exude physically, the amount of sweat that drips off my body, it’s pretty disgusting after a set how much I have to control my breathing, to be able to move that much and still sing effectively. I did notice that I really had to work on my fitness levels to be able to do what I wanted to do, the vision I had in my head of what kind of show I wanted to put on.
I think the thing about electronic music as well is that a lot of the sounds you hear were made on the computer. As a performer, I have to think about how I’m going to translate the feeling and the energy of the sounds people hear when they can’t exactly see the mousepad that I’m using. And so I have to physically show it to them, how to enjoy a song. And it’s a performance, isn’t it? And when you’re writing music in a studio, everything’s just in your brain and on the computer. But then when you’re performing it, I approach it as a whole body approach. It’s like how do I use my body to express this phrase that I’m singing? What’s the expression on my face? What clothes do I wear to express the type of music I’m making?

John Murch:
Let’s talk about fashion. Is fashion just part of the music?

LÂLKA:
I’ve always loved fashion. It felt natural when I wanted to express the music to use fashion as that. If I was an artist that had zero interest in fashion, it wouldn’t make much sense to heavily incorporate fashion into the music. But because I genuinely am obsessed with fashion, it was so natural to go like, Okay, I want to express this and here’s another way that I can express the music. And that through clothes, another lens to present something like you’re listening to something on just your headphones. You just have the sound. But then when you’re presenting a song in the format of a video, there needs to be another element to it. When you’re performing a song on a stage, there needs to be other elements that contribute to that whole experience, otherwise why go to a live show when you can just sit at home on your headphones?

John Murch:
Your interest in imagery and how important it is to you.

LÂLKA:
It’s so powerful to me, even when I was studying as a student, when I was writing notes, just being a good student, my notes were never boring looking. They were beautifully written. Not necessarily handwriting, but I would be drawing charts and mind maps and using different colours to express something. And I feel like that’s how I learn as well. And some people listen to audiobooks. I prefer reading a book, because I can see it visually and translate it. I’m a collector of books and some of the books I have are just beautiful pieces, where the design is great.
I’m looking at your laptop cover now and I’m looking at some of the stickers, like the one with the cassettes with The Cure, and I’m just thinking, I really like that I am drawn to imagery.

John Murch:
We should talk about the OzAsia fest, because it sounds like it will be next level. You’ll have a new toy.

LÂLKA:
Yeah, I have a longer set time as well. So I’ve got 60 minutes. Usually I play a 45 minute set, 30 to 45 minutes. So now that I’ve got 60 minutes, now I have the chance to expand the songs. There’s obviously the songs that you would hear on my Spotify, it’ll be like two minutes 30 seconds, but that’s what I call the radio version or the streaming version. But when I play it live, I like to change it up. I might change up the form of the song, I might extend a part, I might add in a new part, because I have more time. And because it’s a live set, there’s definitely more to retain an audience’s attention, rather than just audio.
After I get through BIGSOUND, which is this week, the next thing on my to-do list is to really craft a set for OzAsia that is 60 minutes where I can fit in more songs, but I can also fit in different arrangements of songs. I just get creative with songs that would not have suited just audio, but would definitely suit a live version.

John Murch:
Let’s continue our conversation by talking about new economy, the online economy. I’m a cash kind of guy. What’s your approach on NFTs?

LÂLKA:
So when I first heard about NFTs and the amount of insane hype it was generating, I was of course sceptical. But I actually heard about blockchain technology way back in 2016 from an artist called Imogen Heap. And I didn’t know a lot about it, but it was Imogen Heap, she’s an artist I greatly admire for not just her art, but her intellect as well. Once I knew that NFTs had something to do with blockchain, I started to look into it more.
I went in there with this really cautious curiosity, is what I call it. I firmly believe that as an artist, my job is to be open-minded and explore and not confine myself to what I know, or what currently exists. I feel like an artist’s job is to explore the possibilities out there. You don’t necessarily have to love it, but you have to explore it. And so that was my approach to exploring the world of NFTs and Web3 and all of that. And the more I explored it from a critical lens, I could see yes, there were definitely issues with it, issues with different things, and I decided to not speak too much about it at first.
What I found really, really annoying for me personally, was the amount of opinions people felt entitled to share. Now an opinion is just that, an opinion. It’s not necessarily based on facts. There were so many opinions, loud opinions on the internet, people were kind of getting swept up in other people’s opinions and making their decisions and what they thought about a topic, based on someone’s opinion. I didn’t want to do that. I was like, okay, this artist has this opinion, this other artist has that other opinion, I’m going to look into it.
And so as I looked into it, discarded opinions, just looked at information, made up my own mind about it, and that’s when I started to get really interested in it. If it was something that I looked into and wasn’t interested in, I would probably abandon the idea and not looked into it and just kind of moved on, looked at something else. But I found it interesting, with what the technology could do, what it was doing for other artists, whether they be visual artists or music artists. And then I started to see how it was being used by businesses and then seeing the potential that it had with businesses.
I guess when you think about Instagram, a few years ago people were like, Oh, why would I want to be interested in what you ate for breakfast? Now, everyone’s got Instagram, people are interested in it. Just a socially curious mind where how it’s going to really change our society. I mean, I remember years ago, one of my teachers was saying, I can’t believe there’s this Facebook thing. Who cares about your life? And the thing is, people do care. People are nosy. And I think perceptions change and society and culturally were going to change and there’s no point fighting against it. I think the best thing to do is whether or not you agree with it is to understand it, and then make up your own mind about whether it’s something you want to participate in or not. And I’ve decided I wanted to participate in it because I think it’ll be fun for me.

John Murch:
So let’s talk about from the artist’s perspective. So what you can offer as an artist is your music, you’re publishing those aspects of your life and your work.

LÂLKA:
The thing about blockchain technology is, that once something is transferred or somebody owns it, it’s on the blockchain, it cannot be messed around with.

John Murch:
And it has its own signature and code.

LÂLKA:
Yeah, it’s there. And so you can’t muck around with it. So if somebody owns a piece of NFT, they can prove that they own it. Now obviously there’s people who are into NFTs purely for investment, purely to flip it to make money and no judgement on them, that’s what they want to do, and that is a function. But I see NFTs as so much more in a sense that, for example, as a fan of music, I would love to own something that one of my idols has put out. And I can say that I own this beautiful piece of digital art, for example, as well as other things that come with it. Some music entities, you purely just get ownership of the song. But I feel like there is so much more that people can put into NFTs. And what I see is there’s that direct connection from artists to fan. Not only that, there’s ability for artists to reward their fans from a retrospective aspect.
For me personally, when I started thinking actually I want to put on an NFT, but I didn’t want to just do it for no reason. I was like, okay, if I was to put on NFT, how can I bring value to other people? It’s not just going to be about me, and about how much money I make. I was like, how can I really make it noteworthy and special? Because there’s just no point jumping on a band waggon, making a cash grab, and then disappearing. What’s the point?
I feel like the people who support my music, my small community of fans, they’re so supportive. And the reason I’ve come to where I am now to be able to do what I do, part of that is due to people like you, John, and people who have been not swayed by other things, just really dig the music. And I’m like, okay, this is a chance for me to then share the success with those people, with my OGs who are onto my music and how can I do that? So I started thinking they could have things, own the things like stems. A lot of my community is made up of creatives and musicians and I know that they would love to mess around with stems, create their own remixes.

John Murch:
A stem is part of the music that goes on top of the other music. It’s an element of the music.

LÂLKA:
Yeah, it’s like the music sound. The song is made up of stems, of layers of sound.

John Murch:
Like a track within a track.

LÂLKA:
Yeah. And so I thought they would want that, because their creatives themselves, they could make a remix. But the other thing about remixes as well, I was thinking that usually the way the old school way it’s done, is an artist approaches another artist or a producer, the producer gets paid a flat remix fee, for example, $150. Now, if the song blows up, if the remix blows up, and that producer only got paid 150 bucks, but then the song went on to millions of streams, that producer has lost out. But you never know. So I wanted it to be something that where my community fans could make money off, or something that I’ve made, but they turn it into something that’s completely theirs.

John Murch:
And that’s the rights element we were talking about. So they pay for, as you’re saying, a stem or maybe a vocal line, and it then becomes a hit through the remix.

LÂLKA:
They can use it in whatever way they want, and if they want to release it and make money off it, they can, they have the rights too. For me, I’m like, that’s a great way to reward them, because then my success would feed their success. And I feel like that was probably the best way to give back to that community, was to actually share my success with them. So not only do they get the stems and rights to remix it, they get other little perks as well. I call them little, but I guess maybe they’re not so little. I really want to give people something of value and not just like, Oh, you get a sticker. I really want it to be something where people feel like it’s worth the money they pay for. It means something to them. And then if they do sell the NFT down the track, there’s obviously investment, speculation, they can make money off it as well.
And it just seems like a fairer way to do things rather than just as an artist and me just constantly asking my supporters to give me money, but I never give anything back apart from art and music, which is fair enough. And I think we shouldn’t expect artists to give us anything more than art and music and their work, because that alone is so much. But I wanted to personally, just wanted to give back so much more, and NFTs just looks like the perfect vehicle for me to do that on the blockchain so that it’s transparent, it’s legitimised, and it’s transparent. It’s not just a, Oh, just take my word for it mate.

John Murch:
So LÂLKA Nation, what is that then?

LÂLKA:
So LÂLKA Nation is a club that I have. It’s a subscription only club. And before doing LÂLKA Nation, my creative process has been quite secretive. I didn’t share demos, I didn’t share stems, I didn’t share draught lyrics. But LÂLKA Nation provides an optioning for me, when I started making the mix tape, I said to my community, for a subscription every month, if you pay your subscription, you get this content and the content includes works in progress. So the idea was for them to come along the journey of seeing how the mix tape was being constructed. So they would get demos, they would get draught lyrics, they would get mini files, stems, because again, a lot of my supporters are creatives themselves and musicians and just me sharing like, Oh, this is what I worked on this month.
I would also do wallpapers for them, like digital wallpapers. So while the wallpaper may not be part of the mix tape, it’s just like, oh, here’s something I drew that relates to the demo that I’m letting you listen to this week. Now, I do this with the understanding that my fans will not post my demo on YouTube and leak it to everyone. I’m just like, no, this is for you guys. You know guys have subscribed to it. This is for you. I’m not showing it to anyone else, because it’s not a finished work, it’s not polished. Just that the artwork is also just part of my creativity and I’m like, here’s a digital artwork that I’ve drawn. And that’s for you. It’s not going to be part of a bigger project. It’s just something I made for you guys.

John Murch:
Let’s see if we can get somewhat of exclusive on this. Are you releasing a song via the NFT, via the online community?

LÂLKA:
My plan is to release some songs as music NFTs that will be part of the mix tape. There’s a few reasons to that. One being I’m genuinely curious about the technology, about being part of it. I want to be part of this. I don’t care what people say about it, calling me a sellout or-

John Murch:
How is it a sellout to have something you value and then offer it to those that want it?

LÂLKA:
It’s not.

John Murch:
You want to go and see a live gig, you pay for the live gig. That’s not selling out, that’s paying for the music.

LÂLKA:
Exactly, and I think people are so used to getting stuff for free.

John Murch:
Well that’s their problem.

LÂLKA:
Exactly. But since Spotify came along, you get music for free. I think there have been artists who have launched NFT projects, but not given back to their fans and they have promised a whole heap of stuff and that never eventuated and then they bail and abandon the project after getting everyone else’s money. I wanted to release the NFTs, because I’m interested in technology. I think for me the best way I learn is by doing stuff, just doing it. So I’m going to do it. So that’s the first reason.
The second reason I think, was what I’ve spoke about before, how I just found it a great vehicle to give back to my community, a main driver. I didn’t want to release a NFT for the sake of it. Those are my two main reasons really, just because I’m interested in this new model, this new technology. I just see it as a way I could give back.

John Murch:
So let’s talk about the new single, which is being released through the NFT.

LÂLKA:
The new single’s going to be called What If We Kiss To Break The Tension? I feel like it’s a club track. Now one of the reasons I’m calling the next body of work a mixed tape was because I wanted to create a body of work that was more than an EP, but I didn’t want to be constricted by a theme that would make it cohesive into an album. Just didn’t want to constrict myself. When I first started, I was like, I don’t really want to have a theme. But I also been DJing for a bit. And the thing about DJ sets is you can take listeners on a journey and blend one song into the next. And so I wanted to create this body of work where the music could be blended and exist in a club.
So, What If We Kiss To Break The Tension, it’s definitely more on what I guess, the music industry would call experimental. I find that term so funny. Because I know how unusual the track is, it did not make sense to release it as a radio friendly single, but I feel like in the NFT space, in the Web3 space, people are more experimental and it just suited that environment, the Web3 environment, far more than a different track for example, Gradient or Euphoria, that I released before that was definitely more radio friendly. I just wanted to see how it can grow organically and not be constrained by mainstream media or mainstream radio, but just put it out there, have people find it, people who are interested in more conceptual music.
There’s this whole other crowd in Web3 that just have a different taste and I just want to reach them and I feel like this song would suit that world a lot better, hence why I’m releasing it as an NFT. I think it definitely had a lot to do with how the song sounds in my brain it just fits Web3.

John Murch:
Is that where it’s going to be found? So if people have even the slightest interest to know what your new music sounds like, they’ll have to get behind the Nation and get behind that.

LÂLKA:
Interestingly, people assume that the only way they can access the music, is if they buy it. The thing is, when I release it as an NFT, I’m not forcing anyone to buy it. If people want to listen to music, they literally go to the NFT link where it’s being sold, the marketplace, they can hit the play button and still listen to the track. So it’s going to be heard. The NFT-

John Murch:
So, that’s very much like a Bandcamp. It’s online, you just listen to it. And as you’re saying, if you want to be the owner of that song fully, then that’s where you go.

LÂLKA:
And if it’s something that really resonates with you and you want it, buy the NFT. When they buy the NFT, they don’t just get the song, they get the stems, they get the rights, they get so many other things with it. If people just want to listen to the song, that’s fine. It’s still free, they just go on marketplace, hit play.

John Murch:
Let’s talk lyrically and let’s talk substance within that song. What’s the driving force for you at the moment for the songs that you’re writing and producing?

LÂLKA:
When I started writing this song, the music definitely came first. I had a sonic idea of what I wanted to achieve. So I made the music, make the beats, messed around with the structure, until something I was happy with the mood I wanted. I knew the colours, colours as in how things sounded, timbres, tone colours. And then the thing about lyrics is I approach this specific body of work, because I didn’t want to tie myself down to a theme, I have this just random phrases that come into mind and I’ll just type in on my phone. And so for this song, I looked at my phone and I found the phrase, ‘What if we kiss to break the tension?’ There’s just something about it. The quality of that question. What if we kiss to break the tension? That I felt suited the mood of the music that I created for this track.
Questioning the possibility, what if I did this thing, and what will happen to the future? Would this trigger the future? Would this change? And on a personal level, that’s definitely something I’ve been experiencing in the last 12 months, 18 months. Just a lot of major decisions I’ve made. And it’s been scary at times. And people think club music might be vapid. No, when you really think about it, it’s not. That sense of questioning the energy behind the song, the driving drums where you are pushing, just wanting to break forth from the barriers around you.

John Murch:
And it’s also beyond self doubt as well. It’s regarding the broader idea of identity, what you are willing to do within your own self.

LÂLKA:
Yeah, definitely a J-Core influence in that. And sonically, I found that a lot of the tracks from this mixed tape, upcoming mixed tape, definitely have that pretty obvious J-Core influence. And it was something that, it wasn’t like I was like, Oh, I’m going to write a J-Core album. It’s just stuff I love and I think I always approach writing music with, I want to create something I love, something I’m in love with. I didn’t strategise about it. I was just like, No, I love this, so I’m going to make it.
I’m excited about the song, because I said it’s experimental. It’s such a visceral sounding track. I want people to feel that energy. And it’s not an angry energy, it’s just a very strong energy and hopeful without being cheerful. It’s not a cheerful track, but it’s definitely optimistic. I kind of call my music romance for a doom generation. It’s like, we know we’re doomed, but there’s still optimism and there’s still romance in it.

John Murch:
I do want to ask what you’re reading at the moment, which I know sounds like a very basic question, but you’re doing a bit of travelling, so you’ve probably been doing a bit of reading. What are you reading? What should we know about what you are reading?

LÂLKA:
The NFT Handbook. Okay. So if anyone, I would highly recommend that book as a starting point. It’s informative without being overwhelming. And I think one of the biggest problems with Web3 and NFTs is that it’s so overwhelming. There’s so much information that is foreign, concepts are foreign, that people switch off. I get it. But if you want to be educated about it, here’s a book I recommend that I found very, very useful when I first started looking into things. And I’m reading it again a second time around, because it’s just so useful. And I just like to remind myself about things. So it’s called the NFT Handbook.

John Murch:
We’ll chuck it in the show notes.

LÂLKA:
The other book that I’ve been reading on repeat is called Cult Status by Tim Duggan. On the surface you would think, okay, it’s just a business book. But what I love about the book, is that it’s not a how to Business for dummies. It’s not like, here’s how you set up your ABN and here’s how you set up your website. No, it’s about how you can give back to people. It’s not about taking. It’s not like most business books, or maybe the perception of business has been more like, all right, I’m here to make money. I’m here to make money off people. For people to want to give you money, you’ve got to have something that they value. The way the book is written really made me think about, okay, what’s the purpose of a business? And so then I translate it to, okay, what’s my purpose as an artist? Am I just doing this selfishly, just to glorify myself, or can I do something more for people through my talents, which is music and imagery and storytelling.
So it really got me thinking about, hang on, we really need to start thinking beyond ourselves, beyond dollar signs and more about how we can create something that has meaning. And because something that has meaning, people will gravitate towards it. And I like that idea. I like that there is a reason for doing something. I think a lot of times we go through life doing things without any motivation or any reason. So I like approaching life that, doing things where there’s a reason behind it. Otherwise I wouldn’t be motivated.
But another thing I’ve been really trying to do consciously is how can I give value to others? Not necessarily just in music, but how can you give value to, say if you’re visiting someone at their home, how can you give value to them? Is your presence going to give value to them? Is something you do going to give value to them, without expecting something back?

John Murch:
Some very old school values in the new school that you’re doing.

LÂLKA:
Yeah.

John Murch:
Thanks very much for joining us on radionotes.

LÂLKA:
Thank you so much for having me.

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