This week we had the pleasure of speaking with South London-based artist, Shivum Sharma, who recently dropped his dreamy Diamond EP, just in time to soundtrack the last few days of summer. The Indian Irish singer name-checks icons only as his influences, such as Minnie Riperton, and yes, he can nail a falsetto.
The Diamond EP features the title track, a Kindness remix and two new tracks including our favourite ‘Ride’ – which is totally giving us vibes of another of our favourite falsettos. Icons only, indeed.
We catch up with Shivum to discuss song-writing, a potential techno album he may have deep inside of him and how he met Kindness via a Black Mirror-style experience.
Hey Shivum. How are you?
I’m good thank you. I haven’t done one of these Zoom chats for a while…
Did you go to any zoom raves earlier this year?
No, I had my own instead! A one-man rave! Literally just me. I have a little studio space in my house, it’s small but it has good speakers and I have my own decks. So I am my own DJ, party host and clubber.
Sounds perfect. Congratulations on the release of your Diamond EP. How were you feeling the night of release?
On the actual night I was feeling nervous, emotional and excited. I had a Zoom chat with two of my best mates at midnight. It was my first real musical release in six years. I’d had those songs ready for quite a while and different things just kept pushing back the release. In the end I just thought, ‘I’m going to do this for myself.’
In my head an artist takes a creative break after a release. Is this actually the case?
Sort of. It’s also when you feel a pressure within yourself. The other day I saw one of my friends, Ego Ella May, who just released an incredible album, and we sort of came out to each other saying, ‘I’ve been feeling so much pressure to just carry on and make more.’ Whereas other people are saying to us, ‘You have literally just released something. Calm down.’
And the song ‘Diamond’ is about a toxic relationship, right?
It’s not necessarily toxic, it’s more that you know it is wrong in your heart but you’re just trying desperately to hang on and fool yourself.
I cannot relate to that at all. AT ALLLLLL. Haha…How did you find writing it?
It’s crazy I always hear people say that songs can write themselves and I’d never really understood that. But that’s actually what kind of happened with this.
I was just jamming with my best mate and the person I collaborate with most, Alex Burey, and then we had this electric night where we were just up until so late, and just sketched the basis of five really good songs.
Wow, what were you on that night?!
I think we were probably super stoned.
I’m in love with your falsetto at the end of ‘Ride’. It feels right on the edge of being perfectly in control but also veering off into a total wail. My favourite spot.
Thank you. I’m hugely influenced by people who sing way higher than their body should allow. I used to be a soprano, then as my voice began to break I couldn’t really sing at all and eventually I was like, ‘Right I’ve got to discover my new voice, hopefully there is one there!’ Luckily there was. Then a few years later I realised I could find a way to still go really high. And I think because I am so influenced by predominantly female vocalists, I kind of feel most comfortable, expressive and free when I’m singing super-high.
There’s also a Kindness remix of ‘Diamond’ on the EP. How did you and Adam meet?
We met online…
In quarantine?! Surely not?! Haha…
I know! Crazy, right?! I absolutely love Adam’s music. I love who they are, who they have produced for and the way that they use their platform as well. They posted that they were doing an online meet-up for queer creatives. It was a bit surreal, very Black Mirror-y. A screen would show up saying, ‘Recommend three songs to the other person’ and then it would say, ‘Matching you with…Jean from Brazil’ and then Jean would slowly fade in and you would chat for three minutes before their screen began to fade out. It was very dramatic. I met some really nice people. Then on the last activity it matched me with Adam. They saw that I had some musical equipment in my studio, so we started chatting and they were like the most Zen person to chat to.
Your music to date has not been so electronic based but I know you’ve collaborated with TCTS and now there’s the Kindness remix. How does electronic music fit into your work?
I listen to a lot of electronic music and it definitely factors into my sound more than this last EP would suggest. Never say never but I don’t see myself releasing a techno album. But I do love a good remix where someone can totally re-spin and re-contextualise something. I’m always looking on the deep dark web for a remix.
Finally Loverboy is named after the biggest selling single of 2001 so we always ask, what is your favourite Mariah song?
Oh my God, I actually saw that you ask this and I tried to think of my top song. I guess it would be ‘Say Something’ because I really got into that song when I was a bit younger, I first made a bit of money and took myself to Laos & Vietnam. I was just wandering around the streets on my own, seeing pretty temples, going to the beach, renting a motorbike. For some reason my soundtrack was pretty much exclusively that song. It’s such a cute, loving song.
It sounds perfect because there’s a shot of her in the video in a bikini lying against stack of Louis Vuitton trunks!
I love her. In my head that was me.
Diamond EP is out now
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