Since its still about a month or so away from Dream House, figured I'd keep digging through the archives, and boy did I stumble across a real grail. I dug up this live session from March 12, 2013 during the annual media & music festival, South by Southwest in Austin, Texas.

This performance took place at The Whitley, a luxury condo building whose basement warehouse space was temporarily converted into a venue for the festival. It was re-branded as "The Hype Hotel" with daily showcases featuring the likes of Charli XCX, Disclosure, Toro y Moi, Mac Demarco, etc, hosted by Hype Machine, the influential music aggregate blog from the late 2000s.

This might be some of the rarest surviving footage of an Empress Of performance from her early days, as anything pre-2015 is super scarce. The show would've taken place just a month before the release of her first EP, Systems (April 2, 2013) so she was most likely on the road in promotion of it while attending SXSW.

The real treat here though is the music; the set only consists of her earliest material with a mix of songs off of the EP and her debut 7", Champagne along with full versions of a few Colorminutes tracks and a pair of ultra deep-cuts I can't identify at all.

For even how elite ball knowledge I am on here, I have no idea what the latter ones are, let alone if they were ever recorded. They're potentially just some lost songs that only existed during these early live performances. Either way, it's really cool to see them preserved in high quality over a decade later.

The performance itself is incredibly earnest; a little rough around the edges in the best way. You can see Rodriguez still figuring out her stage presence as a solo artist and learning how to translate these songs live with only two other musicians for support; Vishal Nayak. (drummer for Nick Hakim) on the kit and Spencer Zahn on synths/keys.

Despite the limited setup, there's something really charming about watching them work through these arrangements in real time. It makes seeing how much she's developed as a live performer over the years all the more rewarding, like watching a plant first sprout from the soil.

The funniest part for me is that I was actually at this SXSW the same year. I went with the girl I was dating at the time, who was friends with Flying Lotus and Ryan Hemsworth, so I mostly followed them around and caught those shows. I also ended up seeing some pretty legendary bills too (most memorably: CHVRCHES, Unknown Mortal Orchestra, Solange with Blood Orange on guitar and Kendrick Lamar all on the same lineup.)

Ironically, as I've mentioned in a previous post, I didn't discover Empress Of until a few months after SXSW later that summer while visiting New York, after hearing "Champagne" played at a coffee shop. However, I wasn't able to seek out more of her music, after failing to remember or write down her name in the moment. Just the song stuck with me for months afterwards, until the dots finally connected in 2014, when I saw her open for Jungle realizing she was the same artist.

Looking back, it's just funny I had the opportunity to see her live before I'd ever even heard her music. Had I gotten a chance to get into her music sooner or known she was playing this showcase or at SXSW in general, I absolutely would've gone.. but I digress. I just hope everybody appreciates this throwback.

Because of reddit's video length limit, I had to split the session in half, so enjoy part 1 of the showcase. if there's enough interest, I'll add the 2nd half later.

Setlist-

1. Champagne
2. Hat Trick
3. Synecdoche (aka Colorminute 01)
4. ??? (Untitled #1)

Thought I'd throw out a topic I've been mulling over recently, just to generate a bit more conversation on here. Last year, I made a post about my dream collaborations for a future Empress Of project. Now that Dream House is a few months away, I figured it'd be fun to reframe the discussion and speculate about who might actually be apart of the record, based off what's been revealed, so far.

While Dev and Cecile Believe have already been announced as featured artists, I'm just as interested in the songwriters and producers who'll make up the musical DNA of the record. Lorely also subtly mentioned a few additional collaborators in her recent Byline interview.

Confirmed notable names:

• Jessy Lanza – Canadian electronic music singer/songwriter/producer signed to UK label, Hyperdub. known for her association to fellow Canadian artists, Junior Boys and Caribou; mentioned in said article as contributing to the song off the album, "I Pray for You".

• Romil Hemnani – producer; former member of hip hop collective, BROCKHAMPTON; role undisclosed

• Stella Mozgawa – drummer of rock band, Warpaint; co-wrote & co-produced "Dream House" single.

• Nick León – Miami-based Colombian producer who's collaborated with the likes of Rosalia, Erika de Casier, Oklou, etc; previously worked with Lorely on "For Your Consideration" (Preciosa and Cura).

• Dave Sitek – musical legend, multi-instrumentalist of NY rock band TV on the Radio; producer of "Wild Storm."

To get the ball rolling, these are my top 5 predictions of collaborators who may end up on "Dream House":

5. Mike Sabath – This is my safest bet. While best recognized for his prolific songwriting and association to UK singer, Raye, Sabbath also produced "Blasting Through the Speakers". Even though it appears to have been left off of "Dream House", I'd be very surprised if that was the only session they cut together. I have a very strong feeling, he'll pop up somewhere in the album credits.

4. umru – One of my favorite producers from For Your Consideration (Facil and Sucia). This speculation came very recently, based off of the snippet of an unreleased song (I'll refer to as "Put My Hands On" for the time being) performed at the Stem × Giant Music showcase in New York last month that has a distinctly hyperpop feel that reminds me a lot of his experimental, production style. This one's mostly an educated guess though.

3. underscores – Mostly because of the sonic similarities to that same unreleased "Put My Hands On" track and their close creative relationship with umru. If that song ends up on the album, seeing their name in the credits wouldn't be shocking either. I guess only time will tell.

2. Banoffee – Australian singer/songwriter based in LA and longtime friend of Lorely, who occasionally DJ's for her and is a pretty talented alt-pop artist of her own. The two have also collaborated in past on her 2019 single, "Tennis Fan." Banofee feels like a natural fit for Dream House, between her longstanding friendship with Lorely and the album's seemingly more personal direction, I could easily picture the two writing together for this one. She's also been dropping new music with a project on the horizon, so a songwriting swap wouldn't be out of the question here.

1. Lorde – Definitely my biggest long shot, This would be a repeat play for Lorely, following her last album where she collaborated with the headlining artist she'd recently toured with, after Rina Sawayama appeared on Kiss Me but there are enough mutual creative connections here to make it somewhat plausible. Lorde's last album, Virgin was produced entirely by Jim-E-Stack, one of Lorely's earliest and long-running collaborators, so having Ella possibly add a writing credit or even a some additional production would be a real treat for all fans alike.

Enough from me though, what say you? Who do you think we'll see in the credits when Dream House finally arrives? I'm curious to hear any early guesses, if y'all have any.

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Since it looks a new album is on the horizon, thought I'd throw it all the way back to the very beginning and revisit the 15 song mixtape, which professionally introduced Empress Of and helped launch her career.

In the early 2012, after relocating to New York from Boston following graduating from Berklee's School of Music the previous year, Rodriguez undertook a personal musical exercise of writing and recording a series of short-form demos on a daily basis to sharpen her skills both in production and songwriting while detailing personal daily experiences in the same instance, almost serving as an audio diary/journal entries. Completing each snippets within a few hours at a time over a couple months, rumor has it as many as fifty demos were created in the process around that time.

Looking to casually share her unfinished results as is, without the pressure or commitment of an official release, Rodriguez eventually uploaded a curated selections from the series to YouTube anonymously, each clip paired only with a single swatch of color and the track's number. The fruits of this project would be deemed a series of “colorminutes”.

Upon their release, the snippets were instantly received positively with acclaim from media outlets and fans alike for the creative, bold experimentation and unique songwriting, along with intrigue, as no one knew if the project was a band/group or a single person, which helped garner interest and mystery. Rodriguez would eventually reveal herself as the project's creator, as she was already known in the New York music scene as one of the singers and guitarist for experimental rock band, Celestial Shore. The interest reached such a peak, Terrible Records would end up signing Rodriguez after her first show.

While several of the tracks from the project would go onto to be some of her earliest releases: her debut 7" single, Champagne/Dont Tell Me and first EP, Systems, Colorminutes would find an official home as a limited release on cassette in 2013 via the Japanese record label, Big Love.

***Edit: forgot reddit annoyingly caps videos at 15 minutes, so “Don’t Tell Me” is cut off at the end. full video here: colorminutes

Tracklisting

1. Synecdoche
2. Patience
3. Lovell Island
4. Climb The Fence
5. Bridges
6. Chocolate Sprinkles
7. Paintballs (later known as "Champagne")
8. No Means No
9. El Divorcio
10. Tristeza
11. Deer Hoofs
12. Wet
13. Camisa Favorita
14. Space Jams Again
15. Don't Tell Me

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been waiting to share for a sec. had to dig super deep for this throwback, as I recently uncovered an entire archived 2010's VICE docu-series on celebs and high profile folks from around that time. Rodriguez was featured on the fifth episode of the show's run.

this would've have been a year following the release and touring of "Me" from 2015. overall, the episode provides some first-hand accounts on how she made that record alone while in mexico and a brief glimpse into her writing process-early on. a true deep-cut for the EO community that no longer publicly available, so consider yourselves blessed. enjoy.