Cafe Days with SACHA MULLIN

Emulsion: How long have you been making music?

Sacha: I moved here in 2011 and I guess I stopped making music for a long time. I had some weird experiences making music in high school and then in college, and when I moved to chicago I felt like I needed a break from this. Then I got roped into doing music again by someone I knew from a previous lifetime.

Right now I'm also in Cheer Accident, that collaboration is still going on in a way. As a collective we’ve just released a record on Cuneiform Records, and the core band is actually gone in France right now.

Emulsion: So you’ve been involved in the scene for a while?

Sacha: Yeah absolutely.

Emulsion: There’s a lot of out front production on this. Did you work with a producer?

Sacha: I know enough about production to do it myself but I felt that I needed somebody to be objective so I worked with Todd Rittmann. He’s known around here for being a member of U.S. Maple. I put the record out in July.

Emulsion: This album Duplex, that’s the main thing you’re working on right now, promoting and playing it out?

That’s the record.

Emulsion: How long did it take for you to make?

Sacha: It’s unusual because all my other projects it’s been a really deliberate thing, but with DUPLEX I decided that if I was going to do it I was going to make the record on my own terms. So it’s actually been about 4 years of sporadically working on things, and I guess that I was working through the style I wanted. I wasn’t super happy with how my first record turned out in some ways, so how can I fix that and then another part of me was like "Oh, I want to be a jazz musician…"

Emulsion: Did you play with a backing band?

Sacha: Well I consider them more of a supporting band, because I do direct it and it’s my show but you surround yourself with people who bring out the best in each other and contribute in there own way.

Emulsion: I hear a theatrical element there. Would you agree with that?

Sacha: I don’t know that was my intent but I do recognize it’s there. I’m kind of animated as a person, but in music I’m also really interested in the musical dynamics, which in a pop setting is a little unusual. And all the lyrics are really dramatic so it accidentally becomes theatrical .

Emulsion: Do you have a theater background.

Sacha: No, absolutely none. I’m a terrible actor. Soap opera levels of acting. No.

Check out DUPLEX and the rest of Sacha's music at https://sachamullin.com/