Name: Intibint
Nationality: Yemeni, UK-based
Occupation: Singer, songwriter, DJ, visual artist
Current release: Intibint's new album Half Moon Eyes is out now.
Hometown Recommendations: Go on a lime bike ride from Dalston to Canning Town at 5am on Saturday morning. Silent roads, silent parks ... everything is kinda grey but crisp and kinda foggy … did it recently, still thinking about it.

If you enjoyed this Intibint interview and would like to know more about her music, visit her on Instagram, Soundcloud, and bandcamp.




Where does the impulse to create something come from for you? What role do often-quoted sources of inspiration like dreams, other forms of art, personal relationships, politics etc play?

I find myself turning to music whenever I feel like I need to express something that I’m struggling to in other ways.

I think this project is the culmination of four years of creations. I felt things, and made stuff and then picked out some tracks from that period which became the Half Moon Eyes album.

For you to get started, do there need to be concrete ideas – or what some have called a 'visualisation' of the finished work? What does the balance between planning and chance look like for you?

I know many artists like to plan their projects and I totally hear that. I don’t like to put timelines on creating music.

That's not to say that I plan nothing - that’s not the case, I definitely like to set goals for myself and manifestations. However when it comes to the planning, I’m very careful about not blurring the line between the practical and the creative.

I let myself have time, and space. I want to create from my heart, I don’t want to create for any other reason.

For Half Moon Eyes, what did you start with? If there were conceptual considerations, what were they?

To be honest, I always had one goal and one goal only. I’m making music that sounds good to me, and I won’t let any exterior factors shake my focus.

I think before making the songs on this album, I spent more time around people who had a lot to say about how to make music that people will like, or that will get the right numbers on streaming platform or whatever.

I needed to get away from that. I don’t care about that. That’s not why I do what I do.

What makes lyrics good in your opinion? What are your own ambitions and challenges in this regard?

If they’re genuine.

Personally I don’t like to overthink my lyrics, I like to sit and ask myself, what am I feeling or thinking right now? What do I want to say?

Whatever comes out of that process are the lyrics.

Once a piece is finished, how important is it for you to let it lie and evaluate it later on? How much improvement and refinement do you personally allow until you're satisfied with a piece?

This is tricky, because whilst I’m super chill in the initial creative process, I’m very detail oriented, picky, and specific about the production, mixing and mastering of the tracks.

Since I take care of the production and mixing myself, I can end up spending way too long perfecting little things that no one will ever notice. I probably created at least 10 mixes of each song on this project before I was finally happy.

It does help sometime to put a song to the side for a bit, and make something else, or take a break all together, almost like a palette cleanser. Then you come back to it, fresh again and make better judgments.

Music and the accompanying artwork are often closely related. Can you talk about this a little bit for your current project and the relationship that images and sounds have for you in general?

The cover was shot by Miriam Ali on a bridge in Glasgow. My hair is flowing everywhere, I almost look like I’m falling off the bridge in to the road and an illustration of mine is overlaid on the image.

The image is an extension of the project, a visualisation of some of the main feelings that I felt when creating this project.

Creativity can reach many different corners of our lives. Do you personally feel as though writing a piece of music is inherently different from something like making a great cup of coffee? What do you express through music that you couldn't or wouldn't in more 'mundane' tasks?

Good question, I guess it depends on the person performing the creative act.

If the person making the coffee feels something, is trying to communicate something, is passionate about making it, finds healing, love, and many things whilst making the coffee, then doesn’t that make the act of making a coffee, an act of self expression? It becomes a more significant creation.

I don’t know, I feel like if something creative means something to you, then it’s important, it’s not mundane, it matters.