When Philthy first caught up with producer/vocalist/beat-maker Morgan Neiman, AKA Ducky, we discussed her love of both trip hop and punk, sampling porn, and how a school photo with a stuffed duck led to her moniker. In our most recent chat I caught her right in the middle of her latest musical creation. When I ask her what she’s up to, she tells me, “At this very second I’m working on a song and kind of in a zone… Sorry… I kind of forgot about this chat.”
Ducky’s career began in San Francisco when she was just 13. By the time she was 16, she was spinning in clubs. And by 17 she had moved to New York to attend NYU. Since then, she’s released a handful of mini releases. Her sounds span a gamut of electronic entities, from sultry postmodern R&B balladry to the most abrasive kind of DIY synth-pop… and most things in-between. When I ask her about what it is that tends to inspire her most, she tells me that it’s hard to pinpoint anything in particular.
“I don’t think it’s possible to narrow it down to one thing. My process of making music was never linear. Like I’ll do some lyrics and then work on some music. But I guess it’s just an amalgam of my experiences, my friends’ experience, and my rampant imagination.”
Ducky’s latest release is single “Air,” which dropped last month and has received praise from the likes of Spin and Interview. The single also has one of the more enticing music videos I’ve seen in a while. When I ask about her highlights of 2013, Neiman cites both the single itself and the accompanying music video: “The highlight of 2013 has definitely been putting out ‘Air’ and also putting out the the music video,’” a hyper-erotic experience, which has Ducky boasting her hyper-enticing, dripping-in-bling brand of androgyny, while spitting her ineffably infectious, synthetic soul to a bevy of lovely, ink-covered bois and girls. She seems thrilled when I tell her how hot the video turned out, but she admits that she doesn’t quite deserve all of the credit. “I’ve always thought that visuals weren’t really my thing,” she admits, telling me that the video is really a product of the relationship she has with director Rylee Jean Ebsen: “It sort of evolved from a back and forth between and director and I. We have a really good rapport.”
[youtube http://youtu.be/h5ym3e7jCzc]
There’s also apparently quite a bit more Ducky music that’s nearly ready to be released. When I asked her about what she’s currently most focused on, she tells me: “Just putting more shit out. I have an arsenal of songs to get out. We’re just thinking about how we’re going to put them out, for the time being.” In the meantime, I figured I’d see if we might be able to get a chance to catch the live experience… which comes off as electro-Brechtian punk burlesque and which she describes as, “Very freeing… My shows embody the freedom to be hedonistic.” Well… apparently there is a good chance we’ll get to experience Ducky-style hedonism in the near future. She tells me, “We’re definitely planning to go through the East Coast in the near future,” before chuckling menacingly and concluding, “… And eventually… the world!”
[youtube http://youtu.be/v3HflgDLAcU]
