INTRODUCING: Charlotte Devlin

Charlotte Devlin is a composer, performer, and producer from South Lanarkshire, Scotland. She creates immersive works that blur genre boundaries and invite audience participation, blending her love of dance with sound. Trained in composition and sonic arts at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, Charlotte transforms everyday objects and sounds into musical instruments, sometimes incorporating spoken voice from her own interviews. Her work examines music from a sonic and textural perspective, pushing the limits of what music can be, while maintaining a playful, audience-focused approach.

1. Your work often blurs genre boundaries and incorporates audience participation. What draws you to creating immersive, hybrid musical experiences?

If there’s an opportunity to have my music displayed in a concert setting, I like to grab the opportunity to incorporate more performative or visual gestures. My music can exist on its own, but to occasionally have a visual representation adds that little extra touch. As for participation, I find that the stage can have some sort of imaginary screen of separation; a divide between audience and artist. To cross over that, into the audience breaks down that barrier, reminding them that they are part of this show. I include participatory parts into my music, such as lyrics, clapping or dance moves to include the audience within the piece itself. I want to create an experience that those attending won’t forget.

2. You frequently use everyday objects and found sounds in your compositions. Can you walk us through your process of transforming these materials into musical instruments?

I’ve been playing the drums since I was 9 years old. Before I got my drum kit I would practice on anything I could find around me. I think that’s what sparked this love for using found objects. Most of the time I find these sounds accidentally; like the time I was filling up my Chilly’s flask and bumped it off of the worktop and it created a beautiful sound. Or the time I was sharpening knives in the kitchen and became fixated on the pitch slide that they produce. After recording these sounds I spend some time experimenting with processing in my DAW. EQ is a very powerful tool which allows me to highlight the tonal qualities. Then there is a plethora of other processing tools and effects that I can use to alter that sound. There is the conscious choice that I have of keeping the familiarity of the sound or altering it so far away from its origins to create something new. For me, one of the most fun things is putting the sound into a sampler so I can play it by pitch through my keyboard, creating chords and melodies from a found sound.

3. Your new EP sonicinvoluntaryreflex marks a bold step into experimental EDM. What themes or ideas were you exploring while creating this project?

Thank you! The title sonicinvoluntaryreflex ties together this idea of my instinctive response to sound, which actually shaped the EP. Wherever I am, I find myself constantly drawn to sound and having a very quick reaction to it, most of the time being “ohhh I want to sample that” and wondering how I can utilise or alter it within my music. It’s a sonic involuntary reflex.

I wanted to create DIY electronic music that incorporated familiar sounds. For example ‘DRUMSDRUMSDRUMS’ was made entirely from recordings of my drum kit and other percussion instruments in my house, as well as a snippet of my voice taken from a video when I was 12 years old. All of this adds a sense of nostalgia to me and perhaps to the listener too. I often describe this style of my work as an audio scrapbook, which leads to the theme of concept: each track uses found sounds which tie together in a contextual way to create a story; such as ‘Granda’s Tea’ which uses sounds from the tea-making process in both rhythmical and non-rhythmical ways, familiar to the tea drinker.

4. Collaboration is clearly central to your practice—working with dancers, filmmakers, and performers. How do these interdisciplinary relationships influence your musical decisions?

As a composer I enjoy taking on opportunities of collaboration. It’s always good to create art which is built from the energy of multiple people. It’s like adding the ingredients to a recipe to create something new.

Quite often in these settings the collaborator will reach out to me with an idea of what they would like the project to be about. For me this initial idea is a stimulus to an emotional response. I mostly compose through improvisation, placing myself into the emotional state that is to be communicated.

From a production side it’s important to understand setting too, both time and place. I co-devised a show earlier this year which was set in a club, therefore it was important to turn that bass right up! ‘Painting Some Thing’ is a great example, as it was actually composed for an exhibition back in February. Of course, being surrounded by beautiful art it was clear to me that I had to use this as my stimulus and create a piece based on that setting.

5. From releasing music on your iPhone at 16 to studying sonic arts at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, how has your artistic identity evolved, and where do you see your practice heading next?

That track I released when I was 16 could be described as electronica; It was very repetitive too and I think only used two chords. As an artist I didn’t really have much of an identity other than being the drummer in the school band, I was just a shy 16 year old school kid with not many friends but a huge passion for creating art.

In my final year of high school I turned to instrumental writing. I was going through a tough period of grief and my music became quite sad, shifting away completely from this groovy music I was used to making. Then I got into my dream Uni; studying composition at the conservatoire taught me how to add more complexity and detail to my work. During this time I explored writing instrumental music for multiple ensembles and even orchestra. As part of my degree I also studied sonic arts which is where I learned how to transform sound.

After exploring a bunch of styles, I did a sort of full circle moment back to my original writing roots of electronica, taking all I had learned and explored with me, incorporating this into my work. Now I feel very comfortable in my identity as an artist, focusing on themes of found sound, joy, nostalgia and groove. Next, I would like to focus on performing,

growing my audience and continue using found sounds to create groovy and fun music. I am based in Glasgow for now but I am excited by the idea of working around and outside of the UK if I get the opportunity, performing and collaborating with other artists.