Rachael Knight: Hi, nice to meet you!

Xavier Valentine: Hello! Nice to meet you too.

RK: So right now, word on the street is that you've been working on two albums to release one week after another.

XV: That's true, true. I've been working nonstop when I'm not working nonstop at my dayjob. The two albums are called XII XXI and Marmalade. The former being something more experimental, slow, ambient. A "feel" album. The second being more like an exercise in pop formulation, dance beats, discotheque, that sort of thing.

RK: Which do you feel more accurately represents what your current inspirations are?

XV: That is exactly why I chose to split them into two albums instead of releasing it as one huge album. There are so many influences in my art right now. A big one is the woods. The forest. Have you seen the Discovery Channel's "Planet Earth" series? There is this fantastic episode about Seasonal Forests. Some of the most beautiful and bizarre things happen in forests. I like the darkness, the organic horror of a nighttime wood choked with trees and insects. That is the main idea influencing XII XXI. Marmalade is more of a concept album, telling the story behind a girl named "Honey" getting lost in these woods, finding creatures more like herself. Self destructive, violent, alone, sexual.

RK: What sort of sounds are employing for these releases?

XV: Each album sort of had a range of instruments or ideas that I'd flex, and use them up. For DOPE POP, I was all about drawn out basslines, saws, kid stuff. Embarassing now. For RUN JUNK, I was really into wide chords, slow chunky beats and lots of reverb. SAINT ELOI : AU LAIT was where I think I made the turning point into becoming what I am today, trying to utalize beats in the most interesting way I could while still retaining dancability and form. EGOISM was my singer-songwriter phase where I flexed my ability to write melodies that weren't hooks. Funeral for the Queen was my 'hook' album, my ultimate pop album. It was made in LA and sounds like it, digital basslines, rock and roll influences, etc. Now, I'm using a lot of horns, a lot of wavery old rhodes, percussive things, like marimbas, vibraphones, glockenspiel, bells of every variety. Big blocky noises.

RK: You classically have Milk featured on a few tracks on each album, does she sing in these?

XV: More than before, actually. We spend almost every day together, talking about ways to make interesting yet pleasing music. She has a voice that is really perfect to match my own. She is far better at singing than I am, but our range is a perfect octave difference. We harmonize tonally, rather than in perfect fifths like a barber shop choir or something. So far, she is more present in XII XXI than she is in Marmalade. And since we're still working on our debut EP, we're spending a lot of time on that as well. (Which is starting to shape up, P.S.)

RK: You are a completely self sufficient artist, you aren't owned by a label, you write, record, sing, produce, and distribute all by yourself. Do you sometimes wish that you had a manager, or a label to do all the tedious work for you so you could focus on your music?

XV: Yes, but it's a classic matter of finding a label that doesn't want me to change into a pop icon. An electro Marilyn Manson. I don't want to be sold, I want to be heard. If I make a few bucks off of it, I'm not complaining, certainly not. Any person who tells you they are in it purely for the music is a liar. I love music, it is my life, but money is something we all need. And who doesn't want to make it doing something they love to do? I'm opening my own label soon, it's going to be called MATH + SCIENCE. It's in the works, and I'm trying to find partners to help me out on this, people who know a little bit more about it than I do. All I know is I want to provide distribution for artists who otherwise wouldn't get the recognition they deserve due to an unattractive marketing package or what have you.

RK: If you could collaborate with any artist for this upcoming album, who would it be?

XV: It will always be Xiu Xiu, they are my hugest love and inspiration. But I would love to collaborate with so many other people, Thom Yorke, The Knife, Blonde Redhead, Win & Regine Chassagne, CocoRosie, Alison Goldfrapp, Justice, M.I.A., Timbaland, Bjork, etc. The list goes on and on and on.

RK: Who is your favourite artist? I mean this in the sense that they are a painter or sculpter or something along those lines.

XV: Hands down, Gottfried Helnwein, who did artwork with Marilyn Manson for his Golden Age of Grotesque release. Look up some of his work and tell me he is not one of the most amazing artists to grace this planet. I am also a big fan of Andrew Wyeth, hyperrealism. I don't really like surrealists or impressionists and most surely not pop art. Andy Warhol equals awful.

RK: Back on topic of your music, could you tell us what some of the tracks will be like?

XV: I have a few tracks up from the upcoming releases on my myspace page. Pyramid sounds like a glittering cave full of tribal men and an insect talk-singing about a woman he loves and how he made love to her while watching her glowing eyes roll back into her head. Another song, "My Husband, My Life in the Poppies" is about a wife who lives a sad life with her husband. They used to share this great life together, until he started to lose his life to his various vices. She's worried for him, because he's removing himself from reality. One more track, on Marmalade "Atlier" is about "Honey" preparing to kill herself at her hotel. She must decide does she live and try and grow from all of her horror in the past, or does she end it now when she has at least one good moment under her belt. Will it get worse or will it get better?

RK: That about wraps this up, is there anything you'd like to finish with?

XV: Yes, tomorrow, I am starting a video shoot for a song I won't say just yet. But be on the lookout for it. I'm directing it, and I think it might be very good. But who knows.