© Robert Bartholot
From London’s clubbing scene to art installations and university lectures - Semi Precious moves fluidly between creative experiences.
Music has been used as a medium to express oneself since the dawn of time. Whether it's about exploring identity, working through feelings of longing or anything and everything in between, melodies and sounds have such versatility - like the subject of this interview. For over a decade, Guy, who operates under the moniker ‘Semi Precious’, has been crafting intimate, minimalist soundscapes that blur the often arbitrary lines between electronic music and evocative storytelling. His latest single, Fluid, dives into the ambiguous, sometimes unspoken, dynamics on the dance floor, where desire, fantasy, and reality collide.
Beyond the music itself, Guy’s journey is one of reinvention. His life seems perpetually in motion, whether moving from Tel Aviv to London, clubbing to academia, or publishing music traditionally to launching experimental gallery installations. His approach is instinctive, shaped by what’s available to him in the moment: sparking inspiration for his visuals from a thrifted book cover or using his laptop as his entire studio.
In this conversation with neun magazine, we talked about the creative process behind Fluid, the evolution of Semi Precious’ sound, and why embracing limitation can be the key to artistic freedom.
Congratulations on your latest single Fluid. It explores the somewhat ambiguous sexual boundaries on crowded dance floors. Where did you get the inspiration from?
I wrote it almost 10 years ago, in the heyday of my clubbing days. I moved to London in 2011 to study and after three or four years I really immersed myself in East London’s clubbing scene. On my nights out, there was always this fantasy of fulfilling something with or crossing the lines with straight people who wouldn't necessarily be attracted to me or interested in me. And so that became some kind of longing for something that can't be fulfilled but is still very exciting.
Needless to say, in clubbing situations, there are often substances involved that help facilitate that blurring of boundaries between what is possible and what is not and between reality and fantasy, which is what Fluid was inspired by. There is also a darker side to this, where chasing these straight men who wouldn't be interested in you becomes sort of self-destructive. Either way, I acknowledge that it's part of my gay history and identity.
It’s a very vulnerable and brave thing to share so candidly.
I mean, there's something complex there. I definitely don't perceive myself as the victim in the situation or as being victimised. I enjoyed the chase, but it can leave you hollow if the attraction is always non-reciprocal and if you’re constantly seeking approval. Other musicians also explored this gay-straight attraction and its darker sides, for example, Troye Sivan in One of Your Girls, which deals with a similar theme of wanting to appeal to straight people. Things are ambiguous, they’re not black and white. But yes, Fluid is confessional and sort of intimate, like more of my songs.
© Robert Bartholot
The artwork and visuals for Fluid are stunning and are inspired by Barely Working by Adam Raphael. How did you and Berlin Photographer Bartholot approach this creative masterpiece?
I met Robert around 10 years ago, and we really connected and have become great friends since then. He's been involved in many of my musical releases over the last decade. Like many of my friends, he lives in Berlin, and I spend a lot of my summers there. Every time in the city, we have a photo shoot, just for fun. It's nice to be playful and a bit silly and I really enjoy the visual side of things, the world-building and creating a visual identity and persona around each release of mine.
With the making of Fluid, I actually found the book Barely Working in a thrift shop in London for a pound. It kind of looks like 90s gay soft porn, where the imagery is hypermasculine, all those ‘working men situations’, nearby a car or doing outdoorsy stuff. But at the same time, it's so obviously gay. There was something about the duality of these two things that existed at the same time that appealed to me. I felt it connected weirdly with the inspirations for Fluid, embodying that sense of masculinity that I'm being drawn to.
© Adam Raphael - Barely Working
[Robert and I] used some of these images as inspirations, but generally, when I work with visual artists, I prefer to improvise and see what we have available in the space we’re in and where it takes us. It just so happens that Robert collects all kinds of fashion garments and has loads of cool stuff at his place. He has a great setup in his living room with loads of backdrops, and really high ceilings and natural light, so we always shoot at his flat in Berlin.
You’ve been making music for some time now. How would you say your style has evolved, and what are you learning about yourself every time you release new music?
I started Semi Precious as a university project, and it’s still the same kind of project. I don't actually play any musical instruments very well. I can play some keys and I have some music theory background, but I don't consider myself an instrumentalist. I sing, and I mainly make music with my laptop. My approach is quite minimalist and always has been.
Now, my tracks have become a bit longer, and I’ve also started working a bit more with synthesisers, which allows me to tweak sounds surgically so I can be a bit more detailed with textures. But I always find myself going back to wanting to make music in the way I did at the beginning: short and reflective pieces.
Some people who work with music software will have 30, or 40 channels of different instrumentation on a project, but I actually like working with just two or three channels. It’s stripped-down and minimalist, but otherwise, I go down a rabbit hole and tweak things forever, so it's good to set myself some limitations. The more I make music, the more I'm drawn to working with what I have at hand at a given moment in time.
© Barbora Mrazkova
How do you deal with the varying degrees of popularity in songs as an artist?
I think the music-making environment is a very saturated one, and it's really hard to break through that clutter of music because of the massive amounts being dropped every day. Ten years ago, when I first started releasing music, it was a bit easier to get my songs heard. But back then I was also younger and I was driven to make sure that my music was being heard by a lot of people and by the relevant tastemakers.
For a certain period, I also ran a record label and did a lot of work promoting my music and promoting the music of other people.
Nowadays, things have shifted more towards social media interactions, and it also needs to be said that [making music] is not my day job; I don't make a living directly from my music. In a way, I have more freedom and don’t worry too much about how many plays my music gets.
However, with time, I’ve come to appreciate different things that are more interesting for me than just the number of plays or the amount of popularity. I cherish meaningful collaborations and I've started doing a lot of more gallery-oriented work, such as installations and working with visual artists. I find myself doing these small projects that I enjoy more than if my track were to get another 20,000 plays on Spotify. It took some maturity and time to get to that point, as back then I was much more numbers-driven.
One of those projects was an installation at the Museum of the Home in London.
I'm quite interested in music that is created in non-professional spaces, in places that are very intimate, and where people can be quite vulnerable and fragile. With my previous release, my EP Sun Is Out, I tried to find suitable outlets and spaces to have the music featured in.Thinking about the domestic environment and the bedroom, the Museum of the Home emerged as an opportunity. I worked with another artist I often collaborate with, Yasmin Vardi, and we created a video installation around one of my tracks. It featured in the museum for a few days as part of the Queeriosities art fair, and it was a really interesting experience.
I've also had a few other small installations, one in Sheffield in a gallery called Gloam, and a bunch of other ones. I’m gradually delving into that world, which I hope will continue. It’s good to see that my music can also take me to other spaces.
© Robert Bartholot
You’re a music lecturer at Goldsmiths University and London South Bank University. Do you ever feel there is a conflict between your work as an academic and your work as an artist? And how do your students react to your work?
My research is not so much published in articles, it’s practice-based; making music is my research. I give my music as an example in lectures, and I think it's important for my students to see that I'm also creating, just like they do. There is definitely a “feedback loop”, because seeing what these students produce fuels my own inspiration and feeds into my creative practice. Some of the students are incredibly imaginative and expressive in their work, and I feel very fortunate to witness their transformation and to see them evolve during such a pivotal time in their lives. It’s a privilege.
I also encourage my students to understand that you can only work with what is available to you, in terms of equipment, technology, and emotions, for example, your life experiences. You don’t have to constantly seek out what is missing. For me, that’s where creativity happens. It’s a bit like being at a thrift shop. You just find things, things come your way because you're more curious, you're more alert, you're more present and you start making connections. It’s realizing, ‘I'm here now, this is what I have at hand (also in terms of my skill set) and I'm going to just be creative with it as much as I can.’
The creative industry can destroy more dreams than it fulfils. What, in your opinion, will have to change to make it more inclusive?
My personal approach has always been pragmatic, I suppose. In essence, I'm an optimist! I think that even in places where you think opportunities can't be found, there's always a way. Even now, when it's really challenging to put music out there and to make it heard. I think you need to be creative with how you approach everything, even the commercial side of things. For me, it’s often been all these collaborations with other artists and institutions.
Obviously, tons of improvement can be made in terms of inclusivity and in terms of breaking gatekeeping patterns. I’m really allergic to gatekeeping, and there’s a lot of it in the music industry. For example, the idea that, if something is recorded in Abbey Road Studios, it’s more valuable and important than other music - that’s, in my opinion, utter bullshit and something that needs to be broken. You can create wonderful textures, just with your iPhone. I’m not saying this to take away the expertise or the proficiencies of some of these people who have dedicated their entire lives to being producers or sound engineers, but holding knowledge and acting as if someone who doesn’t have it can’t be truly creative, that’s not OK.
That’s what I try to instil in my students as well: They don't need to wait to make music until they have that expensive piece of gear or until they have access to a fancy studio, they can just work with what they have.
I think we also need to get away from the idea that we have to do just one thing which has to be our main source of income. Perhaps that was possible for our parents, but that’s often an illusion for our generation. You have to come to terms with the fact that you'll have to do a bunch of different things. You won’t have one cohesive professional identity, but that's also beautiful. We have different skill sets, we're not a singular entity in terms of our identity and skills, and I think that is something to be embraced and not necessarily to dismiss.
© Barbora Mrazkova
Guy’s approach to his artistry is about so much more than numbers, plays, likes or commercial success - it’s about utility and exploration. As a musician and lecturer, he seamlessly combines creativity with academia and has become an excellent mentor and role model for his students.
Whether it’s crafting music through a stripped-down approach, or prioritising collaborations and meaningful experiences over traditional gigs, Semi Precious proves that no one needs permission to become an artist. His openness and vulnerability make him so very special, and as long as his music keeps coming, we’ll be here, ready to listen.
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