23 years after the release of her first studio album, Colleen continues to delight and surprise. Libres antes del Final, her tenth studio album, was inspired by learning to swim in the sea after 30 years of water phobia, Buddhism and the question as to whether we can ever be freed “from the endlessly spinning twin wheels of our own brain and heart”?
I spoke to her at the SLS hotel in Barcelona, close to where she learned to swim in the sea, and you can watch that here. But for lovers of text - and I know you’re out there - I decided to run some selected highlights from the interview here. Look out for dog pools, dolphins, Moogs and more.
Ben Cardew
Colleen, it’s a real pleasure to have you here for many reasons but one of which is that we are currently near where you learned to swim, by the Playa del Llevant in Barcelona, and you said the end near the dog pool.
Colleen
Oh yeah, which probably didn’t sound so good, but that’s the area where I learned to swim, really close to here and really close to the new Primavera Sound offices.
Ben Cardew
There’s a pool for dogs.
Colleen
There is a pool for dogs. I never knew, thankfully. They deserve water too.
Ben Cardew
In a rather neat circle, learning to swim relates back to your most recent album, Libres Antes del Final. Could you tell us the story?
Colleen
Initially, the album was actually going to be called Aguas Abiertas, which is the Spanish for open waters or open water. midway through making the album, I decided to change the title to Libres Antes del Final but I think the fact that I was thinking of calling the album Aguas Abiertas says a lot about the impact that learning to swim in the sea had on me, to try and summarise it.
I had this water phobia for nearly 30 years, even though as a kid I really loved swimming. But I only did it in a swimming pool and then basically I came across several adults through the course of my childhood and early teenage years that, instead of helping me stay comfortable in the water, did just the opposite. I ended up feeling so uncomfortable that this turned into an actual fear and I thought, “Okay, I’m just not going to get into water anymore.”
When I moved to the Basque Country in 2010, I kind of reconnected with the sea, but obviously the Atlantic is a very unforgiving sea. It’s not the kind of sea where you would want to learn to swim again. So when I moved to Barcelona in 2019, each time I saw the Mediterranean, I was thinking, “I can’t believe I can’t get into it because of my fear, I have to do something about it.” But each time there was something stopping me. It was maybe, “Okay, my health isn’t so great,” or “I’m just too busy making this album,” or “I’m about to go on tour.”
Then, in the end, exactly two years ago, I decided to not make excuses anymore. I had celebrated my 250th show in the Azores, which is this incredible archipelago, and I went on a boat trip to try and see dolphins and whales. The crew said, “When the water temperatures are warm and dolphins are showing signs of being willing to interact, we allow people to get off the boat and swim with the dolphins.” I think that moment, because I’m really into nature and observing animals, I thought, “Imagine being in this situation of being able to swim with dolphins - which I’m guessing must be one of the best things you can do in your life ever - and not being able to do that because you just kept making excuses for not learning to swim again.”
So I came back, and a couple of weeks later I made the decision to learn to swim. I found a teacher who specialises in open water swimming and who also specialises in the psychology of fear and fear of water. That was the start of this incredible journey of confronting the fear and learning to be in contact with water again. It just was like a chain reaction after that of feeling really empowered. I think the way it translates to the music is that the music is a lot more impactful, a lot more rhythmical, a lot more physical. Some people have said at the shows that it’s very visceral, and I think I really connected with the adventure of facing that fear.
Ben Cardew
Libres Antes del Final means free before the end.
Colleen
Yeah, or the ending.
Ben Cardew
Is that how you feel when you swim - free?
Colleen
I think with that title I wasn’t necessarily still thinking about water, even though for sure, in general, learning to confront whatever fear you have is liberating. I think it was more a reference to my own tendency to have thoughts - I guess my own, but also a human trait - like these tendencies that we have that lead to self-sabotage, or maybe just going in loops. I think it’s a theme that’s been present in my music over many of my albums: this predominance of the mind over the body and how basically that sometimes ruins our experience of life.
About three years ago I started reading about Buddhism quite a bit. I didn’t become a Buddhist but I do think Buddhism has very interesting things to say about the human psyche and they have this concept of unskillful thoughts - basically thoughts that don’t serve us. So when I thought of the title Libres Antes del Final, I was trying to imagine a life where thoughts and feelings wouldn’t get in the way of feeling free, whatever you want that to mean. Definitely there is a connection with learning to get rid of your fears or confronting them, for sure.
Ben Cardew
Do you listen to music when you swim?
Colleen
Oh, no, no, no. I think, really, for me, actually, it’s really about connecting with the water and trying to disconnect as much as possible from the rest of my life. I don’t listen to music but it’s still a very interesting experience in terms of sound, just having your head under the water. I really like it, actually.
Ben Cardew
Do ideas for music come to you when you’re out there?
Colleen
Actually, they do, yeah. I would say, in general, my music is very connected to the things I do outside of being in the studio, whether it’s human experiences or traveling, or especially with this album, being connected with physical activities in general.
Ben Cardew
I was thinking there’s something about the way in which synths sometimes overlap almost a bit like waves or something.
Colleen
Yeah, definitely. Also, when I chose the photo for the album cover, when I saw that photo - it’s me Cadaqués, just laying like this - I was looking at the shape of the water and I was thinking this is insane. Because with analogue synthesis, obviously all music is waveforms, but with synthesis your job is to work with waveforms, literally. You choose your square, triangle, ramp, sawtooth, whatever you work with, and the fact that it’s called a waveform in and of itself... without getting too literal about it, I saw that there’s really a connection for me, at least.
Ben Cardew
The album is all made on the Moog Matriarch?
Colleen
Yes, the whole album.
Ben Cardew
Why did you want to deliberately limit yourself to one instrument?
Colleen
This process of limiting myself has been going on for quite a few years. When you last interviewed me for my previous album, The Tunnel and the Clearing, that was super restricted as well because it was one synthesiser, which was monophonic, and just two delays, which is a very, very minimal setup. In this case, you could say it’s more minimal because it’s one synth, but it does have a delay that’s integrated, and it’s paraphonic.
Not going to go into too many technical details, but paraphonic is not exactly the same as polyphonic. To shorten it, it does mean you can play chords and a melody. So for me, that was a big shift from the previous synthesiser, the Grandmother. It’s just such a beautiful synthesiser. I worked on this album for about a year and a half, and even after a year and a half of really digging into it, I’m still just at the tip of the iceberg. It’s just a really amazing synthesiser.
Ben Cardew
It’s a kind of freedom through limitation?
Colleen
Yeah, for me, yes. I also think it ties in with a personality trait of mine, which is that I easily get overwhelmed by quantity. Some people thrive on having 1,000 records in their vinyl collection, lots of books, lots of shoes, lots of clothes, lots of whatever, but for me, that actually gives me anxiety. It’s the same in the studio. I do have quite a lot of instruments that have accumulated over the years, but I really love just focusing. With synthesis, it’s really about how much care and how deep you are willing to go. If you go really deep into one single instrument, you will definitely get a lot out of it. If you have more instruments, you’re probably going to skim the surface, I think.
Ben Cardew
The album has some wonderful song names too. Mis Armas Se Habian Caido al Suelo - “My weapons had fallen to the floor.” What do you mean by that?
Colleen
Oh, wow, that’s kind of very personal but I think it’s maybe something that anyone - well, hopefully everyone - can relate to. It’s a reference to moments when maybe after building up an armour, or maybe things have happened to you that mean you have been carrying these weapons just in case someone tries to mess with you again, you have this moment of maybe meeting somebody or being in a situation where you feel like, “Okay, now’s the time to relax, just put your weapons to the floor.” It could mean a lot of different things to many people, but it was just one day where I was leaving something and it made me realise I had just put my weapons to the floor.
Ben Cardew
When you’re making music, obviously nowadays it’s mostly instrumental music, but where does the title come from? Are you thinking of it as you’re making it, or is it after?
Colleen
It’s like a conjunction of factors. As I said, I really think my music is tightly linked to the different areas of my life, and I will regularly have ideas for words or titles that resonate with me. The next song is Puertas de Mi Cuerpo, like “Doors of My Body” or you could also translate it as “Gates of My Body,” which I think is a bit more interesting. That’s also a reference to trying to live a more embodied life.
“Embodied” is a fashionable word right now, but when I started to swim, after that, I also started playing ping pong - table tennis - just for fun. I mean, how much fun is playing table tennis? It’s just the best thing in the world. So I connected with that.
I also started dancing. I went clubbing a little bit - not too much, because I’m too old to be up in the middle of the night. I can’t really do it, but I also had this self-imposed limitation on dancing and when I started dancing, actually, that also had a big influence on the album’s sound.
What else did I do? Oh yeah, and I went to self-defence classes - women-only self-defence classes - where it was a mix of karate and boxing, which is super powerful when you start to learn how to punch.
So this title also came about from this feeling of opening the gates, opening the doors of your body, in all the different ways you can think of. Antidoto was also maybe in connection with the first title - about finding an antidote when something is ailing you and finding the energy to fight back against that. It’s general thoughts on life that connect with specific experiences and then I try to find which music is going to be best fitted to that title and make a coherent kind of narrative or journey. I think this album can really be felt as a journey.
Ben Cardew
So you started to go out dancing. Where did you go?
Colleen
Well, not that many places, really. I went to Laut [in Barcelona] a few times. I also just danced to people making their modular sets at the Barcelona Modular Society events, because quite a few people play modular techno. Wherever I felt like moving my body, and also just at home.
I have this community terrace where I live, so especially last summer, I would go up with my headphones. I had a really big period of listening to Drexciya, which I think is just such amazing music. I really tried to revise my techno classics.. I would just go up to my terrace in the evening, look around to check if no one could see me and I would just start dancing alone, just going with the flow.
Ben Cardew
That is an excellent thing to do. I wanted to ask about the club, because I wonder if sometimes musicians who make electronic music find it slightly harder to let go in a club, because you understand the music so much and you’re thinking, “Oh...”
Colleen
Since I’ve started to let myself go, if I really like it... I do have to really like the music. If I think the music is not to my taste, I won’t dance.
The one thing I have trouble with is people talking; that really drives me nuts. That’s maybe one of the reasons I haven’t gone out this much. I find it so disappointing that people go to a nightclub and then they just talk super loud in front of the DJ who’s doing an amazing set. That pisses me off a lot. So sometimes that’s why I think it’s not that it’s better to dance on my own but at least I don’t have any interference from people who are a bit rude.
Ben Cardew
The two or three times I’ve seen you live, I remember it was a very respectful audience. People weren’t walking around; people were sitting and listening, and they were great gigs. Is that normally how it is at your gigs?
Colleen
It is normally how it is. I can count on the fingers of my hands the times that I’ve had to deal with a disrespectful audience. It just seems that from the start - I started in 2003 to put a bit of context, so a really long time ago - I immediately found my audience.
Right now is a really beautiful moment for me because I’ve almost finished this tour. I just have two shows left, I performed 13 times and the audiences have been just really, really amazing. They’ve also been amazing in a standing context, because I’ve started to ask venues to have the audience standing. Sometimes what we’ve done also is we’ve had circular setups, so I’m in the middle and people are around standing, so there’s this really nice circular energy. People are respectful and enjoying the music.
Some Listening
Axel Boman and Superpitcher - True Crime
It feels slightly cheap to simply parrot the press release tale that Axel Boman and Superpitcher’s new collaborative album Tell it to the Mountain was inspired by a hike to Sweden’s Helags Glacier. At the same time, True Crime, the first fruits of that album, definitely sounds like house music inspired by dizzy heights and mountainous fog, a lazy acid line poking its nose out from behind layers of pleasantly swirling noise, like Acid Trax cooling its feet at an Alpine pass, as eagles soar overhead.
Coki and Durrty Goodz - We Nah Business
Sometimes the highest compliment you can pay a song is that it sounds simple. And We Nah Business, from bass legends Coki and Durrty Goodz, is one of these: Coki lines up a mucky half-step beat and cobra-strike bass line and Durrty Goodz lays his deceptively nonchalant flow over the top. Simple, right? I mean, obviously not but the dynamic duo make it sound so on a banger that is primed for the real dubstep revival.
Starcleaner Reunion - Lay on Plastic Moment
… in which Starcleaner Reunion take a break from sounding like Stereolab in order to evoke the spirit of the Cocteau Twins, all purple guitar swirl and cotton-y vocals whose meaning is forever lost to linguistics and yet perfectly understandable to the human heart.
Dummy - Full Spectrum Dominance
Holy Hell Dummy have gone full on Paris Angels on their new single. I doubt that’s what they were aiming for exactly - they claim to be more about AR Kane, Goldie and Maxinquaye on the press release, which is a fine set of influences - but the combination of subtle Amen beat, funked up bass line, scorching wah wah and casually disinterested vocal screams Madchester to me and I couldn’t be happier. Bring on the Inspiral Carpets revival. (Only kidding: every day is an Inspiral Carpets revival in my house.)
Things I’ve done
Line Noise podcast - with Ezra Collective
I spoke to Femi and Ife from Ezra Collective about Tony Allen, The Shrine, live versus recorded, the band’s new album Here Because of Hope, drummers and drumming, at the Cruilla festival in Barcelona.
The playlists
I have two playlists: the newest and the bestest 2026, which has all the best new music from this year; and the newest and the bestest, which dates right back to 2021. Both are available on Apple Music And Spotify.
Apple Music: The newest and bestest 2026
Spotify: the newest and bestest 2026
Apple Music: The newest and the bestest
Spotify: The newest and the bestest
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