The Dancefloor Exorcism of Tiffany Day

If electronic dance music is supposed to be about losing yourself in the drop, someone forgot to tell Tiffany Day, who has been using it to find herself instead.

Over a decade ago, the hyperpop breakout was a 15-year-old with headphones on, sitting in her bedroom and trying to reverse-engineer the feelings that Whethan’s ‘XE3’ flip was producing inside her cerebrum. “I was trying to dissect what exactly I was hearing and why it made me feel so emotional,” she recalls in an interview with EDM.com.

That question, it turns out, became the blueprint for an entire career. Day has since grown from superfan to scene fixture, releasing anguished bangers across projects that have explored grief, anxiety, nihilism and the gnawing claustrophobia of becoming someone people recognize.

Her latest single, a collaboration with slayr called ‘CONSTANTLY,’ purées glitched-out trap beats and angsty hip-hop into a convulsive ripper that torches your brain’s genre-sorting department like the office in SpongeBob’s mind when he forgot his own name. Day says she’s particularly proud of the track’s last drop, where “there’s so many layers that you can’t even really tell what’s going on individually.”

That’s ironically an accurate description of the artist herself. While the broader EDM industrial complex has spent decades perfecting the art of helping people temporarily forget they have student loans, Day, who also moonlights as a dubstep producer under a secretive alias, has other plans.

We caught up with Day to discuss her influences and deep ties to the electronic dance music scene. Read our Q&A below.

Tiffany Day.Credit: First Last

EDM.com: Walk us through your introduction to electronic dance music. Which artists or tracks made you realize you were meant to go down this path?

One of the first tracks I ever heard that really hooked me into EDM was a flip that Whethan did back in 2015 called ‘Mssingno – XE3 (Whethan Turn).’ I remember sitting in my room with my headphones, trying to dissect what exactly I was hearing and why it made me feel so emotional and how the hell he made those noises. I was maybe his biggest fan back then, I convinced my parents and drove over 2 hours on a school night to go see him. That song pulled me into a lot of other artists in that similar world of future bass, like Flume, Lucian, and Vanic.

When I started making original music, I was really just writing pop because I had learned how to write music on a guitar and naturally, that was the evolution. In 2019, I met Jef, and I think he was the first producer who made a song with me that was a little more electronically influenced. It makes sense, because Jef also has an artist project called MELVV, and back then, he was doing all those same tours and festivals as Whethan and everyone else I looked up to.

The first song we ever made together was called ‘GROWNUP’ and I still remember the exact feelings after that session. It was like, “Wow, this song just feels so me.” I had never been more proud of a song at the time. I would listen to it day and night. I think maybe it was that moment that I realized I wanted to keep making electronically influenced songs, but of course, the pop stuff also felt like somewhat of an obligation, especially because I was already building numbers on that live drum acoustic sound. So at that point, it became a journey and a transition.

EDM.com: You once noted that acoustic music allows listeners to process sadness slowly, with “one single tear falling down,” whereas electronic music hits like a “heart attack.” Why is that sudden, violent emotional impact necessary for the stories you’re telling now?

I think any story I tell is usually one that’s a little dramatic. I’m allowed to say this because I can bully myself, but I definitely do think I am a little overdramatic at times. Then again, every artist needs to be a little bit, no?

But there’s different types of drama within music. Sometimes it’s a sad drama, and sometimes it’s really overwhelming and makes you break down. Sometimes that drama is actually just intense joy, and I also like when intense joy can be dramatic too. The stories I’m telling now deserve something with a little more impact, especially because all of my feelings have been pushed deep down for a while.

To feel the impact and be hit with a truth bomb, lyrically and sonically, is pretty powerful for me. It’s kind of my own therapy that I chose to do it this way. I can imagine that anyone listening to HALO and feeling that same sort of repressed feeling about themselves might relate and the impact could also hit them harder too.

EDM.com: The frenzied production of HALO soundtracked your anxieties about fame and self-worth. Before that, LOVER TOFU FRUIT was deeply informed by your struggles with nihilism and mortality after your grandfather’s passing. As your sound seems to more heavily embrace EDM, how are you translating these heavy existential themes into a genre inextricably linked with the concept of euphoria?

As much as EDM is linked to euphoria, I also think it can be linked to just feeling anything intensely. Certain songs can make you reminisce on a moment, or maybe realize something about yourself that you haven’t before. As an EDM enjoyer and rave-goer, in live settings, I want to feel euphoria. But when I’m all alone and high, I like to lay in my bed in the dark with my monitors at full blast and feel whatever the song is telling me about.

Sometimes it’s intense sadness, sometimes it’s like confetti cannons are shooting out of my ears and my smile is so wide that it feels like it’s ripping my face. I think a lot of these heavier concepts I write about pair well with whatever the production makes me feel.

I think personally for me, there’s also a simplicity to my lyrics. When you’re feeling a song, both production wise and lyric wise, I think you kinda just wanna feel it directly in the moment. I don’t wanna think about what a line means. If I’m heartbroken because someone left me, I’m going to say that, not write some indirect simile or abstract concept about it.

EDM.com: Coming off those emotional purges, how exactly does ‘CONSTANTLY’ reflect your current headspace?

I think ‘CONSTANTLY’ was a fun and experimental track blending hip-hop, gaze, and EDM all together. Especially in the last drop when everything comes rushing back in, I like that there’s so many layers that you can’t even really tell what’s going on individually. That might be my favorite part of making music these days.

EDM.com: You’ve talked about the initial intimidation of stepping into the male-dominated electronic space, but also the necessity of being hands-on and advocating for yourself as a producer. In what ways did co-producing HALO change the way you push for your own vision in the studio, and how is that newfound authority reflected in the sound of ‘CONSTANTLY’?

I think I’ve found a pretty good flow now when it comes to co-producing. I used to be quite scared to speak up or sit in the chair, to put my hands on any keyboard or ask to play something. Maybe it’s because it’s hard for me to have confidence when there’s fear of judgement. But through HALO, I’ve grown more confident with the people I work with. I feel nothing but encouraged and lifted in sessions. However, sometimes, I still get shy.

Most of the time, we will finish an idea together, and I will get sent home with the project file. Then I get to work on it by myself in my room, and I have unlimited time in a completely fear free zone to try anything and everything. I’ll send it back whenever I’m ready, and most of the time, it’s pretty close to being done at that point and just needs a few tweaks here and there. I find that’s when I work best, that’s how ‘CONSTANTLY’ was finished too. We finished the idea, I took it home and freaked out. I came back to Aaron and said, “Don’t yell at me but I don’t want to change anything. I’m already married to all my production I added.” He laughed and totally understood, and just helped me clean it up a tiny bit and then we were done.

EDM.com: Mainstream dance music has always been about pure escapism, losing yourself in the drop to forget your reality, while hyperpop is more about confronting the anxieties behind that racing heart. In the next five years, do you think the broader EDM community will fully adopt hyperpop, or do you think it will remain a unique island of anxiety on the dancefloor?

Honestly, I’m just not sure. As someone who does go to raves and partakes in losing myself in a drop, it’s hard to say if hyperpop could really be adopted by rave culture. I mean, don’t get me wrong, there is a huge overlap between the two. It’s just hard to see PLUR culture blending with hyperpop. I think there are a lot of mainstream EDM fans who like hyperpop, but I don’t know if I could say the same thing the other way around.

But a lot of hyperpop fans are also fans of other genres that just feel so wildly different from mainstream dance music. In my perfect world, I think integrating the two would be super cool if done properly, because I am a lover of both worlds, but honestly, I just can’t see it happening anytime soon.

EDM.com: Newer fans might not know that you used to produce dubstep as MONOLID. Is that project still alive? Will we ever hear a full-blown venture into it, sort of like what Alison Wonderland did with her darker Whyte Fang alias?

MONOLID isn’t fully dead, but I do feel like we have morphed into one a little bit. Being able to play DJ sets as Tiffany Day while ripping some of my favorite tearout and dubstep tracks is actually maybe a dream come true for me. It’s all I’ve ever wanted, and it’s funny because I couldn’t have ever imagined a world where I could do that and people would receive it so well.

During my first few tours, I would add a 10-minute intermission in the middle of the show where I would just spin crazy EDM stuff. People would giggle and go along with it for fun, but I also think I scared a lot of fans. I just wanted to do it because it made me happy. I still make dubstep for fun. If I build up enough of a discography, I’d definitely consider reviving MONOLID, but for now, it’s all for personal growth in my production, and also just for fun.

EDM.com: Let’s imagine you’re already working on your next album. Who are your dream collaborators in the electronic space? Which producers would you feel luckiest to share a studio with and learn from?

This question is so hard because honestly I don’t think I have a list of producers I’m dying to work with. If anything, maybe I care more about the chemistry between me and other producers than I do their names. When I meet someone who really creatively aligns with me, I call them a music soulmate. I’ve only met a couple in my lifetime, but my only wish is to meet a few more. If I am gonna name drop, I think working with Whethan again could be cool and very full-circle for me.