Welcome To Sycco’s Zorb
Fresh from taking out triple j Album of the Year for her debut album, First Nations pop-psych wunderkind Sycco – aka 23-year-old Sasha McLeod – welcomes The Note into her Zorb to wax lyrical about sharehouses, self-production and the power of friendship.
Words by Zara Richards // Image by Summer King
We feel like 2024 was the year of Zorb! How are you feeling about your debut album six months after its release?
I listened to it three weeks ago for the first time in a really long time [and] I had a new appreciation for it. Not that I thought it was bad, but I forgot how much I really liked it. The way I perceive it now is a bundle of excitement. I’m really proud of it and I’m glad I had that experience because it was such a long journey to get there. I think it still holds its true meaning.
The record is a love letter to friendship, set against your crumbling sharehouse in Brisbane. You even wrote some songs with your housemates! Why was friendship and community such a resonating inspiration for you?
My mum always placed importance on chosen family and going into a sharehouse with friends, that environment is so family. I could never have anticipated having that sort of circle around me. I hope that’s what everyone’s experiences are like because it was so comforting during pivotal times, like going through first heartbreaks. That sort of support is so necessary and special.
Friendship fulfils me the most, so why would I not write about that? And why would I not want to write with the people who share those same emotions as me? [My housemates and I] are very open and honest with each other, and that’s kind of like art – being vulnerable. It’s just easy.
What were some of the memories making this record that came to the fore when playing the tracks again?
When I listened to ‘I’m Here Now’, it felt very much like the friendship song of the album and it made me reminisce on being held by friends. I hope that never goes away. Even ‘Touching and Talking’, that’s a song on the album from years ago about falling in love for the first time and feeling that much emotion. Hearing that [track] again [made me] realise how emotions are such a blip – they feel so big at the time, and then, when you go forward, [you realise] it’s just a small teeny, tiny thing.
Three of Zorb's collaboraters that stood out to us were Chrome Sparks, Flume and Mallrat. What did working with those artists teach you about your own craft?
All three of them really love music so much. What they do is so cool because it’s genuinely them and that’s what people resonate with, which was very inspiring. Making the album was hard because I didn’t know what my sonic world was. But meeting and working with people like that made it easier because they could point out when I was doing me and why it should be celebrated.
Do you think being a self-taught producer also helped you find some confidence in defining what that sonic world was?
I think so. It’s definitely given me the vocabulary in sessions. Some people don’t know what production they want or find it hard to articulate. But the sonics of the song matter the most to me, so I feel like I needed to have that knowledge to get the product I wanted. I finished the whole album with Chrome Sparks, and being able to work with one person who really understood me… was so beneficial because when you’re in a session for one day with a producer, you can’t really get everything out. You’re just kind of making a song. I don’t know how anyone can make an album that’s cohesive by doing that.
READ MORE: Teen Jesus and the Jean Teasers: I Love You, Say It Back
You started producing in high school. What drew you to that side of the craft?
A lot of the music I was listening to in high school was Mac DeMarco, The Internet and Clairo – kind of bedroom pop musicians. They were doing [self-production] and I was like, ‘Oh, I could do that too’. I would race home after school and spit out everything into my computer. It wasn’t necessarily lyrics. I found there were more ways to be experimental by producing, which fulfilled me more than writing a song on the piano.
Tell us more about your housemates. Why was writing with them so creatively fulfilling?
Lucy is a science researcher and also a very good DJ and lyricist. My other housemate, Yari, is a painter, and he is a very good writer and producer too. We’re going into our fourth year of living together. They’re my family.
We started writing because we were bored in Brisbane and were playing heaps of Fortnite. We made these trap songs about Fortnite and were like, ‘Wait, these are actually really fun’. Then we made like ten songs and slowly, they started getting a bit more real and we started writing emotional lyrics about stuff that wasn’t about Fortnite.
‘I’m Here Now’ was a house dance track at first. I showed Chrome Sparks when we were in the middle of the album because there was something special about it and it made me emotional. And he was like, ‘Whoa, what the hell is this?’. It was the same with ‘Monkey Madness’, I showed my A&R and [Chrome Sparks], and they were like ‘Sash, why haven’t you shown us this?’
I’m going to get back into it, because honestly, they’re the best writers I’ve written with because I’m so comfortable with them. There’s no need to have a resume in music – anyone can write. If you can be honest and open with each other and be a bit egoless, then you’re kind of rocking.
You’re taking the sharehouse energy around Australia with your Zorb tour. What should people expect?
We’re doing the Sycco set and then the Sycco extended family DJ set, which is my housemates and friends DJing, so it feels like a house party. That will hopefully emphasise the meaning of the album, the sense of community and people in their 20s having fun and partying together. Not that it’s a party album, but it’s what you do at this age – you just want to have fun with your friends, and I want to do that with new people who, hopefully, resonate with the album.
Sycco plays Jive on February 1. Tickets are on sale now via Moshtix.
