Niki FM

On Shedding Shame and the Skins of Former Selves Through the Euphoria of Making Music

by Ginny Barnes

Through the pandemic many artists have collaborated with friends they have only known online. Without the tender nerves that connect us across the distance, would there be any compulsion for these strange reflections to flow out at all? Art happens despite our isolation. This practice is nothing new to Hana Arumi and her project, Niki FM. 

She’s curated two compilation albums with friends, recently put out an EP Naomi, and is featured in a new single with Magepure. It’s no surprise that Hana and I also met through a collaborative zine project a couple summer back. She’s an artist who thrives in playing with others.

Naomi is a work of many voices, containing samples and echoing the memory of the artists who have influenced her such as Neutral Milk Hotel, the Mars Volta, and the Carpenters. I talked with Niki FM about the voices she refined, the ecstasy of making music, and the former self she captured and released in Naomi.

Ginny Barnes (GB): Do you have any rituals when you’re making music?

Niki FM: I have to be feeling good about myself, like there is space and openness inside. I have to be fulfilled and happy, or find a magic space where I feel good. There is sometimes this narrative that you have to be depressed, that’s where you draw inspiration from, pain. Which it is, but you have pain, you go through it, and then you can feel euphoric. That is the moment to capture. How do I create that? I’ll sit down, and sometimes it comes and sometimes it doesn’t. I have to just get lucky. I don’t put pressure on myself if it doesn’t come.

GB: What do you learn about yourself from your music?

Niki FM: Naomi, revealed patterns and views I had about myself, myself, and ideas of how others perceive me. Naomi was on the verge of something that she wasn’t allowed. There was a lot of shame, and that shame was learned. It’s a lot about shame, how it’s taught and put on you, and then you carry it around. 

GB: You talked about making art as euphoric, so it’s like a transition from shame to pleasure.

Niki FM: It’s like a drug. You get this high and then there is a come down and then you don’t even remember doing it. 

GB: You just came out with a single “6 I Saw a Witch” as well. What is moving you lately?

Niki FM: The project I put out was with Magepure, who I met through a friend of a friend. I reached out to him to contribute a song to these mixes I do. I said, I like your stuff. We should do a split sometime. He started sending me tracks, and I said I really like this one. He said, there is a verse available for you. And I was like, let’s do it. They’re awesome. I’ve never met them, but they’re a great producer. I like their sound. I look forward to doing more tracks with them.

As far as moving forward, I am already writing down ideas for another album that I want to do. But I’m actually reaching out to my friends to do things like splits or collabs on songs because one, if you do something with someone else it holds you accountable to finish it. And it’s fun! It’s a lot lower stakes to do something with a friend. As opposed to putting out a whole project or track you did by yourself, like, here's this really vulnerable thing I did alone in my room. Doing stuff with my friends and reaching out to them is keeping me moving. It has an element of play and lightheartedness that I really enjoy.

GB: What was happening in your life when you started creating the songs for Naomi?

Niki FM: I started making sketches and demos for it two years ago when I was relatively new in Austin. I was exiting a toxic situation from when I was still living in the Bay Area. I moved to Austin and didn’t know anybody. It was written over a course of the time when I was going through this difficult moment of self discovery until today. It’s sequenced as that—coming to Austin, meeting the few people I did meet here, making some revelations about myself, and letting go of who I was when I first came here. The EP is called Naomi, which is me, but me back then. It was part of my moment. As I was listening to this song by Neutral Milk Hotel called “Naomi”. I had this realization that I really loved myself and wanted to discover what that meant, and let her go. 

GB: On the cover of Naomi you’re holding Horizon by the Carpenters. Can we please talk about the Carpenters?!  You do a cover of “Close to You”.

Niki FM: Yeah, I thought it wouldn’t be allowed. Maybe one day somehow I’ll get in trouble. I love the Carpenters. I was listening to them a lot when I was writing my EP. 

Karen Carpenter is such a perfect example of this optimistic melancholy. When I was writing Naomi that’s how I felt a lot of the time. [On the album cover] I am holding the vinyl and flowers, walking forward but still looking down. There’s a hesitation, melancholy and sadness but also this underlying optimism of moving forward and continuing. That’s why I really like the Carpenters. And Karen Carpenter died tragically when she was 31 from complications with anorexia? What the hell! So sad. But yes, I love them. I love her. She’s amazing.

GB:  Angel. Too good for this world. And Neutral Milk Hotel was an inspiration for the title as well?

Niki FM: They have this song called “Naomi” from their album On Avery Island. It’s about the lead singer from Galaxie 500, a shoegaze band. Supposedly a member from Neutral Milk Hotel went to the same university as her, and he is singing about her, and he is so mesmerized by her walking through the quad. 

He is describing how she is this beautiful but shit-smelling angel, and she doesn’t know how wonderful she is, and I resonated with that.

I heard that song, it came on my computer when I was having this breakdown revelation. 

She came to me. 

Listen to more Niki FM on Bandcamp and Spotify. 

December 17, 2020