When it was released by the Belgian label Stroom in 2023, Voice Actor’s Sent from My Telephone sent ripples of intrigue around the leftfield music world. It’s easy to see why: the album comes in at over 100 tracks long and has the breadth of sonics and expanse of vision that more than justifies its length. There is something elusive about Voice Actor’s atemporal ambient pop, though, that runs through the entire project; it's a sensibility that extends to the main person behind the music, Noa Kurzweil, who chose to not reveal much about Voice Actor for the first few years of its existence. 

Since the release of Sent from My Telephone, Voice Actor has dribbled out a grip of projects—her most recent drop being Lust (1), a collaboration with the artist Squu released earlier in the year—building up a strong body of work that both feeds off of and transcends the lore surrounding the project. On the occasion of Voice Actor’s performance this Wednesday at Stroom x Nina’s party at Nowadays in New York, we sent some questions over to the artist. Read our interview and listen to Lust (1), below.

Sent from My Telephone is such a monumental work. How has your approach to making music developed since then?

Noa Kurzweil: I approach every song like it's my last one but only because I don't know if I'll ever manage it again—or that used to be the case and now this feeling has not exactly disappeared, but rather I've come to see that it's probably just a feeling. I guess I have a bit more faith now, but that's also strange, it's different! 

The press release for Lust talks about farming as a sensual activity. Does the music making process share any similar characteristics?

Squu's music is sensual, there's something really primal about it for me. So recording vocals on those sounds was me relating to them, wanting to be a part of them, it definitely felt sensual. Squu's making process has to be sensual too, how else would he get his sounds to sound like that? 

What role do secrets play in the creation and presentation of your music?

Secrets can be fun! I feel like it's just about how much you wanna reveal, I don't wanna completely merge my personal life story with my music, at least not intentionally, whatever spills out—it's cool—but I like to distance the art from the artist so in my own process/presentation and especially in the lyrics this is the playful part for me as well as an aesthetic preference. But also, probably a byproduct of my need to protect myself.  

 

The live shows—the secret is that I'm shy! But I think it looks really beautiful when I'm partly visible behind the visuals and screen. It looks pretty theatrical, this simple set-up. But I might come out from behind the screen one day to just see what it's like. 

Any favorite ways to start a track?

I like it when it goes super smoothly and I hear a tune that moves me and instinctively find the right melody for it for the vocals, and suddenly I find some lyrics lying around and it all fits in super fast and there's not much editing involved (“Freefall” and “Carefully” happened like that and a bunch of others).  

What is the last dream you’ve had that left an impression on you?

I've had a recurring dream about being trapped in spaces—usually a house or a building, and I'm trying to find my way out. In the last one I was trapped in a building that looked like an 80s-built, empty shopping mall, I went in to make a shortcut but couldn't find my way out back to the street, I was going between wrapped-up merchandise and stalls and plastic. I was late to meet somebody and it was endless, like a warren. I don't remember if I managed to leave. 

Do you listen to much rap music? If so, are there any things you have learned from studying rap production?

I do sometimes, but whatever I learned has to be subconscious, I don't really think about it. 

How do you approach live performance? Your music can be so intimate, do you have to tailor it at all to suit a club environment?

Yeah, I tend to not play live some of the more intimate songs, there are enough songs to choose from, so I might play one of those songs as an interlude in a set, with my pre-recorded vocals, but some songs I just don't play live because it doesn't feel right. So I choose songs I'm comfortable to perform. It feels intimate when everyone is listening, even behind the screen. 

Anything you want to do in New York before your show at Nowadays?

Maybe go up the Empire State Building!