Somewhere in Between the Darkness and the Light: The Music of Fat Transfer

Singer and songwriter Fat Transfer. Picture courtesy of the artist

Fat Transfer is an Oakland, California based artist who owns her emotions. Her tunes come wrapped in a sweet package and also pack a serious punch. On the track "we r enemies" from her latest EP Highly Sensitive Supremacist, she sings, "this isn't MTV, you can't treat people so irresponsibly." The sound of her music is lo-fi and delicately layered. Bells and melodious synthesizer chords harmonize perfectly with pulsating drumbeats.Some tracks are down tempo and contemplative, while others are outright dance tracks.

How would you describe your sound?
Dreamy and sentimental. Cartoonish sometimes. Sad, lovesick, introverted. My friend said it is sounds like Hall and Oates but scarier. I've also heard it sounds like massage music.

On "Highly Sensitive Supremacist," you sing candidly about tapping into emotions that aren't necessarily considered nice or acceptable (naming enemies, giving up on a struggle, allowing oneself to be sad and in pain). What was your inspiration for exploring those themes? Why is the not so nice stuff important?
One of my favorite books is called The Highly Sensitive Person, by Elaine Akon. It describes sensitivity as an neurological orientation as opposed to a defect of the wimpy. Anyway, I identify as one of thse HSP's. My emotions demand a lot of attention. All of them, including ones that are societally devalued, like uncertainy and hopelessness. Challenging feelings are important because they're as big a part of my life and identity as pleasant ones. I view all emotions as spirit guides. They can be cryptic, contradictory, straight up bat-shit whacky. But when I'm listening and decoding them, life feels less exhausting and scary. I find that if I ignore them, my mental, physical and emotional health suffers. Making music is one of the ways I tend to them.

Fat Transfer in concert. Image courtesy of the artist