Colleen Max Fisher
Jamaican-born songstress Colleen Max Fisher blends synthesizers and throbbing club beats with soulful, Sade-esque vocals, creating a sound that she calls “progressive soul electronica.” Her style is best demonstrated in two highly polished, trance-y slow jams found easily on her website: “Lonely Hearts” and “All Eyes on Me.”
At the late age of 18, Fisher discovered music. After her cousin, a recording industry veteran, had her drop vocals on one of his tracks, he encouraged her to pursue her talent.
“We create music that is from our hearts and souls,” says Fisher, 32, who works with producer Christian Montalbaum. “Whatever we sing about is an experience we’ve been through.” Tackling divorce and discrimination, Fisher says, “We try to show people that you can turn that [negative] experience into something that’s not so dark.” Being out in the music world is not something Fisher thinks about. “It’s really all about love, and if we’re coming from a place of love, then who you love shouldn’t matter.”
Fisher’s unafraid to use offensive words to get her positive points across. The song “R U Happy Now,” is a meditation on holding one’s tongue, that uses a spoken-word loop of ethnic and gender/sexuality slurs repetitively. The negatives turn into a positive, says Fisher.
“Sometimes when you listen to something, it changes your whole mood. It changes the whole way you perceive life to be,” she says. “I try to write from that standpoint.”
Listen to Fisher at colleenmaxfisher.com. –MW
