Allie X Is Going To Get You

Allie X, the ever-morphing musical vessel of Alexandra Hughes, is taking her artistry to other worlds. Change has never scared the Canadian-born, Los Angeles-based expert of synth-pop. Since 2015, she’s been churning out hits beloved by the internet and airwaves alike, shape-shifting along the way, consistently keeping the dedicated fanbase she’s cultivated on their toes.

After establishing her early sound of catchy indie on earworms like “Bitch” from her 2015 EP, CollXtion I, she quickly shifted her sonic and visual landscapes. Her 2020 LP, Cape God, drew inspiration from HBO’s documentary, Heroin: Cape Cod, USA and America’s opioid epidemic. Despite the inclusion of poppy, danceable singles, the record’s dark, thematic underbelly demanded attention. This kind of balance continues on Girl With No Face, her junior album from 2024. She traded in drug-plagued East Coast landscapes to paint pictures of a vampiric '80s Los Angeles, to spin stories of Hollywood’s perils and to hone in on themes of identity and dark femininity all over the tracklist. It blessed fans and critics with futuristic power pop hits, namely “Galina” and “Off With Her Tits,” that don’t shy away from drawing poignant lo-fi inspiration from hallmarks like Depeche Mode and Cocteau Twins.

Her newest offering, Happiness Is Going To Get You, is her most ambitious project to date. She’s taken to social media to start curating the bleak but inviting world she’s built for the 12 new tracks and visually, this equates to black gowns and veils, maps with mysterious coordinates and the biggest, boldest, blackest hairdo, spottable from wherever you are in her wide world. She’s employed an alter-ego, Infant Marie, as the protagonist who will serve as a vessel for the album’s lyrical content.

The singles from Happiness Is Going To Get You solidify Allie X as the singular creative she’s always been. “Is Anybody Out There?” is a piano-driven power ballad about apocalyptic apathy. “Reunite,” fueled by bouncy, baroque arrangements and paired with scripture of lesbian love (and heartbreak), is one of the star’s best to date, and is a song only she could create.

Allie X’s originality and self-actualization are to be strongest in this new era. It’s the result of separating herself from previous label and industry ties. Self-written, produced and published, Happiness is Going To Get You is a world of her own. The next step is transporting the rest of us to it.

Happiness is Going To Get You comes out so soon. What are you feeling right now?

It’s weird. I want more time, but I also just want it to be out. I feel like my records are meant to be consumed as full bodies of work, so I’m eager for that to happen. I’m also feeling the pressure of numbers and analytics, so it’s a bit of every emotion. A lot of adrenaline, that’s for sure.

I love how conceptual this record is. There’s the introduction of an alter-ego, Infant Marie? Could you tell me about her and how the idea for this album originated?

It was nowhere near fully baked when I started the music. It was a concept that was inspired by the music, and a lot of the ideas came from a brilliant artist and photographer named Moni Haworth. She’s absolutely brilliant. She’s such a rebellious thinker. When she heard my album, she heard a lot of nostalgia within the baroque instruments in there and the sonic threads that are of a different time. She also told me that she sees me as a one-woman traveling show. The Infant Marie is almost that. She’s a vaudevillian, burlesque performer. There’s a photographer who took pictures of women in New Orleans in the '20s, and there’s a bit of that as well. Even though it’s a dense and sci-fi narrative, I really love and internalized this concept we developed on a personal level.

How did the hard switch come in a post-Girl With No Face era? How did you go about wrapping that album and entering into these new ideas?

I see them as very directly related. Girl With No Face took a long time. There was all this pent-up anger, and it was difficult and such a challenge. But it had to come out. It cleared this emotional space in me for something completely different. This record was very easy and poured out effortlessly. The creative process was seamless and so strange. I was sitting at a piano, writing songs like “Who is she?” She’s the Infant Marie, I guess.

Would you say it’s been a different process from each of your other records? Or do others stand out as similarly easy and smooth processes?

I really found my voice over the past five years, by working in isolation and taking over creative and managerial control over everything. I don’t really work with collaborators anymore. I’m now the producer. In that way, it’s similar to Girl With No Face, since it’s rebellious and has the same ethos. Like I’m ignoring all trends, I don’t care what anyone else is doing, I don’t care what they think of it. For better or for worse. That’s how I’m going to sustain my career. It’s very important that I found that. Sonically, it’s very different. Maybe you could tie it to Cape God. It's more of an organic sound, even though there are synthesizers over all of my work. There’s also nostalgia, thematically, in Cape God as well. What’s funny is that I feel a teenage experience through Cape God and Girl With No Face. Being a teenager was a difficult time in my life. This is the first time I've written an album where I feel like a lady.

I love that. It’s funny since it’s the first “lady” album, and you’re playing Infant Marie. I’m living.

I know! Yes.

Tell me about some of the musical and non-musical influences for this record.

It started as voice memos at a piano. I didn’t know for certain, but I had a feeling in the moment — vague ideas I put to the side while writing Girl With No Face — that it would be a piano-based album. I knew it would be reflective and have a dreamy sound. My first curiosity was seeing if the voice memos could turn into piano demos. Once I started doing that in Ableton Live, I was like, “Well, I’m hearing this bass line and these drums as well.” At that point, I got into listening to Fiona Apple again and Tori Amos. Then bands like AIR and Beck. Lots of hi-fi, well-produced albums of the '90s and early oughts. Girl With No Face was so lo-fi. After each album, I always want to do something so different. I was waiting for a hi-fi next album. As I developed it, I heard soft rock, a la Paul McCartney's solo era. There was some Portishead.

I was about to ask if there was any trip-hop I could get excited for.

Yes! Absolutely. And Fatboy Slim and the whole emergence of that Bristol sound in the '90s. I was listening to a lot of Björk as well, who does a great job of using electronics in her organic sounds of production. It was all so fun and indulgent. I finished the record in Copenhagen. I totally nerded out, opening up a piano and playing its innards, throwing retro drum machines on it. I was nerding out.

I love it. You center so much of your music in specific locations and time periods. Cape God is so East Coast, Girl With No Face is LA. You finished this one in Copenhagen. Are there locational ties for this album? How about time periods?

Time and space are the concepts of Happiness Is Going To Get You. It’s grounded in the non-groundedness of the universe. I see listeners in their own cubes flying through space. It’s about that profound experience and pain and joy of being alive, back to my original concept of “X,” where science meets spirituality. The emotion that created these songs was profound for me.

Your music tends to be quite timeless, despite how hard you’ve leaned into certain time frames.

Thank you.

Lyrically, it’s not stuck in time. You mention grocery stores like Gelson's and Vons. How do you go about adding signs of the times like this?

It wasn’t intentional. It was just something that happened. These things all felt like they were in the same world. The longer I songwrite and produce and worldbuild as a career, the more I realize that it’s not even coming from me. I’m just channeling it. The deeper I go, the further removed I get, the less logic I use, the easier it just comes out.

Were there a lot of scrapped tracks for this album?

No, honestly. Maybe one or two. It’s only around 35 minutes long with a few interludes. I used everything I wrote in a short time frame.

I love that. I love the trend of shorter projects right now. Saying what you need to say, then moving on.

It works very well with our ecosystem of music. We consume so rapidly. There are shitty things about technology, obviously, but what’s cool about music is that you don’t have just one chance anymore. You can just keep throwing spaghetti at the wall. No one’s gonna cut you off because you’re direct to the internet.

Especially now that you’ve reached a point of no labels or ties. It’s taken a long time, but you don’t have to rely on these external collaborators. You have this creative control.

Yeah. I got myself out of all these shitty contracts. Anyone who was slowing me down or holding me back is now out of the picture. When I finished these demos in February, I thought, “Can I get this album out by the Fall?” because there’s so much involved with shooting artwork and mixing and mastering, all these things. I remembered how I used to need permission, and so many things were gatekept from me. This time, I was like, “I can do it.” I was so focused and moved through this gatekept industry in a way I never had before. Happiness is Going To Get You is a celebration of me being a creative and getting it to my fans in a way that I have never been able to do before. No matter how it does, that in itself is something I really celebrate at this time.

Were there thematic or conceptual ideas that you explored on this record that you hadn’t expected when you first started?

Yeah. An empathetic and mature viewpoint came on certain songs that I hadn’t voiced or felt inspired to voice in a musical way before. That’s gotta be a good thing.

What songs are you excited for the world to get its hands on?

“7th Floor” is fun. I never count on things going well with songs, but that one has potential. Some of the most interesting songs are the title track and “Uncle Lenny.” I love the final track, “It’s Just Light.”

What’s the balance between you and this alter-ego? When you decided on it, did you have expectations for filling it? How has that relationship formed?

There was no pressure. I got to know her better. I did a performance two nights ago in London. It was a private event with chamber arrangements of some of the songs. We had sheer material across the stage that created a fourth wall. You could play with shadows. I couldn’t see anyone from the stage, so I felt like I was in the cube! I felt like I was her. I didn’t speak to the audience or address them or anything. All I did was an Infant Marie bow at the end of the show. It was cool. It reminded me of mask work or theatre school. I keep finding her, and I’ll be exploring it on tour next year.

Tell me about the tour. You have dates with Magdalena Bay in the Winter. What’s it going to look like?

I’m not sure. It’s their tour, so my production will be a bit scaled down. I’m thinking about who I can afford in my crew. I don’t need a front-of-house person; I need a hair person. The hair is the most important part.

If we can’t get the cube, we can at least get the wig.

I haven’t announced a lot of the tours for next year yet, but it’s going to be hefty.

Let’s talk about working with Moni Haworth.

PAPER’s a big fan of hers, right?

PAPER, yes. But also personally. I love her work. How was shooting the cover with her?

I never know what an album is until I have the cover and visuals figured out. Working with Moni feels like you’re in the presence of a genius. She wouldn’t like me saying that. Trends don’t matter to her; she won’t take a cover if she finds the artist or idea boring. She’s hyper-focused on what she’s doing at one time. She deep dives, her imagination is crazy and she's incredibly smart.

She sounds amazing. While you’re thinking about this album in terms of time and space, let’s say you have a time machine. You can visit one past version of yourself and tell her one thing. What version of yourself are you speaking to and what are you telling her?

I’d visit my sick, teenage self and tell her exactly what she needs to do to feel better.

That’s beautiful.

Photography: msjosephin