Get Ready for Your Favorite 'Best Regret'

Fans are already taking notice of the collaborative project on Instagram comments with one sharing, "This is like the hyperpop’s Avengers team-up film," and another posting, "This more than makes up for the fact that we never got the follow up to 'Telephone'... what a sick group of amazing pop icons."

Below, the creatives behind "Best Regret" have a round-table discussion with PAPER, telling us what they learned by working together and why it’s important to get women and nonbinary acts together in the studio.

Let’s talk about the origin story. How did you all decide to collaborate and how did that lead to "Best Regret?"

moistbreezy: I’ll start because the track started with me first. One thing about it that may not be that important to the listening experience, but that puts the timeline in place, is that I started this track around eclipse season 2021 for my album, but I kept re-writing it. When I brought it to everyone, it was eclipse season 2022. Now, we’re putting it out [in 2023] during eclipse season, so that’s my tie-in to this track.

Briana Wolf: There are multiple parts. [Moistbreezy] had that original idea, the beat. I was in New York for one day, and it was one of our friend’s birthday parties. We hadn’t really met, but I think we all followed each other online. We met at the party and I had this idea I’d been brainstorming for a while, just getting everybody in our community together of women and gender nonconforming music producers, and seeing if we could support each other and find a way to make music together. That night I mentioned that to them and they said, “We’re both going to be in town on this day!”

girl_irl: “I remember taking the train back to Brooklyn together after the party and talking about the concept, and thinking “Oh my god, this is it.” We need more of this and more inclusive spaces especially for people who are femme and nonbinary and just a welcoming space for everyone.”

Briana Wolf: I remember it so clearly because I remember one of the things you said to me which was, “I get it, I believe in the vision!” So three weeks after that I called everyone I could think of and said, “Are you available this weekend and do you want to make music with a bunch of girls?” I got as many people as I could together and we did three days of sessions, and that was the first Hyperwknd camp. “Best Regret” I think we did on the second day–

Kit Major: It was the second day. I wasn’t there the first day. I wandered into your room and I was like, “Hey, how’s it going? What are you guys doing?” You guys played it for me. You were like, “This is the song, this is the chorus, but we don’t have a verse.” So I just joined you in your room and that’s how we got the verse.

girl_irl: I feel like this was all very chance encounter.

Briana Wolf: [Kit was] in a session with Disco Shine and Margo, and they both had to leave early that day so if that hadn’t happened, who knows?

Kit Major: All by chance, led by eclipse.

moistbreezy: I don’t know if it was eclipse energy or because I’d also just shot the “Planet Pleasure” music video a couple days before, so I’d spent the weeks before insane prepping and pulling all-nighters, flying to LA on no sleep and learning the choreography and submerging myself in cold water and barely eating. My brain was so broken the first day I was trying to produce and I was like, “I can’t do this!” So for the second day I felt like, “If I start with something I already have, maybe that would be easier.”

Briana Wolf: I remember knowing that, so I was engineering. I just manned the thing, so you didn’t have to.

moistbreezy: I was struggling so hard.

Briana Wolf: Which is honestly what was so nice about being with other producers. Being able to be like, “Here’s the project, here you go, do what you want with it.” Not having to feel that weight of, “If I don’t do this no one will.” That’s how we made the song. Then [moistbreezy and I] passed it back and forth, and girl_irl wrote their verse separately, and at another Hyperwknd wrote a couple of lines. I remember getting a voice note of them singing to that drop section. Then Kit came over for another vocal session. We worked on it for a while and then finally got it.

Why was it important for you to amplify this idea of collaboration among women and gender non-conforming producers?

Briana Wolf: For me, being a producer and feeling very isolated like I had no community, it was really important to try to create a space and build a world where we could feel safe and not feel like we had to be on this island. I think we can all get stuck in our own creative worlds and feel like there’s no one there to work with but ourselves. I found that was holding me back. I couldn’t get as much done. It just takes longer when you’re alone. I was really intentional in making a space where that could shift and this song has a lot of meaning to me because it was grown out of that. This song has not been touched by anyone but us. I think that’s pretty rare in this industry. There is a lot of pressure for women and gender non conforming people to be solo, do everything yourself artists. I think there’s space for all of us. We’re all here, we’re all playing a part and we’re giving each other space... which, I think, is pretty rebellious.

moistbreezy: I’ve built a brand on how I do everything myself and, recently, I’ve been trying to collaborate more. I have been my own island, not just in terms of the music but the visuals and being my own manager and agent. It’s too much for one person to carry. I came up in the dance world in peak EDM days, and there was a lot of pressure on women. You have all these big, male DJs who use ghost producers and they get along fine, but god forbid a woman do anything wrong. You’re discredited for everything. That’s been the underlying force for me to do everything myself. I think things have somewhat shifted, like when Briana presented this idea of this camp, this was my first camp experience. One of the things I really loved about doing the song was that everyone could bring something to the table, beyond just the song itself. Someone could help with the press, with the distribution. I just booked an international tour on my own and it helps to have people who are supporting other parts of the process because when I do it myself, something always falls through.

girl_irl: Going off what moistbreezy said, I’m also from the dance world and this whole project alleviated the pressure of being on an island. While they're related, all of us come from four different areas of the music world. Working together during something like Hyperwknd had us feel like we could be in our element and comfortable with each other, which I think was really special.

Kit Major: Something that’s so wonderful about Hyperwknd is the community. As someone who is not a producer, I really do rely on that form of collaboration and I’ve never been able to experience a writers camp like that. It’s easy to have your walls up, and to be intimidated and nervous to be vulnerable. But the minute that you get in the room it’s a really safe space to put your walls down. You get to introduce yourself, you say your pronouns, you say the first song you’ve ever written. There’s a sense of community and uplifting. It’s not, “Who's the loudest in the room,” it’s “Whoever talks the rest will listen.” That’s how we were able to get together and combine our creative minds.

Briana Wolf: That’s going to make me cry.

girl_irl: It’s a super special place. I'm sure I can speak for each of us, unfortunately, it’s really common to have really weird experiences in the music industry. There are very weird people out there. It sucks and that’s just how it is. Doing all of this gave me a lot of faith that there are a lot of good people out there, they’re just all on their islands.

Photography: Nicole Lipp, Briana Wolf, moistbreezy, Anastasia Antonova