Platonica Erotica

Name, where are you from?
My name is Hannah and I’m from New Jersey.

Describe your style in three words?
Grandfatherly, slapdash, coordinated

What’s the best gig you’ve ever been to?
I recently saw Crack Cloud at Dalston Boys Club and it was just perfect: I’d just taken my last exam for uni on Crime & Punishment and had spent two hours writing about beating a horse to death so my brain was fried. Everything about their live show is so compelling, their percussion and call and response vocals just rattled off the walls.

If you could be on the line up with any two artists in history?
Devendra Banhart, because I love him and will someday be his wife. The Modern Lovers, because I open with a Jonathan Richman cover and we could make tense eye contact.

Which subcultures have influenced you?
I honestly don’t know, everything is so visible these days that I’ve kind of plucked what I liked from a variety of aesthetics and attitudes.

If you could spend an hour with anyone from history?
Anaïs Nin. I’m wildly inspired by her construction of the narrative of her life, the publication of her diaries as a literary work and her literary work as a tool for self-understanding. It gives me relief that the frustrating ambiguities of some unconventional relationships can be given a meaningful form- I think that’s why I’ve taken to writing songs. Everything feels permanently unresolved, which keeps it alive.

Of all the venues you’ve been to or played, which is your favourite?
Probably The Windmill, as I have enjoyed playing and making a fool of myself there as well as watching my friends and loved ones play there. However, I did recently do a set in Ladywell Coroner’s Court and would love to play in more unconventional spaces.

Your greatest unsung hero or heroine in music?
I’m a bit intimidated by all these ‘greatest’ and ‘best’, but I’ve recently been listening to a lot of Molly Drake’s previously unreleased music and I find her lyricism very charming.

Platonica Erotica performed on day three at Fred Perry Subculture's All Our Tomorrows festival in 2019, playing alongside Black Country, New Road, Pardans, Jerskin Fendrix, Great Dad, Osquello, Taylor Skye, Lealani & Brother May. Read more about it here.