“I am more than just one thing.”
That one line neatly captures whyIrene Shapesfeels so vital in alternative music right now. She’s an audio engineer, composer, vocalist, multi‑instrumentalist, producer and sound designer, moving between underground stages and studio consoles with ease.
She’s also someone who has had to fight for space in male‑dominated scenes and technical environments, while refusing every label that tries to pin her down. Across our conversation, Irene talks candidly aboutmusic technology,creative risk, andsurviving in independent music, with a mixture of warmth, realism and stubborn optimism.
Beyond Tech and Creativity
Early on, I ask if she sees herself as more of a “tech head” or a “creative.” She rejects the premise immediately. “I really don’t know how to answer the question. I think it depends on the moment and what I’m doing.”
Instead, she goes back to a piece of advice that’s become foundational. “A friend of mine told me, “Do what you feel is the right thing, the thing that you want to be doing…”
She adds: “I tend to be doing things that I feel good about. So it’s not necessarily this or that. It’s just what I need in that moment when I feel that my capabilities are focusing on the right things.”
This outlook is built into her writing process. A classically trained pianist, she could easily lean on that skill, but she avoids it when starting something new. “The instrument I am more skilled playing would be the piano… but the majority of times, when I have to start something new, I wouldn’t immediately lean on my piano skills. It doesn’t leave room for creativity.”
Community
For all her technical grounding, one of the most intriguing things about Irene’s current work is howcollaborativeit is. Through herKo‑fi page, she’s building a model that fuses crowdfunding with genuine creative input. “I ask my followers, my subscribers, to not only make donations to keep my music going, but to be part of the process.”
Her supporters help define the songs before they exist. “If people participate in the process with a small donation fee… I ask them to be part of my composition. So I start a song, and then I’m not even sure what I’m going to be doing because they decide.”
They might choose thekey, themood, or send raw sounds from their lives for her to transform. “For my last song… send me just electronic noises, anything that comes from your real life, and then I’ll sound design everything that you send, and I’ll be using it in the song.”
The process is intentionally unstable. “It’s so much fun, and also it brings you out of your comfort zone because you have no idea what is going to happen.”
Tech as Freedom…
With a background in music production and engineering at Berklee, plus years in studios and on stage, Irene has a deep technical foundation. It helps her move with clarity through the recording process. “You have a better understanding of what the process is, and so what you need to be doing to get to the final result.”
She knows how easy it is to disappear into endless refinement: “Yes, this could be 1000 times better than it is already, but this is done. I need to move to something else because otherwise I found myself stuck and not finishing something because of this compulsive necessity to keep refining.”
Producing other artists forced her to internalise that boundary. “When you are recording somebody else, when you are producing somebody else, you have to make that decision. You have to stop them.”
Being Taken Seriously…
In scenes that pride themselves on being “alternative,” Irene has still had to navigate very traditional sexism, especially in live sound. “There are situations in which you have to demonstrate not only that you are good at what you’re doing, but you are the best possible person to be doing that just because you’re a woman.”
The assumptions are depressingly familiar: “Many times, especially when I was doing live sound, I was approaching the band, and they would ask me where the live sound technician guy is. If you’re a woman, it’s pretty fair that you are the singer… If you are something else, you must prove it very hard, because it’s not usual.”
She stresses that sometimes it’s not overt hostility, just deeply ingrained norms. “It’s not even because of the fact that people might be bad, it’s because it’s unusual. People are not used to that, and unfortunately, we still see pretty low numbers in music production concerning the fact that women are involved.”
By contrast, she recalls working a festival in Sweden as a kind of blueprint for how it should be. “I was working with these people, and they didn’t really doubt, not even one second, I was the sound engineer doing the show. They were very helpful… when you are working in the right environment with people that do not judge you, you give the best of yourself as well.”
The relief is tangible: “Here I am free. I can just dedicate myself to what I’m doing, and it’s liberating, it’s incredibly liberating. You’re just doing your job. You don’t have to prove that you’re doing your job.”
Even success, though, can trigger backlash. “When you finally demonstrate that you are good enough… then there’s envy as well. Sometimes you get kicked out of some specific dynamics because people get afraid or they don’t like you being so strong.”
AI…
On her website, Irene is explicit thatno AIis involved in her music. She’s not anti‑technology—far from it—but she draws a hard line betweenworkflow toolsandcreative authorship. “AI can do amazing things… Let AI do the boring stuff. Teach AI to edit my drums perfectly, I’d be so happy with that. But just keep it out from the creativity aspect. I don’t want AI to be writing my songs.”
What excites her in new music is exactly what AI struggles with: the strange, the personal, the broken. “What encourages me to keep listening to new artists is when I hear something that is unusual, not that it’s copied from something else. That’s, we know, the only thing that AI can do right now.”
She’s unapologetically on the side of imperfection. “I love mistakes. Mistakes in music, wrong noises. Even if you are editing your songs, I prefer to hear a badly cut guitar than AI doing stems or something like that.”
The future…
Right now, Irene is stepping back fromKirlian Camerato push deeper into hersolo work, while continuing to champion other independent artists battling a brutal algorithmic landscape. Her advice for anyone trying to do the same is unsentimental but anchored in self‑belief: “You already know it’s very hard. Probably the most difficult thing that you’ve ever tried to do, and it’s not sure that you will be succeeding. The only thing that will make you succeed is the fact that you will not stop trying, even if people make you feel like shit. And if you’re sure about your value, keep doing.”
In a scene increasingly shaped by metrics and machines, Irene Shapes stands out by doubling down oncommunity, craft and glorious human error.
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