The poor internet connection makes it feel like I’m speaking to Oxis underwater, and it’s oddly fitting rather than disorienting. The artist has built an entire sonic universe from aquatic instinct: thrumming electronics, chopped-and-spiraling vocals, rhythms that move with tidal patience. Through the pixelated video call from her car in Los Angeles, her aquamarine hair catches the light like treasure glinting beneath the surface. Her voice is soft and playful as she embroiders the answers to my questions with long, thoughtful “hmms.”
Oxis’ output has been remarkably prolific. At the beginning of the year, she released her eighth album, Oxis 8, the latest in a steady stream of releases that began with her debut in 2023. The marine imagery that frames her work (fish-centric artwork and song titles) traces back to a childhood nickname, Tuna, which was the result of a teacher’s mispronunciation of “Valentina.” The name stuck, and the legend grew: Oxis comes from “Auxis,” the genus of tuna. “I just adopted the marine life,” she says, smiling.
Although Oxis’ records have been packaged as “marine electronica,” when it comes to the actual music, the oceanic influence is less heavy-handed. Her sound embodies a majestic fluidity; it’s warm and cyclical at times, like waves folding onto the shoreline. On Oxis 8, most tracks center heavy emotion, slowly building with intensity before loosening their grip. “How do I turn it off?” she repeats on “Piranha,” her voice gradually warping as the beat swells beneath it. There’s no clear answer, but there is relief: the weight diffuses as her words dissolve into texture. Elsewhere, on “Fry,” she oscillates between extremes, singing: “I think too much and then too little.” The line feels like a pulse, and her music moves the same way—swelling, receding, and hovering between control and surrender.
The songs follow their own internal logic rather than hewing to strict pop architecture. Sometimes there are verses, sometimes sections that brush against something like a chorus, but nothing feels imposed. Instead, each track seems to drift toward its own natural release. What rises to the surface is a portrait of an artist driven by instinct. Oxis describes her process as “underthinking”: resisting structure, working alone in her bedroom studio in LA, following ideas as they arrive and shaping them until they feel right. Creation, for her, is less ambition than compulsion; if she isn’t making something, her anxiety spikes. The music becomes both outlet and immersion, a place to disappear and resurface a changed person.
In our conversation, Oxis speaks about making music in isolation, embracing childlike impulse, and baking matcha cookies to soften her online mystique. Read on for more of our conversation.
I’m curious how living in LA has influenced your music.
There’s a bit of everything here. You walk down one street and you’ll find the strangest underground music, and you have everything you could ever possibly be exposed to—not only on the internet, but on every stage here. So I’m able to take little bits of fun things and incorporate it into my music.
Would you consider yourself part of a specific scene or musical community in the city?
I’m a fan of many scenes, but I really just keep to myself most of the time and explore or make music by myself.
What strikes or fuels your creativity when you’re making your own art?
I feel inspired by everything, all the time. I feel like I’m constantly bursting if I don’t make things. It just is more natural than doing anything else, for some reason.
Has that always been the case? Or did it start when you began this project a few years ago?
I think it’s increased as I’ve gotten older. For some reason I have this strange instinct that just never seems to disappear from my teen years, and it just keeps morphing in weird ways, and I’m able to translate it into music.
Do you have a way to structure it or a routine for how you approach constant music-making?
Routine and plans and structure make me feel suffocated, so it’s really just making stuff all the time. Throw paint against the wall or else it just doesn’t feel fun to me.
“I feel inspired by everything, all the time. I feel like I’m constantly bursting if I don’t make things.”
Did you notice any patterns with this last album of how you were putting together music?
It’s kind of the same every time I make an album. I’ll have an idea and I do a little bit of a song, and then I’ll just make music throughout the day, every day, and then all of a sudden I sit down and I’m like, “OK, wait, this is the project.” It’s a lot of underthinking, I think.
Can you expand more on that? I like that term.
I suppose the whole thing of it is to not get it [laugh]. It’s hard to explain, because it’s the lack of thinking. It’s really just acting on instinct and being whatever you want all the time, which is innately childlike, and helps with creativity.
How do you deal with doubt when you’re creating? It’s really refreshing to hear someone holding onto that childlike nature. Is that something that you had to really reinforce as you got older?
I think it’s something that I’ve always had. Being childlike in creativity can cross over into just being a human, and that can be a bit negative, because I’m just extremely impulsive. But yeah, I think I’ve always had that. Doubt doesn’t really play into creating, I think, because if you’re making a song or drawing or doing anything creative, you just keep going until you make something you like. You can keep etching and adding and taking away until it feels good.
When it comes to an editing process, what’s going on in your head?
I heard this quote once, and I don’t know who said it: “When do you know when your art piece is ready? When it’s dinner time.” I love that so much. It’s just a feeling I get where after a few weeks or months of making stuff, I’m like, “OK, let’s wrap it up.” Maybe I have a fear of not finishing things, as well, and so every so often this crazy feeling comes to me and I just have to finish everything I possibly can.
And you’re doing everything in your bedroom still? I read that you use Ableton.
Yeah, I make everything in Ableton in my room, and I don’t have speakers, because the thought of anybody hearing anything before it’s on Spotify, before I’m ready to let it out into the world…I just want people to hear things in a very hyper-controlled environment. I’m controlling about how I make it, as well. I enjoy making things alone.
I was watching some of your videos and I love the book setup that you have. Do you think about the books that you’re propping your gear on top of when you’re recording?
I would say I choose them carefully. All the books in my home are meaningful to me in ways, but I do stack them in a way that makes sense to the music.
I was like, I don’t know if this means anything or if she just had this.
Sometimes I feel like I come across kind of scary on social media, or unapproachable. I love baking cookies, and I just felt like I needed to sneak that in there.
“When I’m very anxious or angry, I just close my eyes and I think about sitting at the bottom of the ocean. All the music is just purely created from my hyper-emotional states.”
What was the last cookie recipe you made that you loved?
A matcha cookie with white chocolate chips. I took a normal cookie recipe and put a bunch of macha powder in it.
It’s interesting that you’re saying you’re worried you come off as intimidating, because your music is super fun and upbeat. And the album art is kind of cute.
So many people are over-expressing on the internet, showing their personality so much. And I think there is a balance. I do enjoy seeing some whole personalities, but I’m shy at showing my real personality online. I’m in my head 24/7, so I just overthink everything all the time.
I was interested in the visuals and the framing of your art with fish and marine life. Does that also inspire the musical aspect, or is that purely an aesthetic and personal tie-in?
When I’m very anxious or angry, I just close my eyes and I think about sitting at the bottom of the ocean. I’m very emotional, so it happens a lot, and all the music is just purely created from my hyper-emotional states. So that plays into the music.
Would you say that your goal with your music is for it to have a calming effect?
Sometimes it makes me feel more insane listening to my music, but hopefully it feels like an emotional release. But it could also get you fired up, or calm you down—any of the extremes.
At what part of the process do you feel that release the most?
All throughout, honestly. Making it is the most fun I have in my life, to just even quantize a guitar and then automate stuff, but then also singing in all of it just feels like a release to me. FL
