As beats met baby kicks, Alison Wonderland went down a rabbit hole of profound transformation in 2023.
Crossing continents to bring his personalized sounds to hundreds of thousands of fans, the Australian electronic music superstar started the year like any other. But, unbeknownst to the public, she was pregnant with her first child in the late stages of pregnancy.
“I was so sick that no one knew I was pregnant,” says Alison Wonderland, whose real name is Alexandra Sholler. EDM.com. “I would show up to play these shows, put a deep smile on my face, but then I would cry, so nauseous.”
Sholler wears his heart on his sleeve. In the past, she is shared their traumatic experiences suffering from a toxic and abusive relationship and attempting suicide. She is not afraid to tell the truth about herself, a disposition that requires strength for an artist to display. But when it came to her pregnancy, her premature vulnerability was out of the question.
“I've had fertility issues in the past, so I wanted to make sure everything was okay,” she said.
Losing three previous pregnancies had raised Sholler's caution levels. But she finally felt comfortable sharing the news in March, when she revealed her baby bump with a triumphant photo shoot.
See the original article for embedded media.
As her final trimester approached, Sholler began limiting her live shows. He committed to a select few festivals, culminating in an amazing performance on the EDC Las Vegas main stage in May, when she was nine months pregnant.
But Sholler's set wasn't her last show before a well-deserved maternity break. It was a month earlier at Coachella, where she performed on the Gobi stage for the festival's premiere of Whyte Fang, her left-leaning alias that explores bleak techno and dark, dystopian bass. The tent was packed with fans clamoring to see the Coachella debut of Whyte Fang, one of the EDM.com's best music producers of 2023, and racked up the biggest attendance the stage saw all weekend.
In a double blow, Sholler fell Genesis—an album released under his Whyte Fang moniker—on the same day. Say Genesis It was well received is an understatement. Packed with intoxicating psychedelic soundscapes, the 12-track album increased Fang's Spotify streams by 2,000%.
See the original article for embedded media.
In a heartwarming twist from the womb, Sholler's son Max appears to have helped in the direction of Genesis.
“I was working on the album while I was pregnant and he was really into 140 BPM, four to the floor,” Sholler says. “A lot of the second falls were because he was kicking and it made me feel like he had to put that on the court.”
“There's a song called 'Atlantis' on the album that he always loves and even now that he's born, if I play that song for him he really relaxes,” she continues. “When I got back from the hospital, in the car, he wouldn't stop crying. The only thing that stopped him from crying was 'Innerbloom.'”
After all, RÜFÜS DU SOL's iconic anthem is the ultimate lullaby.
See the original article for embedded media.
Whyte Fang was actually Sholler's alias when he started making music over a decade ago. But he couldn't be further from Alison Wonderland. “With Alison, it's very personal, it's about my lyrics and it's very much about me as an artist,” he explains.
Sholler is an album artist through and through. And when it comes to Alison Wonderland, the albums are healing outlets for her to process what's happening in her life: a visceral form of sonic therapy. Awake It was a time capsule into a dark period of suffering from emotional abuse. Lonely It was about finding strength in solitude, ripping out the negative connotations of loneliness and replacing them with the notion of transforming dark times into powerful rebirths.
“For Whyte Fang, I wanted it to be beyond that and less about a person and more about the experience and a feeling,” Sholler added. “Just a different reality, it's not really about me.”
Characterized by raw energy and industrial production, Whyte Fang does not delve into any of the intimate and emotional themes that Alison Wonderland does address. Favoring a minimalist approach, Sholler made the conscious decision not to put her voice on Whyte Fang either. The few tracks that feature Sholler's vocals have garbled, warped vocals that serve as embellishments for the primary instrumentation at center stage. It's a far cry from the anthemic, lyrical songs of Alison Wonderland.
It's not just the music that differentiates the two projects. Whyte Fang aims to be an audiovisual experience. Painstaking preparation went into executing Sholler's vision of bringing Whyte Fang to life on stage.
While Sholler is the leader of Alison Wonderland, she is hidden inside an LED-lined cage custom made for Whyte Fang. Her outfit is illuminated with black light, which transforms her into a strange silhouette and allows the music to envelop the audience instead of the performer. Choirs, string quartets and cellos (elements of an Alison Wonderland show) are absent.
Sholler attributes Whyte Fang's creative freedom to the support of his fans.
“Every time I've taken a risk, whether it's starting to play my own music at festivals, singing live, having a band at some shows, or doing Whyte Fang, they've been so fucking welcoming and open.” she gushes. “I couldn't have asked for a better fan base because, without them, I don't think I could take those risks.”
Not all artists have the freedom to stray off the beaten path when navigating the relentless pressures of the music industry. That's a problem Sholler hopes to solve after developing his own label, FMU Records.
“I wanted to create a record label that doesn't pressure artists to feel like they have to post a thousand TikToks,” he says. “I don't want them to feel like a statistic, I don't care how many followers someone has, I want them to feel like a human being and an artist. I don't do this for any reason other than to help artists. Step forward and feel free musically.”
Launched late last year, FMU Records took off in 2023 with its mission to avoid conforming to trends in favor of promoting original, contrarian sounds. This year, the label released Fredrick's debut single (a QUIX side project) alongside a series of releases from bass artists such as Sippy and Aliiias. Sholler also hosted the label's first warehouse party in New York, headlined by Whyte Fang and featuring Jon Casey and sumthin sumthin.
Between his radio show and live performances reaching the ears of countless electronic music fans, Sholler is committed to doing everything he can to highlight the artists on his label.
“With my platform, I can help promote their music,” he says. “If it does well, great. If it doesn't do well, it doesn't matter. There's no pressure, I don't tell artists what they do.” “What to do with their songs.”
Remembering the beautiful, chaotic bloghouse era, Sholler believes that in today's content-driven world, rising artists are finding it much harder to establish their careers. “It's not as easy as someone finding you on SoundCloud,” she noted. “People are expected to make content on TikTok and posts on Instagram, but the algorithm is against us. It's really exhausting and doesn't make people feel safe. “I've felt that with my music, so I can't imagine anyone trying to find a voice right now has to fight through all the noise.”
Sholler knows the struggles of an unknown artist better than anyone. Like most DJs, he started out playing everywhere from bowling alleys to birthday parties. “I played outside a horse racing track in this weird grassy plaza where the bathrooms were,” he said of the weirdest place he's ever DJed. “My set was 8 hours long and I thought, this is weird.”
Filled with rejection and criticism, her journey shaped her resilience and determination. “I was playing seven nights a week, ruining shows a lot and getting rejected,” he recalls of his early days. “I learned a lot about being a performer, playing to crowds that didn't want me there and how to deal with all that and not be negative about it.”
She also faced her fair share of misogyny. “Instead of getting discouraged, it makes me want to work a lot harder,” she said of the criticism she received. “So every time someone put me down, doubted me, or thought I wasn't serious, I worked five times harder.”
When people accused her of playing pre-recorded sets, Sholler put cameras on her decks to prove them wrong, she says. When the vocalists did not agree to appear on her songs and told her that she did not have a singing voice, she placed her voice at the forefront of her music. And even though someone in the music industry told her that getting pregnant would ruin her career, she had one of her most prolific years.
These early challenges gave Sholler a thick skin. They pushed her to become not just a performer, but a leader who commands the stage with unwavering confidence. Being the first female artist to play the main stage at EDC Las Vegas and the highest-billing female DJ in Coachella history are just two accolades in her long list of trailblazing triumphs.
See the original article for embedded media.
With the past behind us, the future looks bright. Looking ahead, Sholler is inspired by “seeing a community again,” fondly referring to the way Brownies & Lemonade champions creator-driven experiences. “They're doing a lot for the underground scene and it reminds me of when I started in the future bass scene,” she reflects. “There is a lot of camaraderie. “It's really inspiring and makes me feel very excited about the future of electronic music.”
Considering his own path forward, Sholler hopes for some changes in the hectic life of a globe-trotting DJ he once knew. “Look, even before I was pregnant, when COVID was happening, I realized I was trying too hard,” she says. “I'm going to do more custom shows, but I'm going to keep touring, I'm going to keep making music; that's never going to change, ever; it's just going to be more selective.”
When it comes to Alison Wonderland, Sholler hasn't started working on the next album yet. But she does have an idea of what the next chapter of the story will bring.
“I would probably write about getting to a point of greater clarity,” he explains. “I'm in a very good place, the best I've ever been in, and I'm very excited and proud to be an electronic music artist.”
thanks to our partners at edm.com