cloud collecting #32: Karen Vogt + Jolanda Moletta
on trusting in the moment, nature's influence + music as spell-casting
Excited to have the magical duo Karen Vogt + Jolanda Moletta on cloud collecting today! Last week, they released their new album Sea-swallowed Wands via the always-reliable UK label
. Together, both artists lean into expressive vocal-based ambient and create an intimate sound through spontaneous collaboration. Hope you enjoy this deeper look into their creative process.
Karen Vogt is an artist whose solo work is deeply rooted in improvisation. She moves between ambient and pop to create spacious, atmospheric compositions – often with long, drawn-out vocals. Vogt’s creative process is minimalistic and uses improvisation to channel emotions, moods, and instinctual responses. Imperfection and vulnerability of the voice are at the core of her work.
Originally from Australia, and now based in France, she is mostly known for her distinctive vocals with dream-pop band Heligoland that she co-founded in 1999, produced by Robin Guthrie (Cocteau Twins), who continues to work with the band. She has toured extensively with Heligoland, having played nearly 200 shows in Australia, Europe, and the UK - most notably at the ICA, The Union Chapel, and ClubAC30. A new Heligoland album is currently in the works and is expected before the end of the year.
Since 2019, Vogt has been releasing her solo work in the form of vocal and guitar improvisations that sit somewhere between experimental and ambient. Her most critically acclaimed release was 2024’s Waterlog album that was released on Penelope Trappes’ imprint Nite Hive and was dedicated to her much-loved cat. It received reviews in Uncut, Electronic Sound Magazine, Narc, Sun 13, First Floor, and appeared in the NYTimes. Vogt has been interviewed on The Moderns with Kevin Press and Synthetic Dreams podcast, Foxy Digitalis, Sun13, Rockerilla, and Backseat Mafia. Her work has also been featured on Bandcamp Daily
Vogt has gone on to carve out a body of work that includes releases on Superpang, Waxing Crescent Records, Sonic Dialogue, Nite Hive, Wayside and Woodland Recordings, and most recently quiet details. As a prolific collaborator, her collaborations are most notably with Pepo Galán as Galán/Vogt, BPMoore, Markus Guentner, Jolanda Moletta, Rodrigo Stradiotto, Simon McCorry, Philipp Bückle, Hamish Mackintosh, Cedrick Eymenier, and Yotam Avni. She has contributed guest vocals to works by Akira Rabelais, David Bridie, Robert Babicz, The Green Kingdom, Benoît Pioulard, Jupi/ter, Mottle, Rupert Lally, Guillaume Eymenier, and Heft. She has remixed other artists' work such as Guentner/Spieth, Jeanette Linsdtrom, epic45 and Site Non Site, and had her work remixed by others (Ada, Madeleine Cocolas, Hélène Vogelsinger, Alpha, The Space Between Numbers, James S. Taylor, France Jobin, Claire Deak, Ossa, Recue, Ben Holton, zakè, Maiya Hershey, and Belly Full of Stars). Her live performances are rare, mostly online as livestreams, and tend to involve improvisations with overlayed, looped, and processed live recordings.
Jolanda Moletta is a multimedia artist whose work blends vocal experimentation, electronic music, field recordings, visual art, and symbolic storytelling. Using her voice as an instrument, often layered into electronic choral textures, she creates immersive soundscapes in dialogue with the unconscious and natural cycles.
She is also the co-founder and vocalist of She Owl, a dream-pop duo known for its haunting atmospheres and cinematic sonic landscapes. With She Owl, Moletta has released three albums and one EP, and performed over 300 concerts across Europe and the U.S., cultivating a dedicated international following and has played support for artists such as Brendan Perry, Cat Power and have played at Wave Gotik-Treffen-Festival.
As a solo artist, her critically praised releases - including Nine Spells (Ambientologist, 2022) and Night Caves (Whitelabrecs, 2025) - explore themes of transformation, nature, and the sacred, blending voice, layered harmonies, and visual storytelling.
Moletta’s experimental project Sound of Spells extends this sensibility into the realm of lo-fi piano composition, ambient textures and field recordings. The 2020 debut Ep Birdscapes was created using only an old upright piano, a single microphone, and birdsong recordings gathered from friends around the world.
Moletta describes her compositions as Sonic & Visual Spells, ritualistic works created in harmony with lunar and seasonal cycles. Her live performances are conceived as collective ceremonies, inviting audiences into a symbolic space where intuition and myth converge.
In 2022, she was invited to perform at the Netherlands-based festival Le Guess Who? Her work was featured on Bandcamp Daily and also appeared in mixes for Crack Magazine, NTS Radio, Soho Radio and others.
In 2023, she debuted Sacred Space at The Museum of Natural History in Turin (IT), a ritual performance exploring the relationship between the sacred and the feminine through four archetypes: Shaman, Sibyl, Mystic, and Witch. Each figure is embodied through voice and the four elements of nature, channeling ancient, forgotten memories of women's spiritual connection with the divine.
In 2024, Moletta collaborated with Australian artist Karen Vogt on the long-form vocal piece Suspended Between Worlds (Longform Editions), followed in 2025 by their full-length album Sea-swallowed Wands (Quiet Details).
Beyond music, Moletta’s interdisciplinary practice spans film, collage, and visual performance.
Jolanda Moletta’s artistic practice is a radical and spiritual journey through sound art, ritual, and the symbolic archaeology of the feminine. A single voice, multiplied, to give form to the unseen.
1. How did the creative spark between you two first ignite, and what makes your collaboration so fluid and intuitive and something you keep coming back to?
We’ve known each other for over a decade, having met while playing a show together with our long-running bands - Heligoland (Karen) and She Owl (Jolanda). Making and releasing music as solo artists is a relatively recent development for both of us. Independently, we each developed our own unique vocal-only or vocal ambient style. We share a passion for creativity and improvisation, and we've always been very supportive of one another, while also being involved in small ways in each other’s projects. Collaborating like this felt inevitable. It was just a matter of time, and timing is everything!
It all began with a self-organized residency near the seaside on France’s west coast, at a friend’s home who is also an artist. We brought along some basic gear to record vocals and found ourselves deeply inspired by the full moon and the sea there. Our recording session was a creative flow state that began in the afternoon and carried into the evening, only briefly interrupted by dinner, dessert, and affection for the resident cat before we slipped back into that beautiful space of improvisation.
A key part of this process was being physically together, having a full experience rather than collaborating remotely. Traveling side by side, preparing meals with care and sharing them, spending time by the sea, appreciating nature, observing the moon, and doing tarot helped us to synchronise. Our openness to simply see what happens, with no pressure, no expectations, just presence and trust in the moment, was also crucial.
2. Was there a particular intention or message you hoped to communicate through this album—or was the process more about discovery and feeling? And how does Sea-swallowed Wands evolve from your previous work together, and what new territories did you explore creatively?
The album was created in a spirit of pure feeling as we tuned in to the nature around us, and focused on the sea and the moon. Our goal was to experiment with vocals only and see what would emerge through improvisation. It evolved further as we edited, arranged, and shaped the material into full pieces. The editing process revealed so much, helping us weave elements together and understand the mood and character of each track. We soon realized how deeply the sea and moon had influenced us!
The first vocal-only piece we ever collaborated on was Suspended Between Worlds (released on Longform Editions). This 21-minute piece was from the same improvised session as this album, but included a field recording of birds on the beach. For our current album, we wanted to add a narrative (reflected in the song titles) and experiment further with song structures and production. Moonwater is a track that was added last, and it is the most experimental in how it was built and produced by processing the voice in a super heavy, textured way.
The album’s symbolism came from a DIY photo shoot we did on a beach in St. Malo, France. Jolanda, also a visual artist, had the idea to photograph us in front of these stunning sea-soaked wooden posts. This gave the album a visual identity that also further shaped the music. We were drawn to how these “wands” were submerged and exposed twice daily with the tides. It felt symbolic of change and ritual. The tarot suit of Wands, representing creativity and action, felt meaningful, as did the Moon card, which became a guiding symbol for the album.
A key part of the shoot was Jolanda’s curated color palette. She composed a visual language that echoed tarot symbolism of the Moon card and the Wands suit with a deep red and black in our clothing, the pale yellow sand evoking the moon’s light, the vibrant blue sky, and the textured wood all spoke to the fire of creativity, and the subtle forces of intuition, and transformation. Every element, color, material, and composition was intentionally chosen to align with her broader artistic vision.
3. How do you cloud collect (connect to childlike wonder) in your creativity?
Jolanda: Nature, listening to the wind, watching light flicker through leaves, or the sudden flight of a bird, is where I reconnect with childlike wonder. These moments ground me in awe and remind me of the magic in everything. Stargazing, moon-watching, imagining our blue planet spinning in the vast cosmos…these gestures open a portal to something beyond the visible. I often feel like I’m catching glimpses behind the veil, and those glimpses fuel my creativity.
There’s a sense of play in that process too, of exploring freely, listening deeply, allowing myself to be surprised. Music becomes a kind of spell-casting, a ritual, a way to trace invisible threads between people, places, memories, and emotions. I’m not looking for perfection but for presence, for the truth of a moment. For me, reconnecting with childlike wonder means trusting that mystery speaks, and my job is to listen and translate it into sound, symbol, and voice.
Karen: I love clouds and the way they’re always in motion, always changing. I see them as snapshots of a moment in time, like a thought, an idea, or a possibility passing through the mind. Do we catch it? Or let it drift? I even had a series of improvised albums called Little Pink Fluffy Clouds, and instead of traditional song titles, I named the tracks Cloud One, Cloud Two, Cloud Three, until I reached Cloud Fifty-Seven.
Much like the shifting nature of clouds, I enjoy the way ideas form and change shape. Creativity feels like a dance: ideas swaying past, or rolling in dramatically like a supercharged thunderstorm. I love change, and how our ideas, moods, and feelings evolve. Just when I think I understand my own creativity, it surprises me. The most unpredictable things often happen, and I absolutely love that.
I want to stay open, letting inspiration pass through me rather than trying to capture or contain it. I want to feel it, fully experience it, and understand it as it moves through me. I want to watch the clouds change shape, the same way I watch feelings arise and express themselves through me in sound and voice. I want to experience and observe simultaneously. I love thinking beyond the constraints of this world, staying open to what hasn’t yet come into being.
Love the detail about designing the cover, inspired by the Wands in the tarot, and the Moon. So beautiful! Very inspiring.
Great interview, so good to get a bit of a deep dive into this gorgeous release!