User:EllenZoe/sandbox/Like A Villain

Holland Andrews is a singer, composer, and visual artist. As a solo artist, they (uses they/them pronouns) perform using the name Like A Villain, and their style of music draws from contemporary opera, musical theater, jazz, ambient music and noise music. Along with their solo career, and they also compose music for dance, theater, and film.

Andrews released three albums and one EP, and they are known for their long, improvised live sets.

Early life
Raised in Los Angeles, California, Andrews comes from a family of singers that included her mother, sisters and cousins. Their mother and sister released the songs, "What's Your Game" and "Running and Pushing," as the group MDLT.

Andrews' mother was troubled, suffering from Schizoaffective disorder, as well as alcohol and drug abuse. When they were 16, their mother's boyfriend tried to drown them, and as a result she lost custody. Andrews moved to Irvine, California to live with their father.

Shortly after, their mother committed suicide, and 45 days later, Andrew went into treatment for alcoholism to get sober.

Music Career
Andrews moved to Portland, Oregon at 19, and joined the music community playing clarinet and singing in the indie-folk bands Meyercord and The Ocean Floor. They began to perform as a solo artist, drawing on their childhood for their improved music."

Their first album, The Life of a Gentleman, was self-released in 2010. Willamette Week described the music as "wall after wall of sound in choral blasts before switching to light, playful clarinet and snippets of spoken word."

In 2014, Andrews' house was robbed, including a computer with some of her early songs. However, they still independently released a second album of music called Bast, that they recorded with Mike Erwin, and members of Typhoon, The Ocean Floor, Machinedrum, and others. And they also began a residency to create a musical piece for the avante-garde Time-Based Art Festival, part of the Portland Institute for Contemporary Art.

Two years later, they secured a Creative Exchange Lab residency with PICA (Portland Institute For Contemporary Art). That same year, Andrews performed as a septet of artists in the Portland Jazz Composer's Ensemble. Their music and visual graphics focused on their work about trauma, and healing by music. The group included Andrews as composer and vocalist; Douglas Detrick, trumpet and music director; Reed Wallsmith, alto saxophone; Ian Christensen, tenor saxophone; Lars Campbell, trombone; Jon Shaw, bass; and Ken Ollis, drums.

After another performance with the Time-Based Art Festival, Andrews recorded their third album, What Makes Vulnerability Good at Color Therapy Recording Studio in Portland with Arjan Miranda before moving to New York City, New York. The album was released September 5 (or 20?) on Accidental Records.

“We were thinking of ways that transform and keep the listener interested without sacrificing who I am as an artist,” they said about the use of synthesizer effects with arrangements that included guests like saxophonist Joe Cunningham (Blue Cranes). Lyrically, Andrews expounded on the relationship they had with their mother, among other personal topics.

Theater, film and dance
Andrews created musical and visual art pieces in her career including a collaboration with Rwandan-born refugee, singer/dancer/choreographer Dorothée Munyaneza called Unwanted. The work, which was presented in 2017 at Baryshnikov Arts Center in New York City, was created from stories from refugees of Rwanda, Congo and other countries and set to electronic music by Alain Mahé.

In 2019, they performed as one of the vocalists in Gabriel Kahane’s Emergency Shelter Intake Form, a live piece of 13 vignettes with full orchestra that premiered at the Jay Pritzker Pavilion in Millennium Park in Chicago, Illinois with the theme of homelessness.

Andrews created the music soundtrack for the 2019 documentary, Zero Impunity, a film that presents incidents of sexual violence in armed conflicts around the world.