Get to Know: Rachel K. Collier
Real Name: Rachel K. Collier
Pseudonym: Millie Carter
First Composed for Sonoton: 2025
Number of tracks on Sonoton: 8
Number of Albums on Sonoton: 2
Rachel K. Collier stands out as a creative force, blending bold songwriting, inventive electronic production, and energetic live shows. As an avid Ableton user, she brings complex studio work to life on stage with a hands-on, multi-instrument setup that gives her complete creative control.
Rachel is at home on both festival stages and in smaller venues, tailoring her performances to fit each space. Her shows range from live percussion with interactive visuals to simple solo looping, always focusing on experimentation and spontaneity. She has toured the UK, Europe, India, and the US, with highlights like Radio 1’s Biggest Weekend, SXSW, and a sold-out show supporting Peking Duk at London’s KOKO.
Her self‑titled debut album, RKC, marked a key milestone in her career. Released alongside a feature‑length documentary, the project offered an open and reflective look at life as an independent artist. It received strong support from BBC Introducing and PRS for Music, with the single ‘Dinosaur’ selected as BBC Radio 1 Introducing Record of the Week, helping to establish Rachel as a confident and distinctive creative voice.
Alongside releasing and performing her own music, Rachel’s passion for music technology has become a defining part of her work. Through her rapidly growing YouTube channel, she shares production techniques, live performance workflows and creative experimentation. This has led to production commissions for other artists, as well as collaborations with major brands, including Google, Ableton Live, and Fabletics.
To find out more about her approach, we asked Rachel a few questions about her work and perspective.
Interview
Sonoton Music: With the rise of Hyperpop around artists like Charli XCX, what do you find most exciting about the direction the genre is currently taking, and how do you see your own work contributing to or pushing that evolution forward?
Rachel K. Collier: I love the energy in Hyperpop, more distorted vocals and those super fun glitchy moments that pop out of nowhere. I think there’s a real art to creating rhythmic and multi texture hits in a drop which fit and don’t sound out of place. I’ve definitely already felt a shift in my work with pushing the tempos – the last track I made was at 132 for a four to the floor beat, autotuning so much harder, and I’ll take any excuse to be a bit more ‘out there’ in my productions.
I do wonder, though, if AI tracks will change this progressive hyperpop climate – there will either be a shift away from the hyperpop sound into something more delicate and obviously non-artificial, or the genre will be pushed even further to make super unique sounds and beats that have never been heard before.
Sonoton Music: How did you get into music production and what sparked your interest?
Rachel K. Collier: Since I started writing songs, from about 13 years old, I have always been into layering and creating more than just a melody and lyrics. I always loved layering, not just harmonies but rhythmic and bass textures with my voice – until I realised I could make these with actual drum sounds and bass sounds. I love to craft a song from beginning to end – solving the puzzles of making the drops hit hard or making a great transition from the chorus into V2. I also really dig the sound design process – I make a lot of my sounds with my synthesisers, then add a load of FX in the DAW and RESAMPLE for days. I would say this is my main move in the studio – resampling. My main move from songwriting into music production came after a good stint of toplining and getting bored, or writing on the same old beats from other producers. Even though at the time, being a manager was like I was taking 100 steps backwards with my career, I have never looked back since I started my music production journey. I feel music production just keeps on giving.
Sonoton Music: From festival stages to minimalist solo looping sets, your performances take different forms for different audiences. How do you adapt emotionally and creatively to those contrasting environments, and what do you learn from each?
Rachel K. Collier: It’s always a conscious decision for me whether to perform my RKC productions full-out or to strip them back and create every layer from scratch and on the spot. Generally, if it’s party vibes, Friday night in a club or festival, I’ll definitely play the full productions, with some of the stems, all my synths and sometimes my percussionist. This is more of a fitness endurance set and a dance – if the energy is right, then these shows are so much fun. But then, something more stripped is always for a listening audience like Sofar Sounds, or more recently, I performed a headline show in Bristol with a silent disco rig. THIS WAS SO FUN! I could create all the sounds from scratch, and because the noise in the room was minimal, it worked a treat.
Sometimes, performing a live looping set with a bad PA or people getting drunk in the background is just a recipe for disaster. This happened to Vicky O’Neon and me once at the Jazz Café in London – we were looping up shakers and all sorts, and my lovely engineer James was just having an absolute nightmare as the noise in the room was just too loud to capture anything clean. The whole set was a struggle, wooof.
Over the years, I’ve just learned to really consider the audience, space and sound systems. The stripped set is such a thrill for a musician, looping up keys, bass, shakers and finger drumming all in time and then layering the vocals. In the not too distant future, I would love to do a tour of the stripped set and bring along The Silent Disco rig.