Those who are strangers to dancefloors may also be strangers to Gala, so allow me to provide a quick rundown. Italian by birth, and making a name for herself in the arts community of the American northeast since the late 90s, Gala has had a string of throbbing, danceable club hits that include Let a Boy Cry, Freed from Desire, Lose Yourself in Me. Her latest, released late in 2013, is Taste of Me. Even now, Gala finds a way to be provocative, with lyrics that are forward-thinking to some, and an expression of long-overdue sentiment to others.

In short, Taste of Me extols the virtue of non-monogamy in relationships. And while such arrangements have undoubtedly existed whenever there have been more than two human beings in one place, many of us will find it a relief to hear it, for once, out loud. "Every song [out] there is about, I love you, or I miss you, or you broke up with me, fuck you," Gala explains. "But my friends don’t talk about this! It’s always in between, the reality. Something I’ve been hearing lately, and something that is also my concern, is monogamy versus [open relationships]. I wanted to write a song about that."

The video accompanying Taste of Me has also been a labour of love for Gala. "I have a big passion for dance, and it was the biggest mourning of my life that I couldn’t be a dancer. Still, now, my voice trembles when I talk about it. So last year I said, enough: I have to make this video. I collaborated with the artistic director of Cedar Lake ballet, and it was very hard to get these people because I don’t have the budget to pay them at all. It made me very proud that people at such a level would work with me just because they loved the concept."

The video itself is not shot in one take, but edited so slickly that unless one is watching like a hawk, it certainly appears to be. "I’m a big fan of Hitchcock," Gala says. "When I was a kid I watched The Rope, and I couldn’t believe they did it all with one take. They had to cut it, because they had film, so they had to change the roll. We had to cut because I didn’t have enough money to pay for a long stage!" Shooting the video on a shoestring, operating as her own manager, artistic director, and dancing in the video at once could have easily run an artist into the ground. True to form, however, Gala’s primary concern in how the audience reacts.

The finished product is quintessentially professional, which puts it in a category of video production that’s hard for an independent artist to keep up with. "This video gets compared to Beyoncé, and people who have lots of budget. That’s why I’m pressing the Behind the Scenes video. For one person to put that together, without a manager, without an assistant, without a label, it took so much. And the first comment on Lose Yourself In Me, that I shot [the same way], was c’est pas mal, quand est le prochain? (That’s not bad, when is the next one?) And there, I was like, fuck, it took me one year to put this together. You have to love the work more than you love the love."

Taste of Me is a quintessentially modern work, for all that its dancy, poppy roots will be familiar. The dubstep-inspired break in the middle is evidence of an artistic direction that Gala finds enthralling. "I really like the dubstep sound – not so much the beat as the sound. You hear a new song, and you could have heard it in the 70s. Some of the sounds that I’m hearing are sounds that you could have never heard in the past." Of course, it’s easy to dismiss dubstep as an aural fad. After all, it’s found its way into everything from Mountain Dew commercials to the trailer for the latest season of Sherlock, but the creative decision behind it is soundly rooted in its catchiness. Unlike many independent artists, Gala doesn’t shy away from the commercial element of the work. In fact, to her, it’s integral. She recalls one anecdote, about former Beatles producer George Martin playing a long, complex jazz number to the delight of John Lennon "It was amazing," Lennon was reported to say when the piece concluded, "but I don’t remember any of it."

"I love that comment of Lennon’s." says Gala. "That is the element of me that will always be pop, in the sense that I want people to remember my songs." There is a tension, though, between the Gala who is played on radio and in clubs, and the Gala who performs live. "I always hated doing the shows where it’s just a mic and a CD. I could get way more money, and I could do way more shows, but in 15 years, I’ve never done a show like that. On stage, I have a much more rock presence. I bring my band with trucks and lights, and at the end, I get not paid, because I have to pay my musicians, and flights and everything, but I deliver a show."

As well as her live shows go over, Gala confides that she’s found it difficult to sell albums that focus on the fusion of rock and electronic, like one of her favourite groups, Depeche Mode. And though she speaks about them in glowing terms, between the two of us we wondered whether Depeche Mode might have had an easier time being the stylistic iconoclasts they are while also being white men. After all, our conversation began, and remained rooted throughout, in Gala’s fierce and nuanced feminism.

In 2005, Gala founded Matriarchy Records as an attempt to involve more women in the behind-the-scenes business of music. In her previous work with labels, she says; "the booking agents are guys, the managers are guys, the A&Rs were guys, the president of the label, the mixing engineer, the sound guys, the mastering, all of them. So in all these meetings that I had, at the table with lawyers, and labels – it was a period when I was trying to get out of Universal – everybody was like because the matriarchy has decided... or the matriarchy says that... And it was really funny to hear all these guys talk about the matriarchy. So it was a little ironic and also it was a bit of a dream, for me."

Those with a dismissive attitude toward feminists often look for some grievance or personal trauma to "explain" the views of a woman like Gala. She confesses that she’s run up against the assumption any number of times, as she ages, that her views are nothing but an axe to grind. To the contrary, this perspective is one that she’s held from youth. "I notice these things – they were in my songs when I was twenty. Let a Boy Cry is about that. It’s not let a man cry, it’s allow him to be sensitive. I remember wanting to write a song about let a woman be strong, let a woman fight, but then I said, nobody’s going to listen to that song – let me flip it."

She relates a story of a meet-and-greet gone mortifying, when dinnertime conversation with a prominent DJ took a turn for the ugly. "People were talking about how many wrinkles Madonna had, and Cher, oh my God, her lips, and so on. The whole conversation, both from my dear friend who’s fighting the oppression of the gay community, and this guy who just interviewed Cher on his show, were only talking about the appearances of these women. And I’m like, these two women changed pop! You honestly have nothing to say about their work?"

It hits close to home for Gala that gay men, in particular, can unconsciously reinforce those attitudes toward women. "Like, you know what oppression means, and you should understand it better. And they do! They of course do better than most straight guys, but sometimes I notice how they can be very sensitive to their own problems, but not to the women." There is, in that, something to take to heart. If a little attention paid and a little compassion rendered can make life better, why not? It seems to be working so far.