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It’s been over a decade since you released your first album, Mountains of Nothing In Love, in 2013, and you’ve not engaged with many of those songs since. Can you tell me a bit about the making of your first record and why you chose to revisit that period on your latest release?
That was such a tumultuous period in my life on a whole host of different levels. But also, it was a period that was genuinely rewarding artistically since I’d finally solidified into song so many of these ideas I’d been carrying around with me since I was a kid. I’d just witnessed my life get torn apart by the death of my lifelong best friend, which sounds a bit melodramatic, I suppose, but it’s the truth of the situation. I really was left with so little once the dust had settled. And so I felt it was finally time to see what I was really made of and to create the record I’d always harbored intentions of making.
It honestly feels lifetimes away at this point, the genesis of those songs at least. But when I dug back into them for this live project, they felt somehow new, familiar, of course, but I was seeing them from a totally different perspective. Also, at the time I could’ve only dreamed of working with musicians like the ones I’ve been playing with for the past few years, so these songs had to be crafted from my then very fragile and admittedly rudimentary hand. Which I think is why I was eager to see how they would feel when worked into the context of the band, and it turned out that they really were ready to be presented in a new light. I found myself sympathizing with them more than I’d expected. But that whole period was something I’d always been cautious about dipping back into. It was very singular in a way, and I didn’t make another record until quite some time after that, once I felt I was out of the woods and back on solid ground.
So that must mean your second LP, Champagne and Childhood Hunger, was somewhat of a significant departure from your debut?
It absolutely was, not just thematically but stylistically and sonically as well. This is another reason I found this whole live project exciting; I was curious to see how all of these songs from different periods of my life would hang together in one setting. But the Champagne record was another big shift; I’d moved away from the minimalist punk sort of sound from my first record, and I was experimenting with what, ultimately, I’ve heard referred to as shoe-gaze.
That reference point wasn’t at the forefront of my mind when I was making the record, but once it came out, I heard that term being thrown around a lot. I was really just setting out to create a world of distortion. I was still recording every instrument myself, but basically, every element was digitally distorted to sound like something else. I’d record a piano bit but filter it through an amplifier so it sounded like an electric guitar, then soften it to sound hazy and dream-like. The objective was to take these songs, which said all this incredibly dark, difficult stuff, and then present them in a delicate, twinkly sort of way so that it obscured their meaning on the surface.
I first encountered you and your music when I wrote about your third LP, Innovations of Grave Perversity. For those who haven’t heard it, can you briefly describe the main themes and musical styles that make up that album?
That was really the first time I went out and properly promoted a record, and honestly, it’s not a bad place to start, so I’m glad that’s how we first connected! Innovations was the big step forward, I think. It was the first time I explored working with other musicians and also the first time I was able to write from a place of hope and optimism as my baseline.
There were glimmers of it in the work I’d done previously, but generally, my perspective was set in a certain kind of darkness. That was the whole concept behind that record, actually, moving out of the shadows and into the light. It recounts the transition from winter into spring and, concurrently, the journey from a place of despair to the potential for joy. Which was actually written in real-time as the seasons and my life were both changing. It definitely felt like that record was where I found my footing both as an artist and just personally within the broader context of my life.
But again, sonically, there was a big shift. I’d decided to do away with any trace of electronic interference or distortion and to keep every element of the instrumentation in those songs completely natural and organic. So that’s actually what led me to connect with the musicians that I continued to work with on this latest project. The songs called for sounds that I wasn’t able to produce myself, and so I had to look outward to build them properly. Which was such a massive change in the way I’d been accustomed to working, and now it’s hard to imagine doing it any other way. Part of the joy I get in creating is being able to have that collaborative interaction with other artists and musicians.
This leads us to the new album, Indelible Sundries. First, can you tell me a bit about how this live album came about and what was unusual about the way that it was put together and presented to the listener?
Somewhere in the middle of the promotional cycle for Innovations of Grave Perversity, I did a remote live performance on a really wonderful radio program called The Great American Folk Show that’s created and hosted by the singer/songwriter Tom Brosseau. That planted this seed of wanting to tour and do a full-length live concert.
But I suffer from a fairly severe agoraphobia, which was actually another big influence over the Innovations album, so that means I’m not able to travel, and as such, physically touring is well outside my scope of possibility. So I’d done this live performance and found that I was able to create what amounted to a remotely recorded version of what would be happening on stage.
Once I’d laid down the technical groundwork, it was just a matter of coming up with a show. The original intent was to do something that would serve as the tour for the Innovations album, but as the project developed, it really turned into its own thing entirely. I think it’s just in my nature not to want to repeat myself; it feels pointless to create something that already exists in a slightly altered form.
So, even though I was working with the same band of musicians, I wanted to explore totally different sonic territory with them, which is how this “Live” record with what I dubbed The Innovations Band came to be. It was an opportunity to explore all of the work I’d done over the past decade but to house it in a completely new setting and in the context of a live show that would serve in some respects as a kind of ‘best of’ package. But there was a real dedication to the concept.
Everything was recorded in single takes as if it were being played live, even down to the individual members of the audience that you can hear applauding between songs. I reached out to friends, other artists, strangers, and all sorts of people who I would have actually invited to the show and asked them to record bits of themselves applauding that I’d then mix together to make it sound as if we were all in the same space. But in fact, nearly every person involved in this imagined performance was in a different state, country, or continent. We were all remotely flown in to bring this conceptual evening to life.
What have been the most significant technical problems working within the form of The Innovations Band, scattered, as it is, all across the globe?
Honestly, despite the distance, there was very minimal difficulty working remotely with these players. Even on a project like this, where we’re attempting to create the illusion of spontaneity and the natural back and forth you get in a live performance. I was extremely lucky to connect with all of these musicians who just seem to have a clear understanding of what I’m trying to do.
Very rarely, if at all, did I struggle with communicating what or how I wanted them to play as I was building up the arrangements, even though I’m by no means technically trained, and my handle on technical musical language is pretty limited. They just have an innate understanding of where I’m coming from and what this project aimed to do.
Who is involved in the band, what do they bring to the project, and what are its best qualities when everything is firing on all cylinders?
It’s myself and a group of eleven players, which basically amounts to a sort of mini orchestra with a string octet, trumpets, French horns, flutes, double bass, and even a musical saw.
We’ve got an incredible cellist in Ukraine named Artem Litovchenko and an absolutely beautiful harpist from the UK called Alice Roberts, who were both major players in bringing this all to life. But the real core of this project is an extremely talented friend of mine, Michael Cepress, who is a brilliant artist and musician in his own right. He was kind enough to make the time to help me out with a bunch of these pieces, and he brought in that sensitive classical guitar you hear on a number of songs. He really helped me get this thing off the ground, and I was so pleased to be able to work with him a bit more extensively after the brief musical exchanges we had on Innovations of Grave Perversity.
I was also fortunate enough to get the chance to work with Jolie Holland [the legendary Americana singer/songwriter whose early career was championed by Tom Waits] again on this project. She’d played and sung on a few tracks from the previous record, and I was so pleased and honored that she agreed to work with me again for Indelible Sundries. I really can’t sing her praises enough; she’s such an immense talent, both as a songwriter and a musician. I’ve admired her work for such a long time and to have her involved in something like this is truly a gift. That inimitable voice and her violin and viola work brought a whole other dimension to this performance. I feel like her presence serves as a grounding force for the record in a way.
How invigorating was it to strip back some of the more weighty sonics and present some of the songs in a new light?
That was a major part of this whole endeavor, actually. From the onset, I knew I wanted to reinvent every song that would be presented at this conceptual concert. It was basically a process of building up the older songs into full band arrangements and stripping back the newer pieces to be more exposed and, for lack of a better term, acoustic. I wanted to push forth the vulnerability in them.
Whether that meant wrapping them in an elaborate string arrangement on something like “It’s Not For Me Anymore” or simply having a muted musical saw and viola accompaniment floating behind the vocal on “An Augury of Hope,” which serves as a kind of prayer and mission statement at the concert’s opening. I think because of the nature of this project and the means by which it was recorded, it wouldn’t have made sense for me to try and do any of these songs as they’d already been done.
Like I was saying earlier, I just can’t see the purpose of that. Those arrangements already exist; there’s no point in duplicating them. What I wanted to do was use these existing songs to create a new sonic world, as I’d done on all of my previous records, and I think we achieved that. It’s much more autumnal than anything I’ve done before, and it leans more heavily into a certain kind of folk realm, though I still find it difficult to think of myself as a firmly defined “Folk” artist.
What have you learned from creating such an album, one which is both live and, to a degree, not live in the conventional sense?
I suppose my main takeaway from this whole experience is the knowledge that it really is possible to achieve something, even if you need to travel an unorthodox path to get there. Releasing a live record is something I’d always dreamed of doing, but for years, I just put it out of my mind because I thought it was simply not an option for someone like me. But as someone who lives primarily within their own head, this really did serve as the complete experience, and it was fully on my own terms.
It was also a real challenge in some ways, and I do try to challenge myself with every record I make. This was just a different sort of challenge, which was that we had to adhere to the “rules” of the concept. Just like in a live performance, there was nowhere to hide, and it felt very exposing to present myself through these songs in this way. I didn’t want there to be any studio trickery or anything that could detract from the listener’s ability to imagine themselves present at this performance as if it was happening in real time before their eyes.
It was both freeing and limiting. Freeing in the sense that I could focus purely on the moment and really put emphasis on the core of the songs, but it also meant I wasn’t able to do any of the exploration I normally do in a studio setting. Things like layering vocals or modifying instruments to add ambient textures. All of that stuff had to be set aside in service of this imagined moment. It was like making a sort of sonic movie, building a scene entirely out of sound.
Having explored such a format, how does it change your approach to what you do? And what can people who face the same challenges as you learn from it?
I think making Indelible Sundries and creating this conceptual live performance has helped me feel more confident in my ability to decipher the means necessary to achieve something that could, on the surface, seem out of my grasp. My mental health presents a great deal of limitations for me personally, but regardless of what your specific limitations may be, I think there’s always a way to accomplish something if you feel passionately enough about it. You just have to be open to exploring alternate methods and be honest with yourself about where your current ability stands.
I think a lot of people allow fear to dictate their choices, I know my body and its physical reaction to fear often play a part in my decision making. But if you allow yourself to explore that fear, to try and understand the truth behind it, it may be possible to find yourself in places you’d once thought unimaginable. I guess what I’m trying to say is that whether it’s an artistic ambition or something related to healing within the context of your mental health, there’s always a path forward, we just have to be willing to get creative.
What are your favorite moments on the album, perhaps reworkings or experiences that even took you by surprise?
I loved doing the horror movie style arrangement for “Crow Congregation”. I had PJ Harvey’s “Man-Size Sextet” and Bettye LaVette’s recording of Bob Dylan’s “Ain’t Talkin’” in mind when I was putting that together. It was also very special to do “Ghosts” with the full band. There’s an explosive moment in the middle 8 of that song where I think the whole performance kind of blossoms and reveals itself for what it really is. That was written for my friend, whom I mentioned at the start of our conversation, who passed away suddenly and tragically. When I recorded it for Champagne and Childhood Hunger, it was just me and a piano, and I do love that version, but hearing it with the full band was something I know she would have really loved. So I was grateful to have that moment.
I also loved doing the avant-garde jazz version of “Mountains of Nothing In Love,” which was a sort of tribute to the brilliance of Patty Waters. She was another hero of mine growing up, and eventu8ally, she became a close friend. She was a deeply innovative and influential artist; the fact that she had people like Thurston Moore, Diamanda Galás, and Patti Smith singing her praises is just wild.
There was a brilliant quote from Diamanda that was along the lines of “Patty Waters politely ascended the stairs and blew out the lights with her singing, thus condemning her to sing forever in darkness.” Which has unfortunately been the case. She was a real cult artist, known by few but highly influential to all who encountered her work over the past 60 odd years. Her ability to mix this hushed, extremely delicate singing with blood-curdling shrieks and howls was just incredible. Rolling Stone in the 70s literally called her “the best fucking singer alive”. I was fortunate enough to share Indelible Sundries with her before she passed in June of this year. And she was particularly fond of “Mountains of Nothing In Love”; she said something to the effect of “the only way I could love this song more is if I’d been the one singing it!”. I’ll always treasure our friendship and the fact that she was a part of my life and allowed me to be a part of hers.
And finally, what does the future hold for you, and perhaps what would you like it to hold for you?
Well, I’m as curious as anyone to know what’s coming next for them. If I look at the trajectory of my life I guess it’s been anything but conventional, and I certainly wouldn’t have suspected things to play out as they have. So, I’m open to whatever the universe has in store for me. I have some very loose ideas for where I could take the next record, but all of that feels very far away right now. It’s hard for me to focus on anything but the present moment, and in this present moment, I’m deeply invested in getting Indelible Sundries out into the world. But I’d like to think the future holds an expansion and deepening of the love, creative fulfillment, and connections with other people that I’ve been fortunate enough to have in my life.
Thank you for taking the time to talk to me and best of luck with the new album and everything else you are working on.
