Part 2
Take us through a day in your life, from a possible morning routine through to your work, please.
Burs: From an outsider’s glance, morning coffee, some variation of a 9-5, try to dream up creative ideas amidst said work, meals, some choice task/hobby, a kiss goodnight, sleep. Lauren is a tattoo artist by day, Ray teaches, Dev works at a brewery and Olly is a sound tech; we all are music freelancers too, so those 9-5 hours shuffle around. These are just our common fundamentals, though; our most favourite days are where we find time to be in nature, exercise, whip up a good meal, get together, play a gig, catch a show and/or create.
Could you describe your creative process on the basis of a piece, live performance or album that's particularly dear to you, please.
OC: A song like “The Year Now” has a long history. Lauren first wrote it before we met as a band (prior to spring of 2019), and recorded a solo version, which she released in October 2019. In addition to a gorgeous acoustic guitar and vocal take, she layered found sound, voice memos and non-musical recordings on top, creating a sound collage that really informed the way we approached the track as a band later on.
In early 2020, we began playing the song live as a group, and the challenge was to recreate the sonic landscape of the original but with 4 acoustic instruments. We started leaning into an improvisational approach for the first half of the song, using pedals and unconventional techniques to fill space around the melody, and then contrasted that with an intense full-band slam of the outro. The following fall we brought the song back into the studio, now to capture what we had perfected live in a recording. Coming at recording with the aim to get as much “stuff” recorded as possible, we borrowed from Lauren’s initial production in collaging together about 8 different ambient improvised intros; this was in order to create a piece that was representative of our playing as a band, but also our interest in using the studio as a creative tool. The recording we ended up with owes everything to Lauren’s original, but allowed us to stake some new territory as a group.
Listening can be both a solitary and a communal activity. Likewise, creating music can be private or collaborative. Can you talk about your preferences in this regard and how these constellations influence creative results?
OC: Personally, I like a balance of both. As an introvert and someone with attention and over-stimulation difficulties, I deeply value the time I can spend on my own with our music. Time by myself allows me a certain clarity and thoughtfulness that I can’t always access when with others. At the same time, when I have spent too much time working on something on my own, such as a mix, I find myself losing perspective and hitting a wall. Bringing work to Burs helps me get out of my head, eases the pressure of figuring stuff out and ultimately brings us closer to creating stuff that represents us as a band.
How do your work and your creativity relate to the world and what is the role of music in society?
Burs: Small things that stick with you!
Art can be a way of dealing with the big topics in life: Life, loss, death, love, pain, and many more. In which way and on which occasions has music – both your own or that of others - contributed to your understanding of these questions?
RG: I suppose this new record is the most significant occasion in my life where I’ve been able to use music to try and write an experience into a song to understand that experience better. To do that gracefully is tough, especially when writing about loss and grief, both pretty universal experiences. Every song on the record is grieving something, it could be loss of love, or loss of innocence. Each of us looks to music for consolation all the time; it can be the most comforting thing to have someone sing to you your own sorrows, or desires, or pleasures. Poetry can be a guide for living, or even just really good advice when you don’t necessarily have a person to confide in.
There seems to be increasing interest in a functional, “rational” and scientific approach to music. How do you see the connection between music and science and what can these two fields reveal about each other?
LD: Hmm. It seems that both science and music (our music, at least) are both looking to reveal the truth. I am always looking to share the truth when I write. Yet even when I declare something a truth, I can never truly separate the lens of my experience, unlike the efforts of science that look for a universal truth. Even the universal truths of science sometimes change with the passing of time, suggesting that humanity itself has a collective perspective that can be faulty! I’m not sure what the matter of perspective reveals about either field - perhaps that there is no absolute truth anywhere…or that as a person of this world, my truth is more universal than what my anxieties tell me, and I could afford to be less ashamed of what’s deep inside myself. What I do know to be true, is that the beautiful and mysterious phenomena of a life is what will forever perplex me. I’m not sure if science could ever measure that.
Creativity can reach many different corners of our lives. Do you feel as though writing or performing a piece of music is inherently different from something like making a great cup of coffee? What do you express through music that you couldn't or wouldn't in more 'mundane' tasks?
DS: I think that creating or performing music can be an opportunity to build a world and invite people inwards as you please. Rules are at your discretion, if not optional, meaning that you can develop a language and see if other people enjoy speaking it (or listening to it casually while making a cup of coffee). As a listener, I see unique power in creators or performers who conjure strong emotion(s) in me from within themselves. Perhaps the fluidity of emotions that can stem from music creativity is what sets it apart from day-to-day tasks. No cup of coffee has ever made me cry!
Music is vibration in the air, captured by our ear drums. From your perspective as a creator and listener, do you have an explanation how it able to transmit such diverse and potentially deep messages?
LD: Simply, I think the role of the voice is the most essential part of music - in truly moving music, all other instruments should look to sing. The sound and timbres of the human voice is the sound of lived human experience - which (maybe obviously) makes it so effective as a messenger in music. Even when you take a look at wordless vocal parts in song, emotion is inherent in them. I’ve never heard a vocal part that isn’t saying something. I’m looking forward to further exploring this idea; how to sing through instruments, and how to make the voice an instrument - and how that might deepen the essence of a song.
