Part 2

Sound, song, and rhythm are all around us, from animal noises to forces of nature. What, if any, are some of the most moving experiences you've had with these non-human-made sounds? In how far would you describe them as “musical”?

Saramai: I still think about it.

When I was really small I used to think elephants were coming. Whenever I was lying down in bed at night, after I was tucked in and lights were out, I’d be looking out a window onto the street, we lived in the town, and often it was raining and I could hear a thump, thump, thu, thump. A beat that sounded far away and I thought the elephants were coming. I always had a pillow over my ears as I looked out at the street lampposts through a rainy window. I was never scared. In fact it was a comforting music.  Eventually after a few years I realised it was my heartbeat. But for a long time I was perfectly happy to imagine some herd slowly making its way to me.

The film Dancer in the Dark (Lars Von Trier) with Bjork captured this. Way ordinary sounds become music through the act of listening in the most astounding way. There’s this scene where she is in a jail cell and there is a drip and it transforms in an exquisite way. I’ve only seen the film once and a long time ago but it has stayed with me.

If beauty is in the eye of the beholder then music is in the ear of the listener.

From very deep/high/loud/quiet sounds to very long/short/simple/complex compositions - are there extremes in music you feel drawn to and what response do they elicit?

Saramai: I like anything I can believe. You know the way you know if someone believes what they are saying or singing you want to listen, you are compelled to listen. Also we have a really nuanced perception of intention.

For me I like things that are not demanding my attention but exist because they are true. There is a beauty in how little a piece of music or art like this asks of the listener and how generous a work of art can be.

It’s a transaction that is heavily weighted in favour of the listener. But it comes from a lot of work and the life of the artist really.

From symphonies and traditional verse/chorus-songs to linear techno tracks and free jazz, there are myriads of ways to structure a piece of music. Which approaches work best for you – and why?

Saramai: Gosh. I don’t have one way. It’s very gut led the way we write but sometimes if we are stuck then it’s very useful to analyse the structure. For example sometimes what I or we thought was the chorus or a part that would repeat or be the climax actual turns out to be the verse or a pre chorus or an outro.

Also we are really into weird structures. Or flipping things on their heads or just going wherever the song leads us in a sense. For the most part though we do have standard structures with verses, choruses, middle eights and we are very found of outros!

Science and art have certain overlaps and similarities. Do you you think "objectivity" has a place in art and do you conduct “experiments” or make use of scientific insights when you're making music?

Saramai: Whilst making the last record we got very good at having this cognitive dissonance where we would listen to our guts but at the same time also detach and be ready to throw something out even if we liked it. We didn’t want to keep something just because we were emotionally attached to it, to be blindsided by liking something because it had become familiar.

So whilst it’s not exactly scientific it was an exercise in objectivity to a degree but also switching off that overly analytical voice so that we could go by feel. We got pretty good at being ruthless and kind, simultaneously.

Seeing, smelling, touching, tasting – which of these sense impressions have the strongest points of contact with your hearing/listening experience?

Saramai: I couldn’t pick one. For me it’s more like how a certain kind of light or weather or the gait of stranger walking along the street can trigger a strong memory or feeling that is vast, invisible but very real. Listening for me is something that feels totally personal, embodied. This is when I can really listen say at a gig or with two ear buds in when our son is at Kita or asleep!

It is such an amazing gift to be able to hear and then also the abundance of incredible music we can access is one of life’s greatest pleasures.

Does the way you make music reflect on the way you live your life? And vice versa, can we learn lessons about life by understanding music on a deeper level?

Saramai: Yes for sure. The more I make music the more I think that the music is both a reflection of who I am and the experiences I’ve had but also that making the work acts upon me as much as I act upon it. As if the process of making the thing is something that I need to work out or untangle. Like figuring out the puzzle of the album has as much to do with your life and thoughts and relationships as it does with the practical things that get done in the studio.

For example, in order to sing some of the vocals the way that they had to be, I had work to do on a personal level. I had to become the person who could do it. I don’t know how it happened and but it did. And then the next album will push and mould and renew and challenge.

In terms of music as teacher yes for sure. I think it changes with different stages of your life. Right now when I listen I am getting bowled over by the artistic decisions made by artists I love and somehow I can sense the grace, dignity, bravery and spirit of the artist because of the decisions they made with a piece of music. It’s all in my imagination of course but it feels real and inspiring.

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?

Saramai: Yes and No. It depends how mundane the task is! I think if you have a ritual with coffee and it’s a nice coffee and it’s something you look forward to and it’s a big part of your day then it is similar to playing music in a sense.

Also I am learning to let the work do the work with music. As in adding in lots of emotion or trying to force it actually devalues it. So by treating the words, melody, chords, arrangement like the various things required to make a nice coffee or dinner you get something good and more honest than trying to embody the feeling all the time.

There’s this documentary called Jiro dreams of Sushi and I love how it’s his attention to detail and the practical nature of his work that creates the sublime sushi.



But then on another level of course playing music is very different to doing the dishes or cleaning the house. There’s little to no transcendence to be found in taking the bins out! It’s the spark of pushing through that you can feel when you write something new that might become something and might mean something to someone else that keeps me obsessed with music.

Every time I listen to "Albedo 0.39" by Vangelis, I choke up. But the lyrics are made up of nothing but numbers and values. Conversely, many popular love songs leave me cold. Do you have similar paradoxical examples - and why, do you think, is the same piece of music capable of conjuring such vastly different responses in different listeners?

Saramai: Liz Fraser from The Cocteau Twins sang a lot of words from other languages or just made up sounds that are also so evocative. I’m a big fan. It’s primal. But then other people hate it and just think it’s gibberish which in one sense it is.

I think you have to hear certain pieces of music at the right time in your life. I hear songs totally differently to when I was a teenager than when I revisit them now. Sometimes a song will trigger a feeling that you really don’t want to explore and so you reject it as a song you don’t like. My tolerance for more on-the-nose type songs has definitely improved.

There is a saying and I cannot find the author (maybe it’s Rumi or from the Tao Te Ching - hopefully a reader will know!) It said something like ‘when I was a child a tree was just a tree, the river was the river and then I grew up and a tree was no longer just a tree and a river was no longer just a river and then I grew older and a tree became a tree again and the river a river.’

For me it’s about how at one stage you want everything to be a metaphor and then slowly the thing becomes enough again.

If you could make a wish for the future – what are developments in music you would like to see and hear?

I would like big corporations to pay musicians fairly for providing the thing they sell.