Part 1

Name: Sacha Mullin
Nationality: American
Occupation: musician/educator
Current Release: Casino Wilderness Period on Dog & Pony Records and Dipterid Records.

If you enjoyed this interview with Sacha Mullin visit his website to learn more.

Where does the impulse to create something come from for you? What role do often-quoted sources of inspiration like dreams, other forms of art, personal relationships, politics etc play?

It’s incredibly difficult to exactly verbalise the origin of the impulse, isn’t it? But I suppose it’s a lot of trying to have my heart get heard. I’m also pulled by the irrational desire to try to crystallise the sounds I hear in my head. And because I’m so vocally driven, I have an itch and a need to resonate off another singer, and if I have the opportunity to forge little paths for voices and harmonies to exist, I’m going to do it.

Media arts probably have the most impact on me as a medium. I love watching films, I love photography, especially alternative photo processes. Establishing shots, cinematography, framing, lighting, story arc, development—these are all things I consider when composing. And I’m always trying to take that influence more head on, and be more and more brave with visual direction, because I take the advice of “people listen with their eyes” seriously.

Thematically, I guess personal relationships seem to take precedence. Certainly I’m guilty of more than a few “been done wrong” songs, but I’d hope when I’m doing that, it’s not coming off as martyring or whinging, just a safe bubble for me to express some hurt. Making and performing music is a way for me to find new angles with misunderstandings and the like. I think my main desires with my life are to feel validated, understood, and loved, so these are the most recurring ideas in my work.

In times where I’ve put any pointed world critique in or political themes, like in “Dream Ain’t Dead”, “Window Out”, or even “Arranging Flowers”, my writer’s voice seems to find it necessary to attach it to a personal narrative, or else I find it risks being preachy or reductive. There are times to be direct, and I try my best to write a lyric that’s both incisive at points, but also invites a listener in to consider a point of view, in the hopes of genuine reflection about our world. And I’m not saying I’m perfect at this, I mean, we’re always learning on how to be more compassionate global citizens. But I do try my best.

I am only a speck in a large sea of artists, and god, it’s weird promoting myself and a record during multiple humanitarian crises, but if somehow my music can be a vehicle for solidarity and empowerment—if someone feels seen and heard—then that’s amazing.

For you to get started, do there need to be concrete ideas – or what some have called a 'visualisation' of the finished work? What does the balance between planning and chance look like for you?

The flint for my ideas is often an ambiguous feeling. It could be from out of the blue, just something I’m experiencing without initial clarity, or it could be how I feel when improvising chords and progressions. All the colours involved with chords are incredibly important to me. Sometimes I’m able to suss out what the song is trying to say right away, and others take time and rest, kind of like when you’re rearranging a room and trying to see if that flower pot really “wants” to be on that new shelf. You sometimes have to force yourself away to let it figure itself out. Other times, you might have a deadline, so you have to imagine a hard conversation with the piece and go, “look, just tell me what’s going on. I’m here for you.”

Is there a preparation phase for your process? Do you require your tools to be laid out in a particular way, for example, do you need to do 'research' or create 'early versions'?

If I’m inspired to attempt to try and pursue a concept that came to me without waiting around for the whole “divine intervention” nonsense, then I definitely research through reading novels, musical exercises, talking with friends about their day. Sometimes you get writer’s block, and looking outside yourself is the best way to find the way back in. Micro to macro and all that. Scribbling down bits of phrases that someone has said for later transformation.

And I certainly record demos. They’re very important to me. I have thousands of vocal and piano sketches I’ve recorded and haven’t sorted through to see if they’re worth revisiting, but I felt it important to try to catch them when I could.

I also spent quite a bit of time gathering ideas at my friend Gabriel Riccio’s flat, tracking working ideas for this new record. I don’t know if “Arranging Flowers” or “Margaret” could’ve existed had I not tried to map out the sonic concepts I was feeling out. And in the case of “Waves” or “Neptune in the Snow”, I had songs I had written, but the initial sketches felt like they were missing something. Kind of like when you’re cooking, and you think your tomato sauce needs more of one herb or another, ha. For those songs, Todd [Rittmann] suggested drum loops, which turns out to be what I needed. From those drums was able to resketch and arrange the songs far more confidently, because in a sense, the songs finally felt confident enough to be.

Do you have certain rituals to get you into the right mindset for creating? What role do certain foods or stimulants like coffee, lighting, scents, exercise or reading poetry play?

I find myself needing to just touch the piano from time to time, so I’ll sit there and try different clusters and inversions of notes. Lighting and washes of colour can really influence me as well.

And I’m instinctively more of a tea person, but in the past half year, I’ve been reaching more for coffee in the morning. No idea why. That’s a whole sort of a weird ritual now with the coffee, because I have to go through the whole dance every morning of putting on the kettle, measuring out 40 grams of coffee beans, making sure the grinder catches all the beans, getting the oddly-specific filter rinsed for the pour-over thing I’ve decided I need to suffer with half-awake, and take the time from there to brew it. As much as I’m whinging, I enjoy it because I enjoy an established sequence of things.

I find a lot of kinship from songwriting, arranging, and music interpretation to being in a kitchen. You learn a recommended method of a recipe, and then at a certain point you internalise the instructions and start cooking from the hip. And messing with baking is way riskier, but sometimes you come up with something really good through substitution. Of course, you also might end up baking a brick instead of a cake, so you have to figure out what the right things to modify are to make it your own and still be discernible as a cake.

I have what I joke of as a “load bearing wall” of cookbooks—but for real, it got so bad with all the books, I had to get a steel bookshelf just to keep them all. Don’t judge me.

What do you start with? How difficult is that first line of text, the first note?

The first line is only difficult if it’s forced. If I’m trying to start with lyrics, I tend to try to think conversationally, and that first line will come to me, and the rest of the words will roller coaster out. That’s probably a lot of the Joni Mitchell influence coming in—trying to anchor a melody that is otherwise a kite held by a stone.

If I’m starting with a note, I have to think about the emotional relationship between that and the next steps in its path, otherwise the whole thing ends up pear-shaped.

Sometimes the two options happen hand in hand, which can either feel inspiring, or it can get you stuck on a wording or melodic choice that may or may not make it to the end.

Once you've started, how does the work gradually emerge?

Sometimes I’m pulled by a strong feeling to make a song, and as serpentine as my melodies can be, I swear they often come out near-fully formed, and if I don’t follow that thread, I feel a sense of regret for not letting the song have a chance to live. If a song needs more time to emerge, it can take as long as it takes, especially if the song “tells” me that it’s not supposed to be recorded yet. I sketched “Fiberglass” when I was a teenager, and something in the air told me during the album sessions to dust it off for an interlude because it was finally ready to appear. It was kind of an interesting exercise in revising something from half of your life ago, but again, it’s all about keeping an ear to the ground about feelings.