It’s been a known stereotype that artists will use their work to process and channel their own emotions. This could be their heartbreak into paintings, their loneliness into a story, or–with the newest single by singer-songwriter Becca Stevens–the loss of their loved ones into a song. Stevens, a 2x Grammy-nominee, has been quite busy recently with both a role in the cast of the Sufjan Stevens-inspired musical “Illinoise” for the rest of the summer but also with her newest album, the entirely acoustic Maple to Paper, which releases August 30th.
Stevens has described the new album as very personal, and the lead single “Now Feels Bigger than the Past” shows her at her most vulnerable. This is largely due to three major events that shaped the tone of the album: the death of her mother, the birth of her first daughter, and the death of mentor and frequent collaborator David Crosby. The song is immediately upfront about these events; opening with a verse seemingly about artists not being appreciated and loved until they’re gone. It’s a bitter and almost angry way to open the song, but it’s clear that it’s out of Stevens’ love and respect for Crosby. She had played on his last four albums, and her vocals and sound are a dead ringer for other 70s folk singers like Joni Mitchell or Vashti Bunyan.
Stevens recorded all of Maple to Paper live without overdubs, and this single alone adds to the honesty and personal sentiments of her lyrics and vocals. It’s cliched to describe folk music as “authentic” or “intimate” but Stevens’ soft, wistful voice and the intentionally sparse production successfully capture those feelings, and it complements the song’s mournful tone perfectly.
Stevens continues to sing about loss, examining how it’s easier to appreciate someone’s flaws after they’re gone. “Imperfection is beautiful in retrospect… And great big flaws are charming when there’s no one there to correct.” This leads into the final verses where she sings of the grief brought about by her mother’s passing and the sudden disillusionment of now having to provide the same role with her own child.
It’s a heartbreaking song, yet also a masterful and poetic work by a great artist. The music video, directed by Jep Jorba, uses trick photography to show a modern-day Stevens and an older Stevens (achieved through makeup and hair curlers) singing verses to each other as though it were a dining room conversation. It visualizes the themes of Stevens contemplating her own mortality as she grows into the role her mother had, but now only has herself to talk to. “Now Feels Bigger than the Past” is an entirely haunting yet emotionally gripping lead single into Becca Stevens’ upcoming Maple to Paper.
Plastic: The Album by author/musician Scott Guild is hard to approach. It’s a companion piece to Guild’s debut novel of the same name that came out in February and recounts the book’s story. I haven’t read the book, and I’m not one of those nerds that read books for fun (though I am, admittedly, still a huge nerd), so I’m judging the album entirely on its own merits.
While it seemed difficult initially to come at the album with solid reference points as a way of comparison, this sort of lore and mythology filled album isn’t entirely uncommon. Famous experimental pop icons like Kate Bush and Ethel Cain have made albums composed of songs made up of recurring characters, storylines, and extensive backstories that invite more analysis into the lyrics than a usual album. Even more mainstream musicians have done this, such as Taylor Swift on Folklore and Evermore, two of her most acclaimed albums. An album like Plastic can absolutely succeed without prior knowledge of the novel’s storyline and can work simply on the music itself.
For the most part, I’d say it’s an interesting and captivating, albeit not super accessible, listen. Guild is backed by more experimental musicians for support, like Cindertalk (a collaborator of Son Lux and My Brightest Diamond) and Stranger Cat (a collaborator of Sufjan Stevens, another good example of successful concept albums). With a murderers’ row of artsy musicians behind the album, it makes sense the genre is a touch hard to figure out too. Calling it just “art-pop” is simple, but a little too easy. I’d say it’s more of a mix of orchestral chamber music and downtempo electronica, with more focus on vocal performances and wispy atmosphere than rhythm.
When I say Plastic isn’t super accessible, I don’t mean this as a bad thing (I literally listen to Björk in my free time! Did I mention I’m a huge nerd?). I mean that in a sense that it’s better to approach the album not in a traditional sense, but more in the way of theater, opera, or something that demands your fullest attention when experiencing it. Guild mentioned he didn’t set out to make something contemporary and intended something more cinematic, which I think the album succeeds on.
Okay, now the actual music, which is mainly composed of strongly performed and composed ballads. Stranger Cat’s vocals (as the lead character of the novel) really elevate the material, creating a strong emotional quality that’s consistently captivating and brings out the theatricality that the material is going for. Songs like “Boytoy” and “Fiona” excel on the quality of her voice alone, and she provides enough depth to keep you invested in her performance even if you may not understand what’s going on in the story.
The production, as I said, is an interesting mix of electronica and orchestra. Plastic’s atmosphere is built largely around airy electronics that add to the dystopian future setting of the story. It has a dreamlike quality that can occasionally turn eerie, such as the echoey drum machines on “The Absence” that add to the tone and mood. The orchestrations are also sharp, adding to the dramatic elements of songs like “A Doll’s House” and “Worth the Loss”. There’s some interesting textures added in the instrumentation too, such as the glassy percussion on “Lightning” and the driving acoustic guitar on “Until They’re Home”.
As I said, Plastic can be difficult to grasp for a casual music listener, but that’s the intent behind it. It’s a rewarding experience when given serious intent and your best attention when listening to it, and works as a fascinating listen even without knowing the source material.
Check out the playback from Friday’s album release here.
New York indie-pop artist Benjamin Lazar Davis has announced his new self-titled LP alongside a video for the first single off of the project, “Remember.”
Known for working with a diverse array of artists, ranging from Anaïs Mitchell to Okkervil River, Davis is far from a newcomer to the music industry. The collaborative efforts shine through on the LP with contributions from Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros pianist Mitchell Yoshida, Lake Street Dive bassist Bridget Kearney, and Rubblebucket bandleader Alex Toth, among many others.
Girl Talk’s Sarah K Pedinotti assisted Davis with the production of “Remember,” not only by co-writing the title but also by starring in its visuals beside her cousin Desmond to represent the past and present in addition to their similarities and differences.
Davis’ directorial debut depicts the Pedinotti’s wading through a river, blowing bubbles, and running through a forest as a yellow butterfly motif periodically flashes in and out, perfectly encapsulating the song’s fusion of Sufjan Stevens’ nostalgia-ridden longing for the past and The Flaming Lips’ technicolor psychedelia.
“Remember is an old song written in London after a failed attempt to connect with a crush that had always had a boyfriend but had become single. The song foreshadowed my life on both coasts of the USA. It was recorded in my parents’ house with Lars Horntveth on the minimalist reeds and Luke Moellman (of Great Good Fine Ok) on their old Steinway upright piano. Joan As Police Woman sings some crazy effected vocals in the last verse!”
The self-titled LP will come out on November 19 and is available to pre-order now via Bandcamp.
For the first time in six years Mina Tindle, the project of Parisian singer-songwriter Pauline De Lassus, released the single, “Lions” off her upcoming new album SISTER. Mostly made in New York City alongside producer Thomas Bartlett with additional production by Sufjan Stevens and Bryce Dessner, the album has a depth that departs from her typical alt-pop albums. De Lassus says about her songwriting, “Instead of feeling nostalgic for the past or worried about the future, I’m living more fully in the present, and it makes all the colors feel deeper and more contrasted than they were before.”
“Lions” is a great introduction to the album with silky transitions and airy vocals. The lyrics are about encouraging yourself in the face of self-doubt. “If the roads are made for a parade / Go march with the lions,” gives you the boost to rethink how you act and to be brave. It’s about going on, even when you think you don’t have anything left. Make sure to check out Mina Tindle’s new track “Lions” and keep an eye out for SISTER in October.
Songwriter and composer Gaby Alter released his latest EP under the moniker Yes Gabriel on Friday, April 19th. His career thus far has included creating music for a variety of placement opportunities, namely Off Broadway musicals, independent films, PBS, NPR, and even Disney. With this new work comes some pretty incredible lyricism, and stunning influence peeks through as well. Read on for more in our interview with Alter.
You have a lot of musical experience, what part of your musical past brings you the fondest memories?
In my late teens and twenties, my friends and I put on a string of rock musicals in a small theatre space under a pizza parlour in Berkeley, California. We would write shows about aliens and zombies and superheroes and perform them while people upstairs ordered pizza and played video games. I got to hear songs I wrote sung by some really talented people, and the audiences–a lot of whom were our parents and friends from high school and their friends–loved the shows. That’s really when I started to write songs more seriously. Your latest EP was recorded in a friends front rooms, why did you never go into the studio? Actually it was recorded mostly in my own living room–and full disclosure, I did go to a studio one day to track a string quartet. But to answer the gist of your question, I started out thinking I was making demos that I would later re-record in a studio. At some point, I realized there was an intimacy to the songs which I was capturing with my home recordings, so I felt I didn’t need that extra step. A lot of that came down to what needed to be recorded: most of the songs are built around acoustic guitar and piano parts, which home recording captures pretty well. Drums would have required a studio because they are too complicated to record on your own, but luckily, there were no real drum parts on the album, just loops. Also, recording at home allowed me to avoid making choices under the pressure of time and money. You had no pre-determined path for the album, it just formed. What does this approach bring to the album in your mind? Stephen King says not to outline a story ahead of time, but instead to excavate it like a fossil. That way you get something that’s the most truthful and interesting, because you discover the story as you write it. So hopefully my putting one foot in front of the other, rather than having a road mapped out first, helps the listener feel like these songs have an organic cohesion with each other and within themselves. What elements of musicals lay within your debut EP? When writing lyrics for a musical, I often use specific details. They make the character singing the lyrics seem like a specific person instead of a generic one. I use those kinds of details in my songs on this album. On “Fall Asleep”, for instance: “Do you still have my shirt/the one with faded letters that didn’t quite fit?/You used to wear it when we went to bed and I’d watch you fall asleep in it.” The listener can picture those specific, visual, intimate details of a relationship, and then hopefully it becomes more real for them.
There are other kinds of story telling I use in the lyrics which I use in musical writing. Like in “Dear To Me”, where the song starts with the beginning of a relationship and ends with what happens afterwards, describing moments and details throughout. It’s a story with a clear beginning, middle and end. Musicals songs often have journeys within them, where a character goes from one place to another emotionally, physically or both. Similarly, these songs trace a journey from falling in love to losing love, often within each song.
That said, these songs don’t sound like my theatre songs musically. The arrangements and mood are quieter, more internal. They’re meant to be listened to on headphones or in your car rather than in a theatre. There are a lot of details in your lyrics, why put so much details into your lyrics when so many artists keep lyrics simple? I think I answered that in my last response, so I won’t repeat myself. 🙂 To you why do the elements of folk, electronica and chamber pop work well for you? The organic sounds of folk and the artificial sounds of electronica sounds go well together because they offer a strong and satisfying contrast. Electronica adds surprise to folk, and can limit the sentimentality or conventionality of a purely acoustic folk sound. I’m drawn to those types of sounds and to artists that combine them–Sufjan Stevens, for instance, is a big influence. And chamber pop – adding orchestral instruments to a pop-style song – is obviously nothing new. The Beach Boys and Beatles did it back in the 60s. I love how much richness orchestral instruments bring to an arrangement. They’re real and alive and have a lot of emotional power.
In your mind what would be the perfect place and time to listen to your new EP? Driving in the evening when the sky is orange, or late at night. I think the subway, or an airplane would work equally well. Of all the songs on your debut EP as Yes Gabriel, which song is the most you and why? I love all my children equally. 🙂 But seriously, this is a hard one to answer. I think they are all very much aspects of me, or who I was when I was wrestling with the things I sing about on the album: longing for someone, trying to understand what love meant when a relationship is over. What do you feel has been the definitive milestones in your career as Yes Gabriel? I sent the EP to a friend of mine before it was released, and he literally woke me up at 3 am calling from the west coast to tell me how much he thought it worked. I can’t imagine a better response to the album than that. It let me know that it was really landing emotionally. What makes Friday a good day to release your EP? Why was April 19th a good time? I waited too long for certain windows, like late or early in the year, and then I heard March is a bad month to release unless you’re playing SXSW. Also, it’s a dark-hued, internal album, more appropriate to colder weather, so any later in the year and it would seem a little out of place. Thank you so much for giving Imperfect Fifth this interview, is there anything you would like to add? Just a small plug for Bandcamp, where you can find my album. They are very fair to artists and support the discovery of new music. Thanks very much for interviewing me!
If you’re looking for some new tunes to keep you occupied on this beautiful, flurry-filled midwest day (we don’t care about your awesome weather everywhere else), then Angelo De Augustine has a new album titled Tomb you should really get your ears on. The title track starts us off, crawling us into the soundscape slowly but surely and with a palpable feeling of enchantment. “All to the Wind” and “You Needed Love, I Needed You” follow suit, with Angelo’s lightweight vocals really taking the forefront. “I Could Be Wrong” picks up the pace a bit, while “Tide” slows it down once again.
What we glean from this 12-track piece is that it really has been created in the same methodical, gorgeous and borderline-celestial soundscape that we have come to know from artists like Sufjan Stevens, whose producer Thomas Bartlett (Doveman) actually had a hand in this project. Angelo has graced us with poignant and beautiful lyricism, and a mellow tone to really jump start the new year with Tomb. We hope you enjoy it as much as we do!
Australian artist Harp Samuels’ latest single is a stripped-down masterpiece that draws you in with beautiful vocals and a poignant piano melody. The track is reminiscent of the styles of Sufjan Stevens or Damien Rice, but it tells a story that is entirely his own. Samuels bares his soul in the haunting way that only music can do. The lyrics are few and far between, yet they manage to encapsulate the same amount of emotion, or even more, than most ballads. In this case, the story not only lies within the lyrics, but the way the lyrics are sung:
You’re my home/I am safe with you/You’re my home/You made a space, so you could hide/Locked in your hazel eyes/I feel I can climb these mountains/When I’m/in deep, dark waters/You help me breathe/I’m in the waves but I’m able to see.
The first time around, Samuels’ voice is quiet, raw, and dark. But by the second time, the song shifts – the music swells and his voice has a renewed hope to it. The song’s simple structure is emphasized by the title – it reminds us to breathe, especially at times when that’s all we can do.
Keep up with the latest on Harp Samuels here, and be sure to check out the rest of his music.
