Classic pop songwriter • vocalist • keyboardist • arranger
What’s your current favorite album?
I have been enamored with Brent Cash’s music. His arrangements bring me to tears, really. Both of his albums, How Will I Know If I’m Awake (2008) and his most recent release, How Strange It Seems (2011) are an amalgamation of everything I’m in love with — sounds, sights, places, people, events — it simply makes me drift through an endless afternoon, heart-swollen with nostalgia.
I’m moved by Swing Out Sister’s recent EP offerings, Les Etrangers (2009) and Private View (2010), although it’s their pinnacle masterpiece, Somewhere Deep In The Night (2001) by which a high writing and arrangement standard has been undoubtedly set. I’m also enjoying the heavily conceptual ROME (2011) album that Danger Mouse, Jack White, Norah Jones and Danielle Luppi collaborated on with the same musicians used for the Ennio Morricone sessions to soundtrack the 1960s spaghetti Westerns.
What’s your writing process like?
I’m writing all the time. In my sleep, in the shower…it doesn’t ever really turn off. I’m the woman on line at the bank or the supermarket you find humming into her digital recorder. I always keep a small tablet on hand to write down reference lines (both lyrics and music). Ideas come to me at any given moment, so I do my best to capture them. I usually build an entire song around a single line and I aspire to make a good home for it. If something doesn’t resonate with me, whether it be my solo work, or in a collaboration, I’m honest about it. If something thrills me, I am enthusiastic to see it to it’s completion. In the studio, I’ve usually got the arrangements down in my head; it’s just a matter of sorting them through and finding the right instrumentation, the right timbre (quality and tone color), the texture and imagery from which the inspiration came in the first place.
What are some of your likes outside of music?
As an interdisciplinary composer, I practice “Sensuous Minimalism” — that is, a certain neutrality, restraint and silence — that attempts to reveal deeper layers of architecture, evoking both absence and presence through sound. I create and develop sound installations, among them, one for a nature conservancy and one for an airport. I enjoy teaching about the role music and sound play in relationship to the everyday environment. I love seeing people, young and old, develop an awareness and articulation around it.
Could you provide a little bit of context to your featured song?
“The Sound of Someday” began as an instrumental, featuring a brass section and some wordless vocals. Near the completion of my latest release, CONSOLE, my mind was already on the next project, EASTERN/CENTRAL & MOUNTAIN/PACIFIC, an album of original tracks reminiscent of ’60s and ’70s film and television themes. I ended up including it as a stylistic segue, a hint of things to come for the listener. The lyric is drawn from my childhood reminisces of sitting in front of television with my sister and brothers on a Saturday until dusk. Our parents would then whisk us off to the drive-in theater to catch the latest cinematic release. My life at that time was a wonderful exposure to a rich and seamless stream of images and soundtracks that would influence the way I write music today.
Listen to the featured song!
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