Sylvan Esso

00:00:15 Speaker 1: Pushkin. Today on the show, we'll be hearing from sylvan Essos, Nick Sanborn and Amelia Meath. They've been making music together since twenty thirteen, when Amelia asked Nick, a music producer and bassist, to remix her band Mountain Man's hit single play It Right. He did. End as they say, the rest is history. From the very beginning, sylvan Esso's had a very sleek electro pop feel to their production. Amelia's powerful voice is front and center, surrounded by harmonies and samples of her own voice. Nick's genre destroying bass creates intricate, pulsing grooves for Amelia's voice to inhabit. Now, the married couple and electronic duo have released their fourth studio album, No Rules Sandy. It's a follow up to the band's Grammy nominated twenty twenty album Free Love. This new album is a mix of improvisation and experimentation, recorded primarily in the span of three weeks at a rented studio space in La just earlier this year. On today's episode, Bruce had them speaks with Amelia and Nick about their creative process and how No Rule Sandy came to be. They also play songs off their new album Live for Us. This is broken record liner notes for the Digital Age. I'm justin Richmond. Here's Bruce had them with Amelia Meath and Nick Sandborne of sylvan esod banging coming fine watchman, I'm looking fine streets back in the same body. Try to where be wait wait just for me me. There's a lot of down fallow down. When she said, when they got down beating down to follow, follow to let see the lading, be let the echo, gut your v there's a lot of people down down fall down, she stays, when they got drive beating baring all around, everybody played down to how there's a lot of em falled down. When she stays, when they got laid down, you want to do now, there's a lot of people want people work, they don't. You don't work. They don't. They don't work. They don't. Don't You don't work, they don't. So fortu listen, you were were so many many as among you. I was waving a small mon bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye thane bye bye bye bye bye thne bye bane bye bye bye b bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye fine fine, fine, do now do play down right? No right now no right no no no no right no no no r no no no no no no no no no. Well, thank you so much. That was a live version of Echo Party from Sylvan Esso's new album, which is No Rule Sandy. All. That sound was created by just two people in the studio with me Amelia Meath and Nick Sandborn. Thank you so much for coming, thanks for having us, and thanks for that great version of that song. I will also mention that the new album got a rave review from the New York Times, which does not often give rave reviews. Before we get into how you create so much music just the two of you, let's talk a little bit about this new album how it came about. Nick and I have started a tradition where every January we load our car full of things and drive from North Carolina to Los Angeles. This January was no different. We were on our way to go both do a bunch of songwriting sessions and also go to the Grammys at the end of the month and gets in Los Angeles sunshine. And then when we got there to our rental, the omicron variant had spiked and everything was canceled. So Nick and I found ourselves like a little baby studio set up in this house with no one to hang out with other than each other. And so every day we tried to write a song, and the most magical part of it was that every time we tried we could. We wrote all these songs about the span of three weeks together. Yeah, it was just kind of this magical, totally unexpected time that neither of us really saw coming, and it was all kind of born out of this wild trip that like where everything went wrong except this. Do you write every day when you're in Durham as well or only only when you have to put out an album? No, I don't. I don't. I find that when I'm in the practice of songwriting it won't be like around a record necessarily, but I'll do it in a short period of time, pushing towards something. But normally I have to like chill out between writing. Otherwise I only write songs about writing songs, and you can only write so many of those when you are writing, because you, guys, this is electronic music. How does the song typically begin? Does it begin with a loop? Does it begin with a sound? Does it begin with a lyric. How does this come together? It happens in all sorts of different ways. How it's been happening most recently is Nick and I will sit in the same room and we'll Nick will start making noise, and I will encourage him in the directions that I like, so like if he finds like a beautiful section then he makes I'll be like, loop that, Let's loop that and then let's build something around that. Or sometimes he's just doodling around and then I begin responding by writing lyrics. Yeah, it doesn't feel like we haven't We haven't never found like a formula, or the minute we do come up with anything that works more than once, I think we immediately get sick of it or it doesn't feel its inspiring anymore. It's kind of it's kind of this process of each of us is trying to kind of shock or prize the other one into maybe something we wouldn't expect, and it's yeah, it's kind of this Jacob's Ladder kind of situation where we're trying to hit the ball a little higher than the other one. Well, there's a host of great songs on this record. Tell me how this one came about? The one you just performed Echo Party. Yeah, we got the chorus first because Nick had that beautiful bass part. Yeah, we had we had like the beat in the bassline, and we knew sometimes that's all you need to know something's gonna be cool. Like you know, you can see you can't quite see the whole song yet, but you have this this piece of it that's so promising that you almost don't want to mess with it too much for fear that you might overcook it or screw it up somehow. Yeah, that was the loveliest part of this song. As we got the chorus first, and then the chorus had no words. It was just me going like yeah, and Nick and I got so stoked, and we kept on trying to play it for other people and everyone would be like, h but I do that. It was Nick and I were like this loally great. No, we could only hear it in our heads though, Yeah, and now you got to like kind of let it reveal itself. Yeah. And then one day I just sat Unlike all of our other records, usually I agonize about lyrics and they either they either appear right when I'm writing the melody on top, or they are incredibly elusive. But with this record, I just sat down and would make myself just write them out, so like one day we got all the lyrics. I knew that it was going to be about like being in an empty city at nighttime and like trying to find the party of your dreams. Well, you had that idea of the of there being less people every time you go back to something, and that's kind of where that that echo party phrase cards started happening, and that kind of became like the central like everything kind of not looking around that. Yeah, it's about how it fades in everybody verberation. Oh yeah, that's really interesting now because of the way the songs are put together and they're or loops and then there's a baseline, often very syncopated. Are you guys thinking in terms of conventional chords? Are you like you ever say well this sounds good, but here I'll I'm going to play a C minor on top of that, because that's how most people write. They sit at a guitar or they sit at the piano and they play a few chords. Whereas you, guys, it feels like you're on a high wire with what you're doing because it doesn't have that sort of harmony running through the whole set. I think a big thing we do is more like reharmonizing. That's a big we want. A second earlier about trying to surprise each other is something that I will do a lot is She'll have a melody that we really love, but like, let's say the third time it happens, I want to it's like she changed, the lyrics change, and the feeling of what she's saying changes, even if the melody doesn't. So like, in that way, we'll absolutely think about in a more theory kind of base menthet of like, Okay, how can I reharmonize the thing she's already doing to kind of change your perception of the same idea. We do that all the time. I love we do. I learned how to play the guitar during the pandemic, and all the songs that I write on the guitar aren't as melodically interesting as the ones that I write in the air or in like in response to what Nick makes. So I'm sticking to that at the moment. Oh that's interesting. You find it more confining then, yeah, or like maybe it's also because I'm a little guitar. Baby, you know, it's a CDG world for me in the guitar, and if I'm just writing in the air, all chords are open. Yeah, it's just much freer. Now. What was your music experience growing up in your home? I'm from a theatrical singing family. We used to sing around the dinner table a lot. And I grew up in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and there was a solstice celebration called the Revels, So every Solstice we would all get together and sing folk songs. Wow, were your parents were they performers or are they just amateurs? Yeah? There were amateurs. My mom was in audio and my dad was in TV. But there's a lot of singing in musicality and creativity. So you grew up on their folk music. Is this like sixties folk music? Or oh really, what we're listening to in the house is like Bonnie Ray and Foreigner and Nick Lowe. But the songs that we would sing were all were like a mix of those and folk songs. Okay, And then you're I don't know if it's your first career, but you sing mountain music with Mountain Men, which was your first group. Yeah, Mountain Man, right, and you still perform, is that right? Okay? Uh so, and did you play piano growing up then or anything else? It was just it was just a singing thing. I tried to play piano, but or I just hated practicing, right, yeah, well hated it, couldn't do it. Yeah, you took piano lessons, which just kills more piano players than anything. I also think that's one of those things. I was always jealous of people who could sing really well at a young age because I think if you have that, you're kind of set like nerds like me who didn't have that. I think that's why I practiced so much, because I really wanted to be in a band, but I couldn't do the natural thing. You know, Well, but you actually know what you're doing, But only because I've sat for a billion hours looking at charts and stuff like that, you know. I think that's cooler also the thing that you do, like, I feel like you get to relish the experience of having gotten good at something. I'm much better at singing than I was when I was six. But like it doesn't Oh is there no like moment? No, yeah, no, it's just the thing you do, so you never felt I've achieved this level of expertise. No, no, no, no, I don't think so maybe I can see that when you get your honorary degree from Berkeley. Oh my god, I hope you feel. Oh my god, last that you've got. Once you have that piece of paper exactly, then we'll know. Yeah, oh, what's going to happen. When that happens, that's gonna be great dance all around. Yeah, you're the you need the diploma you look from the Wizard of Oz. Yeah, yes, that's what you need. I love diplomas. Yeah. Uh, and Nick, you need a heart. Yeah, I'm kidding weirdly, I'm the one without a diploma, but yeah, it's true. Okay, So what was your musical experience, Grip? Oh my my dad's a really great manelin and guitar player. Um, and so we always were singing in the house and he taught me how to play a guitar when as a little kid, and I was just always excited about it, like I got you know, we could get into orchestra in like the fourth grade or whatever. And it was lucky enough to go to a public school it had a music program and Madison, Wisconsin. Okay, so that kind of opened. I mean, that was just like massive for me as a kid, you know, being able to being able to do that was was just crazy. So I like, you know, got into like I think it played like violin or something horribly. And then I started playing saxophone and ended up playing bass in the jazz band. I really loved that. And then when I went to college before dropping out, that was the composition major. Where was that? You to be Milwaukee? Okay? Yeah, And then we will have to describe your setup because this is electronic music and I'm looking at a table with a bunch of different modules. Oh yeah, including one that has many many patch chords running in or out. I don't know how to describe it except to say that if your breaker box at home looks like this, call an electrician. It's just an utter chaos up here. Tell me what you've got, and can you give me a sample two or two of the sounds you create? Yeah, so we have I kind of have this whole computer setup that has kind of all the individual little pieces of our songs, and it set up kind of in this like really a Abert DJ style, Like I'm DJing each individual little piece of a thing. So that's one side of it, and then I'm sampling Emilia's voice, and then I also have this whole other side that's all these other instruments. Uh, the the breaker Rocks who were referring to my modular synth is doing a bunch of drums and processing and stuff like that. Um, but it's all Actually, is that a mugue or I'm never sure if it's mug or moug No, there is a moge. I think it's I think it's mug it is. There's a mug in here. This thing called a d fan which sounds like this. It's this little like kind of does a lot of drums and stuff like that. Right, you know, it's all getting the clock from the computer. But then there's also all sorts of little drums in here. I've got this little thing that makes kind of a it's kind of weird little wavetable thing. All this is just to kind of bring like a live edge, and it's all things where I can replace something that's happening from the record, or alter it in some way, or stretch it out. I always like it when I see a show and it feels like, you know, there's this beautiful painted picture of the song as it was, and then you can go in and just kind of mess it all up and then try to snap it back into focus. So all the things are kind of leaning into trying to make something like that happen. I have this little sampler that I use all the time that's got, you know, pieces of Amelia's voice or pieces from the records that I can then kind of pitch all around. Now, are you ever sampling her voice live? Yeah, when she's singing. Oh yeah, you're sampling as well? And then yeah, definitely Amelia is that does he often surprise you? He's suddenly your voice. You're hearing your voice in a way you didn't expect. Yeah. I usually had to keep pretty low in my mix because if you're if a voice comes in while you're singing, it can pull you off pitch. But Nick is able to sample anything that I say. Wow, I would say, it's a it's a good thing. You guys get along so well. It really he wanted to mess you up. He really could. He could mess you up in a heartbeat. And then you sometimes use a drum machine on stage? Is that right? I do it sometimes, But honestly, I really like when we're live. I'm like being able to sing and connect directly with the crowd and with Nick and have that be my role. And Nick, you are playing this like a DJ. You don't have a keyboard, a traditional well, I do, you know? I do? Normally, we didn't bring it today because we weren't playing any songs that needed it. But I have. I have this one synthesizer that I use a lot, but none of it even that it isn't getting I don't know what it's all live, you know, I'm playing little or peggios and stuff over the tops of the songs. But yeah, most of it is just this kind of more abstract way of thinking about it, which is my That's just my favorite. I like it when something feels a little bit more like an idea maybe than an instrument, if that makes sense. How does that? How did you discover that then? After playing guitar, after playing bass, after playing mandolin, in which you're locked into fairly traditional role. Yeah, what was your first encounter with electronic music and what do you remember what grabbed you? I think a big thing for me was when I was playing in the jazz band and I was about to go to college. I kind of had this realization that if I was going to keep doing what I was doing, I was going to be practicing like eight hours a day to just try to be a middle level jazz player. And I think I kind of started realizing that the idea of what was happening was so much more interesting to me than what I thought I had to say as a player, and so that I leaned into that, and I moved into composition and started going that way, and I think electronic music was just a natural extension of that. It was like, okay, like I've been, well, I've been in this role playing bass and kind of filling this spot within a band, and that's its own skill set. But with electronic music, it was like, well, how do I put this whole piece together? What does this full picture look like? And that's just became way more interesting because I could be the whole band, you know, and I could try things out without worrying about wasting anyone else's time. There's no set way to do it, and so everybody who gets into it is kind of reinventing their own wheel in a way, and that to me is really exciting. I love thinking about like systems and how something could work to me. One of the things that's interesting about your music you mentioned you came in with a chorus first on this is you move from ideas very quickly. If you were if you were in a big band or the kind of bands you grew up with, you would be you guys would get a groove and then someone would be soloing. But it's very much about kind of finding that one thing and finding people playing over it. This. You move very quickly from peace to idea to idea, and just when I think, oh, you know, I like this, and then it veers into something else. Is that just part of playing electronic music for you? I think we definitely love surprising each other, and I think that leaks is lean into contrasts, you know, So I think generally speaking, we love having things that feel like there's a bunch of hard left turns being made and that feels really engaging. But it's also pop music, so every part that appears usually comes back, unless it's the bridge, So if it veers, usually it returns once more. That's I think the most interesting part too, is like seeing how hard of a turn you can make and still make it make sense that you got back where he started, Yeah, and live inside the pop music structure. And maybe that's maybe when I said high wire earlier, maybe that's what it is. That is like jazz and that like how far can this guy go on a solo or how far can she go on al Yeah? Is she gonna be able to find her way back? Is always kind of the fascinating question. I love that idea too, of like communicating intent to the listener, like figuring out ways to show them that they can trust you to make their make your way back, or that you're not just going to waste their time. We think about that a lot, with things like how can we design a song or a recording that shows somebody that we made this wild choice on purpose so that next time we do, you know that we're not gonna fake you out like we're gonna This is all like an equation, like we're getting somewhere. We'll be right back with more from Bruce Headlam, Amelia Meath, and Nick Sanboy. We're back with more of Bruce's conversation with Amelia and Nick. Now, Amelia, was your first encounter with electronic music when you guys met oh No I've always been a fan of a like music. Okay, what in particular was you know? What did you like? Yeah? I started with Elo naturally, and then got more excited about the the independent music of the early ADTs, you know, Animal Collective, Caribou, Fortet, just the people who were popular or interesting when I was like a little baby going to shows. And then when and when Nick and I met, it was the first opportunity I'd had. I thought to find a collaborator with whom I could make pop music. Now, there is the story that the first time you met you asked him to arrange a song that you had written. Is that true? Yeah? It was a song that was for Mountain Man, and I wanted to do a remix album, and so I asked Nick. And that was the first time you'd met. Shortly thereafter, yeah, shortly thereafter, yeah, because he opened for us in Milwaukee at the Cactus Club. And when we became friends on Twitter, it was like the early days of Twitter when it was nice to be on there. It was like when you could like make friends and stuff. Yeah, it was nice. We had followed each other on Twitter for a little while, and I asked Nick for a remix of that song, mostly because so many of Mountain Man's the arrangements that I would do for Mountain Men were naturally quite sparse, and it took him a really long time. No Pressure, well, no pressure next year. I didn't know. What did you think if you were you guys dating at that point or no band? First? Oh? Yeah, but if I think if I had known that it was going to lead to this, it would have taken me even longer, though I would have been I would have felt more pressure. Well, that's good that you didn't know, here's my song. No Pressure. Well, it was terrifying too, because the thing that's one of the many things that's so special about Mountain Man is just what isn't there? And so the idea of trying to add instentation to a Mountain Man song as a fan of theirs was like terrifying to me, because every time I put something in, I made the song worse, you know. And there was a kind of light in the attic moment when I figured out that if I used their voices as the extra instruments, that that was a way in that was that kind of unlocked the whole thing for me, And then kind of defined a lot of what we still do now. I mean, even that last song we played Echo Party that started on a as a loop of Amelia's voice, that little backbeat, like we do that all the time to this day. To explain that to me again, that so like we I took her voice, like she sang. We were trying to find a way to start, yeah, saying this. One day I did a stack yeah, like and then I did another part on top of that, and yeah, and then like another part on that, and then you know a thing that we say all the time to each other's and then we chopped it up and made it into a beat, which is what we did well. So yeah, so then I took this local loop of hers and put it in this uh what did you call it? Earlier? The breaker box put the scary looking Greg, Well, it's what the breaker box looks like in my play. Yeah, that's I just reminded that my house might be burnt down by the time I get there. But yeah, so I just kind of kept playing with it and and changing the way it was sequenced and moving the little bits of it around and and found that initial loop, that little that little thing just kind of popped out, and the minute we found it we were like, oh that here we go, now we can start. Okay, now that you've been doing this emelia for eight years, how has it changed how you sing? At first? I imagine you were singing and he was grabbing parts of it, samples and manipulating it. Wouldn't it become tempting after a few years to like, well, I'm just gonna I'm gonna sing a sample. I'm not going to sing the way I used to sing. I'm going to try and sing almost in in a kind of in a sampled way, in a sampled or electronic in a sound bite way. Yeah, I think, if anything, I'm more In order for the samples themselves to be good, you have to be singing like I really have to be solidly in my lane, doing exactly what I'm doing, and then the sample will shine. Otherwise, if you're being tentative or if you're not, if you're trying to do something as opposed to actually doing it, then it gets lost. So I think, if anything, I have just become a better, a better and more confident singer. Now a lot of Mountain Man's songs were a cappella, so I think you must have already felt comfortable singing without a kind of full arrangement behind you or a piano or a guitar to kind of establish what you're doing. What's it like singing in this music? Because you very very distinctive style the way you do it, and you interact with the sounds in this unique way. I think there's big because of the way that I naturally write in the air or in response to what Nick is doing, and I write lyrics and melody usually at the same time. My voice is in general, I kind of think of it like a percussive instrument more than I do like a like a narrative device, or or both things are happening at the same time. So that's the thing, is it? Because because I think of it as an instrument, unto itself, it's more percussive. It's actually quite easy. It's like being a you know, water and more water. M Can we hear another song? Sure? Great? It's a jump two right. I don't know that it's a step inside its cloud. I don't know how to work in this girl, Come onder, teach you hull we hope, let me remember how to live my life. The room, so each new lening out to be seing, but true, it's c real, dy, it's your reality. It's a jump two right, lift off right now. I don't know he is women the come on teach Hull to step inside the strad is God, don't know. I don't walk to this guy. Come on that teach you her. We let me back back. Let me remember up to the b lamy was a rich Now say don't any to be sent me, don't let me building now watch my chance now that when waking at this train, say so, don't snow the same, send my note to do so so so resumes you know it's serious, say that it sus serious for ba trainer, it's seriously you know. So that's on your reality. Nick and I hear the one in a different place, and we decided as we were writing it that we were going to affirm each of our counting styles in it. And I knew in order to justify the second rotation of the verse, I wanted to have a backup part that would roll continue to roll the song forward, but like add add kind of a different count to it for myself. So I wrote that no rules part, no rules, Sandy, no rule, Sandy, tell me what that means. Normally, when Nick and I are recording or writing together, I'll like secretly write something and then the first time he'll hear it is when I record it, And that was the case with this, So it's kind of a joke to him and we kept Also it just felt like, well, when we played the song for our friend Jen, who we play everything for, she immediately was like, Oh, that's got to be the title of the record. And I think the thing that she was pointing out that we realized she was right about was just that it kind of perfectly encapsulated everything that we were feeling when we were making this thing was, you know, just the last couple of years and everything everyone's going through this great re examination of like what matters and what doesn't and what did I think was important that I'm now realizing actually isn't, And did I make the box that I see myself in? And I think for a lot of different reasons, that just felt like all of that was wrapped up, not only in this song, but in this whole process of making this thing. And it's also just inherently silly, which is I think another thing we loved about it was that it's it's very true, but it's also kind of unserious in a way that felt the way our lives feel. I don't know, I think I feel like silliness is a it's such a huge part of my emotional experience, like as a human being alive. But I hear it in almost none of the music that I listened to. But it's such to me. It's it's the it's the it's the other side of that doom coin. You know. It's like it's such a natural way of processing horrible things, and it's such a like an important like seasoning in in at least my emotional experience. And there's so much silliness even in this record to me, even when it's pointing at something that's very serious. And the minute she pointed that out, it's like we couldn't unsee it. Like that had to be the name of the record. I'm going to do a little rhythm nerd thing for our older listeners out there, because you said you hear the one in a different place where you did, meaning the first beat of the bar. Yeah, is that right? And so you maintained that you you're playing basically you're you're starting at different points. Yeah. Normally we that's the kind of thing we would resolve or one of us would end up, you know, being quote unquote right about but what oncet quote unquote It changes every time. Oh okay, but I think once once she had written the lyrics and they were about what they were about, it was like there was no like we had to justify both those things. Like the whole song is about letting go of that kind of arbitrary decision and having two different experiences of the same moment. Here's the rhythm nerd part of this, which is the song in the air tonight, the Phil Collins song. Yeah. Yes, the drummer who played with him, who's this famous jazz drummer, Chester Thompson, always had trouble with that song. That was Chester Thompson. I didn't know that. Yeah, yeah, well I'm not playing on the rod the record, but he played with him live, and it's because in that drum pattern there's no one him out. I mean, but that's different than what you're doing. You're starting in the one different places, which is really interesting. Yeah, we just said we are brains interpret that melody differently. I think I'm right. The funniest part though, is that we brought to other people in on that. So Gabriel Kahan Kahane did the string arrangement and t Jmianni played drums on that. And the wildest part was that Gabriel heard it the way I hear it and TJ heard it the way Amelia hears it, and they each tried to lean into making it so that neither of us was right. But we were split evenly of all the people who played on that song. That's how it should be. I love the string arrangement on that it and I don't know if this was conscious. It reminds me of a Steve Reich piece. Oh thanks, that's what gave when I talked about that when he was going through a strung Steve Reich phase, no pun intended. Yeah, yeah, yeah, And we wanted we wanted to talk about the Yeah, that that first loop particularly, Yeah, he's moving in and out. Yeah, he's just so he's so good at that feeling of having the strings almost like they're like a flock of birds, like swarming over the top of the song. You know. We talked about that a lot, that feeling of something fluttering over the over the top of it, and he's just that it's I don't know that you feel the movement of it. You almost want to like swirl your body around. I want to as I'm as I'm listening to it. That's so cool. We'll be right back with more from Nick Sanborne and Amelia Meath. After a quick break, we're back with the rest of Bruce Edlum's conversation with Nick Sanborn and Amelia Meath. I'm not going to express this very well, but I'm going to try, which is, lots of people perform music and then you're there, Oh, they're they're singing this song, they're doing this. There's something about your music that you seem that you're inside the song. And that's the only way I can express it. I don't I'm not even entirely sure what it means. It's more of a feeling, but it's it's though something swirling around and you're in the middle of it. It's very different kind of performance. Does that make any sense? Yeah, I think if you're going to performing over Being a musician is such a strange thing in general, because you have like two main products. You have your performance and you have the recording, some would say you also have your persona. At first, I was really into performing and Nick was really into recording, and now we've kind of like met in the middle and maybe shifted a little bit. Yeah, definitely a very strong belief that, like, if you're performing a song for somebody, it's an energy you're going through an energetic shift, and you're you know, anytime you try to get someone to listen to your music, you're literally holding out your hand being like, here, come with me to this place. And it's much more easier to get them to come with you if you promise a journey, if you go there with them. Well, I also think there's a thing a lot of on the records. At least, we're both really resistant to the idea of the vocals sounding like a performance and we want it to really feel intimate and to feel like you're there with us, And so a lot of times that leads us to using the very first take that Amelia does, like the minute after she writes it, she'll sing it into a microphone and we'll kind of think it's going to be for the demo or whatever, but like that ends up being the real take, And every time we try to redo it inherently, we kind of hear it as some version of a performance rather than her living the song. And it's it's a really sensitive and really specific thing, but so much of our music is about inviting the listener in, and I think that's just another way that we're really sensitive to that. But it's everything's very integrated somehow. And again I'm struggling to explain this, but it's not as though, you know, if you're listening to an old Gerald record, you're like, well, here's where she hits that high note. You're not really thinking what the band's doing behind her. It may be a great record. It's not a criticism, but your records seem to be it's the space or something that you're in. Thanks. I also think a part of that maybe is that everything that's not her voice that's in the track we try to make it a thing that came from her voice in some way, So if even if it's just the musical idea, like, all of it to me is intended to point back towards her voice, like because that's the doorway, you know, at least emotionally, for me, when I'm hearing something, it's usually the vocal. If it's a vocal record, I'm that's what I'm hearing. So a lot of our songs, the minute something distracts me from her voice, will usually get rid of it. Well, we want all of it to be like kind of like like the realization of a dream that she's having. Well, it's interesting because a lot of electronic music almost ideologically wants to eliminate human sounds or acoustic sounds. But ironically, to me, it's like, but all those instruments were still made by humans with this idea of perfection in them, like like even like an eight to eight drum machine, Like that's a fascinating device to me on a human level, just because somebody sat down and thought, all right, well it's in four to four and there's sixteen steps, and these are what these drums sound like, and this is what swing sounds like. It's like, it's like, by creating your idea of a perfection, idea of perfection, you're showing the humanity of it. You're showing kind of like what we what we think of as the right quote unquote thing to do. That's super interesting to me. I love I love incorporating those things, and especially when they're right up against very broken human elements, because I think it draws out like kind of the humanity the whole thing. If that, I don't know if I'm saying that quite excularly. I think you're totally doing it right. Also, it's the most human thing in the world where where we're like, well, it's electronic sound, as if electronics were born and not made, you know, yes, well, mandolins and guitars are made, yes too. You know. The early electronic music, a lot of those people were obsessed with the sounds they were hearing in everyday life, which was industrial. Yeah, and that's what they they thought, well, music needs to reflect people's everyday soundscape, which is now. They thought everybody lived in the city, so it wasn't. There were a lot of synthesizers that imitated cows. We were talking about this before. We live in a digital world, and those are the kind of sound you're dealing with. To me, the most interesting things happen when you when you push all those textures up against each other. When there's this you know, kind of idealized drum machine sound next to a very raw feeling vocal next to you know, a scratchy sounding acoustic guitar. That is that you can tell has been manipulated. I love that feeling when when you can tell somebody's changed something, the kind of human fingerprint on that, even if it's an electronic sound, that's when that's when all those kind of feelings of humanity come out more to me. So, for example, the last song in your album is a big surprise because it starts with somebody's drumming an acoustic guitar, which I don't know if that's the first time you've done that in a song, but it's it's a it's a surprise when those acoustic sounds come in. It's it's a it's a jeweled Yeah. So you have the acoustic but then but then I think your your vocal is treated. Isn't it that you ran it through something? It's not just he's a really old vocoder. O oh is that Ryan? We love that. We love the old vocoders, Yeah, because most of them are broken and so they do really wild and strange. Again, you like hear the chip like, I just love that feeling. But that one, like you know, like we to me that the vocoder in that song as just as much humanity as Sam saxophone. You know, it's it's because it's all coming from her voice. Like both the vocoders sound and Sam's melodies that he's that he's playing are all are both from this very raw vocal take that she did, and it feels like they're all leading back to that same thing. It's been amazing watching you work here circuit board there um your toy train sat yes, my trains. Yeah, it reminded me of m I don't know if you've seen those famous probably in documentaries, you know, George Martin or Paul McCartney will demonstrate how they used faders on tomorrow never knows. Oh yeah, those are great and and I don't know if this is actually the case. I'm sure it's not the case, but it's probably the case in pop music. It's the first time the performance was really the engineer's performance that really made that. Yeah, mixer is still an instrument. That's what I love playing a mixer. Yeah, um, well you did it. Well. It's just it's just amazing to watch. It's it's a very if someone's used to more traditional instruments, it's it's just an amazing thing to watch. Thanks I mean for people who kind of perform in this space, it's kind of digital space. I would say two things. You seem fascinated by analog technology. You've got a song about a train, you got a radio song. And is it true you used old tape of your Is it your mother used to cut tape for radio? We used her old, real real for that. Yeah, oh that's amazing. The second thing is, and you know you've got little snatches of conversation and phone messages. Musicians now have to live in that world. They have to be active on social media. They have to interact with fans in a way they didn't before, not like in the good old days of Twitter. Good old days Twitter so nice on there, and music has made in a very different way. Now. I'll put on a record at home and my son who's eight, will say, well, it hasn't started yet, and I'm like, well, no, it's just really quiet, like you're not used to quiet music anymore. Just wait for the vocal to come in. Actually it's been on, like the piano has been there for thirty seconds. But you know, the range is different everything. I know every musician is in this world now, you guys sort of also exploit those things as part of your sound and I think almost part of your philosophy. What's it like being those kind of digital creatures. The only way I figured out how to do it is to do it authentically, which isn't as glamorous looking as the way other people do it. In order to be able to interact with the Internet in any way that feels honest, I have to be myself, which is kind of unfortunate because being yourself is embarrassing most of the time, particularly when you're when you're doing it for your job. But that's the that's the only way I've been able to do it. It takes a lot of energy, but because of that, because of the Internet, like here we are, we're able to do this. This is our job because of the amount of people we were able to reach. But your your song radio addresses that. It asks about how many clicks and have you done something so you can make the news it does it does? Was that performed with or was that written with some ambivalence? Yeah? Yeah, I was in a phase of songwriting where I was really into being very direct and talking about what I was feeling. I'm with that song in particular, I wanted to write about, you know, wanting to get on the radio, trying to make our sound something that was consumable by a lot of people, or to be able to convince a radio promoter that it was consumable by a lot of people, but also trying to be authentic at the same time, and the way that those two things interact. Also how pop culture and media is just an excellent distractor from disaster. You've mentioned disaster a couple of times during this interview, So do you see yourself sort of as a bulwark against disaster your music or is it just what people have to do if they feel they're facing something terrible in life. Oh my god, no, I can't. I would never even I think, you know, an important part of living is experiencing destruction and heartbreak and sadness. And I think for me, the thing I like to think that my hope is that the music can be company, a friend, something that people can look at and say, here's this this this happened to them, or this is my song for for feeling how I feel right now. It's something that can float float people through the saddest times. Okay, you guys made a terrific film and during the pandemic where you you did a bunch of your songs with a full band, yeah, which and it's called with Love, and I suggest everybody would go out and watch it. What was that like? Is that the first time you would you had rearranged the songs for no, we had done so we right in the fall of twenty nineteen, we took that same band out on tour and we did like seven shows. We did like four cities. We didn't do very many, and then we put it. There's a there's a full length doc of that out that you can find on the It's just called with And So that was kind of the first time we had really leaned into that wed I tried playing stuff with people before and it had been great, but this was the first time we like really put a show together and put it on for people. And then when the pandemic hit and we were putting this record out, we realized that this could be a great excuse for us all if we could figure out a way to safely get together, that this could be a just an amazing thing for all of us involved. That we missed each other so much, and we really wanted to find a way to do it, and so you know, it was like right when testing was getting really available and you know, we had this whole thing worked out. But that was kind of the whole impetus was just we miss our friends. And the craziest part has been hearing other people who watch it who weren't there, saying that they connected with that same thing about it, that it made them feel more together. It was it was I'm so grateful for the entire experience. It was really fun to shoot, mostly because we hadn't gotten to play music with other people in you know, a year, and we'd put out a record during the pandemic, Free Love. Everyone who released an artistic feat during the pandemic knows the strange feeling of like dropping a pee down at a plumb line or something. So it felt really great to get to celebrate with our friends for a live stream for something that had been, you know, a way of revisiting the songs that we hadn't gotten to play yet, and it was just it was, it just existed for its own sake. That was I think one thing I loved about it was that there's no nobody had to do that. I mean, we weren't making a ton of money or anything. It wasn't like, you know, it's just it just existed because we wanted to be together. It was great. Well, I recommended to everybody. So you've got this new album out, What is next? Oh, we're going a tour forever? Yeah, right now. We put the record out so fast. For the first time in like seven years. Were opening for a band right now, which is really fun. But we'd already signed up to open for them before we'd written the record. So now we're in this interesting space where we just put this record out and we're opening an arena tour. Who are you opening for? Oh? Okay, yeah, so tell me. What's it like playing this music to so many people, to such a big audience. It's nice, it's good. Yeah. Well, you know, when we play shows, it's usually it's like four thousand less people, but not that they're comparable to our to our size. It's like side too. It's yah yeah, yeah, no, I didn't mean like they ever played to like I wish I miss bars. It's really nice. It's interesting. It's different. Uh, it's different group of people than like our fan base, and it's a whole different job to open shows. Than it is to host them. So we're like getting our chops back. Yeah, this part is that's all we used to do. Like that's how we kind of came up. We got a couple of great opening slots, like for two Yards and Volcano Choir, like right when we started, kind of miraculously, and we just like loved, we relished that feeling of like having thirty five or forty minutes or whatever to like convince everyone to like you. And we've been pretty much headlining ever since. And so it's like, I don't know I've said this before, but it feels like I'm like working out every night. It feels like we're like getting a muscle back that we lacks, you know, through the cushiness of everyone already knowing all the words to our songs. Yeah, it's been great. I love it. It's like, you know, trying to figure out what they're going to react to on any given night is so it changes so wildly. It's cool exactly. So we're going to finish this tour and then hopefully in twenty twenty three will actually to our new rules. Sandy, right, and this is how musicians make their living now. Oh yeah, that's right, that's the only place where the money is that and you know car commercials looking forward to both. Thank you so much for coming in. It's been just fabulous and the performances were wonderful. It's just great. Thank you for so much for having us. Yeah, thank you. Thanks to Amelia Meath and Nick Sanborn if silvan Esso for coming through Broken Record to talk about their lives, creative process and their new album. And you're all of our favorite Sylvaneso songs on a playlist at broken record podcast dot com. Be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel at YouTube dot com slash Broken Record Podcast, where you can find all of our new episodes. You can follow us on Twitter at broken Record. Broken Record is a producer of help from Leah Rose, Jason N Brow, Vantaladay, Eric Sandler, and Jennifer Sanchez. Our editor is Sophie Crane. Our executive producer is Mio Lava. Broken Record is a production of Pushkin Industries. If you like this show and others from Pushkin, consider subscribing to Pushkin Plus. Pushkin Plus is a podcast subscription that offers bonus content an uninterrupted ad free listening for four ninety nine a month. Look for Pushkin Plus on Apple Podcasts, subscriptions, and if you'd like the show, please remember to share, rate, and review us on your podcast app. For Things Expect Any Beats, I'm justin Richmond,