Personality Clash – the place where friendships are fostered, partnerships are launched and collaborations founded.
We pit two artists against one another, allowing the creative sparks to fly. This time round, ClashMusic opted for two City Slang label mates…
In the red corner: Laura Gibson.
Based in Portland, Laura Gibson fuses her gentle, folksy charm with a knowledge of the Old West on her new album ‘La Grande’. Recorded in her own studio, the album is a mark of Gibson’s continuing artistic independence.
In the blue corner: Dear Reader.
Real name Cheri MacNeil, Dear Reader’s new album ‘Idealistic Animals’ is an intensely personal series of songs which detail the loss of religious faith. Sparked by a sense of crisis in her own life, ‘Idealistic Animals’ is a soothing, meditative document.
Connecting the phone calls and manning the mp3 recorder, ClashMusic invited Laura Gibson and Dear Reader to discuss their new projects, the art of songwriting and more…
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Cheri: I just got your record actually, two days ago, and I’ve been listening to it. It’s really beautiful! I have a few questions, if I can start. One of the things I read is that you produced this one all on your own which is something that I really admire and I’m amazed by. I was just wondering if you could tell me a little bit about how you write and how you made this record.
Laura: I kinda came into this record thinking that I would be record it and it would maybe be made in several different places and I would have to move it together at the end and I really wanted to turn off that editor part, or the part of me that says “that idea is too crazy, it won’t work or that doesn’t sound very good”. Like really, switching off that part of my head I felt was really important for me to like feel really free when recording music.
I also just felt that I needed to know where I was at. I guess I just needed to make something where I was the gatekeeper. My other record, I definitely really liked being a part of the production and being a collaborative player with the producer but this time around I think I just wanted to know the satisfaction of being the gatekeeper and making the decisions for better or worse. I want the failures to be my failures and the successes to feel like I had.. like that satisfaction. I put that together and it happened.
Cheri: Did you have to have a lot of courage to do that? Or was it easy for you? I know for me, that would be something I would be really afraid to do.
Laura: I don’t know if I was afraid so much at the beginning, I think the real weight of it came at the end when there was a thousand tiny decisions. I guess I had people helping me, people to bounce things off of. But just making the ultimate decisions and not deferring to someone else, and also just wanting to shut down that editor voice in my head and just kind of go for things and see what happens, just explode out in several directions. The hard part was really pulling it together at the end and making it feel like something cohesive and not something schizophrenic. That’s the part that felt scary and overwhelming. How am I going to put this together? There are so many pieces, and I’m the person that has to put the puzzle together. That’s the part that weighed on me the most. Initially, it didn’t feel too different from my other records. I didn’t have someone there – I mean, Adam did a little bit but getting the best vocal take.. Like you record vocals and think “pretty good, could it be better?” You need someone there to tell you to stop it.
Cheri: Actually this time I did them completely on my own which was very strange. I didn’t have that objective person – which could be dangerous but I really enjoyed it. Just to do it all by myself and not have anyone there.
Laura: Yeah it’s exciting and relaxing to not feel… I did a lot at home. I recorded it in the bedroom so it was as close to being alone as possible. Did you stay in the studio?
Cheri: Yeah! Often I would be doing something else and the producer would just go into a different room while I was doing the vocals. In the past I would have that objective person to say “no this is good, stop over analysing”. Sometimes something you think is really weird sounds cool, it’s just that you’re so self-conscious about it.
Laura: Yeah that’s the part that’s hard. Sometimes I’m like “that’s such a weird way to sing that” but then later that comes to be your favourite part.
Cheri: Exactly!
Laura: Did it feel hard to cut yourself off when you did the vocals?
Cheri: Actually I limited myself to just four takes and if it wasn’t working out I would then move on to something else. I would then tackle it another day. Which is something I really enjoyed about doing more lo-fi recording, because in the past we’d be in the studio and you’d have very limited time and everything would have to happen on that day whether or not you actually can or want to. So it was really nice to be able to do it and go with it when it was fun and if it wasn’t then you could go off and have a meal! If it sucks you can do it later. I feel like your record has a such an old timey feel to it, it sounds like it’s from a different era. It really feels American, I can really see, taste and smell the Wild West or something! You’re like the heroine of this Western movie or something. I think it’s really great how you made the vocals – which is more like a technical question – but is it inspired by American history? Did you do like research or is it based on stories that existed –where did those themes come from?
Laura: A lot of themes came from just what I was learning at the time or wanted to learn. But there is, I think a lot of it there is this feel of the American West. I grew up about as far West as you can get in the US, and in the States there’s this idea of moving West. I live in Portland, which is this place where people move to from all over most West. This town in the West. The movement West is engrained in the American personality, and growing up as far West as you could get that fascinated me. And also I’ve just wondered how to have that American experience when you grow up by the ocean and you can’t grow further West. I think it’s a really big part of life, I can’t go Westward – I suppose I could go to Hawaii or something. It’s something which has really fascinating me. I really love Oregon history and I’ve been researching Oregon train history. I looked up train wrecks in Oregon, and found out that there was one which happened right outside this place called the Hot Lake Hotel. I took a trip to that place and ended up writing a song about the town.
Cheri: You can hear the train!
Laura: Can I ask you about your record? I remember when you were in Portland we met at Dot’s cafe, we were both in the middle of making these records which were so meaningful to us, we were both a little bit overwhelmed by it.. Planning on playing these shows and now interviewing each other! I’m really interested in the themes of your record, if you wouldn’t mind talking about breaking up with your faith.
Cheri: Yeah.. It’s kind of like that happened quite a long time ago, when I was 23 – so I can’t even think… A long time ago. A few years ago. I hadn’t really dealt with all those things, I needed to maybe build a new framework to think about stuff rather than just floating around with no real structure as to how I can relate with my reality. I can’t say that I can necessarily answer those questions but I feel different to the way I was brought up because I had such a rigid framework. This whole framework my whole life. I was just sort of exploring different ideas. It’s a sort of concept record, is what I mean. Afterwards, I felt that there were strong themes and so I pulled them together with the title and naming all the songs after animals.
Laura: I liked that! Do you feel like the record was really a record about transition or just finding a new way to be in the world and to see and interact with the world? Does it feel like it’s more of a grieving record, or does it feel liberating? Or is it both? Maybe I’m making it more complicated!
Cheri: No! To be honest, I was very unhappy when I made it. I would say that grieving is probably the most appropriate. Grieving what I lost when I lost my faith because it gave me certain things that I desire so much. Having this feeling or purpose and a sense of meaning, so it is the grieving of losing those things, those good things that came with being able to believe in certain things. In a way, it’s a kind of cynical, horrible… But ideas that I want to live with for a long time, so it gives me hope – a transition to a more healthy frame of mind. I don’t really want to be that way, but I find it hard to trust anything and not scoff at anything which seems too naive. At the same time I really desire to just be a happier person. I’m really hoping it’s a transitional record! At the end, it takes more than the record to make that transition. Maybe another ten records! Hopefully not all as miserable.
Laura: It’s hard to make that kind of record because you know you really have to dwell in it for a year or two years afterwards. A profound change like that, making it seem beautiful really depends on capturing the moment. It’s the record of that moment in your life – maybe not that moment but being able to process an earlier moment. I guess in order… it seems like you really have to dwell on it to make it honest and sincere but at the same time once you have that processing a year later you’re still having interviews about it. You’re like, maybe we could talk about different things because I’m in a different place?
Cheri: Exactly, yeah!
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Laura Gibson / Dear Reader are set to play a joint show at London venue The Social on January 16th.
