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Talkhouse

Adam Schatz has recently released the improvised album Civil Engineering Vol. 1 and the Landlady album Make Up / Lost Time. See him on tour this summer, tickets and info at <a href="http://linktr.ee/landladyland" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://linktr.ee/landladyland&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1780425624327000&amp;usg=AOvVaw3vXy-qQUGj-lKK5bDfgzP-">linktr.ee/landladyland</a>.
(Photo Credit: Sasha Arutyunova.)

Adam Schatz

Music

Dear Dave, Morale is Low

Widowspeak is singer-songwriter Molly Hamilton and guitarist Robert Earle Thomas. Their fifth album, Plum, is out August 28, 2020 via Captured Tracks.

Widowspeak

What Does It Even Mean To Be a “Successful” Musician?

Talkhouse Weekend Playlist: Rey Pila’s Guide to the Mexican Indie Scene

On the spacious and somber Still No Mother, Colorado songwriter Logan Farmer processes and explores climate change anxiety using the framework of the American folk song. The album grew from an initial concept of imagining the songs farmhands will sing when their acreage has dried up or burned, and rising sea levels begin engulfing the coasts — not unlike those sung by Woody Guthrie during the devastation of the Dust Bowl. While much art on this subject focuses on external imagery like glacial melt or wildfires, Farmer instead points his writing inward to examine the human mind’s relationship to this impending reality, and the psychological burdens therein.
(Photo Credit: Ben Ward)

Logan Farmer

No Calm Before the Storm

The early days of writing All the Time, Jessy Lanza&#8216;s first album since 2016&#8217;s Oh No, marked a sea change for Jessy and her creative partner Jeremy Greenspan. After Oh No, Jessy left her hometown of Hamilton to go and live in New York. Written long distance for the first time, across Jessy’s new set up in New York to Jeremy’s home studio in Hamilton, and finishing in the recording studio Jeremy had been working on during this period.
Even though the move to New York and the change in remote working was tough, All the Time has turned out to be the most pure set of pop songs the duo has recorded; reflective and finessed over the time and distance they allowed it. Innovative juxtapositions sound natural, such as rigid 808’s rubbing against delicate chords in &#8220;Anyone Around,&#8221; unusual underwater rushes underpin &#8220;Baby Love.&#8221; Jessy’s voice is treated, re-pitched and edited on songs like Ice creamy and gestural sounds seem to respond to her lyrics in songs such as &#8220;Like Fire.&#8221;
As the final elements of the album were being put in place, everything changed overnight. Her European tour was cut short and she flew back to New York quickly, plans for the foreseeable future dissolved. Whatsmore her lease was up on her apartment and she couldn’t find another in New York due to quarantine restrictions, so she packed what she could into her van and drove to San Francisco to be near her family, stopping on the way in increasingly empty motels as she journeyed from coast to coast.

Jessy Lanza

Jessy Lanza and Kara-Lis Coverdale Talk Mariah, Monica, and Music Theory

Like so many of her songwriting sisters and brothers in a year of lockdown, Xanthe Alexis has been awaiting the summer day she can give her second album, The Offering, to a revolutionizing world. The accomplished Colorado musician was just breaking into the national scene as the world shifted under our feet in early 2020. Her experience as both a trauma therapist and a single mother of two allowed her to weather the subsequent storm with unusual grace. Even from lockdown, Alexis has offered friends and fans daily affirmations of power and hope on social media – commodities that are rare in these times of vindictive language.
Alexis has noticed a distinct change in what her fans want from songwriters. In the almost four years since the 2016 election, she witnessed a need for a more authentic voice within the confounding politics and more passion in equal doses. Songs like “Siren” are meant to acknowledge anxiety while bringing a soothing hope for those living in fear. Alexis has found herself reflecting on her own newfound sobriety and writing about her journey towards healing. The songs are personally vulnerable and bring a broader context to living bravely, during fearful times. The recording sessions for The Offering began in 2019 under the tutelage of Conor Bourgal, founder of Colorado Springs group Changing Colors, and a proficient sound engineer. He worked closely with Alexis to accentuate what really mattered in these songs and to develop an indie-folk sound that draws as much from indie rock drum styles as from acoustic guitars, but always hangs back to let her stunning voice take the fore.
(Photo Credit: Luigi Scorcia)

Xanthe Alexis

Hear First: Xanthe Alexis’s The Offering

Jimmy Chamberlin is best known as the drummer of Smashing Pumpkins, a position he still holds with the active band today. On the side, Chamberlin has played with many other groups, including the jazzy combo that bears his name: The Jimmy Chamberlin Complex. That band will release a four-song album on September 25 called Honor.

Jimmy Chamberlin

Jimmy Chamberlin on his New Complex Song, Social Media, and the Future of the Pumpkins

LA based musician and composer Asy Saavedra is breaking out on her own, building the kind of tonal galaxies that music nerds can only dream of. While she performs with her sister Chloe Saavedra in their band Chaos Chaos (formerly Smoosh), she has been cutting her teeth on a string of new projects that bring home her unique flavor of ethereal, synth-infused sound.
Raised in Seattle, WA, and Stockholm, Asy was drawn to her family’s piano from the start; her mother would place children’s books on the music rack and Asy would compose music to accompany the pictures. The sisters Saavedra stumbled into Jason McGerr, the drummer for Death Cab for Cutie, at their local music store. He became their music teacher and mentor, helping them craft the initial sound of Smoosh. After signing with local label Pattern25, the tween duo jettisoned onto the music scene with their 2004 debut album, She Like Electric; even in the band’s earliest incarnation, Asy wrote tightly constructed lyrics, layering them over the electric bounce of Chloe’s beat.
In 2006, they were signed to Seattle-based indie label Barsuk Records and released their second LP, 2006’s Free To Stay. During the years that followed, they opened for Pearl Jam, Death Cab for Cutie, Sleater-Kinney, Jimmy Eat World, Cat Power, Nada Surf, and Sufjan Stevens, to name just a few. Their music was covered on NPR’s All Songs Considered, they were interviewed on The Today Show, and were eventually named “Band of the Year” by SPIN in 2005.
Smoosh’s final album came in 2010, with the self-released Withershins, a record that showed maturescence at work. Asy and Chloe experimented with both pace and genre, the tone of the album was notably darker than previous records, echoing the malaise of the record’s initial title The World&#8217;s Not Bad. The sisters seemed poised for their next creative leap, yet a shift seemed necessary. Chaos Chaos was both a name change and shedding of their child-prodigy background. The name was pulled from jargon their scientist dad bandied around the house; it’s the scientific classification for a species of amoeba that can alter its shape. They drew parallels between their band and the organism: “simple but always changing.”
As the sisters continue their metamorphosis, they both have branched out with solo efforts. Asy’s latest project as composer for the indie game Trover Saves The Universe, finds her at the helm of a new frontier, building the sonic reality in which the characters live (and die). Inside the game, players confront a world of chaos, exploding bodies, and salty language geared for the gamer sect. It’s a scenario that materializes elegantly overtop Asy’s score, a collection of dreamy, glitch-infused, electro-pop science fiction. Darker scenes are delineated through Asy’s eerie, mutating vocal range; her piano adds to the feeling of despair, a wrong turn taken. The writing process involved daily dives into the game itself, experimenting with what sounds fit the scene. Her customary mix of organic and digital equipment are showcased in their full range within the score; her recording “control room” included a digital piano, a Juno 60, a korg prologue, a roland xp30, a theremin, and plugins like synplant, permut, TAl-U-NO-60, and bitspeek.

Asy Saavedra

How To Score a Video Game

Haley Blais is a Vancouver based singer-songwriter/musician. She’s been DIY-ing it since 2014, turning out song after song of defiant scream-into-your-pillow bedroom pop anthems. Since the success of her 2018 EP Let Yourself Go, Haley has organically earned a considerable online reputation for her self-deprecating, self-loving balladry sung out in operatic crescendos. 2020 sees the release of highly awaited debut Below the Salt via Tiny Kingdom Music.
(Photo Credit: Lindsay Elliott)

Haley Blais

From Passive to Passionate

Maxwell Stern&#8217;s new album, Impossible Sum, is out September 25 via Lauren Records and <a href="https://www.lauren-records.com/products/670183-maxwell-stern-impossible-sum" target="_blank" rel="noopener">available for pre-order</a> now.

Maxwell Stern

The Joy is in The Making

Buzz Osborne is a founding member of “rock” band the Melvins. Over the past 30 years, he’s played on more than 50 recordings on various major and minor labels, and performed over 2000 shows. In 2012 the Melvins became the first band to release three different records in the same year with three different lineups of the band, and did a spring tour of the U.S., a Canadian tour, and a London show with Slayer to 10,000 people, then played shows in all 50 states, plus DC, in a record-setting 51 days. Osborne’s latest album, released under the moniker King Buzzo,  is a collaboration with Trevor Dunn of Mr. Bungle called Gift Of Sacrifice.

Buzz Osborne

Buzz Osborne Gives Us His Collaboration Wish List

Your favorite musicians, filmmakers, and other creative minds one-on-one. No moderator, no script, no typical questions. The Talkhouse Podcast offers unique insights into creative work from all genres and generations. <a href="https://pod.link/Talkhouse" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Subscribe now</a>, and explore more illuminating shows on the <a href="https://talkhouse.com/category/podcast" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Talkhouse Podcast Network.</a>