Mary Ocher is a musician, writer, and visual artist based in Berlin. Her new album, Your Guide to Revolution, is out now.
Mary Ocher is a musician, writer, and visual artist based in Berlin; Nina Hynes is an Irish musician and producer also based in Berlin. Mary’s new album, Your Guide to Revolution, was just released last month. Nina features on the track “When God Held My Hand,” so to celebrate its release, the collaborators caught up about making it, and much more.
— Annie Fell, Editor-in-chief, Talkhouse Music
Mary Ocher: Thank you for the chocolate cake.
Nina Hynes: You’re very welcome. I made it myself yesterday.
Mary: I’m very excited. OK, so a little bit of background: The new album, Your Guide to Revolution, contains a track that is a collaboration and that actually is mostly you.
Nina: Well, I wouldn’t say that.
Mary: [Laughs.] I really, really love the track, so thank you so much for being a part of it.
Nina: Oh, my pleasure. Thank you for being a part of what I do as well. It was a long time ago when we recorded [Mary’s feature on one of Nina’s tracks] — it was a few years ago. We were thinking of using it as part of a soundtrack to a film that I was working on, and I thought it would be really fun to have a collaboration with you, because I love what you do. And you said yes, and it was really easy. You came in and you had words that you’d written out, and you had a synth with you. Do you remember the type of synth it was? Was it a KORG?
Mary: It was probably a MicroKORG at that time.
Nina: Yeah. I had already kind of a structure of a track set out, and you came in and put a synth down, I think maybe two, and then you improvised a vocal over it. Then I chopped us up, and then forgot about it until years later when you said, “Hey, what about that track we did?” [Laughs.]
Mary: Isn’t it really wonderful to just forget about the track and be reminded?
Nina: Yeah, I love that. I’ve got hard drives full of forgotten tracks.
Mary: I love it. I’m going to release a collection — it’s actually so many more tracks than I realized — it’s going to be 20 tracks that are B-sides and variations and remixes on tracks that are part of this album and the one before. They were all recorded in the same recording sessions. It might be a little bit too much. But it’s funny that it’s all coming out together after years and years of just waiting.
Nina: I would like eight versions of one song. I don’t believe in self indulgence. I think it’s all creativity, and if someone releases something, nobody has to listen to it. It just exists out there.
Mary: Well, I decided that this collection is going to be probably for the more experienced listeners. So it’s at the moment only going to be available via Bandcamp. I don’t want to overwhelm people by releasing it onto everything. But it’s really exciting because it’s a lot of collaborations with people that are not, I think, as old and forgotten as the mysterious track that we did together. [Laughs.] They were a result of these sessions that just turned into a beast; it just became more and more and more.
Nina: And if you know your work, you could probably connect the sonic dots to the sessions, because you can recognize the sound of this particular session from another particular song, or from the musicians that play on it, or the sound of the studio.
Mary: Well, in this case, there’s just a lot of the same recordings that were manipulated in different ways. So there are some tracks that are completely new and unreleased, but then there’s also a few tracks that are kind of just other versions.
Nina: I love that. I really do, because I find that often we release a version that’s not necessarily the most amazing version, it’s just the chosen version.
Mary: It reminds me that a few months ago, I was in a really big German book and music store— it’s huge. It’s in the city center, on Friedrichstraße [in Berlin]. They actually have a very large music department, and they even have some interesting releases, but of course they have a lot of mainstream releases. And they had a new Peter Gabriel record — have you heard about that record? It came out a few months ago, and it came out in two versions. Basically, the decision was that they’re going to release two different mixes of the same album.
Nina: I love that.
Mary: I think one is blue and one is red, and one is supposed to be brighter, and the other one is somehow heavier. I thought it’s very self-indulgent, but I read that Björk did the same thing years ago.
Nina: Which doesn’t mean it’s not self-indulgent. But I think creativity is relevant, and I don’t mind if things are perceived as self-indulgence. I find it endlessly interesting to see how people create, what they create. It doesn’t matter if it’s rubbish; one person’s rubbish is another person’s treasure.
Mary: I wonder if it’s really just a cynical idea behind it, that they’re hoping there will be some people out there who will buy both versions.
Nina: Yeah. Why not make more money.
Mary: [Laughs.] I would just like to add that we’re currently in Nina’s living room, and it’s really beautiful. It’s raining outside and very, very cozy inside.
Nina: Yeah, I do love it here. I’ve been living in this apartment for 16 years, which is the longest I’ve ever lived anywhere, including in my childhood. So it really does feel like home. And it’s a rental apartment — so far, we’ve been lucky that gentrification hasn’t caught up with me here. It’s creeping its ugly little head in and it’s a little scary, but I’m still able to stay here. I’m pretty blessed and fortunate and privileged to be living this life in Berlin, and within my own status.
Mary: It’s a beautiful old building, and it’s a huge apartment.
Nina: It’s from 1905. High ceilings, lots of light.
Mary: It’s also in area that’s, like, full of tourists.
Nina: Yeah, recently. I mean, when I moved to this area, it was very hard to find somebody speaking English. Now it’s the language of the street. When you walk down to the shops on the corner, you’re going to hear English most of the time. So that’s a big change in 16 years. I’ve seen the street change three times since I’ve moved in. It was a punky gay area mixed with old East Berlin. This house had three old ladies living in it, and one by one they died. They were so tough. They were living here since before the wall fell down. One of them had crutches because she couldn’t walk anymore, and she used to put her shopping bag around her neck and she’d go for groceries in the snow. One day I said to her, “Look, why don’t I do your shopping for you?” And she was like, “Nein, nein!” There were no elevators, so she’d be climbing up to the third floor with her groceries around her neck, with her crutches.
That’s the kind of people you have here. I’ve got two kids, and I’d watched the German mothers around here — they’d have a child on their shoulders, another on their back, another on their front. They’d be cycling a bike with three kids in the front of the bike. [Laughs.] They’re tough people. They’re really sturdy. There used to be a McDonald’s on the corner, but it didn’t do very well. People didn’t go there.
Mary: I remember, people hated it. It had its windows smashed, like, every week.
Nina: Yeah, it’s really anti-corporate, this area. Then after that, it became very cutesy, designer, and all these little organic soup kitchens and salad places and record stores and vintage furniture and cafes. I really liked that kind of gentrification. You could get cheap food, and it was a good standard of living for someone who was poor, like me. Then it got much more expensive. Since the pandemic, a lot of the cutesy little places are closing down, and casinos are opening, or the burger place. There’s still a good mix of the gentrification, cutesy cafes, but they are really expensive now. They’re, like, three times the price they were seven years ago. But it’s fascinating to watch it change.
Mary: It’s strange, I’ve noticed that the city in general is definitely losing a lot of its underground culture. What it’s being replaced with is very commercial and very boring to me, and it looks like there’s less people interested in the things that were so exciting about the city.
Nina: Do you think it’s because you’re just not in touch with a scene of new people?
Mary: No, no. I think it’s mostly just because the city became expensive and it pushed away everybody who couldn’t afford it. And the new people who are moving into the city are people who are working in quite mainstream industries.
Nina: Start ups.
Mary: People who are also not particularly interested in culture.
Nina: It’s all going to fall apart anyway, so it’ll all come back to interesting stuff again.
Mary: [Laughs.] You mean, all of human culture is going to collapse?
Nina: [Laughs.] Totally.
Mary: But I mean, it’s kind of incredible that Berlin managed to stay underground for as long as it did.
Nina: Yeah. It’s still rough around the edges. You know, they don’t cut the grass most of the time.
Mary: Your place is also pretty much around the corner from the community house, which was my first home in Berlin. That place got evicted within two years, and it was a huge thing. People from The Guardian came and wrote an article about it, and the whole city was filled with graffiti that was bemoaning the loss of this community house. But then people moved on and forgot about it.
Nina: I remember the first time I heard of you, it was on Myspace and I was still living in Ireland.
Mary: Oh, wow, I didn’t know that.
Nina: I connected with you on Myspace and I thought, She’s cool. She’s a total weirdo. Was that Mary and the Big Cheeses?
Mary: It was Mary and the Baby Cheeses. A very goofy name.
Nina: Yeah, it was really goofy, and it was very cool. I was like, Wow, she’s mad. Then I came to Berlin; I’d been here about a year, and one day I was walking down Boxhagener Platz and I heard this crazy voice — I looked over and there you were playing guitar and busking. I listened and I was like, Wow, that’s the one from Myspace! She’s amazing! I went over and I was like, “Hey, you’re Mary and the Baby Cheeses, right? I know you!” You were like, “Yeah.” I was like, “That was great! I really like your stuff.” And you were like, “Yeah, thank you.” And that was it. Then when I was in Ireland, a very good friend of mine introduced me to your song — [Nina sings the melody].
Mary: “On the Streets of Hard Labor.”
Nina: I love that song so much. We listened to that song a lot at that time. Then I came back and somehow — I don’t remember how we met then, but we became friends. And now you’re my walking partner.
Mary: I think it must be the neighborhood. It’s pretty magical.
Nina: Yeah, yeah.
Mary: I see more women busking now, and that’s pretty exciting, because there were no women busking. It was pretty rough. It’s still pretty rough, I mean — you get ignored, people can be extremely rude and violent. But the other day, I was walking by this really, really big park, Tempelhofer Feld, and at pretty much every entrance there were people busking. There was one lady at one of the entrances, and I kind of just felt like, Ah, I wish that I could just go and play outside again.
Nina: It’s so free.
Mary: And it’s also such a great way to meet people. But it’s also pretty rough, and it can be humiliating and offensive.
Nina: It’s really good for you. I did it for years; I started off busking in Ireland. But I was on social welfare at the time, so I wasn’t really doing it for the money. I was just doing it to get out and sing my songs in public. I was very young and it was super cool. I loved it. It’s a very good education to busk — for your voice, for projection, for communication, for being able to grab people who are just passing by. If you get their attention, it’s something very special.
Mary: I think it also is a really good way to deal with rejection. Because most people will reject you, and some of them will even say something pretty offensive.
Nina: Oh, yeah. That happens a lot.
Mary: I think the worst experience I ever had was at a Christmas market, in one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in Berlin, in West Berlin. This very small child, who was maybe five or six years old, comes close to my guitar bag and he puts something in it. I, of course, assume that he put some coins in it. Then when the whole thing was over, I realized that what he left was a half chewed gum and that his father encouraged him to do that.
Nina: You saw his father telling him?
Mary: Yeah, his father was kind of pushing him to do it. Most parents normally would give their children some coins, and they considered this to be educational. Like, “You’re doing something good.”
Nina: And you’re appreciating culture.
Mary: Yes. But in some of the wealthiest parts, not just in Berlin, but also Boston and Zurich — these were some of the worst experiences I’ve ever had, where people are just very, very arrogant and they look down on you and they don’t appreciate it.
Nina: I have a question for you: How do you keep faith in human nature? How do you keep believing that people are good? Or, do you believe that?
Mary: Interesting question. I don’t know. Is it important to think that people are good?
Nina: Well, for me it is because I get a little bit sad when I feel that people are all mean, or that we’re going down a dark hole of humanity. I don’t like when I go down that train of thought, so I always try and turn myself back to, Actually, most people care. Most people are kind. I try and point out little moments of every day where someone looked at me nicely on the U-Bahn, or somebody thought of something kind to say in a message. I just wonder what it is that — you obviously don’t care if people are good or not. I don’t mean good as in “good” and “bad” people. I mean that they’re inherently not malicious.
Mary: Well, to be honest, I think maybe it’s not relevant. I actually believe that humans, above everything, are just selfish creatures.
Nina: Yeah. That’s my fear, I think, because I believe that, too. But I try and stop myself.
Mary: But whenever it’s convenient for them, they are nice. If being nice somehow advances your position… Oh, god, it sounds really horrible. This is really based on our repeated experiences of being robbed in the house where I live in Berlin.
Nina: Oh, OK.
Mary: I’m just observing people. It’s also very cultural. I do think that culture plays such a significant role in this. Generally, northern, western Europe — kind of more privileged places — people are very individualistic and they’re not really driven by a sense of community.
Nina: I disagree.
Mary: Really? Well, maybe I’ll just use a few examples. In Germany and in Scandinavia, I’ve just seen people in really bad situations, and people not wanting to help. My impression is that they don’t want to help because in these countries, you have a very strong social structure that kind of protects people. So I think people don’t feel personally responsible. They feel that some governmental organization will take care of these people. And then in other countries, like the US, there’s no such structure, so people really have to rely on their friends and neighbors and communities.
Nina: I feel here, people are harsh — Berlin is harsh. But Ireland is also a northern country in the west, and I’m always shocked when I go to Ireland how friendly it is. The last time I went there, I was staying in a friend’s house, which was 45 minutes out of town. I came from the airport and went into town [because I] had to look for a photocopying place to photocopy lyrics, because I was doing a gig. Then I was going out to the friend’s house — I jumped on a bus, but then they say, “I’m sorry, but the bus is not going to where you want it to go. It’s changed route and at the moment there’s no bus going there.” I’m last on the bus, so I just went to the driver and I said to her, “Where’s the nearest place you go that’s close to this place?” And she went, “OK, don’t tell anyone — I have to go back to the barracks now, but then I’m going to drive back into town, and I’m actually going right by there in the bus. We’re not allowed to do this, so don’t tell anybody that I did this for you.” And I was like, Oh, wow, she’s amazing. And then she started to tell me about her father who died, and I started to tell her about my father who had recently died. It was really touching and it made me feel so connected to humans, and that we’re all so vulnerable.
Sometimes in Berlin, it feels like people are mean on purpose; it feels heavy here. And I think it’s the trauma. I think there’s a trauma deep inside people here, and it’s just so harsh. Sometimes it’s like they’re really consciously mean, like they take pleasure [in it] — like it’s sadistic. But then when I meet someone kind here, and I hear stories about people doing good deeds, I’m always just so blown away by it. I think my barometer of goodness has gone way down. I compare it to the meanness, and the state of the world.
Mary: I think maybe I relate to this place because of its really dark history. I just feel, in a strange way, a connection to places that have these very bloody, very gory histories.
I just read an interview with Ray Kurzweil, who I always thought was really fascinating. He was one of the first people who talked about AI before it actually became a thing. He was analyzing potential rights that non-human entities are going to have in the future, and he’s just so optimistic. I don’t really understand it. He really believes that technology will save humanity. He doesn’t think that it’s dark and twisted.
Nina: I believe that, too.
Mary: Really?
Nina: Yeah, I really do. Because I think that’s the deepest intelligence. That’s why I’m learning coding, because I don’t want to be one of these old people who’s detached from that world. I want to have a presence in that world in programming. I know that people feel that within five years, AI is going to be programming itself and there will be no need for humans, but I think there will always be a need for humans to steer it in the right direction. But I think they’re going to be way more intelligent than us very quickly, very soon. I don’t think it’s the end of times, as your record suggests.
Mary: [Laughs.] I find it really fascinating that there is the potential of destruction. The danger — I find it really exciting.
Nina: It is exciting.
Mary: So, yeah, things are just very tense and very uncertain. And I guess this is part of the reason why things are happening the way they are in politics at the moment. I don’t know, it just it seems like the majority of people in the West are on some kind of consumerist trip, trying to escape reality by just consuming and enjoying things until they’re dead.
Nina: Yeah. I mean, in some sense, they’re just victims of the addiction of the devices. And the devices have been designed to do that to them, and sell themselves back to themselves. It feels like they’re victims of of commercialism rather than consciously choosing that.
Mary: It seems like that’s really the only way to live. It’s not like somebody presents you with several options and you go, “I will choose consumerism!” On this particular topic I wrote a guide of sorts, which comes with the new album, and it’s called A Guide to Radical Living — which is a very pompous title, but it’s actually just a bunch of life hacks. It just tries to collect ideas of how to survive in a system that’s trying to force us to spend every penny we have. They’re not revolutionary in any way; that’s the funny part. I’m just advising on making your own things and repairing things, and not buying the newest everything. Just really basic things like that.
Nina: So back to the old fashioned days, where people darn their socks and they upcycle things naturally.
Mary: To me, that is perfectly normal. It actually seems very strange that people don’t do those things. It’s a bit of a shame that it’s disappearing.
Nina: We won’t have a choice after a while, because we won’t be able to produce more stuff. The system’s eating itself.
Mary: Or we’ll just be living on top of mountains of trash.
Well, thank you so much for this. It was really fun. I think we should finish this conversation so that I can have my gluten free vegan chocolate cake.
