Mood Board is our column where artists share a few of the things that inspired their new record. This time, the Berkeley-based musician/writer/illustrator Claire Cronin tells us how the end of the world, drone metal, motherhood, and more helped shape The Bruise — out now on Orindal Records.
— Annie Fell, Editor-in-chief, Talkhouse Music
1. The End of the World
Apocalypse, end times, collapse, ruin. I worry about this. Yes, people have feared the end of the world since the beginning of the world. But lately, there is an apocalyptic quality to political rhetoric, the weather, and news headlines. There are powerful figures who believe in the rapture and seem to want to bring on Armageddon. There are billionaires who believe only in their own wealth and seem to want to accelerate disaster so that they can live like gods.
I guess some of this is only panic, but some of it, like the effects of climate change and the specter of nuclear war, are real existential threats. The songs on The Bruise reflect this sense of dread.
2. Drone Metal
I love the mystical weight, the glacial pace, the layers of fog. I find low-frequency sounds relaxing. I wanted The Bruise to be emotionally and sonically “heavy” like drone metal, without actually being heavy metal music. This photo is from a Sunn O))) show I attended in San Francisco.
3. Experimental Irish Folk Music
I’m a big fan of the Irish band Lankum and their associated side projects — ØXN, One Leg One Eye, Radie Peat. They’re part of a scene of artists who perform folk music with experimental elements that might seem more at home in metal, punk, or noise. But they don’t do this by adding something “weird” to a traditional genre. They bring out what is already ominous, shocking, or dissonant in old melodies and lyrics.
4. Vampires singing “Rocky Road to Dublin” in Sinners
Horror movies are important to me; I’ve written a book on the subject! So I saw Sinners, which I thought was great, but I was most taken by Ryan Coogler’s decision to use a 19th-century Irish immigrant folk song in the middle of a vampire film. The thrill I got from watching blood-soaked ghouls perform the song was similar to what I feel when listening to bands like Lankum. Something eerie in an old song begins to glow when set in a new emotional and political context.
5. Motherhood
I have two young children: a 1 year old and a 5 year old. I take the role of being a mother very seriously. Pregnancy and birth were a gauntlet — supernatural and mammalian, like facing my own death. Many things that seemed important before having kids don’t anymore, and other aspects of life that I used to ignore are now right in front of me. I feel like everything is at stake. It’s made me re-experience my own childhood, and now, weirdly, my early memories are beginning to fade, as memories of my children take their place.
This experience is all over The Bruise. My husband Ezra Buchla and I finished the record in spare hours late at night or on the weekends, while our kids slept or played nearby. The album cover is a self-portrait I took when my daughter was a baby.
