Tusks
For Emily Underhill of Tusks, music is how she makes sense of her emotions, her experiences, and the world around her.
Tusks released their debut album Dissolvein 2022 and stunned listeners with their atmospheric sounds and raw, vulnerable lyrics. Last month Tusks, a solo try by Emily Underhill, released Avalanche, the follow-up album that gives listeners even more of a glimpse into the mind of Underhill than its predecessor. The title track explores Underhill'southward diagnoses with OCD and how she wrote and recorded the song to explain how she was feeling, going and so far to deem information technology the "near honest song" she'south e'er written lyrically.
Even when she'south writing virtually intimate, quiet and raw moments, in that location is forcefulness and power in Underhill's songwriting. In her politically-charged response to MP Christopher Chope blocking the upskirting bill in England, she wrote Peachy Keen,in which she sings "This is all Great Keen/I'll have it like a lady/I evidence my skin off and you know what that means/I'm here just for the taking."It's in songs like Nifty Keen where Underhill's songwriting shines.
1883 Mag had a conversation with Underhill almost her 2d album, her songwriting procedure, and what other albums have inspired her own work.
You released your sophomore album, Barrage, final calendar month. How practice you think your sound or lyrics have developed betwixt the two albums?
I think Avalanche is a lot more than direct and exposed than Deliquesce. I've pushed myself into being more open and talking near bigger and trickier subjects lyrically and then also explored creating what I feel like is more than of a poppier album in terms of how the songs are structured. It'southward written more than on guitar and synths and I think because it was created and released in such a brusk space of time, information technology just constantly felt really fresh and exciting to me. It feels way more upbeat and an album that is older and more sure of itself than Deliquesce.
I find Avalanche an incredibly intimate album; it feels like y'all're navigating the listener through the crevices of your mind and exploring your journey with you. Are yous the type of artist to have the tracklist in a way that shows a linear narrative?
[Laughs] Yeah, it is! It freaks me out how intimate it is sometimes. It's like you lot create this slice of art in private to express yourself and work through things and so suddenly yous glimmer and it's a year later and you're putting it out for the whole world to critique. The tracklist was created more musically than lyrically- I wanted each song to compliment the songs before and later on it and take the right menstruum of energy throughout the album.
Exercise you notice one thematic thread tying the album together later on information technology'south completed or is it something you're aware of as yous write & record?
For me, everything I write and record feels worlds apart from each other only I've come to accept from releasing previous music and talking to other artists who experience the same thing that everything you create just has your sound to information technology. I find I tin't actually get besides far away from that and I'll think I've written a punk track or something and will play it to a friend and they think it sounds just like me equally a dull synth track. Both albums accept been written most things I'1000 going through at the time and then I guess those themes interweave with each other to help the thought of a theme tying it all together. I experience similar I have a lot more influences which I desire to explore though, and I think Information technology'll be something I push more than and then maybe struggle with more than in anthology 3.
The title track, Avalanche, explores your diagnosis with OCD and learning to live with information technology. How did information technology feel writing the song and putting what you were feeling into a piece of art that you lot created?
I've used music as a release for how I'm feeling for ages and then it felt pretty natural. I dunno really- that point in my life was so bad that all my memory from information technology is pretty hazy. I simply remember writing and recording the demo in an afternoon in my parent'due south garage. It'due south actually cathartic to listen back to though, especially if my OCD's flared back up again – I think it'south the most honest song I've ever written lyrically and I'k not sure if it makes sense to anyone else but information technology kinda sums it all up for me.
As someone from Toronto, I like to walk around the urban center and listen to your song of the aforementioned name! The lyrics for Toronto and many of your other songs experience incredibly personal, but they also feel universal in a mode that makes people like me feel less alone. Where exercise you lot get your songwriting inspiration from?
Ah, that'southward lovely! Thank you. More recently information technology'due south been from artists like Girl- I dear them, their stuff just cuts into me and then deeply so I think that's influenced a lot. Justin Vernon inspires me a lot too throughout his various projects, and his drummer S.Carey. Also Ben Howard's swell. But and so in terms of the actual feel and production of the music, I've always been heavily influenced by more instrumental and electronic stuff- like James Blake, Lapalux, The Cinematic Orchestra, Sigur Ros. That's e'er been my solid groundwork and the more lyrical, singer-songwriter stuff has come more recently.
The video for Be Mine just dropped a few weeks agone. What was the vision behind the video?
We wanted to focus on highlighting the contrasts between the verses and choruses in the vocal by having two carve up locations with very different energies to them. The whole theme, peculiarly in the verses, is focussed effectually searching for someone or something, and then nosotros shot one-half of it in this maze of sheets in a garden in Blackheath in London with me kinda walking through them, and then juxtaposed that with really upbeat shots from the band and I playing in the studio with these astonishing lights. The team we worked with on information technology were so great, I'one thousand actually happy with information technology.
Your vocal Groovy Nifty tackles how patriarchal social club is and was first inspired by MP Christopher Chope blocking the upskirting bill. In a guild where some women don't feel like they take a voice considering of people Chope, did writing and recording this song make yous feel like you were able to speak your heed regarding sexism?
I don't take a problem speaking up almost issues like sexism, which i feel really strongly about, and I call back even though there are then many hugely depressing things going on in society at the moment, y'all exercise have to also look at the incredible energy and passion fighting back at information technology. Especially living in London at the moment – people are actually engaged and ready to protestation and fight for positive change, I remember it'south just our political system that's so out of touch & not assuasive a lot of this progression to get to the next stage- and the media that'southward polarising usa. What the song did allow me to do is frame exactly how I wanted my words to come beyond – I'm so sick of people opposing any change by belittling it, saying people are moaning or existence ungrateful, like how 'snowflake' has somehow become the accustomed response to anyone calling out right-wing tory oppression in the UK. I wanted to write the song in such a sarcastic manner that it cut right through that and delivered the message.
What are 3 albums that accept inspired y'all the most over the last few years?
Bon Iver – Bon Iver
Non To Disappear – Girl
Goddess – Banks
Now that the album is complete and released, what'south coming up in 2019?
Writing album number iii, I'm really excited to start that properly. And nosotros're touring around a lot later on this year with new dates being announced soon.
Interview past Kelsey Barnes
Source: https://1883magazine.com/tusks/
0 Response to "Tusks"
Post a Comment