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100 Musicians Answer the Same 10 Questions

Part Forty-Eight: Liam Singer

instigated by dave heaton

Liam Singer's brand-new album Our Secret Lies Beneath the Creek is another beguiling, progressive example of his talent at bridging the worlds of intimate pop songwriting and modern classical composition, as was his impressive debut album The Empty Heart of the Chameleon. He's creating in his own space, and the results are consistently stunning. Both albums were released by the impressive new San Francisco-based label Tell-All Records; check out their website for more information. Also visit his MySpace to hear songs.

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What aspect of making music excites you the most right now?

Even though I've been writing and recording music for about ten years, I've only just started releasing stuff. So for me, it's still really exciting to get emails from people in places like France and Japan who are into my albums, and to just trip out on the idea of strangers getting into my music.

Also, I've been writing songs mostly by myself for the past few years, so I'm excited about getting back into the process of collaborating with others.

What aspect of making music gets you the most discouraged?

It's mostly the financial stuff that gets me down. Working a full time job doesn't leave me as much time as I'd like for music, and my particular job doesn't allow me save a whole lot of money either. Money wasn't as much of a problem when I was doing home recordings, but studio time is expensive yo! And now, a lot of the things I want to do would involve hiring musicians, and I feel pretty limited by finances. I don't ever expect to make money off of my music, but it would be nice to reach a point of sustainability.

I also get frustrated by trying to book shows for myself, because there aren't a lot of venues that are good for my type of music, which is kind of in-between genres. Almost any bar is out, unless it's small, or has a room that focuses on music. I prefer house shows and DIY venues, but these days the people running those seem pretty big on "cred," which I don't have a lot of yet.

If anyone has some extra cred lying around that they don't need, let me know, and we can trade. I've got some cool comics you might like.

What are you up to right now, music-wise? (Current or upcoming recordings, tours, extravaganzas, experiments, top-secret projects, etc).

My new album, Our Secret Lies Beneath the Creek, is coming out on Tell-All records on August 29th, so I'm way excited about that. We've been spending a lot of time trying to get that out there.

I'm starting to write some new material and to conceive of a new album, though as I said I'm not sure how I'll finance it since it would involve things like a string quartet and a choir of old ladies and a gamelan ensemble.

I've been playing music with friends, and I'm talking to a photographer friend of mine about trying to release something with my music and prints of her pictures.

What's the most unusual place you've ever played a show or made a recording? How did the qualities of that place affect the show/recording?

I once spent three hours in a yurt in the Oregon woods with my friend jamming on a casio SK-5 and a ukulele. By the end, I really think we got somewhere. We were going to try and release the tape as "yurt jamz," but I think the only copy got crushed along with my dead car. But I'd like to try playing in more yurts.

In what ways does the place where you live (or places where you have lived), affect the music you create, or your taste in music?

I grew up in Portland, OR, and so a lot of the music that I listened to in high school was part of the whole northwest scene - friends got me into stuff like K records and Sub Pop, which in turn led me to more cool music all over the place. There was a really awesome newspaper published out of Seattle called the Rocket that taught me about a lot of great local music. It was a really rad paper, every year they'd have a demo tape contest where anybody could send in a tape of their music and they'd review all of them. I guess with myspace and stuff that wouldn't be as interesting now, but at the time it was cool. I think that's how Death Cab for Cutie got their break, actually. I remember a big article about how great their mixtape was, and soon after that their first album came out.

Living in San Francisco for the past two years has inspired me to listen to different kinds of music - happier stuff, I guess. Brazilian songwriters, more hip hop and dance music . The internet is definitely making the idea of the "local scene" kind of obsolete, but I still listen to different kinds of music and write different kinds of songs based on the weather and the people around me.

When was the last time you wrote a song? What can you tell us about it?

After I finished my new album in January, I experienced six months of very frustrating writer's block. But recently, my girlfriend and I went on this trip and we stayed overnight at a lighthouse on the coast near half-moon bay. We stayed in the old lighthouse keeper's quarters, and there was a big room next to us with a piano, and nobody else in the building. So I sat down there, and ended up writing the skeletons of two songs almost instantly. Then in the car on the way back, I came up with another melody in my head, which usually doesn't happen to me, I almost always write in front of an instrument. So I guess it was just good to get out of the city.

As you create more music, do you find yourself getting more or less interested in seeking out and listening to new music made by other people...and why do you think that is?

I think that every aspect of the creative process goes in cycles, including listening to other people's music. When I'm deep into the conception/recording of a song or album, it's natural to close myself off to outside musical influences - I tend to turn more toward books and movies for creative inspiration during those periods. But when that's done, I just go on a bender of new music consumption.

Lately what musical periods or styles do you find yourself most drawn to as a listener? (Old or new music? Music like yours or different from yours?)

I've been all over the map with my listening habits lately. There's nothing brand new that I really find super exciting, besides the new Scott Walker album, so I've been going back through my stuff. I've been listening to a lot of Aphex Twin, Max Richter, Radiohead, Steve Reich, Rachel's, Susumu Yokota, Fennesz, Jesse Sykes, Mark Hollis & Talk Talk, Neutral Milk Hotel... I like the new Biosphere, and I just heard a record by Belong that I liked too. Scott Solter also got me into dub, and so I've been listening to some Prince Far I and Lee Perry, as well as new electronic dub like Pole.

I haven't been listening to much music with words lately - not out of any ideological opposition, I just haven't been hearing anything that gets through to me.

Sometimes I'll get super focused on one kind of music... I got that way about minimalism when I discovered it in college, and about new folk a few years ago when Iron & Wine and Devendra Banhart and Joanna Newsom all came out. But right now I'm just kind of drifting around all sorts of genres.

Name a band or musician, past or present, who you flat-out LOVE and think more people should be listening to. What's one of your all-time favorite recordings by this band/musician?

I think that Arnold Dreyblatt is one of the most under-appreciated composers in the minimalist/post-minimalist school, though that's starting to change with his involvement in the Table of the Elements label. I think his best record is the one he recorded for John Zorn's Tzadik label, called Animal Magnetism. Propellors in Love is also great, but much much harder to find. If you get all of his other stuff and really want a copy, email me and I'll burn it for you.

I really think that all of the records we've released on Tell-All so far are amazing. I mean, all of us who run the label are just people trying to get by, working full time jobs, so for us to put the time and energy and money into releasing a record, we definitely have to think that it's great! I hope more people will discover One Umbrella, the Kallikak Family, and Scott Solter, each makes beautiful music.

What's the saddest song you've ever heard?

I don't think I share most people's concept of "sadness" in music ... a lot of times I'll play someone a song that I find beautiful, and they'll describe it as sad or depressing. I guess I grew up with a skewed cultural perception in that area... so here's a few of the most beautiful songs I know, maybe they're sad to you: "Blue Calx" and "Rhubarb" by Aphex Twin, "On the Nature of Daylight" by Max Richter, "Heaven" by the Talking Heads, "Tristan and Isolde" by Wagner, "Exit Music for a Film" by Radiohead, "Fratres" and "Alina" by Arvo Part, "Hallelujah" by Jeff Buckley, "O Comely" by Neutral Milk Hotel, "Adagio for Strings" by Samuel Barber...

There's a lot more but now I'm gonna stop writing because I want to go listen to all of these.

To check out the rest of the Q&As, click here.


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