Sound Methods 011: Claire Rousay

One of my personal pet peeves about the experimental and ambient music spaces I spend time in is the inherent seriousness of it all.

There’s a tendency among artists, critics, and record label PR folks to turn this music into something overly cerebral or abstract: weighty subject matter and evocative liner notes followed by a slow, drifting kind of music that wouldn’t even hint at such immensity. I’m all about the potentially spiritual and transformative power of music, and I acknowledge that music can indeed move us to that degree on occasion…but I’m usually more drawn to its human characteristics: emotion, vulnerability, humor, and honesty.

Enter Claire Rousay as a refreshing antidote to this high-mindedness.

Photo by Zoe Donahue

There’s something distinctly relatable about her work. Whether it’s the sound of a phone buzzing on a table, a friend’s voice crackling over an exported voicemail file, her own singing filtered through layers of Auto-Tune, or the disarmingly matter-of-fact song titles (I mean come on - who wouldn’t want to hang out at the Applebee’s outside Kalamazoo, Michigan?), her music doesn’t sound like it is trying to transcend the world so much as sink deeper into it…less like sound art, and more like the sound of a friend reading you a page from their diary.

Claire grew up playing piano and drums, eventually moving through the world of free improvisation and extended technique and performing solo percussion sets, before slowly shifting into field recordings, ambient collage, and more recently, vocal and pop-adjacent work. She is prolific and diverse in her practice, having now amassed an incredible discography that ranges from austere textural experiments to emotionally dense records like a softer focus, Sentiment, and No Floor (w/ More Eaze).

While many experimental artists shy away from personal narrative or confessional modes, Claire leans into them. She has called her music “emo ambient,” a term that’s as truthful as it is tongue-in-cheek. But what I love most is how her work manages to be both gripping and tender, even when it’s composed from the most mundane materials. There’s something thrilling about how she transforms a room tone, a voice memo, a snippet of guitar, into something rich with feeling. She can pull a world of significance out of what most people would call nothing, without over-explaining it or trying to dress it up in the conceptual language you’d read on an album notes blurb.

The texture of her music is tactile and unvarnished: you can hear the spaces, the seams, the presence of real life brushing up against the compositions. Her work invites close listening, not because it’s obscure, but because it’s honest.

It was such a pleasure to speak with Claire about her early musical roots, her approach to composition and performance, the relationship between her online presence and her creative work, and how to stay awake to the world around you. This is one of those conversations that, after listening back, has a few layers of additional, inspiring depth I didn’t even catch in the moment…I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

Photo by Peter Gumaskas

Mike and I spoke with Claire on the evening of August 5. She has a new album called “A Little Death” coming out this fall on Thrill Jockey - trust me, it is stunning! You will want to hear this…please be sure to preorder the album here, and check out the rest of her discography on Bandcamp.

Sound Methods 011 - Claire Rousay

Andrew: Claire Rousay, thanks so much for joining us here on Sound Methods. I really appreciate it.

Claire: Yeah, thanks for having me.

Andrew: So, we have quite a few questions to get to…doubt we'll get to all of them. We could probably talk for hours here; I’ve been a big fan of your work for some time now.

Let's just start where things began for you - some of your early training, how you got into experimental work…in the course of doing my homework here, I came across an old interview where you mentioned that you started on piano. That was something that you learned pretty young, and then eventually switched into drums.

I'm curious to know what kind of other musical environments and influences from childhood shaped your musical practice, and does any of that still resonate with you today, at this point?

Claire: My mom's a piano teacher, so it was part of growing up. Everybody had to learn how to play piano. I was learning piano for a while, and then I got close to being in middle school and I wanted to play in a band, or at least play an instrument that wasn't piano. So the rule was I had to pass all of these, like, piano lesson tests - in a more casual sense than I'm describing it, but it felt very high pressure at the time - at home in order to be able to pick up another instrument, especially something that wasn't piano. My mom was really concerned that my sight reading would go away - my ability to sight read harmonic music, and it did go away. So she was right. But I started playing drums in middle school. Very straightforward music. I grew up playing music in evangelical church world…

Andrew: We are “church music” survivors as well.

Claire: Oh God. Yeah. The pipeline from evangelical church to ambient music is…it's real. It has more to do with it than I think people think sometimes.

But yeah, [I was playing] really basic stuff. Played in bands when I was a teenager - I was in a bunch of rock bands, nothing that took off or anything like that. And then I got into noise rock and math rock as a late teenager, early twenties, and started touring: the “American DIY touring dream,” getting in somebody's van and driving eight hours to play a coffee shop or something. And those are like…I have very fond memories of that time. There was a freedom, I think both the type of music - playing noise rock - and then also the environments and the communities that were supporting that at the time.

But I really only started making music by myself - because I was a drummer for all of that - when I found improvised music through a combination of things. The local radio station that we had was a jazz station during the day, and then at night, it was community radio. I would just get all the submissions for stuff, and then I got into the Chicago free jazz scene in, like, 2005 to 2012. Those were the years of the CDs that were coming in. And this is a little bit past that, but I got really into that and just started down that rabbit hole as a drummer, and eventually ended up losing cymbals as part of my whole thing. I didn't play cymbals for a while…

Andrew: Oh yeah. So edgy, right?

Claire: Yeah, very edgy. And then I was like, “oh, I don't need toms. I don't need a kick drum, or anything with a pedal. I'll just use the pedal.” And then I ended up playing a show - I was playing at Elastic Arts, and I was playing snare drum with my hands and then a high hat stand, but with no symbols on it, just clicking it…I was like, “okay, I gotta figure out a way to play music by myself that's not this.” Because everybody was being real gracious with their attention, but I was like, “okay, I need to figure out another way of doing this.”

And eventually I just started recording myself doing different things around the house. Recording has always been part of what I do - even as a teenager recording songs on acoustic guitar, learning how to record and how an interface works, early MacBook Pro era…all of that.

Andrew: There's so many ways to go from that…and I think you've touched on it, but I would like to pick that apart a little bit - we were joking about it, but I think there is some kind of, like, a “church to ambient” pipeline, and I think it has to do with - I'm curious to hear that your thoughts on this too - but in retrospect, looking back at all that and how I got to doing what I'm doing, [in church] you're creating this atmosphere for other people, and you're setting the scene somewhat, and there's this real emphasis on feeling, and emotion, and that kind of a thing…for better or for worse.

Mike: Emotional manipulation sometimes, but yeah.

Claire: Exactly. As the drummer, I knew the chorus was coming back around at least two more times. So you get that one build, chorus, and then you get the big one and it goes out. Yeah.

But it is real. You learn how music can move people, in a very real, like…in real time you watch [it happen]. I would say at this point in my life that that was music moving those people. There was a lot to do with quite literal smoke and mirrors, in those situations. But I think - even just people who play guitar, that wasn't really my bag, but those guys got so into pedals. And it's like, you start messing around with stuff, and somebody gets that Carbon Copy going a little too wild, and then everybody's making experimental music in the church.

But yeah, it's interesting to create something that isn't super lyrical, even though sometimes people pray over it or something. And it's also really emotional music. I think that for me, at least, I saw how music could be emotional and also how music could be, maybe non-pop in structure…not super lyrical, even without a very obvious melody sometimes. It's a very early [musical development stage] for people who are in that environment and not necessarily exposed to things outside of it. I think that is like the closest thing you'll get to…whatever. I don't know if that's your experience, but I always feel like, “oh, yeah, I was listening to ambient music while they were praying, like, every week.”

Andrew: Yeah. It was always a running joke - “we need a pad,” or “we need a segue” or something like that for this portion of the service that’s happening,” and it was always Mike's job to do that. He'd flip on his carbon copy and -

Mike: DD-20 actually.

Andrew: Oh yeah, DD-20, throw it into an RV-5, and then you let the spirit take over at that point.

Claire: Yeah, totally. The spirit will lead us into the key of G.

Andrew: Always - with the appropriate capo on.

And then, you mentioned it too - this was actually next on my list of questions for you, this art of documenting the mundane. To hear you say that you've been doing that for some time is really interesting to me. I always find when I'm listening to your music, I find it so gripping, in a way, because you're trying to figure out, “what am I hearing here? Where am I being led with this sound?” Either to start, or midway through with some of the voicemails that you include…there's all of these elements of found sound that make things very immersive. And then when you zoom out and you press pause, you're like, “wait, I'm just listening to leaves rustling,” or “I'm listening to something very ‘everyday.’”

What is it about everyday sounds or mundane moments like that that grip you? And what leads you to put that kind of stuff in your music?

Claire: I don't necessarily wanna lean on the whole church thing so much, but I really do think growing up with this idea that there was something so big out there that was always guiding me - something that I had so little control over, and there was always a plan…I was talking to somebody about it the other day, but I was like 18, 19 years old, and I didn't know what evolution was; I didn't understand it. I didn't know how it worked and I didn't have an idea of how anybody else could even believe that, because I didn't even understand it. So going from “there's this huge force guiding me through everything, and I just gotta hold on,” to not having that and falling out of that, I was like, “okay, I have to find it somewhere.” And I think just finding any kind of - maybe not a spiritual practice, but finding a way to relate to the world, felt so easy through the smallest things: just start from the smallest thing and work your way up. I was like, “I don't have any political views and I don't know what I believe on a global scale, but I do know that I like that sound. I do know that I like it when this person talks, or when I'm interacting with this person, or doing something that I enjoy.” And music was the next thing - which is a very big thing - but it worked together really beautifully; finding the smallest thing I can appreciate and can understand, and there's no circular logic to trip me up or anything like that. It's just: “I understand that this is a sound of me making coffee, and I've been drinking coffee for a very long time, and I really like it.” And that's enough to go off of.

And as far as inspiration for adding things that are a little bit more on the musical side, I usually start with a few different found sound recordings or field recordings and then build the melodic and harmonic material off of that, rather than weaving in something to the more musical content. I think coming at it as a drummer, I was very against both rhythm and obvious form. There's usually an “arc,” especially playing live or something. You wanna have something for people to grab onto. But I was very anti- “adding glitchy beats” or whatever, just like the normal things that would come with that kind of music. I was like, “okay, what can I grab onto that's more…maybe a voice voicemail recording or something, where somebody knows what it is and they can do the whole ‘sound association’ thing in their mind, rather than the glitchy beats.”

Andrew: Yeah. Makes a lot of sense. To that point too, just working off that theme a little bit - I hate “ambient” as a descriptor. I think it's close to meaningless, but I think that when you generally think of the word and you think of the music in this general direction of the stuff that we are doing, so much of it feels like it's drifting and floating, and it's aimless to an extent. But all of the stuff that you inject into the music with those sounds and those textures feels very intentional. I get the sense that there's some kind of a direction, generally speaking, with a lot of your music; that it's telling a story, and there's a narrative, and there's some emotion behind it.

I wonder if you would agree with that, and if you are trying to do that? And also as an addendum to that, do you ever sit down and just make music for the sake of making it? Or do you feel like you are trying to say something at all times, and you have a story and a direction that you're trying to convey with what you're doing?

Claire: I think a lot of what I do is just out of habit. I just make music every day because I like it. I've played music pretty much every day since I can remember; since I was four years old practicing piano. It's just part of the day, even if it's just grabbing the guitar off the wall and like playing something stupid for 30 seconds while I'm walking by - I have that pull, for better or worse I think.

I work on a lot of stuff, and play music by myself, without recording or without any kind of idea that I want to communicate. Sometimes it's just because it feels good. A lot of the times when it gets put out into the world…I'm so into people that are really intentional with releasing music, because I'm not. There was something Ellen Arkbro was talking about being like, “does this need to be in the world?” And I was like, “there is so much that I've put into the world that does not need to be there.” I'm like the Walmart of music. I'm just putting stuff out there. But I think there's also a beauty in that, too, where it's like: you can just do it. It's not hurting anybody…unless you're using a ton of AI and completely sucking the earth dry.

But yeah, there's usually some sort of narrative or some sort of piece that people can latch onto, just because I like that. And I, for the most part, make music for myself. I don't really make it for anybody else. Some other people like it, some people really don't like it - which I didn't think would ever [happen], I had never thought I'd be in a position where I was like, “oh, there's people that really don't like me for that reason.” Which is fine.

I do think that it's fun to do, and I'm embracing the “eternal amateur” type of thing, just because I'm always curious about new stuff. There's a lot of people that have these really hard stances or believe so firmly, which I really respect in certain things, regarding their practice. I know there's a whole group of people who are anti-VST, and I'm like, “man, I'm all over that Slate and Ash. I am into it.” And I think it's great. I don't have an issue with that.

And then combining fidelities is a huge thing. Combining genres or influences. “What if I did this Harold Budd type of ripoff piano thing, but had the voicemail recording from William Basinski calling me last night? Both of those things together sounds great. I'm gonna put that on a record.” It can be anything you want it to be, and I think that is why I like music so much. That's what makes it so beautiful to me and easy to grab onto. When you don't have a God and that's what you have, it's not that bad.

Andrew: It's not bad at all.

Mike: I'm curious if, in your field recording/found sound practice…so, I’m into film photography and I have tons of boxes of negatives sitting over in the corner, and I would say 90% of those images are just throwaways. I just go about my day taking shots of things that I think look cool, without ever really thinking about how they will be used later, if at all. And I'm curious if you approach your field recording habit, like you said, as “okay, I am recording this because I think I may use it for a piece later or it could inspire me at some point.” Do you ever go back through old archives of sounds or recordings with that sort of intentionality - “I'm looking for something to include in music?” Or do you just let things accumulate and then if it comes to mind later, you'll pull it out and let it rip?

Claire: I think when I'm in the moment doing it, I just switch it on. I usually have something with me that can record, although I've been trying to get better about going on walks without any technology, because I think it's really special. But I record stuff all the time, and I don't think I'm necessarily doing it being like, “it'll fit really well with this one thing that's happening, or I can use it for this project,” but I amass such a wide range of stuff. I have a huge collection of recordings on various devices and I just dump them all into a Dropbox folder, organized really poorly. I try to clean it up like once a year and then categorize stuff either by location or sound types, or [categories] that are at least like, “this has other music playing in it, and this does not” - I think that's a huge one that saves a lot of time. But for the most part, I just do it to do it. Same with making music. And then if I find something that I like, in the middle of working on another project or I'm looking for something, I know at least that I have stuff. Even though it's labeled like “Zoom 12345,” I can check the date and know where I was, or listen to a couple of the recordings and know that it's…”okay, I was camping,” or something like that. But I definitely don't go out being like, “I need to get the leaves today for this thing.”

Mike: Sure. Yeah.

Claire: I think I do that more with Instagram posts, where people are like, “you have to post something.” I was like, “okay, I'm gonna go out at this time at night - that way I know what it's like out there.” But with something that's more important to me, it’s more just following my gut and just going through what I have, because I've always worked with what I have. I think working with the recordings that you have, rather than always trying to source something new, is what is inspiring. It makes it your own thing.

Andrew: Yeah, and that brings up a thought that I had. I’ve gotta say, I love your mix of humor and irreverence online. I think there's so much preciousness about music, especially this kind of music, where I think people retroactively assign a little more meaning to it than it might have had in the moment. You could just be fucking around in an Ableton live session, and then you come up with something cool, and then all of a sudden it takes on all this grand meaning about some amazing thought you had and then you reassign that great thought you had to something that was actually not that big of a deal or not that impressive in the moment.

But I just wonder, are you consciously trying to disrupt that kind of thinking in this culture that we have, around this “over preciousness” about the music that we are making? Or do you think of that as part of your “persona” at all? Is it something that you have to try to maintain?

Claire: I think it's something I have to actively try to rein in. I'm just, at my core, like a little shit. So I have to rein it in at all times. I will take it too far sometimes, so I try to keep myself in check, but I think there's a lot of people out there that are doing a lot of stuff that is so normal. And for some reason we view them as extraordinary, and the work they make can be really incredible, but there's no way that these people are living this magnificent life all the time. It's like the same as being online, right? You always get the “greatest hits” of everybody.

But yeah, I don't know…I like music that's approachable. I've always really liked music that's recorded either in a variety of fidelities, or low fidelity music. And I think people who are open on the internet and make low fidelity music or experiment with that kind of thing, those are my people. Like learning about what people do when they're not making music - they're like, “oh, I'm off a tour. I'm just taking care of my kids for six months.” And I'm like, “I thought you were a rock star?” And it's “nope, I'm recording in my room between my kids' naps, and that's what I do. I'm recording something and then I have to change a diaper.” I'm here sitting at home and the dog's begging to go outside and I just go take the dog out, come back in, somebody yells…It’s normal. It's just between the normal things that are happening. I'm not like a disruptor or anything like that.

Do you have a particular preference on - because you're super online - do you have a preference of people you like to see on the internet, or like a…not necessarily a persona, but do you like, have a vibe that you go for when you're finding people that you wanna interact with?

Andrew: Totally. It's gotta be approachable. There's only so much self-aggrandizement that I can take at one time. I like approachable. I like understanding, or at least feeling like I can sense, the person behind this stuff. If it's too ethereal and out there, and there's nothing grounding it, that's definitely a red flag for me. I'm probably not going to get as into that as I could if I feel like I can’t make a connection with the person behind the music, or at least understand the techniques that went into it, the thoughts that went into it, the person that went into it. Yeah, I'm way too online, and at this point I need a lot more humanity in my life.

Mike: I think also - neither of us are professional musicians, and I don't wanna speak for you, Andrew, but it's always interesting to me to find the people who are, if not outright amateurs who don't really care about it, then at least the people who are making music intentionally and want it to be their main thing but recognize that it can't be their main thing.

And like you said, Claire, learning what they do between the tours and the record releases and things like that - I think that is super refreshing to see, because especially in our scene - in the ambient world - I feel like there are a lot of very cool festivals, and a huge international scene for this type of music, and it's very easy to feel the FOMO. Everybody is seemingly playing shows in Europe and Asia, and then I'm going to my 9-5 office job down the street. I like a little behind the scenes “realness” there.

Claire: Yeah, totally. I have experienced both the FOMO and being at those events, and it's…the first couple times I was doing something like that, I was like, “oh my God. It’s my first time being here in Europe, or my first time doing this festival thing.” And then you meet all the people who make the music that you listen to, or people who make music that you really like, and they're like, “yeah, I'm playing this festival. It's great to be here, but I barely make enough money to even get here.” Okay, cool. So no matter what the photos or anything looks like, we're all sitting here in this shared backstage area that is like a gymnasium for some other space, like some public funded thing here.

Mike: Catered sandwiches and whatnot.

Claire: You got 10 people who are all basically breaking even just to be here. It looks really great and it is really cool - I wouldn't trade it for anything. But it's…yeah, as soon as you can recognize that there is, on a real level, less of a hierarchy than you realize or you had thought previously, I think it makes it way easier to interact with stuff. Or people who step away, who do a bunch of stuff and then are like, “nah, I'm just gonna not do this in this way anymore” - I respect that so much: the people that can balance all aspects of being a person. Being a well-adjusted, well-rounded person.

Mike: Key qualifier there.

Claire: Yeah.

Andrew: Yeah. Continuing with the theme of “realness,” I get the sense, especially on sentiment, I'm thinking of the first two tracks that hit you - 4:00 PM and head, I think those are the first two…maybe I'm mis-remembering the track order there…

Claire: You're right.

Andrew: You're being pretty raw and real, I think, in those lyrics. And I'm wondering: looking back on that now, do you think that was therapeutic to write music that was that vulnerable and that honest, or did it feel more like you were re-triggering any negative thoughts that went into some of those lyrics? Just looking at [the lyrics] on paper, I wonder how you felt about that in the moment.

Claire: Yeah. Making that record took forever. It's something I'm actually new to, is taking a really long time to make things. I have always been hard and fast with releases, and that was the first time I really took a long time - like, years. I was putting out records and doing completely unrelated stuff while I was working on that.

And it was our first time really releasing songs, like real songs, and I have a lot of appreciation for people who do that full time because it's not something I think I could handle. But I think because…things like that, and those projects where you allow them to take so much time - the things that are feel very extreme at first get dulled down, or maybe you just get better at dealing with it. At this point, I could play those songs live and not even think that I'm saying the words that I'm saying. It's just totally a different thing at this point. And I'm honestly very happy that I am not necessarily performing or making or recording “song music” like that, or really anything with lyrics in what I'm writing.

People also attach to words - people are very quick to attach to songs or words or lyrics. There's good and bad to that. But I'm so happy to not be doing that anymore, or at least for the time being.

Andrew: That's so interesting to hear, because I totally resonate with it. I can't even imagine having to come up with an album's worth of lyrics, given how deeply ingrained the “instrumental ambient” stuff is in my brain at this point. That would be something just totally alien to me, having to unlock that part of my brain and try to do that…so it's interesting to hear you say that you would not do that again.

Claire: Yeah. I don't know if I would do it again in the same way. I think I definitely made it way more into a character, and that was a good way of dealing with it, where it was like…it was me, but it's a certain version, and a very controlled - it was very “out of control” - but it's a very controlled version of that project, or that kind of person.

I don't know…I think, like I said, I have huge respect for people who do that kind of thing, but I just…I don't know. I don't know if that's me. I’m also thinking - I have this idea all the time, when I'm making radio mixes or even recording music of my own, I'm like: “what is my ideal music? What is not just my favorite or my ‘best of,"‘ but what does the ideal music sound like to me?” And it's maybe closer to that than I think, but it's pretty far away from what that sounds like. I'm like…I know what kind of music I like to listen to at any point, that I think is very interesting and also moves me in a way, and just all of the aspects that go into recording or releasing things…I know what type of stuff I like to listen to and I want to make. That's the kind of music I wanna make. And I think at this point, listening to that kind of music [on sentiment], I would be like, “there's a time and place for this, but I don't know if I can listen to this all the time.”

Andrew: Totally. That's usually the first question that I ask folks when I speak to them on here, is: “how would you describe the music that you're making at this point? And do you feel it changing at all relative to the recent past? Where are you at right now, with your music?”

Claire: Whoa, that's a good question to ask people.

I think people try to get away from the “genre” thing and they're like, “oh, I'm just [ignoring] genre.” I really don't know…I'm equally influenced by, and a fan of, any kind of weirdo stuff. if I wanna use very broad genres, things that people tag radio shows with…like “modern classical meets drone meets musique concrète.” But there's so many variations on that. I would consider Orange Milk, as a label, as a musique concrète label, more or less.

People can just interpret it however they want. But I listen to music that is, like, field recording, low fidelity, acoustic instruments…or things that are collections or compilations over a long period of time. I'm really interested in all of that. And I think the music that I'm making now is my very condensed version of that - the different recordings that I have when I make music now, I'm basically just resampling myself or sampling instrumentalists from old records that I've had people play on.

There's a violin - a two minute violin drone - that I had somebody do for me in 2021, and it's been on every record since that was recorded. And I use it live all the time; I’ll put it into some sort of granular synth thing or chop it up or whatever, but I'm always using that single sample - that mono recording of somebody playing violin. It’s great. I find so much in doing that, rather than having to completely start from scratch. I'm way into the “resampling/self-reference” thing. That’s why all those labels that do do stuff like that - I love that Regional Bears label or Horn of Plenty or, Sean McCann's Recital label.

All that stuff is so my bag. So my bag.

Andrew: While we're talking about labels here, you put out a great album with Gretchen Korsmo this year on Mappa Editions. I love everything that they do, and this was no exception.

You're already prolific enough solo, but you’re also doing quite a bit of collaboration. You had that one with Gretchen, you had one with More Eaze, I think: No Floor. That was this year too, right? Crazy how quickly you can work. It blows my mind.

You seem very comfortable in that kind of an environment, when you're collaborating with others. How do you approach that kind of a situation [compared to] your own solo work? Is there a thought to who you collaborate with? How do you navigate that?

Claire: As far as collaboration goes, the More Eaze stuff has been happening forever. I think that record, when it came out, that was our unofficial celebration of 10 years of friendship and collaboration, which is really cute. But I've known Gretchen for a long time, as well. A lot of it is just friends.

Something that a lot of people don't think about is that people make music with people they like hanging out with. That's something my friend Alex Cunningham said - he’s a violinist and improviser in St. Louis - and he was like, “I would never play a show or record with somebody I can't go to dinner with before or after doing that, because it just doesn't feel right.” And I was like, “okay, yeah, that totally makes sense.” And obviously Mari or Gretchen are like…both of those people are people that I've more than had dinner with. I've slept on their floor. Gretchen was living in this house; it was like a warehouse that she owned, and they didn't have a roof yet. It was in West Texas and I was like sleeping in a sleeping bag in a room with a space heater that they closed off for me for my own safe little zone. But it's people where, it’s like, you can hang out in any environment and still have a great time. Those are the people you wanna make music with, and the people you wanna trust.

But the process is pretty much the same. Especially because, since COVID, I've done almost all remote recording collaborations. Very little is happening in the same room. A couple things I've done have been in-person collaborations, but for the most part, it's sending files back and forth depending on the time zone and just uploading stuff to a Dropbox folder. People grab it and they do what they want with it, and you just have total trust. You don't get to see them doing it, you just get to see the end result, and if you dig it, then that's great…if you don't, then you text about it. Anybody I'm making music with, I am constantly texting - so it's just really natural.

Andrew: I love that. There's gotta be some bit of personal connection for me as well. I would never just cold call someone and ask to do that with. That's great advice: who you would wanna get dinner with before you sign up for that.

I sort of wanna nerd out a little bit on tools and software. You mentioned the Slate + Ash stuff, and I'm deep in that world too. Can't get enough; spent way too much money on that stuff. But what are you leaning towards these days? I know you picked up guitar and voice for “sentiment,” obviously, and I'm sure that was a huge process change for you, working that into your music for that album. But what are you using these days and what's fascinating you the most from a creation standpoint?

Claire: If you wanna keep it on the digital level with VSTs and stuff, oh my God…all of the stuff from Felt Instruments is so good. Amazing. And it's way lower cost…the Slate + Ash stuff I started using, and I literally sent them an email - or I may have just commented something on social media - being like, “this sounds so sick, but I could never afford it.” And then they sent me a code for it and I was like, “oh, because it's just a digital thing. They just send you a code and then it's done.” So I've been using a ton of that stuff, and oddly enough, I feel really drawn to the Slate + Ash stuff that is less [extreme]...I love all the Cycles stuff, I think that's really fun. The Spectres thing, I don't really dig. It's not necessarily my thing, and it's like, it should be, that's literally the type of music I make…but it just it doesn't vibe with me for some reason.

Andrew: I love what other people do with it, but I've never gotten it to work for me. Maybe I gotta spend more time with it, but yeah, it just hasn't clicked like Landforms has, for instance.

Claire: Landforms is amazing. I'm constantly sacrificing space on my computer to make sure I can keep that whole library on there.

Andrew: Yeah.

Claire: But I'm also such a sucker for - not a sucker for free stuff, but if somebody gives me something, either a friend loaning me something or a company will send me something, I mostly just use it…if it's here, I'll use it. And I'll go to people's studios or do an artist residency and it's: “whatever's there, that's what I'm using.” My sound is not based off of these “three things that I use” and I have to keep it on my computer.

Mari sent me this thing called Forester by this guy Leafcutter John…I don't know if you guys have messed around with this.

Andrew: I have not. Nope.

Claire: It’s amazing. It's this Max program where everything is in these circles, and you create these “forests” of sound, but you assign samples and different things and there's a bunch of effects, and you're really just drawing on it. You map out your thing. It's similar to some of the Slate + Ash stuff where you're going through the effects, but it's a way crazier thing. It's hard to find out how to control it. But it's 40 bucks and it's supporting this real weird dude. He’s a total genius. I'm all about that Forrester thing.

Mari showed it to me and we did a whole tour of the No Floor stuff basically just taking stems from the record and running it through Forester and then playing piano and pedal steel live, but everything else is just in Forester.

Andrew: I just pulled it up on a separate tab here, so I can revisit that later. I'll definitely have to check that out.

Claire: I highly recommend it. But other than that, I really just use what I have on hand.

My house was robbed four or five-ish years ago. Like, everything - my home studio and my house; it was robbed in a crazy situation. People did not want me having anything. And when that happened - I tell this story all the time, but Jeff Tweedy reached out and he was like, “what do you need from the Wilco loft? We'll replace everything you lost.” I was like, “okay.” It looked like I was moving. A ton of stuff shows up. It's like, drum kits and guitars and microphones, down to patch cables. It's everything you could possibly need to rebuild a studio in seven days. It all shows up and it's like, “what the hell? This is crazy.” So I just use that. So all of the things are like “Jeff Guitar 1,” “Jeff Guitar 2” on the headstock or whatever. I'm just like, “that's what I'll use. It's fine.” It really is just anything that's around.

I really like the Felt Instruments stuff though. And then there's the…I wanna make sure that I'm giving all the right info, because I do use some stuff religiously…yeah, all the Elementary Sounds stuff too is amazing.

Andrew: Yep, totally agree. You mentioned that mono violin sample that you've continually used for years now…I'm the same way. I think that's a really fun way to work, actually, where you build up these connections to certain sounds or certain recordings, and I do the same thing. I think it must've been five, six years ago now where I had this grand - this was like depths of early COVID - where I had these grand designs on coming up with a sample library to put out and maybe sell at one point, but I ended up just making enough sounds to use myself and I still use a lot of those. I can still remember where I was when I recorded it, when I recorded it. And just due to the flexibility of that source material, I've been able to re-sample that over and over again and use a lot of the same stuff over time.

I love just clicking through random free sample libraries and finding new stuff…that whole process of sampling and resampling, to me, is…that's where I honestly find the most fun. “How can I turn a sound into something usable and something that I enjoy listening to?” I'm a shit violin player. I can't play cello or anything. But you bet I can take someone else playing that and turn it into something useful.

Claire: Yeah. And it's cool, like having that emotional connection to the thing that you're doing, or a specific recording, and then completely flipping it to something else where it's both the original state of that recording and then also any kind of weird context that somebody might be able to get from listening to that original recording. It's thrown out the window. But for you, that emotional association is still very present.

I think that is why I make the music I do. The way that I work is pretty much just to support myself emotionally. But it's really cool to feel so connected to what you do.

So many people are just gearheads or modular synth people. Unless you've been working with that stuff for a long time, it's really hard to have an emotional connection to that stuff. I'm not a gear person. I'm not really even like a technical person, but I'm a music person. I love making music, and the end result is really all I'm in it for anyways…making something that moves me.

Mike: You mentioned making music that moves you, and this type of music that we make can often get pigeonholed into almost a commodity. I'm thinking of the “chill vibes” playlists and the “deep focus” playlists, and it almost becomes this “wellness,” tangential product in a way, sometimes…or at least it can be interpreted that way. I'm curious if you ever get annoyed if and when you find your own work in those sorts of contexts? And are you ever consciously making decisions in your own music to avoid being pigeonholed in that sort of way? Or is it even something that you think about at all?

Claire: I definitely think about it when somebody is, “oh, you're on this playlist that has 14 million people following it” or whatever. I'm like, “oh shit. maybe I'll be able to pay for something.”

But I don't think I'm ever trying to avoid anything as far as, like, a creative choice or sonic classification or genre stuff. Just my own way of working, and how I naturally approach music, it's like…very inaccessible. I don't think I'm ever being like, “oh, if I was to throw a bunch of distortion on this thing, then less people will listen to it.” But I do know what you mean. Especially the wellness thing, during COVID especially, too…somebody asked me to do music for their like meditation app. I was like, “I'm pretty into meditation, but I refuse to play that game.” I think it's unethical, also: there's people who are trained in forms of therapy, or even people who do these very intentional sound bath type things. I'm not that. I'm flipping a violin recording in Ableton, and I don't think that I need to belong in that. I don't belong in that space, but some people do.

I'll also see these playlists, and I'm like, “I wonder who's on this?” And then I'll find some people that I know, and I'm like, “this is what you're meditating to? This is insane. This is the craziest music you could possibly listen to.” I don't know. I think also just…the idea of individual tracks, a collection of individual tracks working together on some sort of playlist that is based off of a vibe or some sort of aspirational thing…it's very weird, and I don't know. It's just so rooted in people needing more stuff, where you're like, “oh, if I could just attain this “Chill Vibes” or “by the poolside” music, then I'll be actually at the poolside. I don't need any of that attached to what I'm doing, but if it works for some people, it does.

I know that there are people who are like, “oh, I meditate to your music.” And I was like, “that's great if that works for you. My intention when I was making it was just to make it.” I don't ever wanna tell anybody what to do with my music, unless it's going into a context that's actually evil.

But yeah, no, I'm not for the weird, self-help type music thing. Especially…I feel like so many people - I'm just on a soapbox now - but so many people that release music on Leaving Records get pigeonholed into this thing, and I'm like, “these are real people making real music, and now it's like a vibe.” It's just being marketed as a vibe. I know that these people are toiling away in their homes or their studios working on this, and really care about it. And then they're like, “oh yeah, Green-House, the next ‘environmental recording’ and ‘bleep bleep’ music…”

Andrew: Great example.

Claire: And I'm like, “man, I don't know.” I talk to them about it all the time. They work so hard on that stuff, and they're so dialed in. It's like, “why is this coffee shop vibes or something? That's not what this is.”

Andrew: Yeah. That took on a life of its own and feels a little gross in a way. That's a great example.

Claire: Yeah. Not my place, but I’m just saying it anyways.

Mike: Are there any specific examples you can think of where you were really surprised in how your own music was interpreted? Not necessarily in a wellness playlist or whatever, but you just mentioned the work that goes into making these records and these pieces and then it ends up in a very bizarre situation or use case…has that ever happened to you?

Claire: Oh yeah. I'll flip it and be like, “I spent 80 seconds making this intro track - just a drone, just an A for 50 seconds that I recorded,” and then it's: “we wanna open our fashion week runway show with this track.”

And it's “yeah, go for it.” They're like, “oh, it's so beautiful.” And there are YouTube comments and stuff…I'm not always digging up my own stuff to read it, but when it's a pretty high profile thing, I'm like, “I made this using the elementary sounds VST; it took me about 80 seconds. It was just an intro for something else, and the way it's on the record is [that it’s] cut into 50-second things and it's now that thing.”

It has had way more exposure than the rest of that record had ; will probably ever have.

Mike: Yeah, the licensing…I don't know. Seeing where your stuff ends up in the commercial context is always extremely funny, slash interesting. I think…wasn't one of ours used in a fashion week thing one time, Andrew? Am I making up?

Andrew: I forget the designer. I don't even think it was that high brow. I think it was some fast-fashion thing. It was depicted as “Yeah, this very sentimental, elaborate [thing]….that was a total throwaway piece, too. it was like, “I don't even know why that's on the internet. I don't even know how they found it.”

Claire: It's amazing the stuff that people will dig up if they want something. But I am always welcome to it, as long as it's not attached to something truly evil. I'm like, “yeah, if this is what this season sounds like, go for it.”

Andrew: Yeah. It's crazy.

I have a question for you, just, because I know you tour extensively, so you probably know how this goes…but can you talk a little bit about what it feels like playing some of this music in some of the places that you play? I think we've all had the experience where we're playing ambient, droney, esoteric music to a crowd that just could not give less of a shit about what you're doing, or you're playing in a bar room, or there's noise all around you and potentially disrupting the flow...how do you approach live music? Do you take the opportunity to treat each space as its own thing, or do you go in with more of a plan? Is that altered depending on what you show up to see?

Claire: Yeah, that's interesting. I know a lot of people that are really good about just doing their thing regardless of the environment, and they're like, “this is the music that I made and prepared, and this is the way I want it to sound and I'm going to execute it according to the plan.” But I came into experimental music playing free improv, so yeah…and a lot of the free improv stuff is obviously: you're playing anywhere that will let that kind of music happen without getting shut down. There's always space for that kind of stuff. If you're playing more unofficial things, there's always hecklers or you're playing at a coffee shop, but it's like after hours and the AC is so loud, or just random stuff that will always be happening.

Early on I was talking to somebody I was playing with a lot of the time, my friend Jacob Wick, a trumpet player. He lives in Mexico City. His whole thing is responding to the environment. I booked him a show in San Antonio, Texas, at this weird cocktail bar that's really nice, but strange…we did outdoor shows mostly, but it was early evening before parties started. There was this weird weekend where the food truck rolled up, playing a bunch of music outta the food truck and he's just playing along to the food truck music. Completely different from the very textural, nuanced, very slow, like glacial music that I'm used to hearing from him. It's cool that he can do that. For me, I was really into doing that - I don't wanna say earlier on - but more when I was in an improvised context. It's a little difficult to do with this kind of music, specifically.

I try to play spaces that are as quiet as possible, and also have…I love playing somewhere with minimal character. People were always wanting to play in these churches or whatever. I'm like, no….I'm thrown in all these environmental recordings and I would rather just play a black box every single time. Or even just a coffee shop with the lights off, or a record store or something, where it's just…you have a pretty visual and vibe. I don't know; the stimulus, just like on the lower side, you're just in the space for the music and then it's over and then you can go to whatever more, overt space that you wanna go to.

But yeah, I don't know…opening the Jeff Tweedy thing, everybody's talking. Nobody wants to hear [me]. They want to hear acoustic Jeff Tweedy. That's cool. You just have to make that into something else. I try to make every show special.

I was touring with my friend Adela [Mede] for a while and she was like, “how do you do this when it's brutal? Do you have favorite shows that you play?”

I really try to make every show like, “this can be my next favorite show.” And then not go into a show and be like, “last night I was at this place and it was amazing, and we're just here now.” No. Even if half the crowd is talking, the other half that is there is taking their night out - like a night off of work or whatever - to listen to this kind of music. It's…come on. You gotta respect the dedication to put yourself through that, do you know what I mean? Even if it's not your thing. That's great.

There's not a huge scene for this. It seems like it on an international level, but there are like 75 people that do this full time, and not every show's gonna be a winner. That's totally fine. I am so down for the show to be more than just the performance. When the performance is “meh,” at least the vibe is good though. The hang is good. The person that set the show up is good. Somebody donated a PA so it can happen. It could be so much worse.

Andrew: I love that. That's a great perspective. I'm guilty of just writing off shows if they don't feel quite as good as I would’ve hoped they'd feel…but yeah, that's a nice way of looking at things.

I'm conscious of time and I don't wanna hold you too long, but just thinking ahead a little bit, what is next for you? I think you have a new album coming out fairly soon, that I got to hear and was just as awesome as I expected it to be. So congrats on that. But where are you right now? Where is your headspace? What kind of direction are you interested in going next, as we look ahead?

Claire: I have a new record coming out that's, like, the end of an unofficial trilogy of records I was doing. In 2020 I had a record called A Heavenly Touch.

In 2021, I had a record called A Softer Focus…

…and then this record's called A Little Death.

And it's the end of - maybe not the end, but it feels like the final form of this way of working: reworking some of the same recordings, a lot of the environmental stuff, and then building more electronic harmonic or melodic elements on top of it where the tracks are connected to each other. Everything's three to five minutes long per track. It's all these things that I've been really interested in, and I have all these weird little rules because I'm obsessed with working within parameter…but this kind of feels like what I thought all the music sounded like up until now, from all of those records. I'm like, “oh, it sounds like this. And it's okay. Now it sounds like this.”

But I'm super interested in collaboration. There's tons of people playing on this record. I'm really interested in acoustic instruments. I think the oldest trick in the book is combining the VST with the real thing, and it sounds so good…the film score classic trick. But yeah, it feels like the final form of this type of music, this way of working. So I'm putting that record out in October. I'm touring it like a crazy person, from September till, like, next September. It’s an insane amount of touring that's gonna happen.

Andrew: Wow.

Claire: Yeah. It’s really crazy, and I feel there's like a weird clarity to it. That's cool too. Just working on something, or working in a certain way for so long, and then finally getting to this place where I'm like, “okay, it finally feels like this.” It's not necessarily the most revolutionary record, or doesn't sound like a new sound or anything. It's like a continuation of something I've been doing for a long time. But it feels really special and really new, and there's a clarity to it.

Touring the last record, playing songs, was such a learning experience. And now I know how to play this music live. I know how to record this music. I know how to talk about it. It's so different from the last time I was trying to do this, where I put out a record and then toured it as much as possible. I'm really grateful for all of those experiences, but I was like, “this is so much more my bag.”

So I'm pretty much just focused on doing that. A lot of collaborations, even unrelated to this record, just in the pipeline…I think I have four collaborative records that are gonna be rolling out over the next 12 months. Just a lot of hanging out and playing music.

I's really cool. I feel very fortunate to be able to do this all the time, so I try to be as present for it as I possibly can.

Andrew: Awesome. Such a nice conversation, Claire. Thank you again for taking the time. I really loved getting to chat, and look forward to the album coming out. All the best in that endeavor.

Claire: Yeah, thank you. It was really great talking to you guys. I'm a huge Substack person, so I've been real familiar with the Substack for a while. It’s nice to finally meet you.