by Joe Gutierrez (@phantomshred)
Los Angeles based singer-songwriter Dominique Matelson has just released her new record The Instruction Manual. I caught up with her over Zoom to discuss her relationship with her voice, the circumstances surrounding the creation of her new album, what compels her to make art, reinventing yourself while making music during a pandemic, and more.
photo credit: Ivanna Baranova
Joe: I want to start by asking you what your history with singing is; when did you start singing? When did you start pursuing it?
Dominique: Me and my sister would always play songs at the end of high school. I would start doing covers with her. I always loved female vocalists from the ‘50s, that was kind of my main thing. Once I got into college, I jammed with friends. I think I started actually singing and trying to write my own songs in 2013, sophomore year of college. Then just kind of teaching myself and always wanting to mimic the sort of grand voices of the female vocalists from the ‘50s. Just very dramatic, kind of starting there and just seeing what happened. Then I started really writing songs in probably 2015. Then just kept doing it and trying to play shows when I moved back to LA after college.
Joe Gutierrez: Do you have a daily practice? Do you practice singing or have any routine?
Dominique: I did a bit more a couple of years ago, where I would just sing everyday, playing guitar almost every day. Nothing super formal, but it was my way of singing for the day or something. I sing a lot in my car, which is, you know, classic, but I actually do use that time a lot, because I don't have a lot of alone time, or I guess I didn't up until this year. I was always living with my family and it was really loud. I'm pretty shy with singing super loudly. So I feel like over the last couple of years, I haven't really had a daily ritual too much, which is unfortunate, but I'm trying to go to a practice space more and sing. For now, it's mostly in my car, or on walks.
Joe Gutierrez: With this particular record, The Instruction Manual, was there anything new you learned about your voice or your abilities vocal-wise in the process of making it?
Dominique: Yeah, actually, there was. I usually sort of tend to always sing in the back of my throat and make it a bit more operatic leaning or guttural. During this I had so much time to think about it and work on it because it was all during the pandemic that I recorded it. I just realized I could sing in a more poppy way that wasn't so in the back of my throat and a little more like—I call it just normal singing, like without an affect. I really wanted to try that more because I feel like I've put myself in a box of always having this affect with what I sing. I kind of want to just see what my natural singing voice is and I feel like I definitely am discovering it more and more now since recording this album.
Joe Gutierrez: Yeah, that makes me think of all the things you're doing with your voice on the song "Always I Want!" Did you have to give into some intuitive part of your spirit and your voice? What mental space were you accessing and drawing from?
Dominique: You reminded me, actually. I was like, where did I write that song? Because I had that one done a long time ago, I didn't even know what I was gonna do with it. I thought it was just like a one-off. I was like, I'm not showing this to anyone. In February 2020, I moved to Philadelphia to uproot my life and try something new, and just left all my belongings. Then, you know, March, the pandemic happened, and I was like, damn, this sucks. My roommates left, and I was like, okay, I guess I'll just go back to LA. I didn't want to move in with my family immediately because I was scared of having COVID. So I got this chance to isolate in this house in Highland Park. It's like one of my friend's parents’ parents’ friend's house or something. I was alone, you know, isolating, completely alone, for like two weeks. I think on the second week, I brought my keyboard, that was like all I brought with me, and I was just listening to a lot of Shelley Hirsch. Do you know her? She's like a kooky vocalist from New York, very experimental, one-woman show kind of vibe. It's like, wonky, there’s horns behind her. She does a lot of stuff like that, that I was doing in that song, and so I just wanted to try. I was like, I feel so restricted. I feel like I'm always trying to sing, not pretty, because I think my voice is kind of weird, in a way, but I feel like I'm always trying to sing these sad songs. I was just kind of over that. I just honestly felt a little like cracking. I truly did sort of feel like I blacked out a bit when I was recording that song. Because I just had to let go totally and make. I was kind of pulling different characters into my voice, like a grumpy man, or someone really upset, or a bird, or I don't know, it did feel like a very chaotic situation, but I honestly loved it. I was like, oh, this is great. I just threw everything on top of each other. I showed a friend and I was like, is this too much? He was like, it's a bit meandering, but it sounds really cool. I was like, okay. It was meandering. I kind of liked that about it, too. I sort of felt lost as I was doing it.
Joe Gutierrez: I listened to some of your older stuff on Bandcamp and observed a remarkable difference from that and this new record. I love what I heard, those folkier songs, but what did it take or what influenced you to get from there to here, from that place of more solo, acoustic guitar songs to The Instruction Manual?
Dominique: Oh, yeah, those are pretty old. I just feel like I have this back and forth thing with myself, like every single day where I want to sound like a completely different genre. One day I hear a folk song and I'm like, oh my god, I just only want to write folk music. This is so beautiful. Then the next day I hear sort of a synthy Italo disco song, and I'm like, I'm doing this now actually, this is the best thing I've ever heard, or then I hear a very experimental project like Hannah Silva or something. I'm like, okay, I'm just gonna talk-sing and like, not actually sing. So I’m just always wanting to sound different. So I feel like, over the years, it just wasn't satisfying anymore to write an acoustic song. I still love elements of folk and I definitely still usually just play guitar when I perform live, but I feel like something happened within my voice where I kind of added up together all the different genres I want to sound like and sort of put it in my voice, since I don't really know how to play that many instruments. I know how to play, but really not technically. I don't know notes or chords. Whenever I'm jamming with people, I'm like, I don't know what that is. So I kind of just improvised a new combo of sounds, I feel, and yeah, it feels a lot better. I don't know. It just felt satisfying to incorporate a new sound.
Joe Gutierrez: Do you ever feel self-conscious or frustrated with the experience of making music? If so, how do you respond to or deal with that feeling?
Dominique: Yes, I do. Often. I always come back to just feeling like I don't know enough about music because I've never studied it, which is so stupid. I don't know why I even have this. I've never really been that much of an academic person. I went to college and stuff, but I was homeschooled when I was little. I've always kind of just gotten through school and I'm like, okay, it's done. For some reason, with music, I just feel this weird pressure to study it, or I need to really know how to read music and know all the technical aspects of it. Then it always gets me down every time I pick up my guitar. I still start with C every time I write a song. So that's actually why it's been fun to kind of fix that frustrated feeling by switching over to the keyboard now, which really helps because lately I feel like I connect more with the keyboard than with the guitar. So dabbling on there just feels so much more promising and there's prospects. Sometimes with guitar, I'm like, I've had enough of you, you're not, I don't, I can't, I'm gonna freak out if I'm playing the guitar again.
Joe Gutierrez: What was the recording process? You recorded it on your own, right?
Dominique: I did, yeah. It was pretty crazy, because I moved back in with my family. I have a lot of siblings. I have five siblings, there's a family of six kids and four of them are—technically three of them—still live at home. One of them would come home every single day, and you know, they're all pretty loud. There's like three dogs and my parents, and I was just in the room that somehow soaked up all the noise from every direction. It was like, right in the hallway, and the living room was right there. So basically I bought a nice microphone with my unemployment money. Honestly, it was like a practice in listening and being very patient because the moment I'd hit record, someone would scream, or my dad would mow the lawn literally right when I go to say something. I would get so frustrated. Like two times, I think, I was like, shut up, and just left my room. They're like, oh, we didn't know. Then they were trying to be quiet, and then I felt more awkward because I knew they were now paying attention that I was recording. So I usually wouldn't tell them. It was kind of funny. I feel like we were recording a song together. Because every time I’d go, my dad would hammer something and then my sister would say something and then I'd have to pause and then I'd go again, and then the dogs would bark. I was like, are they all in on this with me? I said to someone else, it felt like an experimental ode to Home Improvement, because it was like, [makes funny little sound effects] and then everyone was [more sound effects]. It was mostly in my bedroom, and then also sometimes in ABC, the practice space, and then sometimes in my car. I’d drive down the street just to do a really loud voice. Yeah, kind of all over the place.
Joe Gutierrez: What does it feel like to have that project come out now and have those songs behind you? I'm sure they’re still a very big part of your present, but what does it feel like to kind of release them into the world to other people?
Dominique: Honestly, it feels really, really special. I kept being like, oh, is this an excuse, like, because I kind of felt I couldn't continue writing songs until these ones came out. It was during the pandemic, the actual lockdown portion of it. So it felt extremely emotional. I mean, I'm sure everyone talks about their album they wrote during the pandemic, but we had all this time to really, really think about things and think about creative things, or go back to something. I feel like I had so much time to work on these songs, and to spend time with them. I was also just partially in a clear headspace that I could create these songs. I don't know, they really felt birthed out of a very special moment. They were all so special and unique that now putting them out, I'm like, whoa, I kind of got a little triggered. I was like, oh my God, I'm having flashbacks to deep lockdown. It kind of made me cry.
Joe Gutierrez: How did the inclusion of humor in your songwriting come about? Did it come naturally or was it something you decided to consciously inject into your lyrics and delivery?
Dominique: It kind of came naturally, actually. I would say I come from a very funny family. My dad's really funny, and I am constantly joking a lot. I realized that my music I'd been writing wasn't super representative of that. I guess my music has always been so serious. During the pandemic and everything, I kind of only wanted to be funny when I could, to be more lighthearted, so I just approached songs differently. I really don't know where it came from, suddenly it felt like I entered this fairy tale or—I think because in therapy, I was talking a lot about fantasy, and it's something I tend to get stuck in, really go down a path of making things up in my head. My therapist will always refer to it as my fantasyland. At first when we were discussing, it was obviously hard to think about, I was like, oh, I do do that a lot. Then we worked through it a lot, and I kind of just wanted to twist it into a positive or something I write about. She was like, yeah, just channel it into your art instead of actually spiraling. So I kind of just looked at it like this sort of creepy but beautiful idea. I just wanted it to be sort of funny talking about these dark situations that I've been in, but turn it into actually fantastical—not intrusive thoughts or vibe—but like a fantastical world of growing and working on myself and being funny and silly, but also with a twist of, I don't even know how to describe it.
Joe Gutierrez: Does that feel healing?
Dominique: It really did. I felt so good about myself. When I was writing some of those songs, like “Fantasy Waiting” and “The Instruction Manual,” I felt like, this is what I want to write about, self discovery and nuances. To talk about the origins of the album a little bit, it kind of is all centering around that song, “The Instruction Manual.” I was gonna call it “Love-Ability”, which is the name of one of the songs, but I was like, actually, I think that'll just be one of the songs. I feel like the song “Instruction Manual” is way more encompassing of what the album is about. You feel boxed in with these sets of rules you think you're supposed to follow. I felt like I was breaking free throughout the second half of the pandemic, and I was like, you don't? There's actually so much beauty in the world. I was like zeroing in on the little things that give me inspiration, like sounds I love, like coyotes and crows and places and the beach and frogs. It's like, actually, if you look closely, you don't have to follow those rules. There's actually a layer of beauty under everything. I don't know if I'm describing this well. I'm very bad at talking about my album or like-
Joe Gutierrez: It’s something we all kind of struggle with, especially as artists, feeling like, what is the right way to live our lives?
Dominique: Exactly. I guess living my life, it suddenly felt there doesn't have to be this right way. I honestly didn't know that. I feel like I didn't really know that until I started going to therapy more. I've always been a spiritual person, but I feel like I was still blocked by my own negative thoughts, negative cycles, and negative view on things. It just felt sort of freeing to remember that we all have this thing we follow, but if you look closely, there's frogs and coyotes. That's when I felt very, like a fairy tale. It's like, fantasy land. I was like, these are my actual fantasies, not these negative thoughts. So I just wanted to make it fun.
Joe Gutierrez: What albums or musicians had a profound impact on the way you make music or on the music you make?
Dominique: Oh, yeah, there's so many. I mean, Shelley Hirsch, who I mentioned earlier. She's a big inspiration. Actually, this album was super inspired by listening to this new album I never heard before, right around the same time as I was writing a few of the songs on this album. It's this composer Melody Sumner Carnahan. The compilation is called The Time Is Now, and Robert Ashley is on there, and other experimental musicians. Maggie Paine. There's this one track on there that I listened to on repeat and it's by a woman named Barbara Golden, and it's called “My Pleasure.” I honestly feel like that song was sort of the epicenter of my inspiration, because it's funny. I guess going back to your last question, I was like, wow, this is amazing. It's like a funny song, but so serious at the same time, and she's just talking about food she eats in the morning for the first five minutes of the song. I was so struck with that.
Artists like Hannah Silva, who I mentioned, or this woman Suse Millemann. There's an album of hers I listened to a lot right before I wrote this album, and Jane Siberry. Oh, Mary Margaret O'Hara, to just kind of like, the sort of whimsical, like, I don't even know how to describe their genre. It's like, avant garde, but sort of approachable, this weird combo of kind of weird, but actually pretty structured. I don't know how to categorize it. Which I feel like is where my music falls a lot. Oh, and Hugo Largo, they're an amazing sort of art avant garde band from the ‘80s from New York. Love the singer's voice. Yeah, it's always usually a range of experimental vocalists, but not usually so experimental. There's just got to be something weird about it. I don't really know how else to describe it. I like when people combine operatics and pop into one thing. I think that's so cool. I got really into storytelling, like with Laurie Anderson, listening to her a bunch. Just kind of talk-singing is very attractive to me, and just really captivating. I don't know, I was listening to so much music over the pandemic. I can barely remember now. A lot of Italian vocalists, and Greek synth kind of people from the ‘80s. A lot of Russian music, too.
I feel like the pop vocals really came out, especially in “Fantasy Waiting. I feel like that was when I really just wanted to not sing in this guttural voice. Then the other ones were also super inspired by Suze Millimann, who's very straightforward. Oh, and Annie Lennox. I love Annie Lennox. Actually two of her songs I listened to on repeat. I'm always trying to recreate them. I'm like, this is the best song I've ever heard. "No More ‘I Love You’s’”.
Joe Gutierrez: What about non musical influences? Any references? Books you read or movies watched?
Dominique: There's a movie I watched a couple times called “The Match Factory Girl.” I love that movie so much. I love the main character and that trench coat she wears, and how she barely talks the whole movie. There's something very glamorous about it, in my opinion. She's powerful and sort of scary, but also really sad. I don't know. I feel like I could relate to her. I was like, oh my God, I really like her. I like her whole energy. It's making me want to write these sort of moody, like, I don't know. I'm solo, I'm alone. I don't know, it was very locked down. So that was definitely an inspiration.
I got really into herbs over the—I mean I've always loved herbs—but I got sort of obsessed with little nighttime rituals of combining all these oils I had and looking up the benefits immediately after. I was both learning how to control myself and my neuroses was kind of kicked into overdrive. I just wanted to be at peak health because of everything going on. My family's very healthy, like, two of my brothers are bodybuilders and one of them's a wrestler. It's like, I come from very healthy families. I was like, I need to put these oils on every night. But then I would feel so zen after I put lavender and cardamom and just rub it all over my legs. I’d just be like, I'm free now. But it was kind of like the researching of the benefits that was very obsessive. Which I do a lot with things. I'll eat one thing and be like, what is the benefit immediately after, which I'm trying to stop. But in a way it was inspiring because then I just learned about all these roots, and it was leading me to something else. It all felt like visitations or something, I felt like things took on a lot of life. Oh, I sound like I've really lost my mind. I just feel like things took on a lot of life over the pandemic, in a cozy way. The things I had became alive, learning about my skullcap vitamins or rose hip, but then it just made me want to be outside all the time, because then I wanted to discover these things in nature on their own.
I was volunteering at a nursery as well, for a lot of the pandemic, and when I was recording these and I get up at like 6am to go drive to La Canada, that was really nice too. It just kind of made me feel like I wanted to write about these little, special, tiny, little creatures. I didn't really watch a lot of Disney or fairytale things growing up, but I suddenly was just like, that's all I want. I want to be a little gnome, be in the woods, and I was getting into being alone. I was like, oh, that's why I love that movie so much. I was like, I just want to go get a beer alone in the middle of the day. There’s that scene of her just sitting with the beer. I felt like everything was turning into a positive at one point. Whereas in the beginning, I was like, this is so horrible, I can't see anyone. Then suddenly I have my things and they're alive, and I feel good. At first I was like, what is this room I'm in, just moving back to my parents house after not being there for a long time. I feel like a big thing with the album was—I wrote about this at some point—but I can't really remember how I articulated it, just kind of like household and mundane things are truly what inspired this album. Having to find peace with all you can do really is go on a walk and look forward to what you're going to cook. So that's kind of why I got obsessed with herbs and stuff, because I wanted to discover new things to cook and I kind of just kept myself afloat by planning out like, okay, for breakfast tomorrow—I literally wrote in my notes. I'd be like, I'm gonna make this for breakfast, I was gonna go to the market and get this for lunch, kind of go wander around this area. It was all just very simple, mundane things. I feel like that really inspired the album, how to make the mundane beautiful and interesting.
Joe Gutierrez: What compels you to make art?
Dominique: It's honestly the only thing that makes me feel connected to this universe. It's kind of the only thing that makes me actually happy. School is pretty hard for me because I was never interested in any of the subject matter. I always thought there was something wrong with me, but I mean, I definitely have more appreciation for learning about new things nowadays that aren't necessarily like writing music., but when it comes down to it at the end of the day, I can't picture doing a job I don't really like. Music and art is very emotional for me like it's not for anything else.
I guess LA does kind of affect me in a negative way. I feel like in my heart of hearts, I'm not making music to get famous or for other people to, I don't know, it just feels like I get very caught up in the limelights and the weird rules again. So it's funny, because that's kind of what the album was like fighting against a bit. It feels bad to make music after a while, sometimes when I'm in LA for too long, I feel like I'm making it for other people to like, instead of for me to like, and I was like, stop. I'm like, stop. I get embarrassed. When I start singing a song as though someone's watching me. I'm like, oh my God, that was really dumb. No one would like that. Then I'm like, wait, no, did I like it? Like, think about it. So that's kind of something that LA sort of makes me feel. I need to [make music] for my emotional well being. It fulfills me and makes me feel a purpose in this world, and makes me feel connected. I really love having community and connection with other people.
Joe Gutierrez: What do you seek out in the work of others and what inspires you when you hear something or when you see something outside of you?
Dominique: I love people that improvise. I love something kind of extreme and grandiose, but it also has to have this—when I hear a vocalist that sings in a way I don't usually hear. I feel like I'm very picky with the music I like, which I used to feel bad about. Now I'm just like, you know what, I'm just gonna listen to the things I like. I mean, I applaud all of you because it's so hard to make music. I feel like what really strikes me is something has to be very unique, sort of alien. I really like when it's kind of otherworldly. There's a song a friend showed me called “Through Your Blue Veil” by Jeritree, do you know that? Oh, you should put that one at the top of the list out of all the things I've told you. It's an only on YouTube song, like one album this person released. It's a pretty heartbreaking song. Her voice is unlike anything I've ever heard. They have to have some odd, unique sound.
I honestly like pop songs that are a classic rhythm. I don't know, I love ‘90s music, like that song "As I Lay Me Down" by Sophie B. Hawkins, do you know that one? It was very popular in the nineties, it's mostly voice though. That's kind of what gets me, if someone has an interesting voice. I'm like, oh, I'll stop what I'm doing be like, oh, who's this? Or just things that don't make sense. I like when people just don't make sense, just sort of rambling. The lyrics are very just like, what are they talking about? That's what I really like about Robert Ashley and even Laurie Anderson, too. I never understand a lot of her songs. What the hell is she talking about? I love that though. It means something to her, or maybe not. I don't know. Yeah, I like when there's sort of a mystery and confusion.