by Aly Eleanor (@purityolympics)
Thanya Iyer listens closely. During a conversation earlier this year, the Montréal singer-songwriter describes the stillness she discovered while creating TIDE/TIED, her third record. The lightning-quick shift of early 2020 gave Iyer time to reflect and recognize how harmful life’s noise pollution and constant strain had become. Through disconnect came intentional healing. Self-discovery turned inside out has been a constant in her music; the things she unlocks are refracted through tender songs, buoyed by flourishing arrangements and constant collaboration.
Despite the heaviness and uncertainty explored in her music, curiosity and play are Iyer’s key creative tenets. Her willingness to let questions linger, constantly pursue communal joy, and embrace her own ambition fuels TIDE/TIED’s momentum.
Thanya Iyer by Monse Muro
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Aly Eleanor: Was there a clear time when you latched onto music as a kid? What caught your ears?
Thanya Iyer: Music felt like something I had to choose. It didn't come easily. Despite typical [societal] discouragement from pursuing the arts, my parents were supportive and put me in piano lessons. I remember a couple of years after stopping, I was thinking, “Why don't I play piano? Can we do lessons again?” It was nice to choose it again and go back. The piano was such a huge influence growing up, hearing and learning songs—to have keys I can press and have sounds come out! (laughs) It's so simple. I would learn songs and play them for hours.
AE: Do you have a favorite song you remember playing over and over again?
TI: “Mad World,” which is very depressive. (laughs) The Donnie Darko version. I can still see the sheet music. And of course, the entire Lord of the Rings soundtrack.
AE: We share a love of that. What were the first artistic and musical communities you were involved with?
TI: I had five friends, one of them being my sibling. We would do all sorts of art together, like dance class, or when a violinist from India would come into town, we would take lessons. We started a musical fusion project and presented some original work to the community, who probably liked it. It was always such a fun space for play. Like, “Let's choreograph a number to this Bollywood song!” I don't wanna say I took it for granted, because I had so much fun doing it, but it was so normal that we would get together and do art. It's such a privilege to have friends who you can do that with growing up. That community was always a huge part of art-making.
I re-engaged in school when I decided to do music again. I did music and science, obviously to appease, you know? I loved science, but I was excited to do music and met so many amazing friends. We learned how to write songs together and started playing shows around town when we were 18. We would say to each other: “How do you play a show? Let's figure it out!” I remember having to ask someone. People are nice! They teach you how and then you never stop.
AE: The snowball keeps rolling. What’s the relationship between your spirituality and your art? When these things are part of a artist's life, they tend to bleed into each other.
TI: For me, music really feels like nature, like the presence you can feel in nature when you listen to the sounds of the wind and leaves and birds. Sometimes writing a song or improvising or playing feels so connective in terms of spirituality, it feels like I’m truly present and letting something happen without acceptance, almost like I'm not trying to control what’s coming out. It's just happening and that's such a special thing that we get to do, to share and look inward. It's a gift to be able to take that time.
I went to India with my mom earlier this year and she liked going to a lot of temples. It's not fully my jam. I was in awe of the devotion, of what felt like borderline struggle. Massive crowds wait in line for hours to get into a temple to see a statue of a god for seconds before security rushes them out. I didn't get it. Then all of a sudden, when I was pushed to the front of the line by the crowd, I felt such collective effervescence. Being with a bunch of people and experiencing something together…I started to get it, 'cause it’s the same as how shows feel for me! My spiritual experience is seeing a band that I really like and being there with the whole audience. The way it brings people together is beautiful and magical.
AE: Over the past 10 years, what underlying connections have you seen between creative seasons and sharing your art? Is there a path you can trace?
TI: The throughline is in learning about myself, about the people around me, about my past and our communal healing. Through the music itself, through learning how to make a space that feels good for me and my collaborators, learning about each other, what we like musically and how we can realize it…I had to really feel things the hard way to get this. That’s where a lot of the songs came from.
AE: When did TIDE/TIED start to take shape? When did it feel like you discovered the musical and visual language of the record? Was it decisive or revelatory?
TI: We played some of the songs on tour in 2019, so they were written before that. The bulk of the songs got finished in 2020, in the first couple months of the pandemic. The vision started taking shape—the story and throughline of all the songs felt clear, and just like that, the title was there. There was a very tough, special two month period where I was writing a lot and feeling lots of dissonance in myself and with the world and how things were going. Now I would say it's not even dissonance, it's just bad (laughs). We meet such great people everywhere we go, so there has to be good too, you know? I keep trying to remember that.
There was so much space when the songs were being written that I felt like I really got to discover my own voice more. I was having so much fun, recording five violins and some violas on demos and practicing, recording, mixing, and learning. It was a time of spaciousness that I hadn't had before musically. I’m often pulled towards other things, so music was something that I fit in between the cracks, which is why a lot of the songs on KIND had only a couple or maybe one verse. We would jam out ideas in the band. My personal process deepened with TIDE/TIED. I would know where I wanted to have a choir, to have the string parts, and so on.
AE: What has it been like playing with so many of the same collaborators over the years, on record and on tour? How did the core band grow through the making of this record?
The band has always been such a collaborative place, especially with Pompey (multi-instrumentalist) and Daniel (Gélinas, percussion). There is so much trust now that we've been playing together for 12 years, and with Pompey, like 15 years. Our process always changes. We're always trying to find new sounds. It was an adjustment to come to the studio with full arrangements for some songs. Sometimes it's not easy to admit, “Oh, this is my idea.” What if I don't know my idea? But my vision has grown stronger. I'm working on that too, asking, “What is my voice? What does my instinct say?” and leaning into it.
There's so much trust with these collaborators. We've had explicit conversations about it. It's not any [individual vision] because it's our vision collectively. When we put our minds with other people's minds, it's so cool. You don't know what's gonna happen. This time, we focused more on the arrangements. With KIND, we had like five takes of each song to choose from. But with TIDE/TIED, we worked together to build each instrumental, trusting that there's a vision bigger than any of us. We’re just gonna give the song what it needs.
AE: It's good to name the trust you have in yourself and the people you've been making music with, for minutes or for 20 years. Tell me more about how the arrangements developed.
TI: Some developed live. We like experimenting during shows, so different things come out. It's fun to take fresh songs [on tour] so we can mold them on the road. Some we hadn't even ever played together because I wrote them [during lockdown]. I was doing things remotely for a while, asking Daniel to send drums — Pompey was living with me, so that was nice. Some songs developed that way, but some I produced [solo], recording strings and overdubbing myself as a choir. I brought my friends in later to make everything better and more alive, to fill it with their unique voices. It came from many different places.
We had a two week residency where we recorded all the bed tracks and vocals. But the album wasn’t done. Daniel has access to this church a couple hours out of town from Montréal, which is where we used to record everything. This was our first time in a studio, which was really fun, but it didn't have this “all-of-us-in-the-room” energy. So we spent like 10 days at me and Pompey's apartment, everyone on their laptops, putting a bunch of overdubs on the songs. This was after all the guests played, too. We really just went HAM on it. That was one of my favorite parts of the process, other than recording with friends.
AE: Your lyrics can be very meditational, allowing the spiritual and thematic tones to become apparent and speak directly to the listener. Your arrangements and vocals hold so much warmth, comfort, and beauty. How are the lyrics and musical ideas melded together to become a song?
TI: With a lot of songs that made it onto the album, the lyrics and music happened simultaneously. I'm usually improvising on the piano, then once I find a chord progression that feels really good, it all comes together with a melody and lyrics. I was really anxious and sad when writing, wanting us all to find some peace. There was a lot of pain at the time of writing. Then I was in a place where I was going nonstop, until the pandemic hit. It was so hard to quiet my brain. Once I did, I was like, “Whoa, you're not okay.” (laughs)
There's so much in ourselves that comes out when it's quiet, and it's never quiet, you know? Writing the album was the beginning of a huge inward journey, processing what was going on while also being more aware of myself and my pains and where everything comes from. Why are some things in life not working well? Why am I tired all the time? Is it just because of the way the world is set up or is it also my internal definitions of working hard, of shame…really zoning into all of those things.
AE: There’s questioning in your songs, but without intent to arrive at definite conclusions. It’s constantly changing. Thinking abstractly as both songwriter and therapist, what is the relationship between those distinct aspects of your musical practice?
TI: Both can be creative in different ways. In music therapy, I love doing songwriting, recording, and production with groups of youths. It's so special to be able to pass on some of the musical tools I’ve used throughout my life. It’s very healing when I can process things and bring that understanding to other people. We practice making decisions through songwriting, organizing our thoughts, and expressing ourselves across the entire spectrum of emotions. It’s such a special thing to share with other people. Doing music therapy and zoning into it has really helped me. As a therapist, you're always asked to ground yourself in a value system, in the way you work and how you want to work with people. And it felt really similar to how I want to be as a musician and what I want to share through my music and shows. There's a lot of connections between them and I'm grateful that I'm was able to do both, discovering more of this part of myself that was always there but never had space to let loose, you know?
AE: What does your creative community look like on a day-to-day basis? It's one thing if you're going on tour, but when you have the freedom of being at home, what do you pour yourself into creatively when there isn't pressure to make a record or play a show?
TI: Most of my friends are so musical, great artists and songwriters. Watering those friendships is so nourishing and feels really good 'cause everyone is going through different things in different places with their art. There was an awesome community space that closed down during the pandemic that was musician-run—it had so many shows and just was a place you went. It was like the Friends cafe. It's been interesting to try to find that spirit in different places, different spaces. We're all craving that and want to stay connected, have a party, have song shares, and continue to share our learning with each other.
AE: It’s so important to have those spaces and it’s brutal when we lose them, whether due to the pandemic or a lack of funding. That much hasn't really changed. I like ending interviews with the same question: what is something that you love about your own creativity, something you always carry with you?
TI: I love that I dream big. Maybe too big, but I would never say that. I just want my friends to be a part of everything I do. It makes me so happy. We filmed a live session with 20 people then all shared food our friend made, everything was vegan, with a chocolate cake…that's the dream. I just want to have parties where we can all hang out, get paid and eat good food and swim in a lake. That video hasn't come out yet, but it will. I like that part of creativity and my desire to make it full.
AE: Ambition isn't a bad word. You're dreaming big for the communities you want to bring together. If we could all spend time making music and sharing food and gifts with each other, with or without a lake, it would hopefully be easier to maintain that ethos every day.