by Joseph Mastel
Last year, claire rousay released the highly acclaimed emo ambient pop record, sentiment, which was the first record of hers that I came across. I instantly became a fan due to the fascinating use of Auto-Tone, the beautifully chaotic soundscapes, diaristic songwriting, and hauntingly sad atmosphere that perfectly captures the feeling of loneliness. I had songs like “head” and “lover's spit plays in the background” on repeat for quite some time. From there, I continued to explore her music, finding her discography increasingly interesting the further I went along, especially her more experimental and musique concrète stuff. Her highly original and outside-the-box way of creating music, whether it be her solo material or collaborative work, was incredibly intriguing, ultimately leading me to seek out more avant-garde and experimental music. Getting the chance to interview rousay about her new album, a little death, was incredibly exciting!
claire rousay by Katherine Squier
This interview has been edited and shortened for length and clarity.
Joseph Mastel: a little death is intended to be a trilogy with a heavenly touch and a softer focus. What led you to want to do a trilogy?
claire rousay: The trilogy aspect is—maybe not unintentional—but I realized afterwards that this record was the third record I’ve made in a specific way. The methods I used to make the music was specific, but also the routines and approaches to the content on the record, as in the work and the way I have been working around assembling the sounds for each record.
I very much saw a softer focus as an extension of a heavenly touch. In 2021, I saw that connection. I had made a bunch of work that felt kind of similar, but nothing that wasn’t like this concrète feeling that there was a connection. As I was finishing this up—and I have been working on it forever—I was like, ‘Oh, I’m just doing the same thing that I was doing just in a slightly more elevated kind of sense.’ A little bit more built out, a little bit more experience, and I was like, ‘Oh, it is a trilogy. It’s not just these two parts that are related.' It was decided upon after the fact.
JM: Your last solo record, sentiment, was more pop-focused. This one is more straightforward experimental or musique concrète. What do you enjoy the most about doing the two?
cr: I like artists that don’t try to do the same thing over and over. It's kind of funny saying that after talking about using the same processes three times in a row (laughs). But I’ve always really been drawn to artists who work consistently, but the output is always changing. I’m also a really big fan of artists who jump around labels or who have a lot of different collaborators, so I think a lot of the different kinds of musical elements across the records are largely influenced by collaborators and the music I am interested in at the time. I had been working on both of those records, the sentiment record and [a little death], at the same time, taking breaks between the two. I really like the ability to be so straightforward with song form material and then the challenge of trying to communicate universal, but not very abstract ideas. I know what I am trying to say with even the more abstract sounding work, so it’s a nice challenge as opposed to being pretty straight up with singing lyrics.
JM: What interested you in making a lot of music with field recordings and the utilization of Auto-tune? Why did you want that to be a big part of pretty much all your work?
cr: I started using the Auto-tune when I started working with Mari [Maurice, also known as more eaze] on our earliest collaborations. It was just like a fun tool that was as accessible to ‘nobody’ musicians. I didn’t realize until working with her that Auto-tune wasn’t just something reserved for music on the radio or pop music that was at this insane level. It was cool to be able to do that.
I have always been into field recordings. Everything happening in Europe in the mid twentieth century, with tape music and all of the sound collage and abstracting sounds from outside the studio and bringing them into the studio. I am like a huge Luc Ferrari fan. That was a huge influence on me. But again, not having access to a huge tape music studio and also obviously being removed from the twentieth century almost completely. It was another thing that I didn’t realize you could do on an iPhone. A lot of the same concepts are kind of applicable, just using different technology. I am also just into so many people drawing from different areas, so the idea of taking recordings from so many different places and situations and then putting them into one piece of music was always really appealing.
JM: The first two songs are “i couldn’t find the light” and “conditional love.” When I first listened to them they reminded me a bit of your The Bloody Lady score because it has a bit more of an uneasy, eerie, horror-esque quality. What led you to go in that musical direction?
cr: There is a collection of recordings I have been working on that were all pretty uneasy and didn’t really have a discernable tonal center and for a lack of a better word “spooky” vibe (laughs). I never really felt I wanted to do a whole record like that. I was playing a lot of music with my friend Martyna Basa. She has a lot of the very eerie, metallic music. It’s uneasy all the time, but it is still really emotional. I think that I was really interested in that. We had a bunch of music that we made together, and I kind of took inspiration from our collaboration and brought it into the project, but I didn’t want the whole record to be like that, which is why it shifts pretty abruptly after the first two tracks to these huge, like A minor and C major type of pieces.
JM: “just” features m. sage. Is that the only collaboration on the record? Are other people featured or collaborate with you on the record?
cr: Everybody who played on the record definitely brought their own ideas and parts to the table. It was more like me rearranging and stitching stuff in an abnormal way, or different to their processes of sending the stuff. With Matt [Sage], he sent stems to collaborate on something, and I was like, ‘Oh my god, this is so perfect the way that it is.’ It really felt like an even collaboration as opposed to the other things of being smaller pieces of these larger chunks of music, and I really didn’t want to change much of what he sent over. It felt like more of a straight-up collaboration, and I really wanted to recognize that as opposed to asking people to play certain parts.
JM: You mentioned previously that after the first two songs there is an abrupt change sonically. “just” has a bit of a warm brightness and peaceful aspect to it. What were you imagining or picturing when recording that song?
cr: I have been making all the pieces on the record for quite a long time, and a lot at the same time. That track didn’t really have such a warm or filled-out quality until Matt collaborated with me on it. It just felt like the pacing was slower instead of having these pretty not abrupt but discernable sections. There was a field recording on it that I took out and ended up using on a different track that had the sound of birds on it. I am not usually very keen on bird or nature recordings in my music. Matt loves that kind of stuff. I always associate his music with the elements or the environments that are outside. I was like kind of drawing from his way of working and the things he was bringing in, as well as that recording that was initially in there and decided not to include. It is kind of everything in a more tonal state, but then, like the more chaotic outdoor environments were removed from it.
JM: The song “somewhat burdensome” contains a very long voice memo in the outro. What led you to incorporate that?
cr: I played a show in Prague on the tour for the sentiment record. I was doing this thing that I do sometimes, where I go into the audience and record little monologues and have people answer questions on the microphone. I would do it on my phone and airdrop it. I was going around, but I didn’t get to that part of the crowd. After the show, they asked if I was still doing questions, and we were outside in the more common area of the patio. I was like ‘Sure, I can do a question, not really thinking too much of it. It was quite long and pretty moving and obviously very direct (laughs) and involves me a lot, which is not always how those types of question-answer things go in the shows. It felt really special, and I didn’t want to use it for a recording because it felt pretty invasive. I tried to track the person down. Eventually, I found them and asked permission to credit them to add it to the record. They were really gracious and said it could happen. But it’s a true story and told from a perspective that is very different than mine.
JM: You said Prague is where the concert was?
cr: Yeah. It was in the middle of a European tour. It was also my birthday I think that day. It was a crazy combination of feelings.
JM: The acoustic guitar in “night one” has an almost countryesque vibe. I remember when I was talking to mari earlier this year she mentioned you both have country backgrounds. Was that song playing into that?
cr: The guitar part is part of a longer recording I made on my phone. I was like practicing something and was like, ‘Oh, that’s a good idea for some sort of guitar part that can be added to something.’ There was a part at the beginning where I am like in my house, talking, and my dog is running around, and I am like cooking dinner or something. However, there is like a minute in the middle where I am playing guitar. It is in time, more or less. It felt like it's one standalone piece of music and a statement that could stand on its own, and I tried to replicate it, but the guitar was out of tune, and I had put a capo on it, and it had been in an open tuning. And I couldn’t figure it out for the longest time, and I was like, ‘I would rerecord that if I could get everything exactly how it sounded.’ I could never get it to feel the same as that one recording so I was like ‘I’ll just cut it up and put it in there and then I ran it through a whole bunch of pedals and effects and created this stereo rerecording or re-amping of the guitar part. It was probably in the middle of mari and I making that no floor record. I think about a lot of things I do when I’m collaborating with other people. They come out in a new way when I’m considering that and going back to how I was interacting with a collaborator, but on my own. So you’re missing all the context from the other person’s input is just kind of my interpretation of the situation.
JM: One of my favourite parts of the record is the clean guitar riff playing throughout “somewhat burdensome.” What were the main musical inspirations for that part?
cr: Probably a combination of the second record [The Problem With Me] of the band Seam, and probably me trying to rip off Loren Conners. Probably those two musical influences. But that was another thing, which was part of a really long recording. I am recording and making music all the time. I don’t always know what it's for. When I go back and try to piece things together, I find a commonality in the parts of the music that feel the same or have just a similar feeling going into making it.
JM: Do you have a favourite moment on the record?
cr: Honestly, all of the piano that is on the second half of the record. I really wanted to have an upright piano that was a little bit out of tune. I couldn’t really find anything. I have been touring a lot to play The Bloody Lady stuff as I was finishing up the record. There is a lot of MIDI piano on it that I wanted to redo and replace with a real piano recording, but I never found something that sounded right. My friend Walt McClements has a studio probably ten minutes away from me and was out of town and I was like ‘Can I go to your studio and use that piano really quick?’ He was super generous, and I could spend as much time as I wanted there and basically in a day, I went to that studio and recorded all of the piano parts all across the record, so probably just the piano additions to everything, especially the stuff on “night one” or “somewhat burdensome.” I think the piano parts on there are really fun. I was improvising on piano over entire pieces of the record, kind of going off. Then, going back and playing the parts that I had already written and mixing up both the improvised parts and the things that were originally written for those pieces.
JM: You’ve done The Bloody Lady reimagined score. Is film scoring something you want to get into?
cr: I would love to do more of it or a more official version of it. It’s funny because a lot of my favourite films or bodies of work from certain people, the music never really lines up and I’m like ‘Ah, I would love to contribute music to something that matches my sensibilities or preferences in film.’ I would love to work with somebody who I am like, ‘This is so bleak and has such a desperate feeling, but not have like a Cure song under it.’
JM: What does a little death mean to you personally?
cr: Similar to the other two records, which are part of this unofficial trilogy, it’s a lot of taking the the extreme highs and the extreme lows from my own experiences in life and recontextualizing them within the format of a record and trying to mellow out those really extreme experiences. There is a lot of stuff on this, especially the early ones that are pretty animated recordings. You can kind of tell how much desperation or how much joy is in each of the recordings. As that trilogy has gone on, I have been trying to mellow out some of those highs and lows using more musical material, so a little death is probably just a reflection of the highs and lows in life.