by Giliann Karon (@gilposting)
Samira Winter feels most at home when she’s in transit. After a decade in Los Angeles, where she established roots in the indie rock community, her touring schedule snowballed into a perpetual state of motion. Adult Romantix, her fifth album as Winter and first on new label home Winspear, searches for stability between coasts and sublets.
She bids a pure-hearted goodbye to her Echo Park house, which hosted countless DIY shows and practice sessions on “In My Basement Room,” a track she calls the thesis of Adult Romantix. Anchored by dreamy guitar and 90s nostalgia, she establishes her room as the site of boundless creativity and personal lore against a backdrop of LA’s cosmic terrain.
Winter’s nomadic lifestyle ended in New York City earlier this year, where we spoke over Zoom about comfort in collaboration, the instinct when an album is finished, and the symbiosis of New York’s music scene.
Winter by Sophie Hur
GILIANN KARON: You wrote your album during an extended move from LA to New York. Tell me a little bit about this transitory state and when did you realize that this is how it's gonna be for the foreseeable future?
WINTER: After I finished What Kind of Blue Are You?, I did this songwriting course with Phil Elverum and wrote "In My Basement Room," which was the beginning of the Adult Romantix cycle of going back into a memory and writing about it. To me, that song is the thesis track of the album.
People don't know it yet 'cause it ended up not making it for one of the singles, but "In My Basement Room" is all about having this room in this house I lived for so long and would throw shows at, and would write songs and would have Winter practices.
That following year, I was touring a lot, and it didn't make sense for me to have an apartment. For 2023 and 2024, I was in that transitory space, writing songs in different cities, sometimes with different people, and letting myself be inspired by these different environments. That period is done. I moved to New York, but it's cool how it was the background of my life as I was writing this album.
GK: What did you discover about your creative process and the kind of environment that you write best in when so much of your surroundings were out of your control?
W: Being around friends, collaborators, and people I admire and whose music I love is very inspiring to me. This is the first album where I allowed myself to meet up with people and write songs together. I got to write a song with Sam [Acchione] from Alex G, Dimitri [Giannopoulos] from Horse Jumper of Love. Tanukichan is on one of the tracks.
I'm ultimately such a fan of music and other musicians. Being on tour with bands that I love – Beach Fossils, The Marias – listening to that music every night and then coming back home. It's just on some level in your subconscious. Being so surrounded by music by people that I really connect with is what ended up fueling me.
GK: When you started writing for this album, did you set out to make an album or is it a collection of songs from the same period of time?
W: Maybe when I started Winter back in 2012, I wasn't so adamant about it. When I finish an album, I start writing and I would never put out songs that didn't feel like they were an album.
I started playing guitar and writing songs when I was 12, and so I'm very much a songwriter at heart. To me it's very important to keep writing all the time and then choosing the best songs, or songs that, to me, have some sort of linkage. That was the process. I can't remember if I set out to make a record, but Winter is such an extension of me. It's such a big part of my life, and so I'm always like, what's next?
GK: How do you decide when a record is finished?
W: It's a feeling. I write and record along a period of a couple years and there's just a moment in the recording process. My friend who records me and helps with the production. At some point, we were like, "okay, I think we got the A sides." Then, I started writing more B side songs for the album. We finished the B sides around the end of last year. I think the end of the year is a time to evaluate what you've been working on and wrap it up, so it just felt right.
GK: How do you decide what's an A side and what's a B side?
W: For this album, I went very traditional in the definition of A side and B side. A side is the bangers. And B side is a little bit sleepier, more, internal worlds, just not heavy hitters. I love both sides.
I ended up making the track listing inspired by the A side B side concept. I think at heart, I'm a B girl, but it was really awesome to be like, "let's write some indie bangers." That was definitely part of the journey.
GK: Are there any songs from the record that you associate with specific cities or periods of time?
W: I'd say, "Hi, Bye.” The song that features Tanukichan and is very New York to me. I wrote it during a sublet in Bedstuy, and I was reading Mary Shelly's Frankenstein. "Like Lovers Do," "Without You," “In My Basement Room, "The Beach," and "Just Like a Flower" are all very LA.
I'd say "Misery" is both coasts and “Running,” even though I wrote it in LA, I wrote it with my friend from Philly, so I definitely think that one's also both coasts.
GK: How do you think your new environment has changed the music you listen to?
W: I think that New York opens you up. I'd say it's more of a variety of genres I'm getting to see. I get to be more in touch with dance, performance art, experimental music, R&B.
I will forever be an indie girl shoegazer at heart. I am a guitar girl, that is my soul. But I'd say New York has opened me up to way more types of art. I've also been listening more to the news and audio books.
In LA, I would just go out to indie shows. Here I'm still getting to know people. I'm still getting to know the music scene, so it's still very new to me.
GK: After years of travel, what feels like home?
W: I grew up moving around. My mom is Brazilian, my dad's American. When I was a kid, I moved around every couple years.
I think home is this multiplicity of places. I'm not a hometown girl. I stayed in LA for so long, but I was always coming and going, so home to me is this transitory state of being in motion, getting to experience different cities. That is my favorite.
GK: What was the most difficult song to write?
W: I just set out to write a lot of songs. It takes off the pressure. I'm always demoing songs. For this album, I was trying to make 50 demos. I'm someone who's very guided by pleasure. Making art doesn't have to be a hard thing. When I'm writing, I trick myself into believing that I'm never going to show these songs to anyone, so I actually get to have a good time and have it be a place where I can express myself, be an outlet for emotions, for experiences.
But I think the difficult part is probably actually finishing the album. That's a lot of work, making sure you're communicating your vision to people you collaborate with. It's the mixing, the mastering, the decisions of what the art's gonna be.
GK: What was your favorite instrument or effect that you used on the album?
W: That's a good question. In my demos, I was experimenting with pitch shifting to a guy voice, a lower voice. I feel like it's so common now -- guys pitch shifting to a more feminine voice. I was experimenting with pitch shifting with a lower voice and that was my favorite thing in the studio, slowing down the tape and finding this kind of androgynous voice.
If you're listening to the record, it's very subtle. It's not a plugin, so it is not crazy obvious, but “Misery” and “The Beach” are both songs that have that pitched down voice. I just thought it was fun. It's cool to have found this new vocal sound.
GK: Something that I really took away from your album was this sense of intuition and knowing oneself. It seems like a reflection of what those two years looked like.
W: You know what? It is, too. When you have to pack up and say goodbye to a place that you love, memories come to you. Present moment, the past, the future, the imagination, the hidden corners of your mind. Every album to me ends up being a time capsule.
This one is a reflection of the last LA summers I lived in my twenties. The people and friendships that were very formative for me and being like, "okay, I'm packing away. I am leaving, and it's a goodbye love letter to LA and how it transformed me."
GK: What do you miss most about LA?
W: This sounds so cheesy, but the sun. I just love the nature. It's really beautiful. I'd say the natural beauty is my definite answer. Obviously I really miss my friends and my collaborators, but waking up every day, seeing the sun, seeing so many flowers, just breathing the air. To me it just feels glistening. It's very cosmic there. There is something different in the sun. The nature is really beautiful.
GK: That's definitely something you don't get here in New York, but on the flip side, you get to feed off all the energy from everyone because it's so densely packed and always buzzing.
W: Here, it gives you a strength. Being connected to the collective being, it's cool to be around people that are really different from you and you're in this flow with the city. It's very energizing.
Follow Winter on Instagram
Adult Romantix is out now on Winspear