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Sylvaine is a multi-instrumental act, headed by a woman who produces and record (almost) everything. This is result of a lot of fight and determination, Sylvaine back to Groundcast to talk about her second recording, more mature and more dark. Read this beautiful interview with one of the most sympathetic and kind person that we’ve had the honour to interview.
I’m so grateful to do this second interview with you, dear Sylvaine. I see your work improved too much since “Silent Chamber Noisy Heart”. It’s more hearty and beautiful and when I finally listened to it. And, I need to start this interview asking you about the things you did since our last interview almost two years ago. I imagine you have been busy during all this time.
– Hello again and thank you ever so much for bringing me back to speak about my new album to the readers of Groundcast! A lot of stuff has indeed happened since the last time we spoke together. I didn’t really stop working on Sylvaine since I started writing my first album, “Silent Chamber, Noisy Heart” back in 2013, so of consequence; a lot of things have been happening behind the scenes. Before I had even released the first album, I went back in the studio to start the recording of “Wistful”. Half of the songs were written shortly after I finished the composition process for the first album, as I still felt very inspired. In early 2015 I finished the compositional part of “Wistful” and shortly after recorded the last half of the record in Drudenhaus Studios in France. During this time I also started rehearsing with my new live band, which was a great experience. As the mixing of “Wistful” progressed, I started to get in touch with labels to see if anyone would be inclined to released the record, something that lead me to sign a deal with Season of Mist. This deal has opened doors for Sylvaine, something I’m very thankful for! Other than this, there are constantly a lot of smaller things going on; right now I’m doing promotion for “Wistful” and writing music for the third album.
And I want to ask you about the production of this new album. Could you tell us something?
– The compositional process of “Wistful” was way shorter than on my first album. All the songs were made in a matter of 6 months- 1 year, meaning they all relate to one another in a more natural way and make for a more consistent album. For the recording, I had the great pleasure of entering Drudenhaus Studios to record half of “Wistful” this time, as I only had the chance to use my university’s studio to record the first half of the record on my own. It was a very good experience though, to work with an engineer as talented as Benoît Roux, so I have the feeling I might try to head back there for the third opus! For the mixing and mastering of “Wistful”, I used the same team as last time, consisting of Nick Terry and Ray Staff at Air Mastering. “Wistful” features a more atmospheric sound, yet it seems to hold a more organic touch than the first record. The production process of this album was more evident in a way, due to the fact that I had more experience when the process commenced, which made everything more enjoyable.
“Wistful” was launched on vinyl formats. Why did you decide for this format?
– To be honest, it was Season of Mist that suggested to release the album on vinyl in addition to digitally, CD and digipack. I was very happy to learn they wanted to do so, as I really love the vinyl format! It not only gives you the characteristic, warm and alive sound of the music, but you also get a beautiful piece of visual art. The soul the vinyl format holds is hard to beat. Even though it has it’s flaws, I think it’s one of the best ways to enjoy music.
How do you describe the album’s genre? I notice more post-rockish melodies, reminding me bands as Explosions in the Sky, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Russian Circles and less metal sounds / shoegazing sounds.
– Wow, thanks for comparisons with such amazing bands! I adore the whole shoegaze scene, as well as the more modern post-rock/post-metal scenes, so it naturally inspired me for my music as well. I wanted to make the difference between the serene and brutal even bigger on this album, meaning the expression turned out more atmospheric than on “Silent Chamber, Noisy Heart”. I really wanted the ethereal and ambient vibe to be more present on this album, but at the same time keep the natural aggression that came out when I was writing some of the tracks, which also gives the music a darker and harsher side than before. I’m really not a big fan of genre tags, as I feel they are created mostly for the purpose of selling music to the masses more than actually serving the music, so I usually let other people decide what they want to label my music. I’ve heard a lot of different labels put on my music; atmospheric post- rock, blackgaze, doomgaze, post-metal, shoegaze, spleen metal, atmospheric post- black metal, alternative rock, post- rock etc. I’ll let you decide!
About the lyrics, where did you find your inspiration? Because they say me things about a deep sadness (and yes, sometimes I feel something similar), but it is a mix between some ethereal tunes with a dark and gloomy sensation of despair. Half Dead Can Dance, half Shape of Despair.
– Yeah, I must admit that when I heard “Wistful” finished for the first time (after all the demos were recorded, before I went in the studio), I was a bit surprised of just how dark this album turned out, haha… I guess it reflects the issues I was dealing with during 2014/2015, facing a lot of new things that made the sensation of alienation rise to higher levels within me than ever before. Being put in a foreign place, without friends family and everything that is known, you are left to focus on the introvert aspects of yourself, which means you will face your emotions, your fears and values in a more extreme way I suppose. As Sylvaine is such a personal project to me, all the subjects that come out thru it’s music are issues and ideas that reside within me, that I fail to express in other ways. The duality between happiness and melancholy, the outside world versus my inner world, as well as the duality between nature and urbanity, are a few of my inspirational sources when writing for Sylvaine. For “Wistful”, I wrote mostly about the idea of our soul not belonging to this planet, but that it’s only placed here for a certain amount of time, inside a “car”, which takes shape as our human bodies. This new vessel restricts the soul, causing the connection between our human world and the spiritual world to be more or less broken. This makes for a feeling of being trapped, of being restrained; the feeling of not belonging to this place. It also causes a primal longing for something, without our human mind understanding exactly what or where we are longing for. You could also say it would be the idea of belonging to a different time perhaps. I wrote about this on “Silent Chamber, Noisy Heart” as well, but on “Wistful” it really was the driving force of all the emotions behind the album.
Stéphane ”Neige” Paut recorded some drum parts on this album. Could you tell us about this guest appearance, and the others, as Stephen Shepard, Corlie Louarnika and Thibault Guichard.
– After all the songs and parts were written out for the album, I was lucky enough to get in touch with such great musicians to do session work on “Wistful”. I had written all the parts myself, but know my limits as a musician and therefore decided it would be for the better to bring in a few other people to make the songs sound as good as they possibly could. My father, Stephen Shepard, did most of the drums on my first album, so it was natural for him to lay down a few drum tracks for the second one too. As the second recording session happened in France and Neige had mentioned he would be interested in playing drums on a few on my songs, it made sense for him to join me in Drudenhaus studios to finish the album. I really like his style of drumming and his attentiveness as a drummer, so we both felt it could fit really well with the music on “Wistful”. We tried it out and both agreed it sounded amazing! For the title track “Wistful”, I was lucky enough to get in touch with both Coralie and Thibault thru common friends, to do the violin, viola and cello tracks. Coralie has been playing in different bands for many years, amongst others Bran Barr, Kroazhent and Mind Asylum, while Thibault more recently got into playing the cello. They both did a wonderful job on the title track of the album. I’m very thankful that all of them showed such enthusiasm for participating on “Wistful”!
You tried some harsh vocals on In the Wake of Moments Passed By and Earthbound. Curiously, the most metal tracks of this work. Why did you decide to record these vocals?
– Some of the emotions on this album just weren’t expressible thru normal clean singing. I didn’t feel that my clean voice could show the amount of frustration and anxiety that lies behind the meaning of these two songs, so I felt the screaming vocals were a good choice, as they tend to express the extremes in the emotional range in a better way.
Excuse me for this comment, personally I liked pretty much these vocals, because I think you have a so much beautiful voice and you work it harder on the other tracks that, for me, these two songs are just OK, good tracks but the other ones are better. How as the reaction to these harsh vocals? Do the people like them?
– Absolutely no problem for that! Different songs speak to different people for specific reasons, so you have nothing to worry about for not connecting to these two tracks as much as the rest. In general, I’ve had very good feedback on the use of the screaming voice and also on the quality of it. People seem to really like it and feel what I’m trying to say by using them. It isn’t because of anger or aggression mainly, or to make the songs sound metal, I just felt it was the best way to express the strong sensations these songs hold. The screaming voice is so primal and strong in it’s expression, it’s really a different sensation than the clean voice. Performing them to brings out a whole new level of emotions, at last for me personally. On a funnier note, I also have had a lot of questions about who is doing the screaming voice on my songs, as people don’t seem to believe it is me doing them myself. A lot of people asked me if it was Neige from Alcest, haha…. I take this as a great compliment, as I think he has one of the best screaming voices I ever heard!
I read one review comparing you to Myrkur. What do you think about her?
– I have to be honest with you here and say that I really don’t care for what she does. I’m not really sure what the intention of this project is. It seems too much like a gimmick to me, but hey; I might be completely wrong! I’m not a huge fan of the comparison between us either, as our music pretty much has nothing to do with one another. The fact that we’re both blonde, have tits and come from the Nordic region is not really enough to label us as the same sort of project in my opinion. I do however see how both projects could appeal to some of the same people.
About Myrkur, in recent times some idiot black metal kids threatened her because she is a model (if you don’t know, read it: http://noisey.vice.com/blog/myrkur-facebook-threats). What is your opinion about the sexism in the metal scene?
– The music business in general is completely dominated by men and that is nothing new. They way to deal with women in the music business, including the metal scene however, should be updated a bit perhaps, to fit the more modern society we live in. I always found it very curious how gender should say anything about you as an artist. It really doesn’t enter into it at all. I think any girl or woman in the music scene has felt some sort of prejudice, judgment or heard condescending remarks at some point during their career. Personally, I experienced a whole lot of different weird, judgmental and condescending situations since I started to get seriously into music at age 14, ranging from people thinking I’m a blonde bimbo and treating me accordingly, to people trying to teach me how to do my job/how to play my music, to people telling me that it’s not possible for a girl to know anything about what I’m doing, to people “dumbing down” their conversations about musical stuff, as they expect me not to know anything about anything and so on. Those are classics and something I have experienced several times. As a girl in such a harsh business as the music business, you just have to accept that there will be stupid people out there that will judge you based on your gender instead of your skills as a musician. I can say that I tend to use this type of behavior as fuel, to prove people wrong when they have unrealistic preconceptions of me, and would advise other girls to do the same instead of letting it get to you.
I am astonished with album artwork. Who is the artist? What does it mean? I loved the t-shirt art too, reminds me some tarot cards illustrations.
– Very glad to hear you like them! I absolutely adore the job Sylfvr did for the cover of “Wistful”! He is a young, talented French artist from Bordeaux, which works with a mix of photography and digital art. The image was created specifically for this cover, and I truly feel he captured the meaning of the album, as well as the overall atmosphere of it, in this image. I wanted to create a character that was vaguely human, yet had an otherworldly and enigmatic vibe, as well as keeping the connection with nature strong. Maybe what I would see as a visual representation of the song “Saudade” on the album. He seemed to understand this and what I was trying to say with my music from the beginning, so I am very thankful that he wanted to make this cover for the album. That’s a good point regarding the t-shirts designs! They do look a bit like tarot card design. They were made by the glorious Førtifem from France (the girl in the tree) and the other one by the great Error! Design from Spain (the twin sisters). I’m super happy with these as well! I was lucky enough to work with a whole bunch of hugely talented people for this record!
One of the songs has a title in Portuguese (Saudade). Why did you decided to put it? Can you speak anything in Portuguese?
– Oh no, I definitely can’t speak any Portuguese unfortunately, haha… The meaning of this word “Saudade” perfectly reflected the meaning of this song, so when I found it one day, searching thru different words for the title of the song, I decided it would be the right match. The song speaks about a profound yearning for a place far away form here. A profound longing to go back home in a spiritual sense, to a place we can’t reach in our human form. It comes from a deep feeling of not belonging to this world and always carrying this sense of missing something inside of you, without necessarily knowing what you are missing. The lyrics for “Saudade” are very simple and short, yet one of my favourites on “Wistful”. They summarize one of the main reasons I created Sylvaine to begin with. As for the music, I love how it sounds like a minimalistic, dark-wave funeral march. I’m always referring to it as “the dirge”, as my fathers constant march drumming together with the quite sombre expression of the music, really makes it sound like a tune of mourning.
Any plans to a future gig? I hope I can see you here in Brazil one day and watch a show.
– I would love to come back to Brazil and play for my fans there! I truly hope this will happen some day in not too long, as I miss the audience in South America. It’s one of the best crowds in the world if you ask me. Right now, the only certain plans are to do a few shows during the summer. After this, we are working on booking some dates for autumn/winter this year and then doing full tours from next year. I think I can speak on behalf of everyone in the live division of Sylvaine and say that we truly can’t wait to get out on the road to play for everyone! It will be the greatest pleasure for all of us!
And are you listening to something new or different?
– I’ve been listening to a lot of post-rock and grunge bands these days, such as Explosions In The Sky, Mono, Nirvana, Smashing Pumpkins, Dinosaur Jr, as well as my classic favorites, such as Slowdive, Type O Negative and The Chameleons. I’m also going to a concert soon with the wonderful Julianna Barwick, which is a young lady from the US that makes the most beautiful and ethereal music you will ever hear. For me, it really brings this connection to another time and place, making your mind float off and away from this place. I will also go to see Explosions In The Sky play soon, which I have the feeling will be an incredible experience!
For it is always an enormous pleasure to interview you, Ms Sylvaine. For now, let’s a message to our readers.
– The pleasure is all mine, really. Thank you so much for this interview and to everyone who took the time to read it! I hope you enjoyed it and know that I truly can’t wait for the moment when we’ll come back to Brazil and play for you all again. Until then; take care and enjoy!
Related Links
http://www.season-of-mist.com/bands/search?search[band]=Sylvaine&commit=OK
https://www.facebook.com/sylvainemusic
https://sylvainemusic.bandcamp.com
Photographies
Anais Novembre: http://www.anaisnovembre.com/
Andy Julia: http://www.andyjulia.com/