Artist Interviews

Q&A: Bachelorette

By | Published on Wednesday 25 May 2011

Bachelorette

Bachelorette is the one-woman project of New Zealander Annabel Alpers, who now bases herself in New York. Influenced by psychedelic pop bands in her formative years, she studied computer-based composition at post-graduate level, putting her qualifications to good use in making her musical debut with 2005 EP ‘The End Of Things’.

First album ‘Isolation Loops’, the product of the best part of a year spent writing and recording in a beach hut, saw a limited release in Australia and New Zealand in 2006. Having sold her beloved station wagon to fund a US tour, Annabel was spotted at a show in Chicago by Drag City Records, who handled the American release of her next album ‘My Electric Family’ in 2009.

Now up to album number four, an eponymous record that came out last week via Souterrain Transmissions, Bachelorette is taking her live show on the road. Accompanied by a virtual ‘band’ consisting of three CRT monitors which emit recorded instrumental noises and trippy waveform visuals, the next stop on her tour with The Phoenix Foundation will be tonight at Cabaret Voltaire in Edinburgh. With this and a couple of further UK dates planned, including an appearance at London’s Camp Basement on 6 Jun, we approached Annabel with our Same Six Questions.

Q1 How did you start out making music?
We had a lot of musical instruments in the house when I was growing up – piano, guitar, violin, flute, recorders, autoharp, casiotone – I would play around on those a lot and sing. My brother and I would record things onto a tape recorder when we were kids. I guess that was the very beginning. I got a guitar and a Bob Dylan songbook when I was thirteen, and that’s probably the first time I wanted to make an effort to learn an instrument.

I started playing bass at high school, I think because female bass players were the dominant role-models in the music I was into (the Pixies, Sonic Youth, etc). I thought that was a role I could have in bands. I started playing bass in bands in high school and moved onto collecting vintage synthesisers and organs when I was eighteen.

I kept playing in bands – generally psychedelic/noisy outfits – once out of school, and moved onto guitar and keyboards. I tried my hand at studying for a ‘real’ job, but kept just going back to music, recording on my reel-to-reel four-track instead of finishing design assignments, so I threw that in to enrol in Music School, because I wanted to use their equipment and learn to use computers for multi-track recording. I majored in Composition at university, focusing mainly on computer-based noise/art composition.

Q2 What inspired your latest album?
It’s hard to answer that question without sounding poxy. I think in a lot of ways, while I was working on the album, I was feeling weird about the fact that I had all this time to focus on music for once. I was used to music being this thing that I had to make sacrifices in order to work on and then suddenly, due to some music licensing income, I had all this time on my hands to concentrate on nothing but music. And I just felt weird about it, like it was this ridiculous luxury and it felt extravagant to be able to just play around with lyrics and sounds and not have anything else for it to be an antidote to. It’s as though making music only felt like a worthwhile pursuit when it was a struggle.

So a lot of the inspiration was from just trying to find some meaning in having music as a focus and perhaps feeling a little cynical about that. I’m not even sure if that makes sense. That makes it seem like a self-referential feedback loop, but perhaps only a couple of tracks are like that. I worked on the album in a lot of different places (UK, Libya, Europe, NZ and the US), so I’m sure that had an influence on the material.

I generally get inspired by everyday stuff that goes on around me and in my head: loves, things I’ve read or seen; self-indulgent musings… I’m also (obviously) inspired by sounds: environmental, or from playing around on synths and the computer.

Q3 What process do you go through in creating a track?
I pretty much write the song as I record it. I generally start with an initial melodic idea and then take it to the computer to start constructing the song, seeing what instrumentation suits the idea, what lyrics work, adding bits and pieces, changing them around, taking bits away, that sort of thing. It’s not like the traditional process of writing the song and then recording it once you’ve worked it all out and can play it properly.

For this album, I used Logic as my recording, editing and mixing software. I have a collection of old synthesisers and organs back in NZ which are slowly dying. I started sampling their sounds a couple of years ago so that I could still play them live and record with them while travelling. I also sometimes use software synths, and whatever instruments happen to be lying around where I’m working.

Q4 Which artists influence your work?
I think I’m influenced by everything that I’ve listened to since I was a kid – Simon And Garfunkel, Neil Diamond, Blondie, Dolly Parton, Prince, Talking Heads, Ween, The Orb, Tall Dwarfs, Aphex Twin, The Smiths, My Bloody Valentine, Cornelius. I’m sure even TV show themes would get mixed up in there, when I think about some of the sounds I use.

People and bands whose work I’ve respected and revisited most as an adult would probably be Syd Barrett (and his Pink Floyd), John Lennon, Brian Eno, Will Oldham, Brian Wilson, All Night Radio, Beatles, Kraftwerk, Neil Young, Arthur Russell, Animal Collective, The Zombies… Most recently, I’ve been enjoying MIA, The Field, John Fahey, traditional folk music from around the world. I don’t think I can list everything, and I don’t think I could pinpoint their direct influence.

Q5 What would you say to someone experiencing your music for the first time?
Smoke some weed, listen to it alone, in bed, with good headphones or speakers. That’s probably the best way to really appreciate it.

Q6 What are your ambitions for your latest album, and for the future?
All I ever want for my music is for it to be heard by the people who would enjoy it, wherever in the world they might be. In order for those people to find out about it, I have to tour, do interviews, get photos taken, that sort of thing. All of those things make me uncomfortable, but I do them for that one purpose.

I have other projects that I would like to focus on, musical and otherwise, after this album comes out and after I finish touring for it. I’m enjoying working on getting the live show together for this album, and am looking forward to playing some of the new songs live. After that, Bachelorette will be taking an indefinite break so that I can focus on other things. I have a website – particletracks.com – for my past, current and future creative projects. I’m also a trained Shiatsu practitioner, and have been feeling the need to focus more on that, because music has been taking over for a while now. I’m hoping I’ll find an ideal balance between the two.

MORE>> www.particletracks.com



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