#Not a lot just forever by Adrianne Lenker just started playing in my head I am NOT okay

[chiefcroissantdeanbanana]

pvp civilization spoilersss belowwwwwww like deadass the ending is the first sentence

I wonder what Tabi felt when she slashed Evbo, not with the sword, but with her axe?

Was it for her mission? For the greater good? Or did her feelings get to her? That she faltered, she hesitated, she doubted herself? To permanently kill someone who did everything to save you, that clung to you endlessly no matter what you did.

She can deny it all she wants, but deep inside she knows. She has come to care about him, for better or for worse. She has to see him again, with his dead eyes that glimmer with hope, with his shaking hands that grip his sword so tightly, his scars that adorn his face, the wounds he took for her. What can she say to him, after seeing him once more, knowing that the truth is out?

"So get it over with. Show me I mean nothing to you", his voice echos in her mind. His tear-filled voice, with a hint of anger, the betrayal she can feel, the sadness she can see. To face someone who did everything for you, just to kill him once again. You were no different from the others, weren't you? But no- this is different, it's... It's for the greater good! If it means killing him... Then kill him she shall.

Here's the thing though, spending almost your entire journey with that person can do things to you. Maybe she got attached. Just a little, but just enough to give him one more chance at life.

The axe slashed through his body; his eyes widen after getting his expectations turned around.

Why?

"Maybe you did mean something to me." she spoke with a hushed whisper, only saying it after the fog disappeared. Never admitting it to his face out loud, he can only think of reasons himself.

She could never say that she grew to care about him, but it's alright.

After all, actions speak louder than words.

[peppersjam]

My Top 10 Albums of 2019

2019 presented me with a handful of incredible events and memories (I turned 30, I got married, etc.), while also serving me a big challenge (my partner is temporarily living on the other side of the country). In a poetic world, these things would have a significant impact on the music that I listened to and loved, but no, not really. This year is pretty on the nose for me, music-wise. Oh, except that I got really into Taylor Swift in the second half of the year.

Before we hop into boring Steve's boring top 10 list, let's revisit the 2018 list. The only album on the list that I barely listened to in 2019 was Cardi's Invasion of Privacy. Everything else gets at least semi-regular spins, although I'd elevate Historian, boygenius, and Big Red Machine above these others.

My biggest disappointment this year was Charli XCX's CHARLI, which is a solid album, but it didn't grab me nearly as much as Pop 2 did a couple years ago. It hasn't stuck in my rotation.

Runners up:

Bon Iver - "i,i" (I love it when I listen to it, but for some reason I'm not often compelled to listen to it)

Ariana Grande - "thank u, next" (Staple of early 2019, but fell off)

Carly Rae Jepsen - "Dedicated" (Great, but I'd rather listen to E•MO•TION)

Taylor Swift - "Lover" (Some true standout tracks, like Lover and Paper Rings, but too many cloyboys and CRJ rip-offs)

Weyes Blood - "Titanic Rising" (I could see this growing on me over the years, like a Radiohead record)

And the pre-2019 albums that should've made my respective yearly lists:

Beyoncé - "4" (2011)

Beyoncé - "BEYONCE" (2013)

Big Thief - "Capacity" (2017)

Big Thief - "Masterpiece" (2016)

Perfume Genius - "No Shape" (2017)

Snail Mail - "Lush" (2018)

Taylor Swift - "Red" (2012)

10. Big Thief – U.F.O.F

Early in the year, I "discovered" Big Thief. I don't know how I missed them before. Specifically, the song "Masterpiece" got right up in my brain and has been hanging out there since. Then Big Thief gave us U.F.O.F. which was yet another great Big Thief album. See #3 below.

9. Andrew Bird – My Finest Work Yet

Look, I'll stop putting Andrew Bird records on my end-of-year lists when he stops making them.

Andrew Bird turned a corner with the release of Are You Serious where he basically acknowledged that he was now going to work with other people and write scrutable songs. It was a good album, but My Finest Work Yet refines this Andrew Bird 2.0 and delivers some of his... finest work yet ("Sisyphus," "Manifest," "Olympians"). While I still prefer earlier Andrew Bird (A Nervous Tic Motion into Fake Palindromes into Measuring Cups... my gosh, that's 10 incredible minutes of music), I understand why he's moved on to something else.

8. JPEGMAFIA – All My Heroes Are Cornballs

I've been in a rap rut. Kanye is putting out self-indulgent gospel albums. Chance and Drake are boring now. JAY Z is working with the NFL.

But the rut is mostly a lack of imagination on my part. There's a lot of rap out there that hasn't made it through my naive filter, and I want to seek more of it out in 2020. Case in point: JPEGMAFIA. He's weird, political, funny... all the things that the aforementioned rappers aren't (or at least, aren't anymore). All My Heroes Are Cornballs is the most hypnotic rap album I've listened to in years. The glitchy beats and effortless flow makes it impossible to turn off mid-album.

7. BROCKHAMPTON – Ginger

GINGER is a proper follow-up to the SATURATION trilogy. While Iridescence had some good tracks on it, the overall experience was jarring (not without reason, given what the group was going through with Ameer). GINGER reads (ok, plays) like an album in a way that the Saturations never did. While it may be spiritually linked to the Satursation, it's a complete departure sonically. Even though it's more constrained and less bombastic than their hits from that era, it feels much bigger and, ahem, More Important. That might not be to the taste of some of their fans, but I'm happy to have both versions of BROCKHAMPTON in my music library.

6. Lana Del Rey – Norman Fucking Rockwell!

Music publications couldn't get over the fact that on NFR!, Lana, yes LANA DEL REY, was wordsmithing at a high level. Is it that hard to believe that someone would become a better poet as they gained more life experiences, inching closer to the mystical 10,000 hours? Some of the praise may have gone a little overboard (and, frankly, seems rooted in a narrow, misogynistic view of Who Can Do Music Good™️™️™️), but I agree with the underlying principle of the praise: that this is a collection of well written and well performed songs. It has my favorite album closer of the year, "Hope Is a Dangerous Thing for a Woman Like Me to Have - but I Have It." I get chills just thinking about it.

5. Clairo – Immunity

I enjoyed my first listen.

On my second listen, I wondered if it was maybe too simple. I didn't listen again for several months.

But then, when I was working from Pittsburgh the week before Christmas, I listened again. And I couldn't stop listening. It's simpler music than many of the albums on this list, but it appeals to me for the same reason I had a fixation with Snail Mail's Lush this year: it's incredible that songs that sound so "simple" (and I truly do not mean simple in an insulting way) can still be different than anything we've heard before, and can still transfix us in new ways. Behold ye, the power of combinatorics!

4. Vampire Weekend – Father of the Bride

Channel Orange to Blonde was 4 years. There's nothing you can do to get your favorite artists to make music faster. There's some beauty in that... that if an artist is financially successful enough, they don't need to rush.

Modern Vampires of the City to Father of the Bride was 6 years (i.e., 20% of my lifetime). But at least there are no duds here, and "Harmony Hall" might sneak into my hypothetical favorite-songs-of-all-time pantheon.

3. Big Thief – Two Hands

Oh, but then a few months later, Big Thief gave us another album. They started working on it right after they finished U.F.O.F, which tracks based on every interview I've read with Adrianne Lenker. She talked about the insane touring and album release schedule they've been on in the past four years, but her point wasn't "I'm getting tired," but rather "let's see if I can do this forever." I saw them play at The Fillmore after they released Two Hands and I got the sense that Adrianne has to make and perform music. She was uncomfortable engaging in the standard nearly-identical pleasantries that artists share with the audience. She was shy. She was surprised to find that we were hanging on her every word and chord. It was relatable. She's the closest to a genius I've seen in an indie rock band in the last several years, although I'm sure she'd hate anyone calling her that.

That genius produced Two Hands, an affecting indie rock record that practically demands that you close your eyes because you need to experience it and only it.

2. Tyler, the Creator – IGOR

This year, I listened to IGOR over and over again. The hooks, verses, beats, and vibe are all infectious. Boring Steve says "hey, look, it's just a great album." I don't have a deeper thought about it. I eagerly await Tyler's next project.

1. Nilüfer Yanya – Miss Universe

This year, like 2009 a decade ago, was an exciting year to be an indie rock fan. Vampire Weekend and Bon Iver cemented their elder ("elder") statesperson statuses, Big Thief came into their own as a true force of nature, and acts like Clairo and Nilüfer made me extremely jazzed about the Ghost of Indie Future.

Nilüfer has a unique and delightful voice that punches through some really fun songwriting and arrangements. Like, what a dumb, awesome lyric:

Although I cannot tell if I'm paranoid

Or it's all in my head, it's all in my head

Miss Universe is her debut full-length album, and it's a lovable and off-kilter thesis statement for what I assume will be a lovable and off-kilter music career. I can better explain why some of the other albums on this list are great, but suffice it to say, the system rewards unique performances.

[wmucradio]

Q & A with Gabrielle Smith of Ó (formerly Eskimeaux)

On April 12th, I attended a show at the Black Cat featuring the band formerly known as Eskimeaux* as the opening act, followed by Why? It was the first time I had been able to see Gabrielle Smith and her gang perform live, so I was very excited. The show was incredible, and the band was very tight. Every pause or idiosyncratic beat was facilitated expertly by Felix and Gabrielle, followed by head nods and curtsies between Oliver and Jack. The band is a joy to watch live, as you can see and feel their chemistry in every song. The set included many of my personal favorites, along with a few previews of new material. Following their set, I met with Gabrielle for a “brief” interview that ended up lasting over an hour. I can only speak for myself when I say this, but our correspondence felt more like catching up with an old friend than it did an interview. Gabrielle Smith is honestly one of the most pleasant human beings I have ever had the pleasure to meet. I have transcribed questions from the interview below.

*Since this interview, the band has changed their name to Ó. This came to fruition following a confrontation with Inuk throat singer, Tanya Tagaq, in which she made clear that the term “Eskimo” is considered derogatory by much of the Inuit population.

 Q: What music did you grow up on?

A: When I was growing up my parents were really into Carol King, the Carpenters, and I grew up in choirs. So I was always performing, thinking about, and singing really weird hymns. A lot of Hallelujah and stuff like that. And my grandma is a pianist, so she would always play really good classical stuff.

Q: Was that when you started with music making? (Like when you were a kid, through choir, or did you do other things?)

A: Yeah, it was between that and I took violin lessons when I was growing up. But I didn’t really think of it as “making music.” I feel like when I was little I didn’t understand that choir, and orchestra, and Ace of Base were the same thing. There was this really big separation for me between musician, which I didn’t understand as being human, and the product. I sort of knew phonetically El-ton John and Ce-line Di-on, and Ace of Base. But didn’t understand that they were people until I was much older.

Q: Was it sort of like finding out that Santa Claus isn’t real?

A: It’s kind of the same thing. You’re like “Oh my god, someone made this. This is like art, I guess. Woah.”

Q: Are you still coping with that realization?

A: It’s kind of hard to. I feel like making music and doing this has made it clear that musicians are human beings. But I still didn’t connect some of my favorite ones. Like Why? for example. I was like “I could probably meet so-and-so if I networked this way.” Or “I bet this person through this person knows person X.”

Q: So it’s still kind of non-people with artists that you’re into?

A: Yeah. I mean, especially ones from my younger years.

Q: Did you have any specific female influences in your life when it comes to songwriting or even getting into instruments?

A: Yeah. Definitely Bjork was a huge one. Joanna Newsom. So amazing. So amazing. It’s unreasonable. I remember hearing her for the first time. There was this kid that went to a different high school. I thought he was so cool. He had a band, and wore scarves, and was very glam. He had “The Book of Right On” on his Myspace page, and I was like “What is this? I’ve never heard anything like this before. This is so amazing. It’s kind of annoying and it’s so brilliant. And the lyrics are so amazing. And I’ve never noticed lyrics before. And holy sh*t.” It was a huge realization. So, Joanna Newsom. Really big one. And probably Greta, from Frankie Cosmos.

Q: I was actually going to ask you about shaving your head. Because I know you’ve done it, she’s (Greta) done it, and so has Adrianne Lenker from Big Thief. I was wondering if it was significant in some way or if you all just did it?

A: So, I was on tour with Oliver’s project, Bellows, and Felix’s project, Told Slant, and The Hotelier. Pride Weekend happened and my friend Meghan shaved her head, and I was like “Wow. You look so hot and cool. I just think I need to know if I could do it.”

Q: Are you into any other art form? Because I know that you went to University of the Arts.

A: For like a second. I went for like a month. It was so bad. Not that the University of the Arts was bad, I was bad. I just felt like they… First of all, I wanted to go for animation. And they were like you could go for animation or you could go for film and we’ll give you a half scholarship. And I was like “okay, what’s the jig here?” And I never found out because I only stayed for a month. I basically got offered to go on a tour with this band, and then I said yes. And then I called my parents from Indiana. And I was like “I’ve been on tour for a week, and I’m not in school. So…”

Q: How did they take that?

A: They were really pissed, obviously.

Q: When did they finally come around- Have they come around?

A: They’ve come around. They came around. I mean, my parents have always been really supportive. But they really, really, came around after Frankie Cosmos played at the MOMA. That was the moment, they were like “Oh, this is cool.”

Q: Was it a hard decision for you?

A: I didn’t like it at all. I was miserable. We were just watching Westerns, and it’s so unreasonable. There were kids in my class that had turtlenecks and low pony tails. It was like the black turtleneck with the round glasses, the low pony tail, and the beret was what really pushed it over the edge for me. You can do anything you want. You can dress that way and it’s totally fine! I just think that sitting in a class talking about which Western is the best in the summer, while wearing those things. And that being said, it was really air-conditioned, so I kinda wished I was wearing it too. But I didn’t give in. My point is that these kids just took themselves really seriously. And I feel that the point of art school is that you’re supposed to unlearn everything you know so that these professors can say “this is how you do it. This is what art school is all about. This is the technique you never knew. If you don’t allow us to fully give you what we know, you’ll just waste your money here.” But these kids were like “my name is Remington.” I don’t know how else to explain it. It was just a vibe that I got. The kids were just super like “I was the weird kid in my town in New Jersey.” That’s also fine. I don’t know, I feel really stuck-up saying all this, but. My priorities were just elsewhere. I also think I wasn’t ready to go to college, realistically.

Q: Were you trained on the instruments that you play now, or were you self-taught?

A: I took piano lessons very minimally from my grandma. It was nice, except I was an asshole. She was teaching me about all these important things like scales and I was super not interested in what she had to say. I was like “Piano sucks.” It’s super overwhelming. It looks like nothing, so it’s just really weird. But lo and behold, I play keyboard in Oliver’s band. Well, I play synth. It’s more like pushing a button and turning the knob. I do know the chords!

Q: How was growing up in New York? Did you feel like you had a normal childhood?

A: I think so. My parents work so hard. My dad is a lawyer. And my mom’s had a bunch of different jobs, but they’ve always in the finance department of whatever thing she’s doing. Right now, she works at this humongous insurance company. I think they insure business, so like malpractice insurance. I only know this because I worked there for a little while, and they gave me this really fancy title. I was a “Junior Financial Analyst.” However, I was scanning W-9 forms and digitizing their clientele. I was basically a scanner.

Q: It’s fine. I just gave myself a job. My sister has this madrigal group so I made myself their “administrator.” But now I’ve actually started to do things!

A: What are you doing?

Q: I’m booking a gig for them! It’s crazy.

A: Wow, a madrigal choir. That’s so cool. I love that.

Q: My sister’s all about renaissance music. I’ll be listening to my music in the car and she’ll just be like “can I put on my recital repertoire?” and I’ll be like “Oh my god, okay fine.” And it just completely ruins my day, but it’s fine. She’s actually really good, so I don’t mind. But I don’t really like other people’s voices.

A: There was one day where for a few minutes we listened to Gregorian chants. And it was so amazing. Jack is really into this mash-up artist named Neil Cicierega. He just came out with a new record Mouth Moods. So, you should totally check it out.

Q: Is it what it sounds like it’s going to be?

A: Yeah. Well, he’s really about All Star by Smash Mouth.

Q: Why is everyone all about that song?

A: It’s just what it is.

Q: SO confusing.

A: It’s just the most amazingly horrific pump-up jam. You’re just like “yeah, I think I can do whatever I set out to do today.” So one day, this guy, Neil Cicierega, decided to mash up the YMCA to the Inception soundtrack. It’s really moving and really emotional. So we’ve been pranked a lot with that. You should just listen to it. It’s bad to describe it. You should listen to it even though you shouldn’t.

Q: I understand. Back to All-Star, the radio station played All-Star for 24 hours straight once.

A: That’s like two- two stories about that. One day, we tried to listen to Build This Pool by Blink-182. We tried to take the 45 minute challenge. We made it like 10 minutes I would say, but we had to stop. The other story is that I used to go to this camp, called Camp Lohikan. It was on the New York/Pennsylvania border. It was a really shi*ty camp. But the camp owner thought it would be really funny to play Hero by Enrique Iglesias for a full day over the loud speaker for the entire day of camp. So I forever know all the words to that song. We tried to cover Hero actually. We learned it one time, but forgot it since. So, we’ll have to learn it again!

Q: If you weren’t doing music what would be doing? What would your dream job be? Because I’m assuming this is your dream job.

A: It is my dream job, definitely. Well, I have this back-up plan. Which requires a lot of money. So it’s not really a good Plan B. But my friend and I are super passionate about animals. She works at the ACCT in Philadelphia. It’s a kill shelter, but her job is getting animals to rescue. So she calls rescues all day to promote animals that are ready to be adopted. She’s very cool. We have this pipe dream to have an animal sanctuary. And there was a moment this year, I guess it was last year, where I was just feeling super down on everything. I was like “What the f*ck am I doing? Why am I doing this? What does this mean? This is super weird. Well, you know. This is such a weird job. And it’s based on validation which doesn’t always come. Or like when you’re not on an album cycle, what are you doing? You’re just living your life and it’s weird. And I grew up in a choir, so being like “listen to me” is a weird impulse that I don’t really possess naturally. So anyway, I was having this whole moment of crisis, and then I called up my friend. We were talking about it and saying “we could just have an animal sanctuary.” And she was like “There are a bunch of goats in my job right now. You should come down and pet the goats.” And I was like “I can’t come down, because if I pet the goats I’m going to take them home.”

We discussed the pros and cons of having a goat as a pet in New York City, but decided that it probably wouldn’t be a good idea. However, according to Gabby, a goat would likely be one of the few animals that would understand her dog. She’s had her dog, Frankie, for 4 years. He’s a smallish pitbull-esque dog that a lot of their neighborhood kids are scared of. However, Gabby stated that he’s a very good “muffin.” We talked a little bit about the Chinese zodiac, along with the origin of the line “2011, the Year of the Rabbit.” (It was a “really good rhyme” that was incidentally true!) This led to a discussion about reading horoscopes and being a Taurus.

Q: What do you embody about a Taurus?

A: Well, we’re really stubborn. And we love food and money. And aren’t really good about either of those things. In that, because I have such a high standard for what food should be like, I’m really picky about quality. Though I’ve been trying to get better because obviously touring is a nightmare. It’s more of just like an “oh my god, this texture is disgusting” type of thing. I’m really weird about food. Like, I don’t like fruit. Yeah, none of it, it’s gross. I mean, I like lemons and limes.

We discussed the correctness of calling lemons and limes, “fruits.” Ultimately, we decided to be honest and call it what it is. They’re more along the lines of sauces and stuff to make lemonade with. Lemonade, according to Gabby, is just “sauce in a cup.” Back-up Plan C for Gabby may well end up being “Cup Sauce” lemonade. She’s even come up with the slogan: “Buy it. Do you like it?” A slogan that I immediately shot down and told her that she’d likely need to hire a better PR person. Gabby then brought up her stage banter during her set and said it’s not very good at selling. I, however, disagreed. Her understated and meek “thank you’s” perfectly compliment the direct tone in her songs.

She did tell the crowd earlier in the night that she was in a really bad mood. An issue that started earlier in the day with a looming phone call that she had already pushed back. The ride to DC was also stressing her out, and causing her to be angry and grumpy. (Something that I could never imagine!) She was able to turn it around though, and it ended up being totally fine. There were also some issues with the voltage of her second-hand Japanese amp. She was getting shocked during soundcheck but the sound guy helped her out with all the technical bullsh*t!

Q: Have you ever felt that you’ve had something to prove, because you are a female musician, to people who might know a lot about the technical stuff and things like that?

A: I think that I did when I was younger and first starting. I feel like I was really, really, adamant about being my own producer and recording everything myself. And whenever I enlisted the help of other people, it was as an arrangement kind of thing. I had a really big, well it wasn’t a really big deal, but I had this other bandmate who was a man. For a while, it was just the two of us. And a lot of times, people would come up to him, asking him questions. Or they’d be like “producer, Him, and songstress, Gabrielle Smith.” It was just like “Ew. F*ck. Uh, no.” So it took a lot to kind of re-write that. But, that being said, I am super, super, lucky. All of my friends have been supportive and treat me as an equal even though most of them are male. We all share secrets about songwriting with each other, and it’s this super reciprocally nice supportive process. So I’ve been in a bubble basically, for my whole coming up time. (She’s referring to her music collective here.) It’s been easy in that way, but I do think that people, even on this tour don’t assume- like, I work my own merch table, and a lot of times people are like “oh, is this the opening band? Are they good?” And they just assume that I’m not in the band. Most times, people generally know who we are before we get there. Yeah, it’s been really chill, to answer your question. I feel like it was harder when I was younger, but now I don’t really care, so I don’t think about it.

Q: What are you working on now?

A: I feel like, usually all of my songs have already come out before we come out with an official record. So yeah, this time, we have a whole record written. I’ve written a couple more songs on this tour that I want to see if they’re better than some of the other songs. Because some of them are kind of like- they’re good, but they don’t make sense on the record.

Q: Is there a theme that they’re not fitting?

A: Well yeah. The record, I think, the overarching theme, is sort of the opposite of O.K. Where O.K. was very like “and this moment is this, and I’m in love with this person!” and “ this moment is this, and I like you.” And “this is how you’re affecting me in this moment.” It was very descriptive of external observation and how I was feeling about them. The new songs are a lot more internal, and more about trying really, really, hard to exist in the present and not being able to fully be there. It’s a lot more impressionistic. There’s more color rather than nature. It’s a lot more internal and hard to escape yourself kind of feeling.

Q: And this was around the time you were having your “goat moment”?

A: Oh yeah! So sick- I’m gonna call it that from now on.

Her hope is that the band will hit the studio after this tour and the next tour (w/ Frankie Cosmos). She’s hoping they’ll be done tracking the record by July, and that it’ll be done and ready to release by the Fall. She’s very excited about it. In a new song, there’s even a visual of a goat that is trying to stand on a moving truck bed, but is having a difficult time standing up. She was hoping they would play this new song on tour, but they couldn’t due to instrumentation needs.

Q: What’s your favorite part about coming to DC?

A: Well, usually. This is going to sound like a humble brag, but I’m really good buddies with Bob Boilen. He’s the best, and so nice. Kate Tempest is in town, and he was like “I’m so sorry, I can’t come to the show. Usually you know that I’d come make it work, but you’re playing at exactly the same time as Kate Tempest. She never comes here, so.” And I was like “it’s totally fine,” but now I’m really sad. We just like chill. He’s so chill. The last time I saw him, Eskimeaux came here and played at Rock and Roll hotel with Japanese Breakfast, and he stopped by the NPR office. And we had written this Christmas song the night before that we performed on All Songs Considered. It’s really good. I actually stole- for one of the new songs that we played tonight, I realized that I actually stole one of the melodies and chord progressions from the Christmas song. And I had to text Michelle and be like “I hope this is okay. I’m really into this song that I just wrote, but I know that I stole the “Christmas tree-ee” part, and I know that it’s maybe not chill to do that. And she was like “oh my god, it’s fine.”

We then discussed the fact that interning at NPR’s Tiny Desk is my dream, our love for HBO’s Bored to Death, and methods for figuring out the name of someone you’ve forgotten. If you’re wondering, the right way to do it is by introducing another friend to the aforementioned forgotten friend, and just hope that they’ll say their name.

Gabby told me about her favorite things about touring: amazing food and being touristy. (Places that she recommended include White Sands National Park and Meow Wolf in Santa Fe.) Along with seeing friends from other cities and getting to tour with bands that are super inspirational to her.

“This is so surreal, and it’s really amazing that I was able to get so out of it that I was in a bad mood.”

When I told her that it was completely human to feel bad, and that she shouldn’t be apologizing or feeling bad for feeling bad, she said something that made me realize what an amazing artist (and person) she is.

“I just want so badly to not normalize this experience at all- and have it be this overwhelmingly amazing thing.”

We talked a bit more about the pros and cons of touring. According to Gabby, the worst thing about tour is that she’s not as available to be a good friend. It’s hard to be like “just so you know, I’m still your friend. Tell me if you need anything, I love you.” Another things is navigating her coffee addiction.  Something that started when she was working at a coffee shop in New York. She told me a bit about her experience there, which she asked to have off the record. She now drinks two cups a day, but Oliver is on a very rigorous coffee schedule. She goes along with it, but now has gotten into buying tinctures, so that she won’t need coffee as much. Apparently they taste like sh*t, but she’s been putting it into Kevita. (Which is basically just “bubbly cup sauce.”)

Q: Super weird question, but would you be willing to take a mirror selfie with me?

A:

Written and transcribed By No Boys Allowed DJ Ava Mirzadegan

[independentartistbuzz]

Indie 5-0: 5 Questions with Carli Naff

Meet Carli Naff: The artist who is making a big name for herself in 2018. As she shares with the world her new video for "Clean," we must say we have been enticed by the artist. The track and video are equal parts dream that Carli has carefully crafted...and we couldn't be more pleased with the result. Stopping by for an exclusive Indie 5-0, we sit down with the artist to get the inside scoop.

1. What is the inspiration behind your new single, and did you draw the piece from a personal place?

My new single, like all of my songs, did come from a very personal place. I tend to write lyrics that just tell very specific stories of what happened to me. I’ve found that the more specific I am, the more poetic the words seem to someone who wasn’t there. This song, Clean, was a product of the heavy, painful feelings that came when i allowed myself to stay stuck in a toxic and addictive pattern with someone who I loved, and the even worse (but temporary) pain that came when i finally decided to break the pattern. This song was kind of a bridge between those two feelings. A turning point if you will!

2. When creating the song, how long did it take to accomplish from start to finish?

Let’s see, I wrote the song on my acoustic guitar in March or April of 2017 and after trying out a few different versions of it with my producer, we had the final rough mix by Jan 2018. Then we had to record vocals, mix, master, etc. So all-in-all from conception to birth it was only about a year and a few months! Not too bad. Feels like forever ago that I wrote it though!

3. At what age did you realize that music is a career you wanted to pursue; what was your 'ah-ha' moment?

Music has always been a part of my life in different ways. I did a lot of choir as a kid and started voice lessons at a young age. I did musical theatre as a teenager and in college, and even studied vocal performance and music education for awhile. But I couldn’t figure out how I wanted to make music my career. I was in New York for a couple years auditioning as an actor and actually feeling pretty lost for awhile. I had never even written a song of my own until a year and a half ago, so stepping into myself as a singer-songwriter didn’t happen until I was 25. And the “ah-ha” moment was more of a slow burn. I started writing, then I started playing music with a friend around Queens, then I wrote more, and then all of a sudden I was like,” oh this is definitely it.” It snuck up on me, but I had no doubt in my mind that this was what I was always meant to do. It was a gut feeling I had never had before.

4. Who are your musical inspirations; what artists inspired you to start your career and find your musical passion?

My biggest inspiration in writing this first album was Adrianne Lenker of Big Thief. I discovered her music right when I’d finished my first couple songs, and I felt such a strong connection to her lyrics; the way each song was an intricate poem, but still had a melody that would stick in your head. She puts her blood into her songs and I felt that. Vocally I’ve always been inspired by Jeff Buckley and the way he communicated emotion through his voice and range, and I think that shows up on this album as well. As a kid I listened to a lot of bad pop music and “radio” alternative— but I think it gave me a tendency to write catchy choruses which I like about my songs! So I won’t feel bad about that ;) Im also a total sucker for harmonies having been in choirs all my life, and from hearing my parents’ folk records as a kid (America, Eagles, Fleetwood Mac, etc). I actually tend to overdo it with harmonies, so I tried to find some balance on this EP.

5. What other treats do you have in store for us this year? Can we expect more music?

So many treats!! I’m putting out my first EP and I’m so excited. I’ll be putting out at least one more single from that album as well as a couple music videos in the next few months, followed by the EP itself which is called Horrible Talker. It’s my first record ever and I’m very ready to finally be sharing it!

Watch the video here: https://youtu.be/fGc3qWK4eNM

Links: Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/carlinaffmusic Website: http://carlinaffmusic.com Instagram- https://www.instagram.com/carliandthecarls/