Feature: CHAPLAINE Decodes ‘Cloud 9’
Photo Credit: Chinyere Anosike
How did everything come together?
We set a rhythm of writing every week together and just waded through thousands of little ideas and expanded on the ones we liked. This was like churning out songs for the sake of completing something. The tracks we have released here under ‘Cloud 9’ are special as we felt something on them and finished them in a writing retreat back where I grew up and they ended up being quite nostalgic as a result - it was beautiful. We also knew that we really wanted to create a bit more of a bigger "world" with this, so making sure that it wasn’t just about getting songs out, but about creating a character and whole space that we could keep coming back to in order to be creative. Our friend Jack Wintermeyer was brilliant in helping make that happen as far as the studio and production were concerned - he really helped tear them up and stretch their capacity as songs.
Were there any memorable or standout moments during the recording sessions for 'Cloud 9?'
Probably just Jack saying each day ‘There are no rules here’. It helped define the creative process and solidified why we were making them in the first place.
Which song do you like the best and why?
Obviously that is hard as the whole thing is supposed to be a journey from start to finish - almost like one track that takes on all sorts of colour and fragrances throughout, but if you pressed me I’d say “Sorry.” It wouldn’t be because of what it is but more where it is - it feels like a really enjoyable palette cleanser in the midst of the songs flow. If you pressed Megs she’d say “Thicker” as it’s got a little more edge with the beat. She also remembers fondly how she and Jack sent me out to write the finale spoken word and how I read it out first take and it landed perfectly in place.
Can you tell us more about you as an artist?
We are a husband and wife duo and we’ve been working together creatively since we met. We both had our own thing going on before this but felt like it was unhealthy and needed to be given up. The result was wanting to set a culture through this project that felt like we had a little accountability to make it more about the process being fun and something we could be proud of, rather than reaching for something that could make us compromise our values. CHAPLAINE is about collaboration and story telling really. We want to explore narratives and exciting ways to bring other people’s perspectives into our own story.
Can you walk us through your creative process when writing and composing music?
Megs is the musician and I’m more of a writer/artist so we balance one another out as far as making something tangible and ‘real’ is concerned. We sometimes have ideas that sit in one another’s camp and are able to help shape it up into a substantial living thing. Part of why we keep up with posting snippets of songs on IG Reels is to keep in the practice of ideas flowing out and not overthinking things. Some of the ideas we’ve had there are ones we’re really keen to expand and can definitely hear a full track emerging.
