Nobody’s Wolf Child On the Making Of ‘Erbsa's Songs of the Sea’
How did you come up with the theme?
Oh you know a little friend comes knocking at your heart with something you might feel a certain way about and that’s just suddenly what you are doing with your days.
How did you approach the arrangement and composition of the music for ‘Erbsa's Songs of the Sea?’
I am not an approacher, there is far too much chaotic excitement in the writing process for that. Approaching would suggest some kind of plan or control and there is none. It’s 200 vocal tracks with no labels kind of chaos that Matt has to then deal with in the production processs. While I sit there grinning knowing I am causing him so much pain.
Which song(s) from 'Erbsa's Songs of the Sea' do you think best represents your artistic vision?
That’s hard to say as they all have something but I think it has to be “Selkie,” because I just love that song so much, it’s very magical. It sort of sparkles like Erbsa’s fur.
Some of that track just popped out and other parts I had to really work on. The man’s verse took me an age to write. I had to step back for a good half a year before that came to me and when it did I was so glad I had waited because I am really proud of where it went.
Can you share a bit about your musical background and the journey that led you to where you are today?
I’m a secretive creature but it has been a colourful, varied journey that has rarely gone the way I wanted it to, fraught with mistakes but here I am.
After a maddening hiatus, I decided to make music for no other reason than the love of making it, the increased desire to live inside the sanctity of the song, the free fall limitlessness of experimenting and the absolute burning need to express myself in the only way I have ever been able to do.
What do you enjoy most about performing live and connecting with your audience?
I suppose music transcends most human interactions and in that moment it doesn’t matter who, what, when, where, why, how.
An NWC howling is the full performance piece in that I and anyone else on stage will not speak.
What comes out of my mouth as a ‘human’ is irrelevant, I put what I have to say in the music and in a live performance I embody each song and I don’t exist outside of it. So I don’t connect with an audience as a person but as the artist giving overall identity to the music. That’s exciting for me to do and sort of, the final part of giving the songs their Life.
