THERE ARE THOSE OCCASIONAL RECORDS WHICH FLOAT ALMOST ENTIRELY IN THEIR OWN TIME AND SPACE, BOTH SONICALLY AND IN TERMS OF MOOD. YOU TOUCH THEM AND THEY SEEM TO RIPPLE AND, PERHAPS, VICE VERSA. 

Lisa Hannigan’s new record AT SWIM – her first album in five years – is one such piece of work. It was produced by (and much of it co-written with) Aaron Dessner from The National, who has helped create a sympathetic and occasionally ambient or impressionistic soundbed for what seems to be Hannigan’s most emotionally intelligent and naked work. It’s quite unlike anything she’s done before – other than, in terms of atmosphere, LITTLE BIRD from 2011’s PASSENGER. In this new interview with The Mouth Magazine Lisa talks at length about her new album, and reveals how a period of writer’s block almost led to her changing her life’s direction completely…

 

THE LAST TIME WE TALKED WAS ABOUT ONE YEAR AFTER PASSENGER HAD COME OUT – SO PROBABLY HALF WAY THROUGH ALL OF THE TOURING AND THE WORK THAT YOU DID AROUND THAT ALBUM. WE SPOKE ABOUT THE FACT THAT YOU’D ALREADY DONE A LOT OF TRAVELLING UP TO THAT POINT, BUT I IMAGINE THE PLACES THAT YOU’VE BEEN ABLE TO TICK OFF THE LIST HAVE VASTLY INCREASED SINCE THEN…
Yeah, I did a lot of touring around for that record. It was a great time and I went to a lot of places that I hadn’t been. It was wonderful and exciting – and I’m excited now because it’s been so long. I’m excited to get back out on the road again, you know?

I GUESS ALL OF THAT TRAVELLING IS ONE OF THE GREAT THINGS ABOUT YOUR LIFE, ABOUT YOUR WORK… BUT IN TERMS OF FINDING THE SPACE AND FINDING THE TIME TO WRITE, IT’S PROBABLY QUITE DIFFICULT. YOU ACTUALLY STRUGGLED FOR A WHILE WITH THIS NEW RECORD, DIDN’T YOU?
I did, I did. For PASSENGER I’d written a lot of songs when I was on tour for my previous record, SEA SEW. When that tour stopped and I got home I felt like I’d got a running start for PASSENGER – whereas with this new record I found it hard to write when I was away. Then when I got home I felt like I’d got this huge mountain to climb. I found it very very hard. I was tired and a bit empty after so many gigs. I really didn’t know what to write about, actually. There were times when I thought I was never going to be able to write a song again – and I didn’t know what to do with myself. But I got there in the end. It took a long time, but I got there in the end.

THERE WAS A MOMENT, PERHAPS A YEAR OR EIGHTEEN MONTHS AGO, WHEN I ACTUALLY THOUGHT “THAT’S IT – WE’VE LOST HER. SHE’S NOT GOING TO MAKE ANOTHER RECORD”…
I thought the same, actually, yeah… I thought “Maybe this just isn’t for me, now”. Those thoughts do, of course, come into your head. Friends would come home at the end of the day and say “How’s your day been?” and I’d say “Hmm”… They ask “What did you write?” and I’d have to say [sullen voice] “Nothing… Nothing of note. Nothing I like”. So I ended up getting into a state where I felt a bit pathetic, a bit useless. It’s really hard, actually, when those days stretch into weeks and then into months. It’s not a happy feeling at all, not being able to do what it is that you do: “What exactly is the purpose of me?”, you know? I did actually look into the idea of going to college and becoming a vet – which might have taken longer than making AT SWIM, really, ha ha… 

WAS IT ALWAYS LIKE THAT? WERE THERE BITS AND PIECES YOU KEPT ALONG THE WAY?
Yeah. It was frustrating because that was happening – or not happening! – and then for no reason at all I’d write a song in ten minutes one morning that I absolutely loved. And all would be forgiven, ha ha… So I suppose in the end you could say that this time it just ‘took me longer’. 

DID YOU LEARN ANYTHING FROM THAT WHOLE PROCESS?
I don’t know if I learned anything other than that you just have to keep going. You don’t know whether you will ever write something of note, something you like, again – but the important thing is that you just have to keep going…

DESPITE THE WRITER’S BLOCK (WHICH I THINK IS A HORRIBLE PHRASE), WHEN THE WORDS DO EVENTUALLY COME FOR YOU DO THEY COME QUICKLY OR DO YOU FIND THAT YOU DRAFT, REDRAFT AND REDRAFT…
Sort of. I try not to worry things along too much because, if you do, I think they can tend to feel laboured. I mean, I do labour over it a little sometimes, myself, but generally those songs aren’t the ones that have a… freshness… about them. You never know, really because sometimes the things that come straight away aren’t that great but they do serve a purpose even if they don’t end up in the actual finished song. They’re like building blocks or something. And sometimes I have what I call a ‘first verse curse’, where I’ll have one that exists in this sort of… dumpy, stunted, form… and I can’t do much with it – but there might be one line from it that becomes a sort of peg you can hang another song off.  So… the whole thing, my whole ‘writing process’, is… I don’t know, really… just a mess. Ha ha…

HA HA… ALAN BENNETT ONCE SAID SOMETHING ALONG THE LINES OF THIS: THAT BEING A WRITER WAS ABOUT SPENDING ALL OF YOUR MORNING STARING OUT OF THE WINDOW THINKING ABOUT PUTTING A COMMA IN… AND THEN A SECOND PUTTING IT IN… AND THEN SPENDING ALL OF THE AFTERNOON THINKING ABOUT TAKING THE SAME COMMA OUT… AND THEN A SECOND TAKING IT OUT…
Ha ha ha… That’s great. I had quite a few days like that… Oh God, yes, ha ha…

HOW DID YOU FILL YOUR TIME WHEN YOU WERE ‘BLOCKED’? DID YOU FIGHT IT, OR DID YOU ALLOW YOURSELF TO FEEL IT?
I did fight it, actually. I did sit down and really try – I did put that comma in, and then take that same comma out. I did that a lot. But I also sometimes tried to just get away from it, you know? Do some other things to keep myself busy and… not distracted, but distracted? I did some singing on some films, which was a lot of fun. A bit of relief in the midst of all that difficult business.

I MUST ADMIT, I WAS COMPLETELY TAKEN ABACK WHEN I WENT TO SEE GRAVITY AND THERE WAS YOUR NAME IN THE END CREDITS…
Oh, gosh! Yes, that’s right… Now, you probably wouldn’t actually hear me or, really, you wouldn’t recognise my voice in GRAVITY. I was the sort of ‘lady space theramin’ in that film… I’d warble away and then Steven Price, the composer, would take my voice and do things like make it backwards to turn it into this really mad… sort of space… erm… space feeling! It was amazing to watch that process, I loved it.

YOU ALSO SANG FOR THE ANIMATED FILM SONG OF THE SEA… 
Yeah. I actually had a bit of acting as well which was a very nerve-wracking and new thing for me, but a very rewarding experience. I went to go and see the film – I’d only seen my little bit at the beginning and my little bit at the end, I hadn’t seen the whole actual movie – and it was so, so, so stunningly beautiful. That was amazing. 

YOU ALSO STARTED PODCASTING… 
I had a culture podcast with my friend, where we’d read books and chat about them, or we’d interview people. But at the back of my mind all the time was “I want to make a record, I want to make a record”… so that was always my main priority. These other things were because I wanted to keep busy as the time was creeping on, you know?

… AND AARON DESSNER’S INPUT WAS CRUCIAL AT THIS POINT. OBVIOUSLY HE’S VERY WELL KNOW AS BEING A MEMBER OF THE NATIONAL. WERE YOU A FAN, PARTICULARLY?
Oh yes, indeed. And so to then get an e-mail from Aaron when I was sort of steeling myself to sit down and put a comma in, was absolutely amazing. He was asking “Do you want to write together or can I produce something? Whatever you want”… so it was really lovely and encouraging and brilliant and we started. We have a few co-writes on the record. He’d send me a piece of music over e-mail and I would warble into my phone and send it back. He made the whole thing feel like I was, sort of, ‘falling down the hill’ at last. It really helped me gather momentum in my own writing; it helped me sit down and write songs by myself. It was a kind of fun process as well.

WAS IT A CASE OF YOU NEEDING TO REBUILD YOUR CONFIDENCE? HAD THE WRITER’S BLOCK ACTUALLY BEEN A CRISIS OF CONFIDENCE, IN SOME WAY?
Yeah! Oh gosh, yes – and then having that block really really affected my confidence a lot. It’s hard not to feel a bit depresh mode when it’s not going well  – because the writing is actually how you see yourself, you know? Like I said, if I’m not a songwriter then what am I actually doing? What’s the point of me? So working with Aaron started to give me back a bit of confidence. He was lovely and kind with his music and he was very very generous with his talent. It was a really important moment for me, to communicate with Aaron and to then be able to get on with my own writing again – and, obviously, to then end up making the record.

I REMEMBER SOMETHING ELSE YOU SAID LAST TIME WE MET – THAT THE NEXT RECORD AFTER PASSENGER MAY WELL HAVE YOU IN YOUR DISCO PHASE… 
Ha ha ha…

… LISTENING VERY CLOSELY FOR SIGNS OF MOVES BEING BUSTED, I CAN SAFELY SAY THEY’RE NOT THERE! 
Ah! Noooo, ha ha…

… BUT IT IS A REALLY VIBEY RECORD. IT’S GOT A GREAT TEXTURE TO IT, VERY DISTINCT. IT HAS WHAT PETER GABRIEL CALLS ‘A HIGH MOISTURE CONTENT’… BUT WHILE IT’S RICH IT ALSO FEELS QUITE AUSTERE AT TIMES. THERE’S A SORT OF ATMOSPHERE THERE WHICH I’M NOT REALLY SURE THAT I’VE HEARD FROM YOU BEFORE.
No – and that’s very much Aaron’s hand, to be honest. That was his notion… He had a very specific idea of what he would want this record to sound like, right from the beginning of our e-mailing. Right at the start when we were chatting about that, about how the record could sound, he did use the word ‘austere’. He felt like my voice and the bass should be this rich melodic kind of underpinning – or overpinning I suppose. The music itself would be atmospheric and have this feeling that was quite… agnostic – and that’s one of the very words he used, too, though I’m still not quite sure what he meant by that…

IT’S AN INTERESTING CONCEPT… 
Yeah – a kind of austere and agnostic feeling so that that the music he’d be playing with the rest of the instruments would have many more textural qualities than melodic. He focused on the sound of the record being richly textured rather than melodic. And it worked. I think it really really worked. It created an atmosphere on the record that’s, like, vaguely sinister or something – but then I think it can also be quite lyrical as well. So, yeah, it was a bit mad… And disco it is not, ha ha… More like funereal dirge disco…

… HA HA… YOU JUST INVENTED A NEW GENRE…
Death disco! It’s the whole new vibe, ha ha…

AT SWIM IS HEAVY ON ATMOSPHERE. SOME OF THE SONGS FEEL… NOT ‘INCOMPLETE’, BECAUSE USING THAT WORD WOULD GIVE ENTIRELY THE WRONG IMPRESSION…  
What songs are you talking about, specifically?

FALL IS QUITE UNDERSTATED WHEN IT BEGINS. THE FIRST TIME I HEARD IT I WASN’T SURE WHERE IT WAS GOING TO GO. EVEN MORE SO THE SONG ORA, I THINK, WHICH SEEMS TO EXIST IN A LOT OF SPACE AND KIND OF FLOATS… AT SWIM CAN BE QUITE ‘SKETCH-LIKE’ IN COMPARISON TO MOST OF YOUR PREVIOUS MATERIAL, IF THAT MAKE SENSE?
I don’t know… If it makes sense to you then of course it makes sense. But you would know better than me why that is…

… SO PERHAPS I’M PROJECTING SOMETHING ONTO IT?
Well maybe – but I think that’s very interesting in itself. I can see what you mean, actually, particularly with ORA. That was one Aaron sent me and it is very much a reaction to… well, there’s a rhythm to the piano (which was the main instrument on what he sent me) that’s kind of pushing and pulling. It had this weird creaky sort of feel – like oars hauling something across an ocean. I remember that when he used to send me things I would record me warbling over my very first listen – because that’s when the best, the most natural, things happen – and ORA came very quickly out of that particular process. I sang the melody fairly instantaneously and the words came out of that first impression of travelling and from out of that feeling of struggling to… get across something.

I DON’T WANT YOU TO GET THE IMPRESSION I’M SAYING THE RECORD IS IN ANY WAY DISJOINTED OR FRACTURED OR DOESN’T HANG TOGETHER… I MEAN THAT IT’S…
… No, no, I know, it’s okay… You mean impressionistic?

YEAH, THAT’S IT.
I suppose ORA in particular is fairly impressionistic, yeah.

EACH RECORDING FEELS LIKE IT’S ONLY ONE POSSIBLE EXPLORATION… A GLIMPSE OR A SNAPSHOT… A CORNER OF THE CANVAS OF WHAT THE SONG IS, OR COULD BE…
Oh yes, yes… I like that. I suppose it’s always that way when you record something, though? It’s about the choices that you make. You always have to make those decisions and it can be hard. That’s actually the really difficult thing – trying to find the most elemental way. Trying to serve the song in the way that lets it out to be what it should be, or that gives it the chance of being what it deserves to be. So it was nice with Aaron because he had such a strong idea of the sonics. It’s been really interesting to hear it all ‘through his ears’, you know?

THERE’S SOMETHING VERY ‘WOMANLY’ ABOUT YOUR SINGING ON AT SWIM – IN THAT WHEN YOU OPEN UP YOUR VOICE ON, SAY, PRAYER FOR THE DYING, IT FEELS BOTH FEMININE AND VERY VERY ADULT…
Thank you, thank you, yeah… I really enjoyed the singing, particularly PRAYER FOR THE DYING. There’s very little melodic meandering to it. There is something a bit more stark about it. It’s very direct and really open-hearted…

… THAT SONG IS SOUL MUSIC – WITHOUT BEING ‘SOUL MUSIC’…
Thank you – it really felt that way singing it, to be honest. You always do this to a certain extent, but we did play quite a lot with the idea of using the voice as an instrument on this record. It was really good singing PRAYER FOR THE DYING. Those big long legato notes are unusual for me, actually, and I loved singing them. I do love that song.

… AND A DIFFERENT APPROACH, TOO, ON UNDERTOW…
Yeah. We had a lot of fun layering up all those tight backing vocals. It’s so, sort of, high and thin, that chorusy melody… Layering everything up on that it’s almost like a string section. We had fun exploring all the textures of a voice, and multiple voices. I really really enjoyed that part of this record, yeah. 

YOUR VOICE DOES FEEL DIFFERENT ON AT SWIM – THE SOUND OF IT AND THE WAY YOU’RE ACTUALLY APPROACHING YOUR SINGING… IT FEELS LIKE YOU’RE REALLY ADDRESSING THE BOUNDARIES AND ARE INTENT ON PUSHING YOURSELF BEYOND THEM. IT’S REALLY REALLY INVOLVING TO HEAR THAT…
Thank you! That’s important. I’m hoping that my voice is an instrument that will change over time – hopefully in an improving sort of way… hopefully it’ll get better. I don’t see any real reason why it wouldn’t. I’m still learning even though I’ve been doing it all of my life, and I really do think that singing is a life-long craft to learn… All that time in the wilderness and not being able to write anything, I was still singing a lot. I’ve had so many years practising!

NOW THAT YOU’VE BEEN OUT AND ABOUT A BIT, PLAYING SOME OF THIS MATERIAL AND SINGING SOME OF THESE SONGS IN FRONT OF PEOPLE, HOW IS YOUR FEELING ABOUT BEING SO EXPOSED? I ASK BECAUSE I REMEMBER FROM WHEN WE LAST TALKED THAT YOU SAID SINGING THE SONG LITTLE BIRD (WHICH YOU OFTEN START YOUR SET WITH) FELT A LITTLE BIT LIKE THE AUDIENCE WAS LOOKING UP YOUR SKIRT… THESE WERE YOUR WORDS, BY THE WAY!
Ha ha… Well! Ha ha… You know, it is an exposing thing to get up and sing about your feelings in front of people. It is. It really is. There’s no way of getting around it. And with a song like LITTLE BIRD I’m not sure you want to, you know? You need to go through it, not go around it. There are some songs you can just ‘do’ and that isn’t one of them.

I GUESS PLAYING LITTLE BIRD FIRST IS A KIND OF ‘ESSENTIAL EXERCISE’ – IT GETS THAT FEELING OF DISCOMFORT AT BEING EXPOSED OUT OF THE WAY VERY QUICKLY?
Yeah, it does. I feel like I need to start with that song because it does settle me. It’s an easy way in to a gig for me, I suppose, despite the subject matter. I find it really easy to connect to that song and very easy to connect to the feeling behind it. I just can’t sing it without feeling it, you know? As I say there are some songs that I probably could, but definitely not LITTLE BIRD.

THAT’S INTERESTING. IS IT ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY TO ‘FEEL’ AT THAT PITCH AT A GIG?
Yeah, I think it is, actually. You do have to feel exposed, you do have to have that feeling. It does have to be a bit raw, to a certain extent… Or it does for me, at least. I do still think that, and I do still feel that. Having done a few shows with these new songs, now, I feel like that about them too. To be perfectly honest it’s a wonderful feeling. It is a sort of nerve-wracking feeling – but if I didn’t have it then a gig would feel a little deflated, I think. I assume for the audience, too, but certainly for me.

THE JOY IN BEING ABLE TO ACCESS THAT FEELING, DESPITE WHAT THAT FEELING IS, WILL BE THAT YOU’RE VERY AWARE WHAT YOU’RE DOING IS STILL REAL… AND ALSO I GUESS IT KIND OF COMPLETELY NEGATES THE NERVES OR THE SENSE THAT THE AUDIENCE IS LOOKING UP YOUR SKIRT?
Yeah, you’re alive, you know? It is a very cathartic thing, too, singing songs when you have that feeling. Particularly when the song sort of conjures something for yourself each time, like LITTLE BIRD. For me it’s a cathartic thing to… ‘rehash’ is the wrong word…

REVISIT?
Yeah! That’s it – you do. LITTLE BIRD is a window. I enjoy it so much when the window is fully open. I do. I really do…

I’M GLAD YOU MENTIONED WINDOWS. I FEEL THAT LITTLE BIRD IS A LITTLE PEEPHOLE IN THE PAST, THROUGH WHICH YOU CAN SEE THE FUTURE – THIS NEW RECORD… NOT IN TERMS OF SONICS SO MUCH, BUT IN TERMS OF MOOD, IN TERMS OF ATMOSPHERE – AND MOSTLY IN TERMS OF FEELINGS…
Yes! Yes! I think you’re very right… I think you are so right, actually. It is sort of somewhere inbetween PASSENGER and AT SWIM. Indeed… A sort of Janus face, there, yes…

BECAUSE OF THAT, I DID FIND MYSELF BROUGHT UP SHORT BY AT SWIM THE FIRST TIME I LISTENED TO IT. THERE SEEMS TO BE A VERY DEEP MELANCHOLY IN THERE… WE ARE BOTH AQUARIUS, SO I SORT OF ‘GET THAT’ IN THE RECORD… WE ARE, APPARENTLY (AND I’M CAPITALISING EACH OF THESE WORDS AND ARCHING MY EYEBROW AS I SAY THEM) ‘PRONE TO OCCASIONAL BOUTS OF GREAT MELANCHOLY’…
A-ha ha ha… Yes, sometimes that is true. Definitely sometimes, ha ha. But we do have that great song though, don’t we? We have that song and a dance and we’ve flowers in our hair. I’m really glad I’m an Aquarius, ha ha! Really really glad, actually… Are you?

ABSOLUTELY… THERE’S SOMETHING REALLY INTERESTING ABOUT THE COVER OF AT SWIM. IT’S A REALLY SIMPLE PORTRAIT OF YOU – THE FIRST TIME YOU’VE BEEN ON THE FRONT OF ONE OF YOUR RECORDS, ACTUALLY. THAT’S A VERY BOLD STATEMENT, AND I THINK TIES IN CLOSELY TO WHAT WE JUST TALKED ABOUT…
Yes! I must admit, though, that I really didn’t want it as the cover, initially. I wanted the front cover to be what is now actually the back cover – this picture of me running (and looking very athletic, I might add – though for the first time in my whole life!)… It’s a mad picture. It’s blurry and half of me is, sort of, cut out – it has this sort of kinetic energy to it… But my friend had mocked up what is now the cover, and I was very very uncomfortable with it at the beginning, because there’s something so frank about it. It’s a very frank picture. It’s stark and it’s very there, and it feels quite kind of raw… and I just didn’t know about it.

I WASN’T SURE ABOUT IT EITHER, AT FIRST, BUT IT NEEDS TO BE THAT SIMPLE, IT NEEDS TO BE A PORTRAIT OF YOU – TO DO THE HONESTY IN THE SONGS JUSTICE… TO NOT BETRAY THE INTEGRITY… IT ACTUALLY SAYS SOMETHING VERY IMPORTANT. I THINK IT’S PERFECT – I REALISE NOW THAT IT JUST COULDN’T BE ANY OTHER COVER. 
Yes, I agree, I agree… Thank you so much for saying that… It did start to grow on me and eventually I realised that it was right, you know? It suited the feeling of the record, and I realised that the starkness of that photograph was absolutely the right thing.  It’s very very interesting that you should pick up on that and want to talk about it… because I did really think about that a lot. Believe me, it was very very difficult. It was not an easy decision for me.

TO WRAP UP, LISA… THERE ARE LOTS OF LIVE DATES COMING UP – A UK TOUR VERY SOON, AN IRISH TOUR IN THE EARLY PART OF NEXT YEAR… BEARING IN MIND THE WRITING DIFFICULTIES THAT FOLLOWED ALL THAT WORK FOR PASSENGER, I IMAGINE YOU’LL NOT WANT TO BE ON THE ROAD FOR QUITE AS LONG WITH AT SWIM?
Ha ha, I hope so actually! I want to stay on the road as long as people will have me, to be honest… I love touring and when I’m not doing it I do really miss it. I think I’m just going to have to try a bit harder to write songs while I’m on the road this time. That’s the key, that’s definitely the way to go…

Order AT SWIM here
Lisa Hannigan’s tour dates (and ticket links) here