Music

Meg Baird referred to her new album as consolable. In ‘Furling’ (2023), she explored various memories, daydreams, and conversations. With a misty sound, Baird moved the reader through loose threads. Her beautiful voice remained unmistakable. Dubby Bristol ambiences and 1960s English folk music became clear album influences. ‘Furling’ (2023) became Baird’s fourth solo album.

Baird played drums, lent vocals, and wrote poetry for the band ‘Heron Oblivion.’ She played indie-folk music in the band ‘Espers.’ Within Baird’s solo career, her LP ‘Dear Companion’ (2007) features an uneven rhythm. Other individual albums include ‘Seasons on Earth’ (2011) and ‘Don’t Weigh Down the Light’ (2015). To learn more about Baird’s upcoming solo project, read the interview transcript below.

The Knockturnal: Would you classify your music as psychedelic/experimental? Why or why not?

Meg Baird: I definitely would classify it that way, especially to anyone who wanted to interpret it that way. I don’t know if that’s something I am consciously putting on top of my work. I am definitely aware of it. These are labels that I actually became aware of after a while. I’ve been making music for quite some time. The terms applied to my music made a lot of sense to me. That’s a rather rambling answer, but that would be how I feel about those categories.

The Knockturnal: Okay. How has your music’s genre changed over your career? I know you said that you don’t pay too much attention to this. I’m curious, though; has a shift occurred?

Meg Baird: The genre and labels tended to come a little bit more from the outside. It’s more of an outside piece than an inside piece. It’s a great way to discuss your music and to explain it to other people. It’s helpful if you’re fortunate to talk to someone who’s writing about it. In general, it’s not something that I’m too aware of. I feel somewhat of a professional responsibility to at least know about it. I’d say, over time, the emphasis on the experimental piece is probably more useful to people right now. Again, I like the terms ‘psychedelic’ and ‘folk’ that are just so wide open. At the end of the day, they’re ultimately undefinable. It means something, but it doesn’t mean so much that it’s claustrophobic to anyone using those terms.

The Knockturnal: That’s very interesting. For my next question, I’m thinking about your experiences in Espers and Heron Oblivion. How has working in multiple bands inspired your solo career?

Meg Baird: Working in a band…there’s an alchemy there that has its own force. There’s a more interpersonal, multi-headed dynamic that you can get in a band’s sound. Also, there’s more straightforward, sonic things that stretch out from what you can produce in a smaller, contained setting: just me and a guitar, when I’m playing with Charlie or Mary in a duo. When you’ve played in a band, you get to experiment with loudness, a much greater range of sonic frequencies, and even playing in big, daunting rooms. You get a chance to get outside of what feels controllable. I think that’s what I take from bands.

Playing in bands, you make a lot of room for other people’s aesthetics while staying true to your own. That’s a really good mental exercise for anyone living and doing things with other people. Also, it helps to check your own ego when making your own work. That’s a great skill, I think, that playing in a band can bring to really anything.

The Knockturnal: Okay. Thank you for that response. Please describe your songwriting process, starting with a draft.

Meg Baird: I usually start with something I’ve stumbled on or previously crafted. Sometimes, it has a voice at the same time. It’s usually pretty fuzzy and often a little snippet, like an iPhone demo. It’s something I’ve been practicing or playing and I go ‘I might want to make something from this. Sometimes, that turns right into a song. Often, that kind of ferments somewhere in a folder. Sometimes, the time comes when I’m struggling to complete a song. If that one still resonates with me to finish it, then I’ll finish it. 

I usually collect far too many of these little, sketchy bits. Then, I decide what to actually complete. Then, the completion part is usually fleshing out the song and making sure I’m not being too minimal. If I am minimal, I want to make sure I really mean that and not just defaulting into really easy patterns. I know that I’m trying to bring something to the singer or the melody. I’ll work that way.

Usually, the lyrics are the last piece, often up until the very end. I really love singing and writing. Often, the lyrics come last. That’s a little bit of an excruciating thing. I’ll be at the last pass, going ‘Okay, I’ve booked some studio time. I better finish those lyrics.’ That’s a pretty typical cycle from idea to completed song.

The Knockturnal: Okay. That’s really interesting. Could you describe your vision behind the single ‘Will You Follow Me Home?’

Meg Baird: Sure. That one was really, really natural. I composed that one alongside Charlie Saufley. We did that at home, in our living room, for fun. That was more of a recreational session. He started off with a really nice beat and baseline just through an amp. We made some layers for fun. I did the mellotron and vocals. It just came up very naturally. That does happen sometimes. There’s always a bit of magic to it, when a song comes out fully formed in the spirit of fun. That one was definitely in that category.

Yeah, so, we had this demo that we did at home. Sometimes, I can get really attached to these lo-fi demos. I’m like, ‘I can never do it again.’ There’s magic in there though. I’m like ‘I should really work with this demo.’ We challenged ourselves to flesh it out. We went to Tim Green’s studio and he was very sympathetic to what we were trying to do. He helped with that painful process of taking a fuzzy lo-fi demo. We went over it in the studio.

The Knockturnal: Okay. As a follow-up question to that: Do you often find that your songs come naturally, like they come out of these fun sessions? Can producing music be, at times, a challenging process?

Meg Baird: It sometimes can be. Usually crafting and finishing can be the challenging part. Finding a compelling start usually comes out of a pleasurable place. Even when I’m supposed to practice something else, I can procrastinate and find something I’d like to explore later. Yeah, that initial spark is usually just playing music to play music.

The Knockturnal: Okay. In a similar vein, what challenges occurred during Furling’s production and how did you handle them?

Meg Baird: It was actually pretty seamless in the actual recording. It was hard to get the time and focus to get to the studio. Speaking of that, the studio sessions were really fun and streamlined.  After our final tracking session in March 2020, shut down happened. It was looming on the horizon. It even loomed over the sessions. 

The biggest challenges were actually post-production. It’s tedious to talk about it. As you know, the pandemic presented extraordinary manufacturing challenges. That was pretty grueling. After really streamlined sessions, to wait and wait was difficult. So, getting the recording out in the world was almost a three-year process. I know it takes a while, but that’s exceptionally long.

The Knockturnal: Okay. What do you hope listeners will get out of Furling?

Meg Baird: I’m hoping that they will go through a lot of states in a short period of time. When you make a record, it feels like you’re making this epicly-long thing. I mean, emotionally, it feels like a very long thing. At the end of the day, you’re like ‘Wow, that’s really just forty minutes.’ It’s not insubstantial, but it’s not really that much time. I just really hope that people can sit with it. I hope they feel like, ‘Wow, those forty minutes really took me somewhere.’ I hope they actually felt something. 

Hopefully, they felt recharged and maybe even some release. Consolation is a bit of a theme there. I hope they enjoy it and get some time to themselves.

The Knockturnal: Great. Thank you so much for joining me today for the interview.

Meg Baird: I appreciate you taking the time to ask questions and listen. 

The Knockturnal: I look forward to listening to the new album. Have a great day!

Meg Baird: Thank you. You too!