Making Sense with Girlhood
We had a chance to chat with Girlhood ahead of their new LP this week, ‘This Will Make Sense in the End’! Check out our interview!
This Will Make Sense in the End features some fantastic soul sounds and samples. How did you arrive at this sound for your sonic landscape of this one? This is the first time you both have made a record together in the same room physically. How was that change for you from a songwriting and recording perspective?
Christian: “All the albums worked with samples, albeit in a different way. This was the first time I used old soul cuts as the skeletons for the backing music though, chopping and skewing them into obscurity along the process. Sometimes they still sit there, under the other stuff, sometimes we cut them completely. It was fun this time using some vocal chops to “sing-back” to whatever Natalie was doing, that’s a new thing for sure. I guess this process came from flipping off the last album, Hot Mess, where it was very much a programmed instrument sort of album, and I didn’t really want to do that again, nor did I feel like playing everything organically like on The Lowdown, prior to that. Natalie's vocals naturally took the centre stage for this record, and that made what happened musically around it more directed to complement that. Previously, I would get the vocals towards then end of the songs creative process, whereas this time it was fairly early on, demo-stage. We had a lot of fun manipulating her vocals as well, treating them like samples themselves in places.”
So the use of metaphor in “Picnic”, particularly with juxtaposing food and the aspects of a picnic with desire and what we’re sort of told we need to do with regard to dating is a fascinating one. How did you come to this concept?
Natalie: “I spent a while on dating apps in my 20’s and had two long term relationships from it. I had a fair few very awkward first dates in the interim, and I look back now and think that nerves and self awareness on a first date are perfectly natural. I feel I’ve always been fairly good at talking to strangers as I have a natural interest in learning about people, and it’s easy to judge quickly and think we’re not compatible if someone else holds back. When I came back briefly to the apps in my early 30’s I was even more aware of this paradox of needing to show your true self immediately in order to have someone invest in a second date. At this age we’ve got so much more solidified in our personality and needs, and it can be harder to take a chance on something that will cost us our energy and money reserves if we don’t think it’s got any legs. Picnic was about the ridiculousness of all this dawning, of the first date being an unreliable and unfair signal of someone’s true nature and the brutality of having to pick someone over another before you really know them!”
I loved the video for “Picnic”, especially how the footage moved in and out of time (sometimes in reverse, etc.). Videos are a bit of a lost art with the rise in lyric videos, visualizers, etc. can you share a bit about what went into the development and shoot?
Natalie: “Christian was the brains behind the storyboard, although during the shoot we quickly went very off-piste, and as the main character who was supposed to stay clean, I quickly had to improvise after cake was smeared into my hair! We always thought of it as somewhere between a music video and a visualiser, and the reverse effects and general chaos were all to capture the zaniness of the song itself without having to act an entire literal story. I’m a big cook-from-scratch fan, and when I heard about Christian’s plan to go and buy loads of cheap cake I had to muster up the strength to make a few homemade treats knowing they’d go to waste, but would look pretty and feel wholesome! I strictly forbade my strawberry victoria sponge cake from being part of the food fight though, and people got to enjoy that.”
Christian: “Yeah, I spent about 3 weeks planning exactly how it was going to pan out…about 5 seconds into what was meant to be the first food fight scene, I realised structurally directing 15 kids and their fame-hungry, childlike-possessed parents was completely out the window. We ended up just shooting the entire fight in one take, which lasted a whopping 12 minutes until all the food was used up.”
This is a random one of sorts we do with guests on our podcast, but given the sound you achieve I’m really interested in your answer. You're stranded on a deserted island, with only three records (because music works somehow? 🤷). No greatest hits, but what three albums are you bringing along to listen to?
Natalie: Caroline Polachek: Pang, Bon Iver: i,i,
Aurora: A Different Kind of Human - Step 2
Christian: Cameron Winter: Live at Carnegie Hall, CocoRosie: Noah’s Ark, Spice Girls: Spice
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