For this month and next, Emily Barker and Marry Waterson will be taking their album ‘A Window to Other Ways’ on the road (dates below). They will be hitting 15 venues during the tour and will be joined by their band members Lukas Drinkwater (double bass) and Rob Pemberton (drums/programming).
I recently caught up with Marry Waterson when the memories were still fresh of singing with Richard Thompson and “our Martin (Carthy)” at the Royal Albert Hall for Richard’s 70th birthday (which we reviewed here). For Marry, shaking hands with Dave Gilmour may well have been another highlight of her evening.
Anyhow, birthday celebrations aside, I wanted to talk about ‘A Window to Other Ways’ – an album which combines Marry’s intriguing poetic lyrics with Emily’s eclectic musicality, all of which was shaped in the studio by musical polymath Adem Ilhan.
It’s probably fair to say that if you hadn’t attended a songwriting workshop by Kathryn Williams, yourself, Emily and Adem may never have collaborated. Can you tell us a bit more about that serendipitous moment, what attracted you to the workshop and how such a workshop works for those who may not have attended one?
It’s entirely possible that Emily, Adem and myself would never have met had it not been for Kathryn Williams. Kathryn is a ‘do-er’ she is very generous with introductions and has been responsible for a lot of the connections that have punctuated my career.
Kathryn and I first met at the ‘Once in a Blue Moon’ concert to celebrate my mum’s work and she has since invited me to sing on albums, play live and to write at the retreat, where I met so many lovely artists whom I have since worked with including Emily and Adem. Adrian Utley was another artist I met at the same session, Adrian produced mine and David Jaycock’s album “Death had Quicker Wings than Love” which featured Romeo Stodart (also at the retreat).
Kathryn introduced me to One Little Indian Records and happily, five albums later I’m still there.
I’d been invited to Kathryn’s retreats before, but declined as I was a bit frightened, to be honest! I felt I could write a pretty good song, but could I write one to order, right there in that moment and with one of my contemporaries; a stranger? In the end, I thought ‘fuck it, go for it’.
I was used to having the space to hone and craft a song, maybe leave it and come back to it if it’s not revealing what I’d like to say, but there is something to be said for powering through a deadline, that focus is valuable.
We were paired off in twos or threes after Kathryn observed who was talking to whom at drinks the evening before.
You had the time in between breakfast (10 o’clock) and tea (5 o’clock) to write a song and then perform it to the group in the (boozy) evening. The songs would be performed live to an audience several days later.
I’m a serial collaborator, I love working with other people, there is a joy in finding that spark between creatives and with Emily it was easy.
At our first session, I read Emily some lyrics, and she reached for the banjo from her selection of instruments. I have to confess initially I nervously thought -the BANJO-OMG! how’s this going to go… but she just started playing this lovely simple rhythmic sequence, which I sang into and then she sang harmonies on top. Perfect! That’s how “I’m Drawn” our first song came about and as things progressed we were totally in love with the collaboration and kept saying to each other “this is too easy.”
Did the actual idea for an album come about at the workshop?
We knew after we’d written the first song we’d like to work together again, so Emily came up to my house in Robin Hood’s Bay. We wrote four songs over those two days, in the main combining my poetry with her melodies; ideas we had squirrelled away in various states of completion. Emily also left me the tune which became “It’ll be good”, and after singing some lyrics in, I emailed it back.
We thought initially we would produce an EP, but it went so well and we were enjoying ourselves, so we made plans for me to visit Emily’s house in Stroud, where we wrote another four songs. Meanwhile, I’d sent Emily the lyrics and a melody idea for “Drinks Two and Three.”
How did Adem come on board as a producer – I understand there was a faux-pas incident?
Emily and I also met Adem at the retreat, each of us writing a song with him through the sessions. As I said earlier, I was frightened about the pressure to shine amongst one’s contemporaries; I just didn’t want to be shit in front of say- Teddy Thompson (Also at the retreat). When I got there, I realised most people were feeling it too, everyone has their own insecurities to a greater or lesser degree, no matter how cool things look from the outside. This became the topic of the song I wrote (All is well) when paired with Adem.
Emily wrote the most magical song with Adem in their session, with just a music box and her vocal (Disarm me) so both of us had experienced Adem’s genius and total sweetheartness and knew we’d love to work with him again.
The absolute certainty that Adem was the artist to produce the album came about when Emily and I were writing ‘Twister’ I usually record songs as they are being worked out and I sent the recording in an email to Emily for her reference, but I accidentally sent it by group email, so it went out to the whole writing retreat group. When I realised what I’d done, I was mortified, it was just a rough, Emily and I quickly listened back to see if it was terrible or not, but in no time at all Adem had downloaded the song and added a weird and wonderful cello part and sent it back. Amazing!
How many studio sessions did the album take and how much creative direction was decided in advance of these? How did Adem help shape the final release and what was that experience like?
We recorded the album in one session at Emily and Lukas’s studio (Polyphonic Recording) in Stroud. There was no pre-production because living so far apart meant time constraints. We were working from our initial phone recordings, vocal and guitar or vocal and piano (some of it worked out on my mums piano, to Emily’s delight).
Adem was the glue between Emily and me and our respective styles.
Adem is wonderfully creative; he’s ‘on’ all the time thinking about ideas, picking up a Dulcima or a Kalimba. He brought so many musical ideas to the project.
I love him, and without his contributions, the album’s sound would be another thing altogether. Lukas Drinkwater (double bass) was an important part of the sound too. His killer Bass part on “Little Hits of Dopamine” (our current single) totally shaped the groove. Rob Pemberton (drummer) also plays a creative part in our sound.
The album press mentions that there were no self-imposed restrictions on musical direction. In practice, was that a difficult transition to make and did you feel you were crossing boundaries you had maybe not musically crossed before?
Personally, I love just getting on with it, I’m open, no genre is taboo for me, but I do believe in getting to the truth of a song though, so I gravitate musically to the direction which I feel tells the story best.
We all agreed we’d like this album to develop organically and we each trusted what the other had to offer.
Turning to the songs on the album, there is a focus on apprehension and themes which listeners will most certainly connect with including social isolation and addiction to social media. Are these themes that have been brewing inside you for some time, where do you take your inspiration and do you have a methodology/practice when it comes to songwriting or is it more spontaneous?
It’s funny I write about what inspires me, my observations or what is on my mind and quite often at the end of an album I look at the subjects and it seems there is always a theme.
These songs are mostly about interaction between people (or not) From the people-watching of ‘A Window to Other Ways’ to projecting “Perfect Needs” onto individuals who might not possess those qualities, to wondering if the people from our distant past ”We don’t speak anytime” still think about us, to the highs and lows of online validation “Little Hits of Dopamine” to JOMO, the joy of missing out altogether “Drinks Two and Three” to the dark side ghosting a relationship “Going Dark”
How has taking the album on the road been?
I have found touring with Emily, Lukas and Rob a joy, they blow me away with their craft, each playing (not just playing, I should say totally nailing) an array of instruments. They are good fun too and we’ve had such good feedback from the audiences.
I’ve enjoyed being able to project the videos I have made at the shows too.
You’ve also a new EP being released, can you tell us more about this?
In between festivals in the Summer Emily and I stopped off at The Levellers Studio in Brighton to record a live acoustic EP. We recorded pared-down versions of Little Hits of Dopamine, Twister, I’m Drawn and A Window to Other Ways.
Watch the official live video for ‘Little Hits of Dopamine’ taken from Marry Waterson & Emily Barker’s upcoming live EP below.
