|
 artiest:
TARA ANGELL
song: Hollow hope
cd: Come down
label/referentie: Rykodisc/Roughtrade/RCD10664
Hollow hope
van Tara Angell, die net op aarde
is neergedaald met haar debuut-cd Come down. Dus snel
even naar hierboven gebeld om een interview te vragen, maar ze
blijkt gewoon in New York te wonen Toch niet slecht, zo'n debutantje
dat al meteen Joseph Arthur als producer wist te strikken. Hello
Tara, this is your first CD, how did you roll into music?
TARA ANGELL: I wanted to be a jazz singer
maybe ten years ago and then I realised that I had more in me
than I wanted to do. That's when I started writing songs. I was
always around music, because my job is bartending in music clubs
in New York City. These clubs are venues for live music, so I
always had music around me and I always had friends around me
that were in bands. It's sort of a natural thing for me.
You say it's a natural thing, but dreaming
about music and listening to music is something else than making
music and making CD's.
TARA ANGELL: I'm very lucky, not everyone
gets to make a CD, but what happened with this record is that
I decided to take out a bank loan. I paid for it myself. I didn't
have a record label, so I took a chance, I took a gamble. I took
a bank loan out and then I got in contact with Joseph Arthur
and I invited him to my show in New York City. I just played
solo with a guitar and he showed up and when I was finished he
agreed on the spot to make the record. And it took a time before
I got a record deal to bring it out, so that I could talk to
people like you.
So you had a lot of luck, didn't you? But
maybe with a name like Tara Angell, you should have luck.
TARA ANGELL: Maybe
Is it you real name?
TARA ANGELL: Yeah.
That's lucky too.
TARA ANGELL: Well, sometimes people
have said to me that it sounds like a stripper's name, you know:
Tara Angell, porn star.
artiest: TARA ANGELL
song: Three times
cd: Come down
label/referentie: Rykodisc/Roughtrade/RCD10664
Tara Angel en Three times
uit haar cd Come down. Ze nam het risico geld te lenen
om die plaat te financieren, maar het ziet ernaar uit dat ze
goed heeft gegokt. Trouwens, ze heeft een prachtstem. Sarah Vaughan
is haar grote voorbeeld. En ze schrijft mooie songs, met bijzondere,
vaak nogal donkere teksten. Tara, where do you get the inspiration
for your lyrics?
TARA ANGELL: When I read books sometimes
I take notes and I write down words that I really like. And I
collect words. Just if I hear somebody say something or if I
am watching a film or a book. It's a process for me. I take notes
a lot about life, I take notes when I'm sitting on the train,
I collect all the words and I have a place for them in my house.
And then I go to another part of the process, which is to collect
them all together. Perhaps I get an idea for a song and I remember
that I wrote a couple of lines down on the train a couple of
weeks ago and I try to find that piece of paper and then I start
writing a short story or a song. I do a lot of editing. It's
a process; it takes sometimes weeks or month to finish one song.
And are you working on more than one song
at the same time?
TARA ANGELL: Yes
So it's really a puzzle.
TARA ANGELL: Yeah, it can be like a
puzzle.
And what are your favourite themes?
TARA ANGELL: I like the fact that you
can write a song about anything, not just about a heartbreak
or loss. There are so many things you can write about. I like
to tell stories and I like to create characters.
Can I say that they are not really happy
ending fairy-tales?
TARA ANGELL: Right. I don't like predictable endings. That's
why the endings are not necessarily happy, because that's like
a Hollywood ending, so predictable. And if there's one thing
that I hate in my music, than it is to be predictable.
Now you could almost say that it is also
predictable in the not-happy endings.
TARA ANGELL: Well, I'm going to work
on that. I think there are things to think about that can be
positive as well.
What about the song Uneven, what
is that about?
TARA ANGELL: It's a song about being
hurt, my heart broken, but also becoming stronger and an expression
of rejection and my working on healing my heart.
artiest: TARA ANGELL
song: Uneven
cd: Come down
label/referentie: Rykodisc/Roughtrade/RCD10664
Uneven, een song over een gebroken hart,
maar ook over het lijmen ervan. Want de verhalen van Tara Angell
hebben nu niet echt happy endings, maar er zit toch ook dikwijls
een lichtpuntje in. Tara, you just said you collected loads and
loads of words. How do you compose music around them?
TARA ANGELL: There are pages and pages
of words sitting in my house and in my room. Then I might have
a melody in my head, I pull my guitar and write down the melody
as far as the chords and then sometimes, if I'm inspired to do
so, I look through some of the recent papers I've been writing
and say: "oh, this might be good for this". I definitely
do it separately and put it together later.
And then it's again a puzzle.
TARA ANGELL: Yeah, it's always a puzzle,
it seems. I spend a lot of time finishing a song. I may have
80% of it done but then there is that 20% that I'm still going
back and forth with.
You want it to be perfect?
TARA ANGELL: Perfect for me. Not perfect
in the sense of shiny and polished, but perfect for me.
How long did you work on this record?
TARA ANGELL: The writing took many years,
so I would say a couple of years. Then when it was time to actually
make the record it took 5 days only. But I had so much preparation
up onto that point where I was able to do that.
I wonder how you came to the title of the
CD: Come down?
TARA ANGELL: Another Joseph Arthur thing.
He said: "this is the ultimate come down record".
The come down record? Coming from?
TARA ANGELL: Coming down from a trip
or an experience. Or at the end of the day, when you had a really
busy day of work and you get home and you're just winding down,
come down.
artiest: TARA ANGELL
song: Don't blame me
cd: Come down
label/referentie: Rykodisc/Roughtrade/RCD10664
|
