Interview: True Womanhood
» Leaving indie rock's nostalgia fix behind for dance music... on a reel-to-reel.
True Womanhood.
The first time I heard about True Womanhood was back in 2008 due to a co-worker of mine having a slight thing for the former bassist of the band. Back then they were known for a dark alternative sound that garnered stereotypical comparisons to Sonic Youth and Radiohead. The last few months has seen the group do a 360. Diving into dancier tendenices, the now duo, Thomas Redmond and Noam Elsner, have been popping up like mad on an assortment of D.C. and national blogs, in large part thanks to their Moombahton-influenced track “Minajah”. During a furiously creative few weeks Redmond and Elsner recorded “Minajah” and ten other songs on a reel-to-reel tape deck, titling the project the Reel-to-Real Sessions. I recently spoke to Redmond via phone about the genesis of True Womanhood’s new sound, the Reel-to-Real creative process, and the struggles and benefits of going against today’s genre obsessed music world.
On the Reel-to-Real Sessions, I know you guys were influenced in part by Moombahton. How did you get involved in that and have it become part of the sound that you are doing?
Well, we’ve been for a long time been thinking that pop music and hip-hop and pop/hip-hop has been the music in America that has been pushing things forward the most. A lot of rock music has been pushing back to a very specific time in the 80s and a very few core group of bands to draw influences off of. There are big exceptions, like obviously Animal Collective is very forward looking in making something new, but just in general the rock scene has been kinda fucked up on nostalgia for a while now.
We’ve just been looking to dance clubs, dance, and pop music for stuff that is really pushing forward. I think the new song (“Minajah”) reflects that, but also shows that we are still a band. The reason we decided to work with the analog tape is because everybody who is doing that type of music in the indie world is pretty much working with the same one or two computer programs, mainly Ableton. We have Ableton and we’ve been working with it and are no means as proficient to the extent other people would be, but we decided it would be really cool to have an organic band orientated genesis of the same sort of dance or trance type music.
Do you think it is something you will use in further recordings or was it kind of just an experiment?
Oh certainly. I think we’ve got eleven songs started that was the first. We’ve got another one that we’re getting pretty close to finishing. It’s a cover of Pictureplane. That is one of those bands that have been influencing us a lot. He’s not really a band, its kind of a DJ/trance artist. He’s a transformer (laughs). But he does a lot of sampling and stuff with dance music. I’m not sure how he makes the stuff but we took his songs, pulled all the pieces apart and rearranged it into a sort of band type of way. It’s a pretty cool interpretation. We’ve got a bunch more songs coming out that I don’t know what we are going to do with them when we’re done. We might put them together in an EP or something.
“Minajah” has been getting a lot of press from The Washington Post and a lot of different blogs. Is that the direction the next EP might be going in?
Oh yes, certainly. That song came together so quickly. I think we had the whole song sketched out with the beat and everything in one day. It felt like the best example of where we’re looking to take our music. It just came together really well and we felt great about it. We put it out and the reaction we’ve been getting has been amazing. I don’t think we’ve ever put out a song that has immediately gotten that much press. It’s great to have a song go so well from start to finish.
I know at least on your first EP Basement Membranes, the lyrics are very dark. What's your lyrical process?
It’s definitely measured. I feel a lot of music these days the lyrics are an afterthought and because of that the vocals are treated in a very spectral, ambient way. Often times you can’t even understand what is being said. That sounds cool, but that also means the music isn’t going to last as long. A cool sound is a cool sound, but when you compare that to something that has some sort of weight that’s when you are getting somewhere. That is always a big concern of mine. I don’t want the stuff to be disposable. In blog culture the music is absolutely disposable. It’s a Wordpress. No one pays for it. If you’re a band you’ve pretty much got one sound and they want to move on. That’s just not what we are doing.
When did you guys record the Reel-to-Real Session? I read that you guys met Stevie Wonder at Guitar Center? And that he approved of your synthesizer purchase?
We got the synthesizer back in August or September, yes. When we met Stevie Wonder. He approved.
Posted on February 07, 2011. More on: true womanhood
