I just have to be able to capture that moment. what did Chris call me with my quick lyrics? Usually I write lyrics, very, very quickly. Like for “Eclipse”, we had gone to a quarry in Montreal to see the big solar eclipse in 2017. Sometimes I’ll be singing a bit of gibberish and hear little words that pop out and then make a poem based on that. I think that I’m quite an intuitive person with writing and quite reactionary to whatever it is I’m hearing or doing. Raphaelle Standell-Preston: Oh, it's all of those things. Raphaelle, when you’re writing lyrics, do you find it easier to write lyrics and music together or to write one after the other? We all do a whole bunch of stuff, but in terms of like general jamming, that's typically the setting, is Raph singing and playing guitar, Austin playing drums and then me running Live as a sort of live instrument, to sequence, to sample, to do sound design and that sort of thing and sort of bring Ableton Live in as you would a typical instrument in a live band situation.Īnd then for this record it was used as the main DAW for tracking and creating demos and doing all the editing and basically like the main songwriting tool in terms of actually putting songs on the page, so to speak. One was using it as a performance instrument, mostly for me. And for us on this record it was very much two pieces to the puzzle. I started on Logic way back when, but transitioned over to Live a long time ago. We've been heavy Ableton Live users over the last 10 years. So, I'll focus on the stuff that seems most prominent to the workflow while making the record. How we're going about things now, or in the last few weeks, is maybe a little different than how we were going about things for this record. Taylor: I guess it's ever-evolving in a way. How does Ableton Live fit into your creative process in the studio?
Let’s make some music.” So that definitely helps. And it's nice to have people to bounce your sort of apocalypse mindset off of and be like, “OK, we’re getting through this, right? We're getting through this. We're lucky in that, you know, we have this isolated space where we can come to safely. Taylor Smith: We're pretty used to spending a lot of time together already, so these are pretty much the only social interactions that we're having. We're lucky in the fact that we have the studio and can act as kind of a bunker for us and shut the door and can kind of like forget momentarily what’s going on outside. But by the same token, it's not exactly immediately inspiring. Somewhere between the minor electric piano chords of Radiohead, the relaxing swirls of Blue Hawaii, and the bright electronic pop of Chairlift, Braids provide a headphone masterpiece as great for ecstatic dancing as for lazing on a couch.Ībleton Live is central to Braids’ songwriting, production, and performance, so we caught up with them and discussed sudden lyrical influences, getting Operator to behave like a hardware synth, and how they’ve brought their new album to the stage.Īnd then also just trying to manage the fact that at once you're gifted a bunch of time to work together.
Shadow Offering is a gorgeous work of avant-pop with a focus on space, stories, and feelings. What’s going on outside includes the June 2020 release of Shadow Offering, Braids’ fourth album and first on label Secret City. We can shut the door and can kind of forget momentarily what’s going on outside.” We’re lucky in fact that we have the studio that can act as kind of a bunker for us.
“It’s not exactly immediately inspiring,” explains Austin. “We are gifted a bunch of time,” continues Austin.Īfter spending time, much like the majority of the world, absorbing the new reality of isolation and social distancing, Braids began to consider making music again. Speaking remotely to Tufts and bandmates Raphaelle Standell-Preston and Taylor Smith from the Montreal studio where they’re isolating together, it’s clear that the trio are trying to find the positive in the current situation. “We literally would be on tour today, had everything gone according to plan,” says Braids’ Austin Tufts as we start our conversation.
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