On March 6, she will be playing at Arlene’s Grocery in New York and on March 8, she will be performing at Trans-Pecos in Queens, New York. “They will be small and intimate. I rearranged the songs for a third time so that my bandmate David and I can play them with just two of us, as opposed to the full five-person band. So it will be a little more low-key, acoustic than it has been live to date. Hopefully powerful.”
Regarding her future plans, she said, “I’m having a baby in late April, so I guess going through that transition, and then hopefully getting back at writing and performing new material pretty soon. We are also planning to put out a Kaleida album towards the end of the year.”
On her musical and songwriting inspirations, she said, “An obsession with the structure and power of music, and a lot of emotions that need some kind of outlet. Pisces, 4 on the Enneagram.”
Digital transformation of the music business
On the impact of technology on the music industry, she said, “Technology has allowed me to become a musician, because I am not trained in musical notation, but I am able to map out ideas and arrangements on the computer, visually, using Ableton Live, for a whole series of instruments in a track.”
She continued, “I can try out what works using playback, instead of knowing theory in and out too. So it’s helpful for intuitive autodidacts. I actually think midi is also hugely liberating for certain people who don’t really have the brain for traditional notation, for one reason or another and can understand the structure of the sounds by seeing a visual literal representation of sound intervals, such as the midi notes on the computer.”
“DAW programs basically make the entire process much more accessible and flexible, which also means that much more music is being made, and it’s much harder to be heard and recognized,” she said. “As everyone knows, Spotify and iTunes have made listening easier, but they’ve also taken a lot of the profit from artists.”
She added, “It’s kind of a Faustian trade-off with them. It’s interesting how the role of labels is shifting as a result of technology and the Internet too. The fact that they take 50 percent of profits at a minimum now seems totally outdated, as artists have to do so much more of the promotional, production, touring work themselves these days.”
On her use of technology in her daily routine, she said, “I use it to write, to set up live sets, to communicate with fans, and to release music. This project would not exist without it.”
She listed the late Mark Hollis from Talk Talk as her dream male duet partner. “Just having another wave of obsession with his music and voice as he died this week,” she said.
For her fans in New York, she concluded, “The shows are going to be special, so come.”
To learn more about Vesper Wood, check out her official website.
