Photo: Courtesy of Glasser; Illustration by Ammiel Mendoza.
Big Bang Theory
"I always had a feeling of 'go big or go home.' I definitely thought, when I made Ring, that I was making a really big record and wanted to push past that when I made this one. It was sort of a competition with myself."
Labor of Love
"Van Rivers really is a very special producer. We started working together and simultaneously started dating, which made for a really intense studio experience when we were working on Interiors. I knew him from his work with Fever Ray. He has such an expansive knowledge of sound and space — it really seemed to suit where I wanted to go with things. On Ring, I didn't quite stand out and say 'This is who I am!,' [but] he had this prior experience working with fully formed artists, and that was a real goal for me in terms of making this record."
Building Blocks
"I watched a ton a movies and had lots of visual things around me — lots of art books and stuff. I would literally open them up on the floor and leave them around. [Rem Koolhaas's book Delirious New York] was just one of many things that I read while working on the album. Jonathan Turner recommended that book when I told him about my idea for the record. Reading that book was part of the record shifting, in my mind, to literally being about buildings, to me as a structure — me as a sort of home for all of these thoughts and feelings that I'm expressing."
The Anti-Musician
"I'm a bit of an anti-musician. I'm a little bit against traditional means of making music. Not for everyone — I don't care if other people are making it — but for my own self. Starting at that 'voice as an instrument' place and expanding on that. To me, what I wanted to build was something that was more atmospheric and had a good vibe to it, but you can't put your finger on why. It's like a regular person, who hasn't studied architecture, might not know why they enjoy being in a particular place. It may be a welcoming space or a dangerous space. The music, I think, sometimes sounds like a dangerous-sounding space or a bottomless space."