In Conversation with Elizabeth Perran

1. Before February existed as an album, what was the earliest song, image or musical idea that gave you the sense that you were beginning to build something larger? Can you remember the moment when the project started to reveal its own identity?

The song that established “February” as a metaphor for struggle, ambiguity and elation was “Reeds” but it wasn’t until I had written “Dark, Dark, Dark” roughly four years later that I realized I had a collection of songs that fit an urban, somewhat sombre and questioning profile that could constitute an album theme.

1. Your songs often seem to observe people from a slight distance, allowing their lives to emerge through gestures, places and memories rather than direct explanation. Where does that observational instinct come from, and how do you balance empathy with the creative freedom to transform real experiences into fiction?

Many of the songs I write are based on multiple real people.  I often frame the songs in terms of how I can portray aspects of them lyrically, sometimes mixing their life stories to create a character.  The details I include are usually those that have stood out to me as the most poignant in a person’s story.  For example, the line, “Imagine Paris in ‘51” included in “Dark, Dark, Dark” came from a conversation with someone who reminisced about not being able to fulfill his dream of living in Paris as a painter during that era.  I combined that detail with facts about other people who deliberately isolated themselves after grave disappointments.  The instinct comes from a desire to capture the states of being I observe in others.  I try to blend empathic responses to myriad situations into a single character that will embody them all cohesively with the understanding that fictionalisation does not invalidate them.

1. There is a fascinating tension throughout February between intimacy and alienation. The listener is brought extremely close to your characters, yet there is often something unknowable about them. Is that distance intentional, and do you think mystery can sometimes create a deeper emotional connection than complete disclosure?

I believe that mystery is more powerful than transparency.  In my view, people’s lives are often only half-revealed on the surface.  Inferences must be made about what is not apparent, and the mere fact that important details are hidden adds to the psychological depth of the character both as described and as imagined.

1. “I Remember Rain” establishes a remarkably uncompromising atmosphere, while later tracks become increasingly experimental. Did you consciously design the album as a journey with an evolving emotional and sonic architecture, or did that shape emerge organically as the songs came together?

The shape of the album through the song sequencing came together organically.  Someone suggested that the opening track should be “On the East Side Again” (which I almost didn’t include on the album as being sonically dissimilar to the other tracks).  However, I thought the album should start off as upbeat and energetic so decided on “I Remember Rain” as the opening track.  The only other track I had placed in sequence beforehand was “Pillars and Tile”, which I thought should end the album.  (I consider “On the East Side Again Full Version” and “Summer Full Version” to be bonus tracks.)  

1. The album’s instrumentation is unusually rich, moving between piano, Mellotron, guitars, synthesizers, woodwinds and saxophone. When you are arranging a song, do you begin with the emotional character of the lyric or with a particular sound, texture or harmonic idea?

I start with the feel of the lyric and endeavour to capture the mood and atmosphere it describes.  A good example is “Summer”.   That started off as a lyric about an extremely hot day where I imagined a kind of heat-induced delirium.  I built the music around the lyric while trying to portray the feeling of the heat musically.  I write about the composition of “Summer” in my Substack blog, “On an Island”:  https://elizabethperran.substack.com/p/end-of-july; https://elizabethperran.substack.com/p/end-of-july-f5c

1. “Reeds” appears to function as one of the album’s central compositions, both musically and conceptually. What makes that song significant within the larger story of February, and how did its arrangement develop from its earliest form into the version we hear on the record?

“Reeds” developed from actual events in my life that took place in February of 2018.  I had, literally, driven down a winding road on an extremely cold, snowy and blustery day to a strangely silent and isolated beach area where there were random houses and empty streets.  The drive to that area camme after I had spent time with an older woman who lived in an upper floor apartment without any furniture.  The strong, cold wind blew through her open windows, tousling her long hair while she talked about wanting to jump out.  I noted the strange mood of the day.  Later, I combined those memories with specific themes and other events that were part of my life then or about which I was concerned.  I composed the original version of the song in September of 2018 but lost it when my hard drive became corrupted. I had no backup disc so now have no idea what that original version was like.  I therefore started over, modifying a piano riff I had composed earlier in the year and writing a melody, arrangement and new lyrics.  Later, I decided to add distorted guitar and a siren sound to the arrangement to accentuate its atmosphere of “stark and barren” and past tragedy.  I believe the final song is important to the entire album conceptually because it depicts acceptance of ambiguity and even meaninglessness.  There are multiple images of circularity (winding road, circled girders, circling gulls) along with the concept of a linear, spiritual journey (falling, climbing flying, shining).  The reeds are catalysts for the realisation that the journey doesn’t end and may not have any resolution.

1. Ageing and mortality appear in several forms across the album, but you avoid treating them simply as tragic subjects. What have those themes taught you about writing characters who are carrying long histories, and did working on these songs change your own understanding of time or memory?

I learned to portray the characters through the lens of their entire lives and to avoid reducing them to how they ended up by listening to stories and observing depictions of the past.   One of the images in “Dark, Dark, Dark” actually came from a mural in a care home for older adults I visited.  Someone had filled a wall with a sponge-paint mural of a park during the summer or spring.  A small dog was painted into the picture among the fluffy green trees.    When I first saw it, I immediately thought, “That’s the dog that died in 1952” and pictured a family picnic where the future – and the resultant contemporary reality – weren’t part of the experience.   I wondered whether the people in the care home were still living in some past era as if it were present.   The mural was a strange representation of unimagined time.

1. There are moments on February where the music feels almost architectural, with harmony, repetition and instrumental texture creating spaces around the characters. Do you think about your songs visually when you write them? Can you picture the rooms, streets or landscapes in which they exist?

I tend to conjure the feel and meaning of a lyric and supply the visuals from that.  I don’t necessarily see the images as much as see/hear the words.  A line like “cardboard taped to the windows” from “Dark, Dark, Dark” is powerful to me as an idea of isolation conveyed through particular, descriptive language rather than an actual image.  An exception to this might be “Pillars and Tile” where I took an imaginary journey through New York City that incorporated surreal imagery.

1. As a debut, February feels unusually assured and cohesive, yet it is also adventurous enough to leave plenty of room for uncertainty. What did you learn about yourself as an artist while making the record that you could not have learned simply by writing individual songs?

I have always preferred thematic albums to those that combine random songs.  I also prefer to release albums because I find individual songs to be much more meaningful when they are juxtaposed among other recordings that are part of an overriding idea.  I did discover through writing and recording February that certain themes seem to pervade my music.  I had not been as aware of that before.

1. Now that February is moving from being something intensely personal and creatively private into the hands of listeners, what part of the album are you most curious to see people interpret for themselves, and is there anything you hope they misunderstand, question or discover differently from the way you originally intended?

I am curious as to what they make of “Reeds” as I think it is the most lyrically obscure song on the album.  I wonder also how they will understand “Pillars and Tile”, which has a specific meaning to me but could represent many different places, emotions and concepts to others.  There is also the possibility that the songs will reveal meanings that the listener hadn’t expected.  I believe that, optimally, art should work on that level – allowing the language and music to exist in their own world with interpretation emerging from the work itself, outside the mind of the creator.