Memory Spells opens up about the emotional push and pull behind their new album, from instinctive songwriting to the quiet moments that shaped its atmosphere. They reflect on collaboration across distance, finding balance between light and shadow, and letting mood guide the music before words even arrive. The result is a deeply intimate, cinematic body of work that feels as spontaneous as it is carefully crafted.
What inspired the lyrics and mood of “Higher”?
“You had sent me a few demos and I think I had some ideas for the others (Do You Think Of It Sometimes was one of them) before Higher because it felt a little happier or more upbeat than what we usually make. I think you circled back about it a month or so later and I tried some new ideas, but still couldn’t quite come up with a whole set of lyrics and was sort of just getting a few lines and words that conveyed more of the overall feeling?” – Jordan
“And I think I saw something in those lyrics that had some sort of underlying uncertainty or sadness that could play off of the sunnier mood of the music.” – Matt
“Yeah, more of a balance.” – Jordan
Can you walk us through your songwriting process for this track?
“I think this one started with a demo that I made from playing vintage drum machines and then just sort of improvising guitar ideas along with that. But I didn’t have an idea yet what the song would be about or any idea of lyrics before I sent it to you.” – Matt
“This song was one of the songs that had a bit more back and forth. I think I brought “Knee deep in the cold water” and maybe the chorus.” – Jordan
“You’d sung a full two verses and a chorus that I transcribed and some of the words you were just singing melody and not actually words.” – Matt
“Yeah, I think you had done this in a few songs where I didn’t send you the lyrics, but just sent what was sort of stream of consciousness recording” – Jordan
“Right, and what you had written and the mood or scene you created gave me ideas of where the lyrics could go. So then I sent a draft incorporating what you’d written, and we continued from there.” – Matt
How did you decide on the sonic textures and instrumentation?
“I think at this point we’d written several songs together already, so even though we hadn’t sort of formally discussed which sounds we were going to use or what the world of the album would be, it just naturally started to happen that we developed a pallet of sounds that we settled into with this group of songs – Matt
Are there specific memories or experiences that shaped the songs on the album?
“Because we were collaborating from different cities on these songs and were not physically in the same room, we were often individually drawing from our own experiences without actually having a conversation about it.” – Jordan
“Yeah, I think that privately we were each thinking of specific things that we didn’t actually talk about, but we were writing about the same feelings and emotions from slightly different perspectives.” – Matt
How do you approach vocals and harmonies to convey emotion?
“I think I feel things deeply, so when I’m recording I can’t really help but go into that emotional space. I love layering tons of vocal takes and harmonies to accompany a song depending on what sort of feeling it’s trying to convey. There are a few songs in the album that really go off with the vocal parts. I was letting myself be uninhibited. For example, in Take Away My Heart, we felt like the song needed something else at the end and decided to throw on a long vocalese section. I just hit record and started layering the vocal parts which kept growing and ended up conveying this intense feeling of release/transformation compared to where the first half of the song begins.” – Jordan
“Jordan’s vocal arrangements are amazing and throughout the album I’m stealing parts from them to write strings or woodwinds, or even a whole new direction for where the song could go. – Matt
Were there any songs that evolved significantly from their original demo?
“Maybe the most dramatic one was the demo that eventually became Roses and There’s Still Tomorrow. That one started as just a violin drone and then Jordan improvised some melodies and lyrics. Then it sort of split into two and became a song with lyrics, Roses, and another instrumental with vocalese, There’s Still Tomorrow.” – Matt
“With Roses, it was just a first take, kind of poetic simple few lines that ended up being a whole song.” – Jordan
How do you know when a song is “done” emotionally as well as technically?
“Well sometimes it happens really quickly. Like with All I See Is You it all poured out pretty instantly.” – Jordan
“And with what she sent it felt pretty much perfect and finished. I think we got on FaceTime and talked about the lyrics and maybe decided on changing (or not changing?) a word or two. Sometimes it comes together really quickly like that, and other times there are more things to work through, but it’s usually a gut feeling, whether it’s something in the lyrics or something in the mix or the arrangement. We just work through it together until it just feels right. – Matt
“Yeah, there’s a lot of sitting with it and coming back with fresh ears and listening from a new perspective and going from there. And then sometimes we know something doesn’t feel right yet and end up adding an entirely different element, like in “Take Away My Heart.” – Jordan
What role does production play in storytelling within your music?
“We started most of the songs on the album with the instrumentals, so they sonically set the mood that provided a place for me to write lyrics. I think an instrumental already says so much in a song, so for me it was a lot of listening to what Matt had already made and singing whatever came to mind from and then going from there.” – Jordan
“I think for me I’m usually starting from nothing and without a real plan, so it’s not so much telling a story as it is discovering something and finding a mood. And then once we’d been writing together for a little bit, Jordan’s vocal arrangements really started to influence how I started new demos because I could start to see the possibilities of this world we were creating.” – Matt
“Ya I think we became more unhinged the more we wrote together because we realized we could really lean into parts of songwriting that we love that are without structure and more about playfulness and following our instincts.” – Jordan
If you could describe the album in three words, what would they be?
Maybe intimate, cinematic, free?
Jordan Whitlock: Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, Spotify
Memory Spells: Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, Spotify
This artist was sent to us via Decent Music PR
