{"id":3186,"date":"2022-08-09T07:09:21","date_gmt":"2022-08-09T07:09:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lostinthenordics.com\/?p=3186"},"modified":"2022-08-09T07:09:21","modified_gmt":"2022-08-09T07:09:21","slug":"interview-oliver-birch-burning-daylight-album","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nightshiftblog.com\/index.php\/2022\/08\/09\/interview-oliver-birch-burning-daylight-album\/","title":{"rendered":"Interview: Oliver Birch &#8211; Burning Daylight (Album)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/lostinthenordics.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/instagram-25-1024x1024.jpeg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-3187\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Hey, super nice to have the chance to chat with you. What first got you into music?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Hello! Thank you so much for your time. I first began writing music at the end of 2020. I felt at the time as though I\u2019d come to a standstill. Music for me was an opportunity to invest myself fully into something; I didn\u2019t have to depend on anyone or anything else. The more I put into it, the more I felt I might get out of it. It became something I obsessed over, and I couldn\u2019t be prouder of the result.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Are there any musicians who inspire you? What qualities do you admire about them?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Brian Eno, for sure. I find his philosophy for music-making, through using what he called \u2018oblique strategies\u2019, really useful. Oblique strategies are (in my words!) ways of interrupting habits of thinking. By taking a step back from my work and reflecting, or by trying to create a dilemma that requires a creative solution, I find it helps me to avoid making the same choices, using the same sounds, and effectively, creating the same songs. In terms of albums though, I\u2019ve really been enjoying the recent work of Perfume Genius, Big Thief, Dijon, and HAIM!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Your latest album is &#8216;Burning Daylight&#8217;. Can you share with us the background of its creation and did any unusual things happen during its creation?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I first started jotting down ideas for it in a word document a couple of years ago. Mostly, it was ideas for what I wanted to talk about with my music, but also musical ideas that I wanted to steal from others! That went on for months while I couldn\u2019t record due to my living situation. It eventually became a 40-page monster that included (what felt like) every idea that I\u2019d come up with over that time. I\u2019ve been playing, recording, and producing ever since, and spent hundreds of hours on every track to get it exactly as I\u2019d planned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-spotify wp-block-embed-spotify wp-embed-aspect-21-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe title=\"Spotify Embed: Burning Daylight\" style=\"border-radius: 12px\" width=\"100%\" height=\"352\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen allow=\"autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; fullscreen; picture-in-picture\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/open.spotify.com\/embed\/album\/2bBxg11fn5p0GW7LGbPGWk?si=cbb31c23e7994019&#038;utm_source=oembed\"><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Which skills have you gained that help you perform effectively as an artist?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Throughout this whole period, I\u2019ve also been working (in theory!) towards a PhD. I think that\u2019s taught me the importance of a clear methodology. Whether you\u2019re a phenomenologist or an ethnographer, and whether you\u2019re a post-punk artist, or a shoegaze artist, the means have to be justified by the end. I have ideas for songs, I know what I want to achieve, and what I want to say. Then, it\u2019s a matter of making sure every element \u2013 lyrically and instrumentally \u2013 matches that idea. At least, that\u2019s how I\u2019ve come to think of it!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>What are your favorite musical genres, and are there any you dislike?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I\u2019m really not fussy. I think most of what I\u2019ve been listening to recently would fall somewhere under \u2018art rock\u2019 or \u2018experimental pop\u2019, but I enjoyed Black Midi and Soul Glo\u2019s albums this year too. I also loved Oso oso\u2019s album \u2018sore thumb\u2019 from a few months ago. I\u2019m not too sure what genre that is, but I liked it!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Describe your creative process when you write new music.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I start from \u2018the top\u2019 and work backwards. I always know the theme of the song before anything else, and I at least have a rough idea of how it will be structured, and the sort of sounds I want to try to include. From there, I get a preliminary instrumental recorded, before then writing the lyrics, and recording the vocals. After I have a rough draft of the song sorted, I\u2019ll start to question it. What if this section was shifted here? What if I deleted this? What if I replaced this with a tambourine solo?&#8230;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>What are your long-term goals?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I want to improve with every release, but in the meantime, I want to improve as an instrumentalist. Most of my playing on this album was what I would charitably call \u2018functional\u2019! Otherwise, I want my next work to be bigger, better, and have a greater reach.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>What is it about music that makes you feel passionate?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I love that someone can dedicate themselves to making something that has a very specific, personal meaning to them, but then once it\u2019s released, it gets to take on many different shapes in other people\u2019s lives. I can relate most tracks that I love to specific moments in my life, or to certain conversations, or memorable evenings. Perhaps I haven\u2019t interpreted them as they were intended to be interpreted, but that\u2019s their special quality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>How do you feel the Internet has impacted the music business?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I\u2019m about as far away from \u2018the music business\u2019 as any artist, so I\u2019m not too well equipped to speak on this! I do worry though that the current state of streaming, and the \u2018consumption\u2019 of individual tracks robs people of the opportunity to hear songs in the context that artists intended \u2013 say, within an album. But without the internet, I wouldn\u2019t be talking to you now, so it\u2019s swings and roundabouts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>And finally, what\u2019s next for you? Is there more music or any live shows on the way?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I\u2019m working on recording some live performances that should be released soon, and I\u2019ve got an idea for a second music video that\u2019ll hopefully be out sometime this year! After that, my next album\u2019s already planned out \u2013 surprise, surprise! I imagine I\u2019ll be recording again within the next few months\u2026 It, all going well, will be an exploration of coming of age, I think\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-spotify wp-block-embed-spotify wp-embed-aspect-21-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe title=\"Spotify Embed: Oliver Birch\" style=\"border-radius: 12px\" width=\"100%\" height=\"352\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen allow=\"autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; fullscreen; picture-in-picture\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/open.spotify.com\/embed\/artist\/1PswSukfQjhmDVo0TntL4a?utm_source=oembed\"><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Hey, super nice to have the chance to chat with you. What first got you into music? Hello! Thank you so much for your time. I first began writing music at the end of 2020. I felt at the time as though I\u2019d come to a standstill. Music for me was an opportunity to invest [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":3187,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3186","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-discover"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nightshiftblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3186","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nightshiftblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nightshiftblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nightshiftblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nightshiftblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3186"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nightshiftblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3186\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nightshiftblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nightshiftblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3186"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nightshiftblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3186"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nightshiftblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3186"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}