Published
Wed, Feb 5, 2020, 09:40
- It's out via Interdimensional Transmissions next week.
Eris Drew will release her debut solo EP next week.
Out February 14th through Interdimensional Transmissions, Fluids Of Emotion was recorded at Drew's parents' home in Chicago and mixed in the Interdimensional Laboratories studio in Detroit with BMG.
"'So Much Love To Give' was the first song I sent to BMG and Erika after they asked me (challenged me in fact!) to make a dance record for IT," Drew says. "I wrote [it] months before I left for my first European tour. It was 23 years after the KLF burned a million quid off the island of Jura, and 23 years after I heard a mystical pulsation in the oscillations of a minivan's air conditioner. I hadn't written a dance track in years but during a series of life-changing events in 2017, I would rush home from my sets, turn on my MPC 2000 XL and sample records."
Drew has previously released the track "See You In Snow" on the 2019 Needs 006 compilation, as well as a split EP with Octo Octa, Devotion, on Naive in 2018.
Drew spoke about the EP in more detail with Resident Advisor's Andrew Ryce. You can also revisit her 2018 Art Of DJing feature.
Was "So Much Love To Give" recorded live? Can you walk us through the process of that one?
I've performed it live, but the final recording was captured through a multitrack recording process. To write the song I used only a MPC 2000 XL and my trusty old turntables. Some of the scratches and other hand manipulations I did were recorded as samples directly into the MPC and some were overdubbed later in Logic. I wanted to embed myself in the KLF's timeline so I sampled a remix of theirs and a bunch of other old records to make the track.
You mention using a "harpsichord made from sampled guitar strings"—can you elaborate on what this is and how you made it?
I always start my songs with a collage of samples and then play layers of keys by hand. After sampling some records for the rhythms of "Transcendental Access Point," I used a wavetable synthesizer to create a special harpsichord using steel guitar strings. I love writing delicate melodies and harmonies using very tiny sounds routed through digital tap delays. The little metal guitar string samples have wonderful bite and resonance, so they sound magical after processing them.
You also mention going on a "fungi binge" while making music. What is it about mushrooms that helps you with the creative process?
I use the mushrooms like a technology because psilocybin is a very powerful medicine and tool. For a start, the mushrooms help me to enter a trance. In this altered state of consciousness, each sound I play creates a shifting visual object or mosaic behind my eyes. I knew the main chord riffs in "Transcendental Access Point" were right when the spiraling object behind my eyes started to sparkle and glisten, like a crystal dropped into snow on a bright day.
Synesthesia isn't the only benefit of taking mushrooms. MAPS (Multidisciplinary Association For Psychedelic Studies) has fantastic lists of papers and pending research into psilocybin and other psychedelics on its website. Consistent with the available research, I have found that mushrooms help me transcend the cultural noise in my head—as a poly queer trans woman, the less language taking up space, the better. Using the mushroom when I work on music also fosters novelty and new ways of doing things. The brain scan studies strongly suggest that psilocybin stimulates neuroplasticity and new learning.
I also use the plant to enhance my auditory acuity, engage with synchronicities and to access a true mystery of nature. So taking mushrooms isn't just about function, it is about letting magic into my creative life. I should say that I also do them when I make music because it is really, really fun. On mushies I feel as though I am a witchy goddess creating new realities with her songs. Like Terence McKenna said about DMT, "I don't know how they keep the lid on this stuff!"
Listen to clips of Fluids Of Emotion.
Tracklist
A1 Fluids Of Emotion
A2 Transcendental Access Point
B1 So Much Love To Give
Interdimensional Transmissions will release Fluids Of Emotion on February 14th, 2020.
Photo credit: CCL
