![]() ![]() ![]() ST: How do you guys write songs? Beat and vocals simultaneously? Beat first? Vocals first? MARIAN HILL: We grew up together and have been writing together on and off since college. SPLICE TODAY: When did you start making music together? We don't want to put too many constraints on the project until we see what we're working with.” Bring on the whiskey and the nursery rhymes. While Lloyd is “definitely interested in doing some more remixes down the line,” he’s “a songwriter first and foremost so that will still take precedent.” “Right now,” the group notes, “we are trying to write as much as possible, pushing ourselves to keep discovering our sound and seeing where it takes us. Day’s original smashes and shouts Lloyd chopped it up into a glitchy and stuttering onslaught. In addition to Play, the Marian Hill remix of Zella Day’s “Sweet Ophelia” has been very popular on the blog aggregator Hype Machine. “I like the way you play boy/tell me why you play boy/does it make you feel/like nothing else is real?” And “Whisky” thrives off the same sort of child-adult mismatch, as Gongol sings, “I like the whisky with my nursery rhymes.” Is this play fun or manipulative, sincere or pretend? On “Lovit,” which swings with tension, she comes back to this concept. In “Play,” she contrasts boys and men: “boys, they always have their toys/they’re making all the noise ” while “men, have money left to spend/and lots of family friends/they’ve learned how to pretend/they’re having fun.” The hook, “you wanna play me baby,” insists on ambiguity. In several songs, she explores the gap between reality and belief in relationships. Gongol’s a twisty, elusive singer she likes to get to a high note and then make unexpected runs in either direction. In addition to studying Drake, she’s been “rediscovering a lot of jazz greats, particularly Dinah Washington,” and listening to some belters: Sam Smith, whose highly anticipated debut album comes out May 26, and Sia, a New Zealander who maintains a solo career when not writing hits for Rihanna and Beyonce. Gongol’s singing roams the open spaces between these percussive extremes. Lloyd and Gongol pointed out that they’ve been listening to a lot of Drake lately, and while he sounds very different from Clipse, the Toronto rapper also relishes the contrast between the subterranean and the high. That was produced by Pharrell and the Neptunes, who shared a similar fondness for big holes in the middle of songs, making everything hit with more force. He also favors “having the kick and snare be at opposite ends of the spectrum, existing in totally different sonic strata-having a deep, subterranean kick and a high, crisp snare.” The song “Play” has a thundering beat that wouldn’t be out of place on the second Clipse album. ” “I love the sharpness of the right kind of snap,” Lloyd notes. To construct their songs, Lloyd and Gongol start “with the skeleton of a beat,” then “get in a room together and write the melody and lyrics. ![]() Gongol tends to drift free of that, enjoying a more idiosyncratic style. Other artists like Jessy Lanza or Kelela exist in this space, but they maintain links to classic R&B singing, channeling Janet Jackson or Aaliyah in their vocal delivery. Traditional instruments like guitars and keyboards are mostly absent (except for a horn on one track) the source of the melody is often hard to identify. The music is carefully layered, so new elements show up-rounds of samples, a couple of versions of Gongol’s vocals, additional drum sounds-at precise moments. Marian Hill focuses mainly on rhythm and voice: most of the songs on Play start with just a beat and singing. Their recently released EP, Play, swaggers and sidles simultaneously, taking what it wants from various sources and leaving the rest behind. They were able to overcome their early musical incompatibility, and the duo's middle-school favorites have little influence on the music they make now. Dre, underground stuff,” including the Minneapolis rap group Atmosphere, “and some Blink-182 for good measure.” In contrast, Gongol was into “all things pop," plus Norah Jones. Lloyd was listening to “Nelly, Eminem, Dr. Jeremy Lloyd and Samantha Gongol, the two members of the group Marian Hill, went to the same middle school. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Details
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |