This interview dives into Riffindots’ volcanic new single “Everytime,” exploring its nostalgic roots, experimental recording process, cross-continental influences, and the vivid visual world shaping the upcoming Latitude Bera experience.
1. “Everytime” is described as a ‘magma-laden roller coaster.’ How did you translate that volcanic energy into the music, and what inspired that extreme imagery?
I wrote this song a long time ago and the song is actually about a longing to live in the haze of old film. That haze. That pale, scratched texture. If you look at old Kodachrome pictures, you assume that the air, old kitchens and backyards looked just like that. I think the word for this is “Anemoia”. I did grow up in the 70’s, and of course every day didn’t look like that, but in the collective memory, somehow it does. The techtonic volcanic nature of the song was simply the vehicle for this idea. Is there a parallel between the two? Well volcanos spew out from a place of origin. Nostalgia is a desire to return to it.
2. Your recording process in the Basque Country involves a unique pneumatic tube system for song sculpting. Can you walk us through how that unusual workflow shapes the final sound?
I wrote a lot of music on my iPad while I was living there, but the songs needed polishing. By sheer happenstance, I met Lole, a sound engineer who happened to be my neighbor. That was 2019. I would send him my piles of spaghetti, and with the patience of someone trying to teach Betty Boop to fly a B52 Bomber, he’d clean them up. He’d add piano and keys and some drum tracks using his keyboards. We still work together, even though he’s 3000 miles away. I send him files from this side of the Atlantic. He’s very loyal, patient and very invested in the production of my songs. We have also enlisted an incredibly talented drummer who’s played on a number of my songs in the past couple of years.
3. The song features raucous guitars, steady bass, and a shrill synthesizer solo reminiscent of classic rock. How do you balance your stoner/acid rock influences with your own experimental touch?
I grew up listening to a lot of Classic Rock and a lot of experimental, Prog, New Wave, Post Punk. The stranger the music, the better. It has all been stored in my own nervous system and it will bubble up in one ways, whether consciously or sub consciously.
4. You’ve lived both in Maine and France—how have these different environments influenced your songwriting and artistic vision for Latitude Bera?
I like this question. Although the Basque Country was completely foreign to me, there were familiar-seeming mountain lines, horizons, angles of the sun, positioning of the ocean, shadows. I saw these in Maine when I was a kid. Because it was both familiar AND foreign, there was a strange feeling to want them to somehow align. I did feel lonely and out of sorts over there at times. Maybe there was comfort in looking over at the mountains of Spain and thinking that they looked like the horizon I saw in Portland, Maine.
5. You describe yourself as a musician, artist, and foreign language teacher. How do your other passions feed into your music, and do they intersect in unexpected ways?
I teach adults, and being a naturally curious person, I like learning about people and learning styles and their fascination for learning languages. I too learned French (and Basque-not so successfully!) as an adult. It’s easier when you’re a kid, of course. But I remember when French really took hold, I noticed some weird unintelligible staticky frequencies of French that started to make their way into my subconscious. Something shifted, and I started to understand it. Also, the brain anticipates what it is supposed to do next when you start speaking. It feels a lot like when a song ends on an album, and your brain jumps ahead in anticipation of the next song.
6. Fans can expect visual mayhem alongside your music. How important is the visual element to the Riffindots experience, and do you plan any surprises to accompany Latitude Bera?
This do like to make short, I guess you would call them “visualisers”. 15-30 second slivers of what strikes me to make after a couple cups of coffee. It might be a time lapse of my photchromic lenses changing back to normal after being outside- with my music playing. It may be an animated short of all my western shirts slivering up and down my long hallway. It may be my dogs running fast leaving lysergic visual trails behind them (with the help of certain camera effects). I have dabbled in AI, but I’m trying to use alternative means because I don’t want things to look too AI-y.
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