Tuesday, 07 February 2012 
- Welcome
- Interview with Kelli
- Albums
For those of you who don't know my music, I have decided to make my DAY 1 pages an introduction to me and my some of my recent music so that you can become acquainted with who I am and what I have been up to for the last couple of years but for the rest of my time here, I will be introducing and interviewing other artists who have inspired me and which I feel may be of interest to you.
Over the coming days, we’ll be exploring all kinds of music and bands.
I hope that you will find something useful or interesting and would love to hear any feedback from you. I will be introducing you to some artists who may inspire you as they have inspired me. Some of the people I have interviewed this week are dear friends, others I have been fortunate enough to meet or work with.
All the interview questions were written by me, specially for Spiral Earth, I have also interviewed various writers who have written books about music which you can read later this week. Each day there will be something new for you to explore so please come back often and share the pages with friends who may also find this interesting.
If you are curious to know more about me please visit my websites where you can hear more of my music and subscribe to my e-mail list to receive news about gigs, recording projects and special features.
http://www.kelliali.com
http://www.myspace.com/kelliali
http://www.last.fm/music/Kelli+Ali
http://twitter.com/kelliali
Thank you for joining me, I hope that you will enjoy our time together!
Best wishes,
Kelli Ali
As I’m the guest editor, I felt it would be slightly strange to interview myself at first and then I thought why not! Could be fun! So I wrote an interview, similar to those which I have written for the other artists I will feature over the coming week and here it is. Not sure if people have interviewed themselves much before but I think it’s about time we started a trend! So here goes!
What is your earliest musical memory?
I close my eyes and try to go backwards. I imagine it is my mother’s voice singing to me, a nursery rhyme but my clearest musical memories are fragments of Joan Baez in Concert playing on our huge record player and me singing in church, playing the recorder as a child, listening to the radio and believing my sister when she told me that there were tiny people inside it, performing the music.
When did you begin writing songs and why?
I began writing poems first when I was very young, about seven or eight, I loved English class when I was at primary school as it allowed me lose myself in writing stories and poems about all kinds of things. I detested school in general.
Later on, I decided that I wanted to be in a band. I didn’t want to sing anyone else’s songs so I started writing my own. I bought a guitar and learned three chords and proceeded to write about twenty songs with three chords. I knew that they weren’t very good songs but I enjoyed singing them all the same and felt that I would get better in time if I just kept at it.
As a teenager, I used to try and write at least one song or poem or draw one picture/take one photograph a day. That was my way of revolting against the hum drum and making each day seem worthwhile.
You never seem to stick to one genre. Is that because (as some journalists have said) that you don’t know who you are? For example you became known as the lead singer with the band Sneaker Pimps and then moved into dream pop, (Tiger Mouth album) from there electro rock (Psychic Cat album) and now your last two albums, Rocking Horse and Butterfly were very much inspired by folk and contemporary classical music.
It’s true, I’m only happy when I’m playing with something new. I get bored very easily and have always kicked against the confines of my surroundings when I start to feel things becoming too comfortable/predictable.
It’s also kind of true that I don’t know who I am. Maybe that’s why I need music, to keep exploring who I am and what my relation is to music and the world. I feel like I’m constantly changing as a person and writer and the beautiful music that keeps emerging from new artists and previously undiscovered artists keeps me intrigued and inspired to go on exploring new musical territories for myself and my listeners.
The more music I hear, the more I want to create but there’s no point if I can’t create anything meaningful or original, so for my own projects I’m constantly chasing a phantom, trying to get better and grow as a singer and writer. The way I keep growing is to keep exploring new ideas, working with people who inspire me. So it’s not really genre that I’m thinking of when I make a record. Genre and stereotypes can be useful when we’re trying to describe a sound or style but they can also be negative obstacles in art, life and making music. If we try and define the very subtle and variable shades of nature with generalization, we end up homogenizing the differences that make things exciting and original.
The commercial aspect of music seems to dictate the need to pigeonhole artists in order to sell effectively. Luckily, with the changes in the way that music is now distributed (often directly by the artists themselves, as in my case) we can now do away with the old stilted ways of labels and make whatever music is in our hearts. There will always be a need to easily categorize certain styles of music and it’s great to belong to a community of artists or know that a festival or gig is going to be a ‘folk’ gig or ‘rock’ gig but there is so much more to making music than the chosen style of expression and the more educated we become in our art, I suspect the more we wish to embrace as many colours and sounds as we need to make something ‘original’.
Some people see this as indecision or lack of focus on the part of the recording artist but I prefer to experiment and challenge myself and my listeners with new ideas and ways of looking at songs. If I am inclined to write a soul song or electronic rock ‘n’roll album or psyche folk or contemporary classical album, the only thing that really matters to me is the quality of what I am creating and the truth within the song. Does it move me and will it move my listener?
My first solo album, Tiger Mouth was my way of experimenting with the ‘pop’ album and from there I have worked with all kinds of sound and structure. My most recent albums Rocking Horse and Butterfly were the result of writing on an acoustic guitar whilst I travelled around California and Mexico and also my exposure to some of the great current artists such as Sufjan Stevens and Greg Weeks, Marissa Nadler and Sharron Kraus.
How do you feel about the way the Internet has revolutionized music distribution?
I am delighted to live in a time where all kinds of music and artists are merging and creating such wonderful sound scapes for our time with no boundaries or interest in conforming to one idea of the mainstream.
I feel as though music has exploded from its confines and now the old model of Top Of The Pops mentality and chart radio shows is so very antiquated. Of course the corporate driven industry still obsesses over charts and sales based popularity but it seems like the bigger picture now exists outside of all that and original music is finding its way to the people.
I love the way that I can interact with my listeners and the independence that I now have. I feel very lucky to be part of this age. We’re no longer dictated to by fashion trends, we have the power of choice and the ability to access music and artists that may have completely slipped into obscurity before.
What are you working on at the moment?
I recently finished a haunting album with the Swiss pianist Ozymandias, based on the short stories of Mary Shelley, it’s all piano and choral vocal and then I went to record with Kiran Shahani from Bittersweet for his new album which should be coming out later this year. Now I am writing songs for my next solo album which will be quite different again from anything I’ve done before!
Who are your favourite current artists?
Sufjan Stevens is an absolute genius, love his label too Asthmatic Kitty. Beach House are amazing , Greg Weeks has done some incredible work and a lot of the artists on his Language of Stone label are very inspiring, Noa Babyaof, Festival etc.
Bat for Lashes , Marissa Nadler, Jesse Sykes, Valgier Siguroson, Hauschka, Max Richter (who also produced my Rocking Horse album) Sharron Kraus (who I have interviewed for this week) The Miserable Rich, Cult With No Name, Air, Goldfrapp, Jed and Lucia.
Rocking Horse
My Rocking Horse album was released in 2008. The album was produced by the composer Max Richter (Max also produced Vashti Bunyan’s Lookaftering album). We recorded in Spring 2008 in Glasgow and Pencaitland and the album was mastered in London.
The very talented Marc Pilley played guitar on the album and we were joined by Ruth Morley on flute and Cor Anglais.
Rocking Horse was the result of my writing songs a small Martin acoustic guitar whilst I traveled with my partner around Mexico and California. I used the idea of the nursery rhyme as a source for the structure and atmosphere of some songs and was also greatly influenced by the work of nu/psych folk artists such as Sufjan Stevens and Vashti Bunyan.
Butterfly
The Butterfly album was recorded in a day at The Way Studio in London.
Intended as a companion piece to Rocking Horse, the album was my way of capturing songs in a stage of metamorphosis as I reworked songs from the Rocking Horse album for the live stage with my band, Jane South (flute) Alex Beamont (Cello) Peter Shoulder (guitar). The album includes my cover of ‘Willow’s Song’ from the cult film ‘The Wicker Man’.
Listen to ‘Willow’s Song’ here…..
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To buy these albums and to hear more tracks, learn more about my music please go to :
http://www.kelliali.com
